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Darryl Dawkins

Center
Personal information
Born	(1957-01-11) January 11, 1957 (age 55) Orlando, Florida
Nationality	American
High school	Maynard Evans HS (Orlando, Florida)
Listed height	6 ft 11 in (2.11 m)
Listed weight	251 lb (114 kg)
Career information
NBA Draft	1975 / Round: 1 / Pick: 5th overall
Selected by the Philadelphia 76ers
Pro career	1975–2000
Career history
1975–1982	Philadelphia 76ers
1982–1987	New Jersey Nets
1987	Utah Jazz
1987–1989	Detroit Pistons
1989–1991	Auxilium Torino (Italy)
1991–1992	Olimpia Philis Milano (Italy)
1992–1994	Libertas Forlì (Italy)
1994-1995	Harlem Globetrotters
1995–1996	Sioux Falls Skyforce (CBA)
1999–2000	Winnipeg Cyclone (IBA)
Career NBA statistics
Points	8,733 (12.0 ppg)
Rebounds	4,432 (6.1 rpg)
Blocks	1,023 (1.4 bpg)
Stats at Basketball-Reference.com

Darryl Dawkins (born January 11, 1957 in Orlando, Florida) is a retired American professional basketball player, most noted for his days with the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Nets, although he also played briefly for the Detroit Pistons and Utah Jazz late in his career. He was nicknamed "Chocolate Thunder" for his powerful dunks, which notably led to the NBA adopting breakaway rims due to him shattering the backboard on two occasions in 1979.^[1]

Biography[link]

Dawkins averaged double figures in scoring nine times in his 14 years in the NBA, often ranking among the league leaders in field-goal percentage. He also played in the NBA Finals three times as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers in the late 1970s and early 1980s. On the flip side, Dawkins set an NBA record for fouls in a season (386 in 1983-84), and he never quite lived up to the expectations that had been heaped upon him when he was drafted out of high school.

"Many of us will judge him solely on what he could have been," said Dave Wohl, who played against and coached Dawkins, in Sports Illustrated. "Too many will be blinded by the flashes of brilliance that never materialized into consistent greatness. There were times when he teased us with a hint of how he could dominate a game. And we went home in awe and yet sad because we knew of no spell to make it happen more frequently. But few players could make us feel that way even once."

High school career[link]

At Maynard Evans High School in Orlando, Dawkins was “probably the best high school basketball player ever and one of the best people I ever met,” his prep coach, Fred Pennington, told Inside Sports. The team won the state championship in 1975, a year after the ABA’s Utah Stars had plucked Moses Malone right out of Petersburg (Virginia) High School.

NBA career[link]

Hoping to follow in Malone’s footsteps, the 18-year-old Dawkins renounced his college eligibility and applied for the 1975 NBA Draft as a hardship candidate. The Philadelphia 76ers made him the fifth overall pick, behind David Thompson, David Meyers, Marvin Webster, and Alvan Adams. According to the New York Daily News, when Dawkins made his debut with the 76ers, New York Knicks guard Walt Frazier took one look and said, "I bet his teachers called him ‘Mr. Darryl.’"

With his size, speed, and touch, Dawkins was expected to take over the league. But he handled the expectations in typical fashion. "When I walked into the league, they wanted me to be Wilt Chamberlain right away—without one minute of college ball," he told the Daily News. "I can’t be Wilt Chamberlain. Wilt is much taller than me."

A raw talent who needed time to develop, Dawkins languished on the Sixers’ bench for his first two seasons. As a rookie in 1975-76 he played in only 37 games, averaging 2.4 points in 4.5 minutes per game. The next year he played a limited role during the regular season but began to emerge during the playoffs. The Sixers advanced all the way to the NBA Finals that year, and Dawkins was called upon to help battle Portland’s Bill Walton. The Trail Blazers won the series in six games, but Dawkins earned respect among the Philadelphia coaching staff with 7.3 points and 5.4 rebounds per contest in the postseason.

In the 1977-78 season Dawkins finally found a regular role, coming off the bench for nearly 25 minutes per game. Now a robust 20 years old, he averaged 11.7 points and 7.9 rebounds and ranked second in the league in field-goal percentage at .575. With a club that included Julius Erving, George McGinnis, Lloyd Free, and Doug Collins, the Sixers made another solid postseason run, advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals before losing to the Washington Bullets in six games.

