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Here's what I know are facts:

1. Frazier's regularly noted for his steals & pickpocket skills on defense ... in fact that's predominantly what he's noted for, not his general defensive abilities.
   
   
2. Tied directly to #1, a ton of interviews with players/coaches/fans of the time note him as a gambler on defense. Not a solid defender, but a gambler. This word (or words like it) come up A LOT.
   
   
3. There are a ton of highlights of his steals, and most of them are him reaching/gambling in a way that if he misses it, his teammates are left out to dry. Assuming he reached more than 2 times a game (2 steals/game), he probably forced his teammates to clean up for his misses a lot.
   
   
4. Tied directly to #3, those Knick teams are noted for their depth of defensive talent, notably Dave DeBusschere who had the energy/hustle to be everywhere all the time, and would have been the perfect versatile defender to clean up what I described above & still keep the team defense high (especially with an awesome defensive center like Reed behind all of them), which it was.
   
   
5. Steals were tracked for several years of Frazier's career, and he was top-10 twice (never 1st). Jerry West was better at them when he was old as hell and injured and on his way out (2.6 spg in his final NBA season, Frazier was 7 years younger & playing 9 more min/gm but averaged 2.0 that season), which is when they finally started counting steals, and he's far more noted for good overall & fundamental defense than steals, which is supposed to be Frazier's thing.
   
   
6. The years that Frazier peaked were in a diluted league noted for slow/old guards (so much so, some teams ran their half-court offenses through centers like Walton, Adams, Boerwinkle), and the time was noted for the majority of fast/athletic players playing over in the other league. His gambling was done in a slower, diluted league.
   
   
7. The one fast/athletic PG who played at the same time as Frazier (Tiny) lit him up regularly. Frazier's team was much better, but Tiny definitely "got his" when facing Frazier & the Knicks.
   
   
8. One of the most famous & respected hoops journalists ever said Frazier's defense was overrated. That statement was agreed with ("There is some truth to Bob Ryan's point that...") by the author of the book I referenced above, who is a bit of a basketball historian himself, seeing as he's the author/editor of the 1000+ page "Total Basketball: The Ultimate Basketball Encyclopedia" (link).
   
   8b) Is the "Best 50 Players" book respected or any good? I found out about in the bibliography of Bill Simmons' book. No matter what you think of BS's homer-ism, his depth of research on the history of the game is very impressive, and he placed this book in the "Extremely Useful" section of his bibliography (he grouped books by usefulness). You can confirm this for yourself by clicking on "Look Inside" at this link and scrolling down about 2/3 of the way to the Bibliography (just before the Index).
   
   EDIT: It turns out the Knicks had 33-year-old Dick Barnett guarding Jerry West for most of the 1970 Finals instead of 24-year-old Walt Frazier .... kinda weird considering the reputation of Frazier. LINK

I would expect there are just lots and lots of street ballers who never made it for a variety of reasons.

I think this may have been the book I ran into as a kid - loved street ball:

> Swee'Pea and Other Playground Legends: Tales of Drugs, Violence and Basketball 1st Edition by John Valenti

https://www.amazon.com/SweePea-Other-Playground-Legends-Basketball/dp/0935576398/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=John+Valenti&qid=1566760688&s=books&sr=1-5

Over the course of decades, who knows how many there are. We may have missed some true wonders.