Shawn Marion could do a little of everything and helped change the NBA

Hall of Fame debates are a staple of sports arguments - whether a player's amassed the credentials to be honored among the very best in their sport is prime fodder for discussion over a beer. Today we begin a series spotlighting a collection of players who we believe either deserve the distinction but haven't yet been inducted into their sports' Halls of Fame, or don't quite measure up but had a great impact on their franchise or sport.

When you think of Hall of Famers, you think - naturally - about stars: players defined by individual brilliance, especially in basketball, where star talent often plays 75% of the available minutes, has the ball in their hands for much of that time, and influences outcomes on both ends of the court.

If ever there was a sport where the kinds of athletes we consider "unsung heroes" fly even further under the radar, it's basketball. And yet, some of the game's most influential players over the years fit into this category. Today, we highlight one of the most famous of the 21st century's obscure stars, an unsung hero who has a solid Hall of Fame argument: Shawn Marion.

Marion was a four-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA selection who won a championship with Dallas in 2011, but he never won an individual award - both of his All-NBA selections were third-team honors. He averaged 20-plus points per game only twice in his 16-year career, and the only U.S. national team he made was the infamous 2004 squad - the only American outfit to not win gold since NBA players began competing in the Olympics.

But Marion's impact on the court and on the evolution of the game had little to do with statistics or personal accolades. That's not to say his numbers didn't pop: During a seven-year run beginning with his sophomore season in Phoenix, Marion averaged 19.3 points, 10.4 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 2.0 steals, and 1.0 blocks while suiting up in at least 79 games. It's just that his place in history is cemented by so much more than those numbers.

Nowadays, scouts and executives everywhere are entranced by versatility, by the on-court version of a Swiss Army knife: The kind of player who can do a little bit of everything and defend most (if not all five) positions, all without needing to dominate the ball on the offensive end. At the turn of the century, the man who earned the nickname "The Matrix" was basically the prototype.

When you think back to those "Seven Seconds Or Less" Suns teams that revolutionized the NBA, Steve Nash and Mike D'Antoni get the majority of credit, with Amar'e Stoudemire next in line. But those teams - and the very concept of the run-and-gun manner in which they played - would not exist without the presence of Marion.

In fact, Marion was actually the first piece of that puzzle. Before the Suns drafted Stoudemire, before the team promoted D'Antoni, and long before the organization tied it all together by reacquiring Nash, Marion's dynamic skill set was already on display in Phoenix. Who remembers, for example, that the 22-year-old, second-year version of Marion was the leading scorer on a 51-win team?

By the time Nash arrived and turned Phoenix into the league's best team in 2004-05, Marion's value to those perennially contending Suns teams was immeasurable. On a team that will never be remembered for its defense, the 6-foot-7 Marion was Phoenix's most versatile and dependable stopper; capable of slowing down the opposing team's star guard one night and troubling a big man like Dirk Nowitzki the next.

Nash remembers Nowitzki telling him after Nowitzki hit a game-winner over an overmatched Quentin Richardson during a 2005 Suns-Mavericks playoff series: "I'm just glad I could get 'The Matrix' off of me."

Of the 52 players in NBA history who played at least as many games (1,163) as Marion, he remains one of only seven who averaged at least one steal and one block per game over his entire career. In hindsight, it seems preposterous that Marion never made an All-Defensive Team, though his chances were likely hampered by Phoenix's poor collective defensive metrics.

On the offensive end, Marion was never the type of star you would seek out for a game-breaking bucket. He wasn't going to create for himself, his release was memorably quirky - more of a flip from the wrist as opposed to a fluid, textbook jumper - and he spent most of his career as a below-average 3-point shooter.

And yet, he made it work. Of the 82 players in NBA history who matched or surpassed Marion's 17,700 career points, 71 played in an era in which we can track usage rate. And of those 71 measurable players, Marion's 20.4 career usage ranks 69th.

Marion was able to score more than 17,000 points despite some of those aforementioned limitations - he was an excellent roller and dive man for his size, a smart cutter who knew how to move off the ball, and he ran the open court as well as anyone. He was also a willing shooter who shot the 3-ball at a respectable enough clip to keep defenses honest, if nothing else. On a D'Antoni-coached team whose offensive symphony was orchestrated by Nash, Marion's skill set was tailor-made.

When you consider how those Suns teams changed the game and influenced future champions in Miami, San Antonio, and Golden State, you must also consider how incomplete those same Suns teams would have been without Marion's adaptability.

After brief stops in Miami and Toronto, Marion found another home in Dallas, where he (along with Jason Kidd and Tyson Chandler) helped Nowitzki and the Mavs find the balance necessary in 2011 to finally get over the postseason hump and win the NBA title that had eluded all of them.

In a career that lacked the type of individual success we're accustomed to from Hall of Famers, that 2011 title put a nice bow on a resume that was already borderline Hall-worthy from purely an impact point of view.

The NBA's recorded blocks and steals since 1973, and in a league that now salivates over two-way versatility, Marion's one of three players in that 47-year history to record at least 17,000 points, 10,000 rebounds, 1,700 steals, and 1,200 blocks. The other two: Hakeem Olajuwon and Kevin Garnett.

Eligible for the Hall of Fame for the first time this year, Marion missed the mark. But don't discount the Springfield credentials of one of the game's ultimate unsung heroes.

"Shawn became one of the all-time greatest Suns and, I think, had a very under the radar, Hall of Fame-like career," David Griffin, the Pelicans' executive vice president of basketball operations, said earlier this year. "The fact that he doesn't get more discussion in that conversation is shocking, quite frankly."

Joseph Casciaro is theScore's senior basketball writer.