Prior to the 1978–79 season Philadelphia traded McGinnis to the Denver Nuggets for Bobby Jones and Ralph Simpson. The move was made in part to clear space for Dawkins on the Sixers’ front line, which also included 6-foot-11 Caldwell Jones. Over the next three seasons Dawkins and Caldwell Jones split time at the center and power forward positions, and Dawkins had the most productive stretch of his career. In 1979–80 he averaged 14.7 points and a career-high 8.7 rebounds, helping the Sixers back to the NBA Finals, which they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games.

Breaking the backboard[link]

In a game against the Kansas City Kings in November 1979, Dawkins threw down such a massive dunk that the backboard shattered, sending the Kings' Bill Robinzine ducking. Three weeks later he did it again. A few days after that the NBA ruled that breaking a backboard was an offense that would result in a fine and suspension.

Dawkins named the first backboard-breaking dunk "The Chocolate-Thunder-Flying, Robinzine-Crying, Teeth-Shaking, Glass-Breaking, Rump-Roasting, Bun-Toasting, Wham-Bam, Glass-Breaker-I-Am-Jam." [1]

He named other dunks as well: the Rim Wrecker, the Go-Rilla, the Look Out Below, the In-Your-Face Disgrace, the Cover Your Head, the Yo-Mama, and the Spine-Chiller Supreme. The 76ers also kept a separate column on the stat sheet for Dawkins’s self-created nicknames: "Sir Slam", "Dr. Dunkenstein", and "Chocolate Thunder."

Also, he claimed to be an alien from the planet Lovetron where he spent the off-season practicing "interplanetary funkmanship" and where his girlfriend Juicy Lucy still lived.^[2]

Postseason disappointments[link]

In the 1981 season Dawkins produced a .607 field-goal percentage, second in the NBA to Artis Gilmore’s .670. Dawkins averaged 14 points and 7.2 rebounds for the year, but Philadelphia failed to return to the Finals. The club met the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals and lost in seven games.

The 76ers suffered another postseason disappointment in 1982 when they reached the Finals but lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games. Frustrated with the team’s inability to handle Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Sixers management began to shake up the center position. First Philadelphia traded Dawkins, who missed nearly half of the 1981-82 season campaign with injuries, to the New Jersey Nets for a first-round draft pick. Then the Sixers sent Caldwell Jones and a first-round pick to the Houston Rockets in exchange for Moses Malone.

Injury-plagued final seasons[link]

At age 25, Dawkins joined a Nets club that included Albert King, Buck Williams, and Otis Birdsong. He had two productive seasons in a Nets uniform before injuries destroyed the rest of his career. In the 1982-83 season Dawkins averaged 12.0 points and shot .599 from the floor, ranking third in the league in field-goal percentage behind Gilmore and Steve Johnson. The next season he poured in a career-high 16.8 points per game on .593 field-goal shooting and grabbed 6.7 rebounds per contest. Dawkins also set a dubious NBA record that year when he committed 386 personal fouls for the season.

The 1983-84 campaign was Dawkins’s last full season. Injuries limited him to only 39 games in 1984-85, and then a back injury in the 1985-86 campaign all but ended his career. At the time, Dawkins was averaging 15.3 points and shooting .644 from the floor, but the injury sidelined him for 31 of the Nets’ final 32 games and led to abortive playing attempts over the next three seasons. With New Jersey, then the Utah Jazz, then the Detroit Pistons, Dawkins kept trying to come back, but his back wouldn’t let him. He played only 26 games from 1986-87 through 1988-89, finally retiring at the end of the 1988-89 season at age 32. He attempted a comeback in 1994 attending Denver Nuggets training camp and again in 1995 with the Boston Celtics. Dawkins also spent several seasons after 1989, playing in the Italian league for Torino, Olimpia Milano and Telemarket Forli.

Dawkins has the record for most personal fouls committed in a season, with 386 in 1984, which is seven more than his 379 fouls the previous year, which ranks second all time.^[3] He committed one more personal foul during his career than Michael Jordan, despite playing nearly 350 fewer games.^[3]

Post NBA career[link]

Following his NBA career, Dawkins had a brief stint with the Harlem Globetrotters, followed by a season spent with the Sioux Falls Skyforce of the Continental Basketball Association in 1995-1996. During this season, the Skyforce games versus the Florida Beach Dogs were covered by ESPN as Florida featured former NBA center Manute Bol, and ESPN could not resist the novelty of Darryl Dawkins versus Manute Bol. In 2005, along with other former pro basketball players, Dawkins auditioned for an NBA analyst position with ESPN as part of the network's reality series Dream Job.

