Former NBA greats who are forgotten. | Page 3 | The Boneyard

Former NBA greats who are forgotten.

lonsharkin51 said:
Chocolate Thunder aka Dr. Dunkenstein
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Northbound said:
Those are two different players

Chocolate Thunder was Dawkins

Dr. Dunkenstein was Darrell Griffith
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c29328 said:
Funny I saw George Gervin. I remember telling my father that Kevin Durant was an improved George Gervin. And Portland should take him no matter what. I was wicked smaht.
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I had three posters on my bed room ceiling as a kid. Dr. Dunkenstein, Iceman Cometh and Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka.

That was all good until I discovered the Cheryl Tiegs and Lonnie Anderson posters.
 
Chin Diesel said:
I had three posters on my bed room ceiling as a kid. Dr. Dunkenstein, Iceman Cometh and Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka.

That was all good until I discovered the Cheryl Tiegs and Lonnie Anderson posters.
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Greatest poster ever
900_1982-george-gervin-iceman-row-1-final_1645325445.359.jpg



I had the Jordan Wings poster over my bed and a 6'7 standing Clyde Drexler cutout at the end of bed.
 
superjohn said:
Greatest poster ever
View attachment 91583


I had the Jordan Wings poster over my bed and a 6'7 standing Clyde Drexler cutout at the end of bed.
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Yeah, and then I saw the red bathing suits.
My school grades coincidently took a nose dive at the same time as I started looking at pencil erasers differently.
 
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Apollo said:
Clyde Drexler
Dominique Wilkins
Sean Kemp
Rik Smits
Mark Price
Jeff Hornacek
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Says you.

Here in the Hudson Valley, every day starts with a recitation of Rik Smit’s career stats. It’s in Dutch, so no one really understands what they’re saying, but we do it anyway.
 
Grant Hill before the injuries was insane. I know even younger people know the name but he was great for the pistons.
 
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A CT great (who also had his issues, but I believe has landed on his feet with a nice Prep level coaching gig in state): Wes Matthews (dude got a few rings)
 
a few UConn alumn hoopers who had pretty decent careers (other than Uncle Cliffy): Kevin Ollie, Donyell Marshall, Scottie Burrell
 
Waquoit said:
Kelly Tripucka
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Isn't Kelly Tripucka the player who sprained his ankle rebounding in a game, and told a reporter afterward that he was never going to do that again? And then didn't.
 
MAGIC JOHNSON! Everybody seems to forget how he was the one how was the lead of The Lake Show
 
nomar said:
I guess I don't know what "forgotten" means. These guys were all big stars and immediately come to mind when considering the 80s (Ice Man going back a little earlier).
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This is the big question. I have some teen relatives that play NBA2K, and some of the editions have classic teams that you can play, so a lot of the younger fans actually know a lot more about the stars of the past than most people would think. They have all played the 80's Celtics and Lakers teams, and most have tried the Pistons teams from that era too.

Any kid who plays NBA2K classic teams (or whatever it is called) will know who Dominique Wilkins is. He is definitely not forgotten by the younger generation that plays NBA2K. Wilkins also comes up any time a player blows out his Achilles, since to this day, Wilkins is the only player in NBA history to come back better from an Achilles injury than he was before. It is kind of weird that Wilkins did that, because Wilkins was not renowned for his work ethic in his playing days.

I would say that Bernard King is a little forgotten because he played on such bad teams his whole career, and he had that major knee injury right in his prime. He was amazing to watch on the Knicks before his knee injury.

Sidney Moncrief played on good, not great, Bucks' teams but also had his prime diminished by injuries. He would have been amazing in the modern NBA.

Alex English is definitely a forgotten player, and he wanted it that way. He was unstoppable offensively in his prime, and was a class act.

Chambers is forgotten because everyone hated him. Players of that era truly hated him, especially his teammates. I remember one fist fight with Dale Ellis, but there were others.

One player that people still remember because he had a memorable name, Moses Malone, is still not remembered for just how awesome a player he was in his prime. The 76ers went to two NBA Finals with Dr. J before Malone showed up, and lost both. They barely got out of the second round in 1982. Then Malone showed up, and they were a wrecking crew in 1983, and Dr. J had already lost a step by that point in his career. Malone's domination of Kareem in the 1983 NBA Finals goes down in one of the all time lopsided outcomes from two great players going head to head. Malone also took a bad Houston team to the 1981 NBA Finals against the Celtics. Malone is truly one of the best of all time, and most young fans barely know who he is.

Clyde Drexler is another one that younger players may know, but they won't know how incredible a player he was. He could do almost anything, but he never had the team around him to really challenge for a ring. The 1992 team was the best one he had, and it was good and took the Bulls to 6, but it had some holes.

