You are getting overly stuck on old stats here.
Reef was a blackhole in that era not because of shooting stats, but because of how long and often he had to hold the ball to get those shooting stats. If you have to hold the ball for 10 secs, throw it out, catch again and then finally make a move to get your points, you can be an efficient shooter while still using up a disproportionate amount of your team's offensive opportunities. This is how even an efficient scorer can end up with inflated numbers on a bad team -- they have nobody else so they allow that scorer to dominate the touches and ball far more than a team with other options would. Throw in the fact he rarely passed even when doubled (mayhap a good idea given those teammates) and you potentially have a guy maxing out his own game, but not necessarily his teams'.
From that era though I would classify Reef's performances as more of those of a false star, than a guy getting stats pummped up. He dominated the ball too much, did not pass much, but still had a lot of talent. The issue with him is that he added exactly 0 wins to his teams' totals. Completely ineffective as a #1 player, whatever the stats. You could call that stat inflation I suppose, but I think it was closer to stat irrelevancy. He had talent worthy of those stats, but never made anybody better or lifted his team with them. As with us, he just scored his hoops and nothing came of it. Might as well lock him in a gym by himself for all the bleedover or tonesetting effects fo Reef's post game -- he plays on an island. Hence by the time we get around to signing him the market is for Reef as a 3rd scorer or 6th man -- points on the bone in a position without responsibility. The rebounding ineptitude has just complicated things. Could ignore it ala Antawn Jamison for a big scorer, but now the ppg get modest and it becomes a major issue.
VINTAGE