He was the head coach of the American Basketball Association's Newark Express. He was also the player/coach of the short-lived Winnipeg Cyclone.

He was the head coach of the Allentown, Pennsylvania-based Pennsylvania ValleyDawgs of the United States Basketball League until they folded.

On August 20, 2009, Lehigh Carbon Community College (located in Schnecksville, PA) announced that Dawkins would be the head coach of their men's basketball team for the upcoming 2009-2010 season.

Personal[link]

Dawkins is the author of Chocolate Thunder: The Uncensored Life and Times of Darryl Dawkins (co-authored with Charley Rosen),^[4] which chronicles his on and off-the-court life as an NBA star. In the book, Dawkins writes of some of the racism he encountered during his NBA career, playing alongside 76ers superstar Julius Erving, and his off-the-court experiences with drugs, parties and women.

Darryl Dawkins was briefly married to Kelly Barnes of Trenton, New Jersey. Kelly Barnes Dawkins committed suicide on November 1, 1987 back home in New Jersey. Dawkins was on the road with the team at the time. (The New York Times, November 8, 1987). He is currently married to his wife Janice and they have 3 kids, including one daughter with Down syndrome from Janice's previous marriage.^[5]

Dawkins appears in NBA Ballers and the ESPN NBA 2K video games as a reserve member of the '80s Legends East Team. In 1999, Saturday Night Live named Dawkins the "Man of the Millennium" in a "Weekend Update" sketch.^{[citation needed]}

See also[link]

• List of National Basketball Association career playoff blocks leaders
• List of National Basketball Association players with most blocks in a game

Notes[link]

http://www.mcall.com/sports/all-dawk-cn,0,7590380.story

External links[link]

• nba.com historical playerfile
• Darryl Dawkins Career Statistics at basketball-reference.com.
• "Remembering the shattered backboards", featuring Darryl Dawkins.

Dominique Wilkins

No. 21, 12
Small forward
Personal information
Born	(1960-01-12) January 12, 1960 (age 52) Paris, France
Listed height	6 ft 8 in (2.03 m)
Listed weight	230 lb (104 kg)
Career information
College	Georgia
NBA Draft	1982 / Round: 1 / Pick: 3rd overall
Selected by the Utah Jazz
Pro career	1982–1999
Career history
1982–1994	Atlanta Hawks
1994	Los Angeles Clippers
1994–1995	Boston Celtics
1995–1996	Panathinaikos (Greece)
1996–1997	San Antonio Spurs
1997–1998	Fortitudo Bologna (Italy)
1999	Orlando Magic
Career highlights and awards
9× NBA All Star (1986–1994) NBA scoring champion (1986) All-NBA First Team (1986) 4× All-NBA Second Team (1987–1988, 1991, 1993) 2× All-NBA Third Team (1989, 1994) NBA All-Rookie Team (1983) 2× NBA Slam Dunk Contest Champion (1985, 1990) Euroleague Champion 1996 Euroleague Final Four MVP 1996 Greek Cup Champion 1996 Greek Cup MVP 1996
Career NBA statistics
Points	26,668 (24.8 ppg)
Rebound	7,167 (7.6 rpg)
Assists	2,677 (2.5 apg)
Stats at Basketball-Reference.com
Basketball Hall of Fame as player

Medal record
Competitor for  United States
World Championships
Gold	1994 Canada	National team

Jacques Dominique Wilkins (born January 12, 1960) is a retired American professional basketball player who primarily played for the Atlanta Hawks of the NBA. Wilkins was a nine-time NBA All-Star, and one of the best dunkers in NBA history, earning the nickname "The Human Highlight Film."^[1] In 2006, Wilkins was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame [2].

