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
Elvin Hayes
I was fortunate to play against Elvin “Big E” Hayes throughout the early part of my career, or perhaps I should say fortunately I only had to play against Elvin “Big E” Hayes the early part of my career. I came into the NBA in 1980 and Elvin retired in 1983, so I only had to play against him a couple of times a year, first when he was with the Houston Rockets and I was with the Seattle Supersonics , and later at the end of his career.
Elvin was a forerunner of the big guys who played center. He could do a lot of different things on the basketball court. Elvin played the four position (power forward), but he was so versatile and interchangeable that he could move around on the basketball court wherever he needed to be effective. Plus he played alongside Wes Unseld, who at 6’7” compared to Elvin's 6’10”, was able to hold down the center position in the paint as well as any of the top centers of the day.
I tell the story often of how Elvin Hayes, and his bookend counterpart, Wes Unseld, gave me my first real introduction into life in the NBA. We were playing a game in Seattle against the Washington Bullets my rookie year I swear to this day that I saw both Elvin and Wes communicating on how “one was going to take me high, and the other was going to take me low” and on the very next play that's just what happened. I went up for a rebound and before I knew it my body had leveled out about six feet up in the air with Wes taking out my legs underneath and Elvin pushing me over from up top. I hit the ground with a tremendous thud that left me black and blue for weeks. It seemed to happen in slow motion and in the time that it took me to hit the ground, the thought that went through me was I can either tuck my tail and run back to the bench looking for sympathy, or I can pick myself up, dust myself off, and hang in there with the big boys. I chose the latter and I'm glad I did because I feel that was a defining moment in my young career. Not only did I hit the ground with a tremendous thud, neither Elvin nor Wes even offered a hand to help me up off the ground. That was cold! But that was life in the NBA, especially for a young upstart like me.
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Happy Holidays!
James Donaldson
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