I am really surprised people have Webber ahead of or even equal to Rasheed Wallace.
Sheed had a far far more successful career. An NBA title. A 2nd Finals appearance where he came within minutes of back-to-back titles. 2 more Conference Finals appearances in Portland. Plus another 3 in Detroit. And then finally one last Finals appearance in here in Boston as a key bench player. That is 3 Finals appearances and 8 trips to the Conference Finals. Repeat that again. 1 title, 3 trips to the Finals and 8 years in the Conference Finals.
What did Chris Webber do? No Championship. No trips to the Finals. Only once ... ONCE!!! ... did he lead his team to the Conference Finals in Sacramento. And then once again, a 2nd Conference Finals trip, in Detroit (thanks to Sheed and Co.) as a role player.
Webber had a higher peak but it was too short. Injuries took his best years away from him. That brief period dDoesn't make up for the HUGE difference in team success between the two of them.
I am not sold on Webber in the HoF (peak too short, not enough team success) but I definitely think Sheed should be there along with Chauncey Billups, Ben Wallace and Rip Hamilton. The four of them.
The success they achieved together in Detroit was terrific. 7 50 win seasons. 6 conference finals showings. 2 Finals appearances. 1 NBA Title. Played a key role in every Title for 6 straight seasons.
Plus, Sheed had his successes in Portland + Chauncey in Denver + to a lesser extent, Big Ben in Cleveland + Rip had the NCAA title but not the team success in NBA outside of Detroit.
It's simple.
Team success is only one of the attributes to consider when evaluating a player for HOF purposes.
Webber was a better basketball player. The stats spell that out. Watching him played spelled that out to me.
Webber was simply more talented.
Webber was the better talent & Sheed had the better team successes.
I'll use team success as a tiebreaker if I feel 2 guys are on the same plane. These two were not.
That being said, Webber is borderline HOF while Sheed is not.
You have team success a lot lower on the scale than I do.
I think team successs should go hand in hand with individual success. One without the other lowers the value of the achievement in a large way.
---------------------------------------------------------
I think HoF is about achievement rather than talent. I care less about what a guy was capable of doing to what he actually did.
I would separate them into two areas individual success + team success (relative to role) ... with both separated further into peak + longevity. With individual success being far more important when on top teams rather than mediocre or losing teams.
----------------------------------------------
With regards to team success ... role matters.
I don't give a [dang] about Mitch Richmond riding the bench in LA to get a ring. His ring is just as valuable as Adam Morrison's ring is. Or Gary Payton in Miami whose ring is just as valuable as some other 20-25mpg 7th/8th man role player.
Then onto someone like James Posey who was a difference maker as a 20-25mpg role player (6th man). To a starter like Tayshaun Prince who plays 35mpg as a key role player.
Or to a higher level with Ray Allen winning a title here in Boston as the third star in a supporting star role (like Worthy or McHale). To someone like Shaquille O'Neal who was far and away the best player on his Lakers' Championship teams.
The success is all relative to role. Leading a team to a title being most important. Supporting star second most important. Then at a much lower levels as a role player (like Horry) at various different levels.
----------------------------------------------
I look at C-Webb and I think he had 3 seasons (2000-03) where he was absolutely dominant and one of the top 10 players in the league.
(for reference and to better explain) I would compare that to somebody like Bill Walton (another guy whose career was wrecked by injuries) who only really had 2 years of top level basketball but his performance level was up there with some of the greatest players of All-Time during that period while leading his team to an NBA Championship. So that is a peak that very few players have ever touched and that instantly puts him in a special group of players and in the HoF. Because it was that special. It was that incredible of an achievement and matched with team success.
In contrast, what Webber did (top 10 player in league for 2-3 years + only one long playoff run as star player in 7-9 year period) was matched by a greater pool of players (vs B.Walton) ... so while it puts Webber in a good place, I think C-Webb still needs a fair bit more to put him over the top and into the HoF.
I would look at Webber outside of those years, in the first half of his career, as having several All-Star caliber seasons. A fairly average defender for most of this period (except for those peak years where he played with much better effort/focus defensively) + a strong rebounder + one of the best passing big men in the league throughout his entire career + a good but unexceptional scorer whose lack of go-to moves regularly made him come up short in big moments.
And then into the second half of Webber's career, post injury in 2003, I thought Webber became an empty stats player who was one of the biggest defensive liabilities in the league and that he no longer made his teams better. Hence, Webber was no longer able to be a star player. He needed to become a low minute role player to be a positive influence on his team (which didn't really happen, only kinda sorta for half a year his final season in Detroit and even that was too many minutes).
In terms of team success - Webber had a pretty good season in GSW but lost in first round as a rookie. Followed up by a couple of mediocre seasons in Washington. One so-so season in Sacramento leading to year-on-year improvement until they became one of the best sides in the West in 2001-2003. With Webber played a starring role on those teams as the best player in Sacramento. After that spell, Webber's injury-related decline set in and he had little individual success or impact on team success for the remainder of his career.
---------------------------------------------
I look at Sheed and rate him as having several All-Star caliber seasons in Portland and Detroit. So in terms of individual achievement, Sheed cannot match C-Webb's peak performance (which was short lived) but he does have a very good level of individual performance.
Now that wouldn't be enough in itself to put someone in the HoF conversation but when it is backed up with tremendous team success I think Sheed moves into the picture.
1 Championship, twice runner up (once as bench player), a total of 8 Conference Finals appearances (1 as bench player) ... I mean the man played a major role in just about every Championship for the best part of a decade. That is an incredible achievement.
It wasn't like Sheed was a passenger on those teams either. He was a defining player on those teams. The best player in Portland on a deep Blazers team and was one of the star players (supporting star?) on those Detroit Pistons team. He had major influence on all of those teams and in each of those playoff runs.
I rated Sheed as one of the best defensive forwards in the league for about a decade who could defend all three frontcourt positions at a high level. An above average passer but a mediocre rebounder (albeit better than his raw stats indicate, terrific at boxing out and keeping his own man off the glass). A solid but unexceptional scorer with a strong but underused post game and outside shot. Lacked the scoring mentality necessary (but not the skills) to take over in big moment situations.
-------------------------------------------
For me, I would need to see C-Webb have a longer peak performance (5-6 years) or more team success (more trips to CFs or Finals appearances) to put him ahead of Sheed whose team success far outweighs C-Webb's.
------------------------------------------------
I think Sheed's role as a star man (or supporting star player) on so many teams that advanced far in the playoffs (and while winning a title and coming [dang] close two other times) puts Sheed amongst a pretty rare group of players.
Basically, I think that would Sheed did was more special and worthy of being celebrated than what C-Webb did.
--------------------------------------------------------
If C-Webb hadn't of gotten hurt, I think he would have been a cert for the HoF. But he did and it happened just at the time when his team had finally risen to title-contender status and only shortly after he had finally begun to fulfill that wonderful potential of his. Just not enough time at the highest level. Injuries robbed him of that.