Early life and college[link]

Wilkins was born in Paris, France because his father was stationed there while in the U.S. Air Force. Wilkins' family then moved to Washington, North Carolina, where he attended Washington High School. He was the back-to-back MVP for the team's consecutive Class 3-A State Championships (1978-1979). Wilkins then starred in the McDonald's Game, The Capital Classic, The Kentucky Derby Festival Classic, and The Dapper Dan Classic All-Star Games. He had 16 points and 12 rebounds in the McDonald's, 26 points in the Capital, and 22 points in the Derby Classic. He entered the University of Georgia in 1979 with an established reputation as an exciting player. Wilkins averaged 21.6 points a game over his career and was named SEC Men's Basketball Player of the Year in 1981.^[2][3] He left college after his junior year and was selected third overall (behind James Worthy and Terry Cummings) by the Utah Jazz in the 1982 NBA Draft.

NBA career[link]

Cash flow problems within the Utah Jazz organization, along with Wilkins's reluctance to play with the Jazz, led to his trade to the Atlanta Hawks several months after the draft. The trade included John Drew, Freeman Williams and cash. Despite Wilkins's reluctance to play in Utah, the trade is now considered among the most lopsided deals in NBA history, as Drew and Williams would play a combined four seasons for the Jazz.

Prior to his last three NBA seasons, Wilkins never averaged fewer than 20 points per game and captured a scoring title in 1985-86 with an average of 30.3 points per game.

Wilkins, in addition to his eleven seasons with the Hawks, had short stints with the Los Angeles Clippers, the Boston Celtics, Panathinaikos Athens (a professional team in Greece's A1 Ethniki League, with whom he won his first title, the European Clubs' Championship and the Greek Cup), Fortitudo Bologna (a professional team in Italy's Serie A League), the San Antonio Spurs, and the Orlando Magic before he retired in 1999.

Wilkins was instrumental in the Hawks' prominence in the 1980s, when the club recorded four consecutive 50-win seasons during the decade. As Wilkins entered his thirties and the Hawks needed more of an all-around contribution from their star, Wilkins averaged 9.0 rebounds and 3.0 assists during the 1990-91 season.

A nine-time NBA All-Star and the winner of two NBA slam dunk contests, Wilkins registered 26,668 points and 7,169 rebounds in his NBA career.

Wilkins's nickname was the "The Human Highlight Film" for his athletic ability and highlight reel dunks. His trademark dunk was a powerful one- or two-handed windmill, dunks he used to capture the slam dunk contest titles in 1985 and 1990. As a basketball player he was known as an acrobatic scorer, somewhat of a gunner, though an outstanding finisher and one of the greatest dunkers in NBA history.

His #21 jersey was retired by the Hawks on January 13, 2001. He is one of four players whose jerseys have been retired by the Hawks.

Early NBA years[link]

Wilkins notched his first Slam-Dunk Championship at the NBA All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis. He went on to finish the season with a 27.4 scoring average, good for sixth in the NBA. He ranked second on the Hawks in rebounding (6.9 rpg) and steals (135). For the first of two straight seasons he led the NBA in field-goal attempts, with 1,891. After going 0-for-11 from the three-point line the previous season, Wilkins made 25 of 81 three-point shots in 1984–85. He also shot better than 80 percent from the line for the first of 10 consecutive seasons. Despite Wilkins's efforts, Atlanta finished 34-48 and failed to reach the playoffs.

Wilkins exploded into the NBA's elite circle in 1985–86, winning the league scoring title with an average of 30.3 points per game. He was an NBA All-Star for the first time and was voted to the All-NBA First Team at the end of the season. He failed in his bid to repeat as NBA Slam-Dunk champion, his competition coming from an unlikely source. The Hawks had signed 5-foot-7 Anthony "Spud" Webb as a free agent prior to the season, and Webb dazzled the All-Star Saturday crowd in Dallas by soaring more than 4 feet (1.2 m) to the basket on each of his dunk attempts. Atlanta turned its fortunes around in dramatic fashion, winning 16 more games in the 1985–86 season to finish 50-32 for the year. Wilkins scored 57 points in one game and ranked among the Hawks' leaders in rebounding (7.9 rpg), steals (138), and free-throw percentage (.818). Atlanta beat the Detroit Pistons in four games in the first round of the playoffs, but the Hawks could not get past the eventual NBA-champion Boston Celtics, losing four games to one in the Eastern Conference semifinals. Wilkins averaged 28.6 points in the nine playoff games.

