MILWAUKEE — About the only place Sidney Moncrief's basketball career hasn't taken him is Springfield, Mass. — home of the basketball Hall of Fame.

Some say the former Milwaukee Bucks guard deserves a ticket because many longtime observers consider him the finest all-around player ever to wear the team's uniform.

He was the rugged 6-foot-4 player who shared first-team All-NBA honors with Hall of Famers such as Magic Johnson, Julius Erving, Moses Malone and Larry Bird in the first of his four nods for that honor.

He was a two-time defensive player of the year in the league and the first to receive the award. He was a five-time member of the all-defensive team and a five-time All-Star.

And for any reporter who covered him on a regular basis, he was a go-to guy for an honest assessment.

"One of my favorites," said current Bucks coach Larry Krystkowiak, whose first two seasons as a player here coincided with Moncrief's final two seasons. "He laid it out on both ends of the floor. He's a guy I looked up to."

Pretty good credentials, right? Yet still not good enough, even according to Moncrief.

"Hall of Fame voting looks at points," said Moncrief, who was at the Bradley Center on Saturday night in his duties as the shooting coach of the Golden State Warriors.

"I didn't score 16,000, 17,000, 20,000 points," said Moncrief, who scored 11,594 points with the Bucks and 11,931 in his career. "My teams didn't win a championship. But for five or six years, I played at a pretty high level."

Moncrief isn't shy about the level of play.

"I did everything on the court," he said. "I was good in all areas, which made me kind of unique."

It was that outstanding level of play which led the Bucks to retire Moncrief's No. 4, an honor celebrated once again Saturday night as part of the Bucks' 40th year celebration.

Moncrief played 10 of his 11 seasons for the Bucks, a stretch that ended when he retired following the 1988-89 season only to come back two years later for one more season with the Atlanta Hawks.

Moncrief was the heart and soul of those Bucks' teams that won seven straight division championships and reached the playoffs 10 straight seasons. He was beset by injuries for much of his career, especially knee problems that some doctors predicted would limit him to just a few seasons.

"He was one of the greatest Bucks to play here," said former Bucks coach Don Nelson, now the coach at Golden State and Moncrief's boss. "He combined great physical attributes with intelligent play.

"Many of those years he was playing on a leg-and-a-half and he was still playing at an All-Star caliber."

While a self-proclaimed Southern boy who grew up in Arkansas and now lives in Dallas, Moncrief said there always will be a part of him in his second home here.

"It's home because it's so familiar," said Moncrief, 50. "I don't have to feel my way around here. It's like second nature."