He was also snakebit by history. He was almost traded to Houston along with the 2nd pick of the 1984 draft for Ralph Sampson. Houston turned down a trade that would have given them the first two picks of the draft, which would have been Olajuwon, and then, since they wouldn't have needed a center with an injury history (Sam Bowie), they would have picked Michael Jordan with the second pick. Can you imagine how incredible that team would have been for the next 10 years with Michael, Clyde and the Dream?

The second weird thing that happened with Drexler was Arvydas Sabonis. Portland had the rights to Sabonis in the late 80's, and even got him to Portland for training in 1988, but he went back to Europe to play in Spain. Sabonis was amazing in his prime. There is no question in my mind that Portland would have won multiple titles if they could have gotten Sabonis in 1988. By the time he got to Portland in 1995, he was 30, his knees were shot, and his body was pickled in vodka. He was still a very good player, but nowhere near what he was in the late 80's. Instead, Drexler had to try to win titles with Kevin Duckworth at center, and that wasn't going to happen.
 
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There is no rhyme or reason to the posts in this thread. I don't want to pick on anyone in particular but I'm just seeing a lot of All Stars that literally 90-95% of the people here haven't "forgotten."

I suppose it's dependent on age to a large extent, although as a kid I was obsessed with sports history and knew all about the MLB, NBA and NFL players of lore. And that was without the internet.

It's not happening, but I think the only way to test this is by putting all of these players' names in front of 1000 18-24 year old kids and seeing how they register.
 
HooperScooper said:
Bob Gibson?
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Absolutely one of the best. A good argument could be for several pitchers. Gibson, Catfish, Palmer, Seaver, Maddox, Rivera, Marichal just to name a few. My point was if you asked me who I thought were best 2 my answer would be Koufax and Pedro. In that order.
 
James Worthy

And of course Ken Reeves, Coolidge, Hayward and CJ. But to be fair inly Ken was an NBA vet.
 
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One of my sons is 15 and a huge basketball nut. We were talking about gyms & I mentioned working out a gym called the Sky Club in Boston in late 90's and Dino Radja (a forgotten player yet somehow kind of the 2nd best Celtic for a few yrs) would show up with a trainer and listlessly go thru a workout, would bench 135 for 6 or so slow reps & stop. Dino could have been better.

Anyway, he knew who Radja was - had used him a few times in NBA2K.
Also there's a bunch of online trivia games he & his buddies play where you are rewarded from coming up with various obscure nba players, Immaculate Grid is one that I've tried.
 
Dogdeacon said:
One of my sons is 15 and a huge basketball nut. We were talking about gyms & I mentioned working out a gym called the Sky Club in Boston in late 90's and Dino Radja (a forgotten player yet somehow kind of the 2nd best Celtic for a few yrs) would show up with a trainer and listlessly go thru a workout, would bench 135 for 6 or so slow reps & stop. Dino could have been better.

Anyway, he knew who Radja was - had used him a few times in NBA2K.
Also there's a bunch of online trivia games he & his buddies play where you are rewarded from coming up with various obscure nba players, Immaculate Grid is one that I've tried.
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Dino Radja is in the Hall of Fame, his approach worked pretty well for him.
 
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nomar said:
There is no rhyme or reason to the posts in this thread. I don't want to pick on anyone in particular but I'm just seeing a lot of All Stars that literally 90-95% of the people here haven't "forgotten."

I suppose it's dependent on age to a large extent, although as a kid I was obsessed with sports history and knew all about the MLB, NBA and NFL players of lore. And that was without the internet.

It's not happening, but I think the only way to test this is by putting all of these players' names in front of 1000 18-24 year old kids and seeing how they register.
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But if those kids play Madden or 2K, or whatever the baseball game is, they will know a lot of the old-timers too. Video games are great for pulling forward the history of the games. For a player to be "forgotten", they had to have been on a secondary team (like Moncrief or English) that was good but not great, and didn't make the video game, or at least wasn't on a team that anyone wants to play in the video game.
 
A more recent one is Gilbert Arenas. His off the court troubles probably contribute to people forgetting about him.
 
UCLJ0211 said:
A more recent one is Gilbert Arenas. His off the court troubles probably contribute to people forgetting about him.
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Arenas is such a weird one, on his way to a Hall of Fame career and then decides to act like a gangster. Ja Morant is on the same path.
 
Chuck Connors Dave DeBusherre and Gene Conley. All played baseball and basketball
 
Deepster said:
Is Bill Walton on the list? Is he an "all time great"?
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Certainly not forgotten. You can't turn on the television during basketball season without seeing his mug.
 
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