SLAM Magazine: The NBA's Greatest 50 Players

Ever since I was a kid I've had a distant, but on-going, sorta fascination with basketball. The only sports team I've ever followed in any regular way was the long-forgotten Doncaster Panthers, who played out of the Doncaster Dome in the mid '90s before disbanding in 1996 due to financial difficulties. I have hazy recollections of watching the Harlem Globetrotters on TV in my formative years, I guess on variety shows or Blue Peter or whatever, and being utterly entranced by them. These guys could fly. And they looked Bad. Ass. I even owned a 3/4 size Harlem Globetrotters basketball. And like many my age, me & my friends spent endless hours playing NBA Jam on the Megadrive - "He's on fire!" "The nail in the coffin!" "Puts up a brick!" - perfecting skills with our thumbs that in real-life looked positively super-human.

When the 1992 Barcelona Olympics came around, I had the opportunity to dig on The Dream Team...to watch the sport played at it's absolute best, by the best international team ever assembled. The Dream Team were simply off-the-hook. Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing...Coach Chuck Daly described being with the Dream Team as like "travelling with a rock band, like Elvis & The Beatles put together." It's often said that watching great basketball is like watching a great jazz concert - the improvisation, the opportunity for individual flair and moments of off-the-wall genius, the back-and-forth dialogue between the players - and sure 'nuff, watching the Dream Team play was as mesmerising as a night at Newport with Miles Davis' first Quintet.

Anyway, in the spirit of educating myself further in the ways of shooting hoops, I bought my first ever copy of SLAM magazine yesterday, which features a perfect So You Want To Get Into Basketball-type feature listing the NBA's 'Top 50 Players'. The guy pictured above left here is Julius Erving, aka Dr J, who ranks 15th. He was a spectacular slam-dunk artist, maybe the finest ever seen. He was ruthless, used the ball like deadly weapon. He defined basketball in the '70s, and ushered in the modern 'above-the-rim' era of the game. He was a stone-killer on the court, and a gentleman off it. He had a cool afro. He's my new hero.