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

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 NBAplayers 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

 

 

Julius Erving

Ah… where do you start with Julius “Dr. J.” Erving?  You start right at the top of the list that's where you start!

Dr. J. was one of those iconic players that us kids growing up in the early 70’s would just marvel at whenever we got a chance to catch a glimpse of him on TV.  Back then, Dr. J. was playing for the ABA, and until there was serious talk about a possible ABA / NBA merger, for the most part he was a mythical and mystical basketball marvel doing fabulous things in the ABA that many of the guys in the NBA only dreamed of.

Not only do I put Dr. J. up there as one of my all-time favorite players, but I also list him as one of the true greats of the game.  Someone who carried the heavy mantle of representing the ABA in all their glorious players and trying to elevate that league to a place where up until then the NBA claimed sole supremacy.

I remember seeing Dr. J. in person for the first time as a rookie in 1980 when the team I was with at the time, the Seattle Supersonics, was on a road trip and we pulled into the hotel lobby and Milwaukee to prepare for our game against the Bucks a night or two later.  Dr. J. and his team, the Philadelphia 76ers were checking out of the hotel just as we were checking in.  I remember being in almost a state of playful giddiness along with a couple of other rookies on the team at the time, Vinnie Johnson and James Bailey, as we were all excited to see Dr. J. and the Philadelphia 76ers… up close and in person!

Dr. J. seems to be in the class all by himself and he has a way of standing out in every crowd that he's in whether he's on the court or walking through the hotel lobby.  He's one of the few guys in the league that I really wanted to pattern my demeanor and personality after in his very professional approach to the game, on and off the court.