NBA's All Time 50 Greatest Players: Excerpts from Standing Above the Crowd: Success Strategies in Athletics, Business, Community and Life by James Donaldson

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Excerpts from Standing Above the Crowd: Success Strategies in Athletics, Business, Community and Life by James Donaldson.  Release date is January 201l.  Pre-order now and save!!!

For details go to www.StandingAboveTheCrowd.com

I know that there are a lot of NBA basketball fans out there who will get a kick out of my chapter on my experiences playing against and observing some of the greatest players in NBA history.  I'll send out an excerpt from this chapter everyday leading up to the book release.  I welcome your comments!

                                                    THE 50 GREATEST PLAYERS IN NBA HISTORY

 

One of the most frequently asked questions that I encounter besides “how tall are you?” is either who is the greatest player that I've ever played against, or who is the toughest player that I've ever played against?  Depending on the person’s knowledge of basketball who's asking the question, I typically give a couple different responses.  There's a big difference between “the greatest” and “the toughest”.

The game of basketball has been around for a long time now and it has evolved over the years from when Dr. James Naismith first tied a peach basket an old barn post and the players were shooting two hand set shots, to now where the game is played on a global scale with some of the finest athletes in the world.  There were great players back in the beginning of the game, just as they're great players now.  I don't know if it's ever totally fair to compare players from one era against players of another era.  Periodically you see sports aficionados coming up with hypothetical computerize scenarios of say the great Green Bay Packers of the 60s versus the New England Patriots of the new millennium.  It's impossible to really say who the best players are or which team would come out on top.  But it's a fun exercise and it creates a lot of heated conversation amongst the fanatics and all of us.

I was lucky to play during perhaps the greatest era of NBA basketball.  My NBA career spanned two decades essentially, from 1980 – 1996.  Some of the greatest NBA players to ever play the game played during that era.  I remember as a rookie in 1980 marveling at the great Dr. J. and also been privileged to witness the new era of NBA basketball that was brought to us by Ervin “Magic” Johnson and Larry Bird.

All in all I was privileged to play against over 30 of the all-time 50 greatest NBA players ever.  I'm going to go through the whole list of the 50 greatest players and share my thoughts with you in regards to either actually playing against them or watching them as I was a youngster.  They are listed in alphabetical order and if you want to find the actual numerical order in which they are listed by the NBA you can check out their website at NBA.com 

 

 

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar:

 

I often tell the story of how as a rookie during my very first professional game playing for the Seattle Supersonics in the Kingdome in Seattle, I was lined up against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  Kareem was already a 10 to 12 year established veteran and well on his way to becoming one of the greatest players to ever play the game.  I remember checking into the game for just a few minutes and given the instructions to go to guard Kareem.  As we are lining up on the foul line I remember thinking myself, “wow, here is the great Kareem Abdul- Jabbar and I'm going to have to figure out a way to not get embarrassed at here”.  I also remember thinking to myself, “Kareem already has over 20,000 points in his career and I've got zero”. 

 

It was truly one of my first tests as far as trying to establish myself as an NBA player.  I was nervous as all get out, but after jostling with Kareem and “bodying” with him for a few minutes I started to calm down and felt a little more comfortable.

 

In my estimation, Kareem was the most unstoppable player to ever play the game.  With that fantastic skyhook of his, he could shoot and score at will and with great accuracy.  There is nothing you can do to slow down Kareem other than hope and pray that his teammates didn't feed him the ball all night long and/or he was having an extremely rare night off…. but that hardly ever happened.

 

So that's one variation of the question I'm asked all the time as far as “who's the toughest or greatest player to ever had against?”… I always answer, that Kareem was the most unstoppable hands down!