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 you’ve ever played against?” or “who is the toughest player you’ve ever played against?” Depending on who's asking the question and their knowledge of basketball, I typically give a couple of 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 to an old barn post and the players were shooting two-hand set shots, to today 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 there are great players now. I don't know if it's ever totally fair to compare players from one era with players of another. Periodically you see sports aficionados coming up with hypothetical computerized scenarios of, say, the great Green Bay Packers of the Sixties 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 among 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, 1980 – 1996. Some of the greatest NBA players ever to play the game played during those years. I remember as a rookie in 1980 marveling at the incredible Dr. J. and I’ve also been able to witness the new era of NBA basketball that was brought to us by Ervin “Magic” Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan.
All in all, I was privileged to play against over thirty of the all-time fifty greatest NBA players. I'm going to go through the whole list and share my thoughts with you in regards to either actually playing against them or watching them while I was still 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
Dave Cowens
Dave Cowens was always one of my favorite Boston Celtics throughout the years. That was probably because of a number of things that I saw in him and his game that I really connected to. He wasn't the most talented player on the court, and he wasn't the biggest and strongest guy either. But he had as much determination and intensity to make up for whatever shortcomings he had, through pure hustle and an all-out passion for the game. There are some great NBA highlight reel videos that show Dave Cowens chasing down loose balls and sliding twenty or thirty feet across the court in order to do so. You just don't see that many guys playing that way!
One of the other things I remember about Dave Cowens was that he seemed to be a consummate team player. He didn't care how many points he scored or how many rebounds he had, but he seemed to give everything he had every time he was on the court. And another thing, he wasn't afraid to get up into his teammates’ faces (if he felt they weren’t giving it their all) and I never ever saw him back down from anybody else. Those are the kind of guys you want to go to war with any day of the week!
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Happy Holidays!
James Donaldson
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