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
Karl Malone
In my book, Karl “The Mailman” Malone has to go down as one of the hardest-working, most talent-laden superstars who continued to work on and improve his game every year he was in the league. As a rookie from Louisiana Tech, Karl was a very good player, but perhaps more of an athlete than an overall basketball player. He could run and jump with the best of them, even at 6’9” and about 260 pounds. He kept working on his game until he got to a point where he was an excellent foul shooter (his first couple of years in the league his foul shooting was very limited) and could pull up and hit a mid-range jumper from anywhere on the floor. He had blazing speed that would leave all of the other big men in the dust and could finish off his layups with thunderous tomahawk dunks (many times with his non-layup hand placed behind the back of his head as he posed for the flurry of flashbulbs that would go off while he was in mid-air finishing one of his dunks).
Consistency was the name of the game for Karl Malone. You could always count on him for his 20 points and 10 rebounds night after night, year after year. You don't end up as the second-leading scorer in NBA history by just showing up; you have to work at it and be consistent.
I had many opportunities to play against the Karl Malone-led Utah Jazz over the years and I would do my best to make sure that Karl wouldn’t take over the inside of the paint and dominate a game.
My last NBA stop was with the Utah Jazz where I was honored to be Karl’s teammate. He kept the bar set really high for all of his teammates as we would hit the weight room before and after practice and he didn't take too kindly to our not pushing ourselves as hard as we could. Karl was definitely one of those guys I wouldn't hesitate to go to battle with to take on any situation that confronted us.
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Happy Holidays!
James Donaldson
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