After playing as a reserve the previous year, Wilkins became the first Atlanta Hawks player to start in an NBA All-Star Game since Eddie Johnson in 1981. Wilkins finished the year second in the league in scoring (29.0 ppg) to Michael Jordan's 37.1 points per game. He scored the 10,000th point of his career against the Chicago Bulls on April 16 and was named to the All-NBA Second Team at the season's end. Atlanta went into the season with high expectations after a 50-32 mark the previous year, and the Hawks totalled a franchise-record 57 victories. Doc Rivers, Kevin Willis, Tree Rollins, and Mike McGee contributed as the club made it through the first round of the NBA playoffs before losing in the Eastern Conference semifinals to the Detroit Pistons. Wilkins averaged 26.8 points during the postseason, the second of six straight playoffs in which he would average at least 20 points.

Late 1980s[link]

In the 1987-88 season, Wilkins posted the highest scoring average of his career and finished second to Jordan in the NBA scoring race. He averaged 30.7 points for the Hawks, but Jordan bested him at 35.0. Jordan also defeated Wilkins for the Slam Dunk Championship at the NBA All-Star Weekend in Chicago. Wilkins earned a berth on the All-NBA Second Team and became the first Hawks player to be named NBA Player of the Week three times in a season. In his third straight All-Star Game appearance, Wilkins scored 29 points on 12-of-22 shooting, leading the East squad to a 138-133 victory.

Atlanta (50-32) won at least 50 games for the third straight season and advanced to the 1988 Eastern Conference Semifinals before losing to the Boston Celtics in seven games. In Game 7 on May 22, Wilkins and Larry Bird carried their respective teams to a thrilling finish, trading bucket for bucket in the fourth quarter until Boston won with a 118-116 victory. Wilkins finished with 47 points and Bird had 34-with 20 of his points tallied in the fourth quarter. “The basket was like a well,” remembered Wilkins. “I couldn’t miss. He couldn’t miss. And it went down to the last shot of the game. Who was going to make the last shot? That's the greatest game I’ve ever played in or seen played. It was two guys who just did not want to lose.”

During the 1989 season with the Hawks, Wilkins's scoring average dropped slightly to 26.2, good for seventh in the league, but he was an All-Star for the fourth straight year. He shot a career-best .844 from the free-throw line and ranked second on the Hawks with 117 steals. Basketball writers selected him to the All-NBA Third Team at season's end. The Hawks added Reggie Theus and Moses Malone to the team in 1988–89. Malone averaged 20.2 points and finished fourth in the league with his 11.8 rebounding average. Theus averaged 15.8 points. Without 7-foot (2.1 m) Kevin Willis, however, who missed the entire season with a fractured left foot, Atlanta lost to the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round. Wilkins averaged 27.2 points in the playoffs.

Wilkins returned to dunking prominence in 1989–90 by edging out the Sacramento Kings’ Kenny Smith for his second NBA Slam-Dunk championship. He averaged 26.7 points to finish fifth in the NBA scoring race. He led the Hawks in steals for the first time since 1985–86, finishing with 126. His .484 field-goal percentage was the best since his rookie season, and for the sixth straight year he did not foul out of a game. Nonetheless, Atlanta struggled to a 41-41 record in Mike Fratello's last season as head coach, failing to make the playoffs for only the second time in Wilkins' career.

1990s[link]

Wilkins averaged a career-high 9.0 rebounds in 1990—91, leading the Hawks in that category for the first time in his nine NBA seasons. He also led the team in scoring for the eighth straight year, finishing at 25.9 points per game—seventh best in the NBA. He registered a career-high 265 assists while developing a three-point shot he would use more and more in the later stages of his career. He hit 85-of-249 from long range for a .341 percentage, by far his most prolific three-point numbers to date. Wilkins made his sixth All-Star Game appearance, scoring 12 points in the East's 116-114 victory over the West. He was selected to the All-NBA Second Team for the third time in his career. Atlanta returned to the playoffs after a year's absence, drawing the defending NBA champion Detroit Pistons in the first round. The Hawks pushed the Pistons to a fifth game, but Detroit routed Atlanta, 113-81, in Game 5. Wilkins averaged 20.8 points in the five games, but shot .372 from the field and .133 from three-point range.

After 42 games, Wilkins' season was brought to an abrupt halt by a ruptured Achilles tendon against the Philadelphia 76ers on January 28. He underwent surgery on January 30. Seven weeks before the injury, Wilkins had set an NBA record by making 23 consecutive free throws in a game against the Chicago Bulls.^[4] He also scored the 20,000th point of his career, becoming only the 16th player at the time to reach that plateau. On the day of the injury, Wilkins was named a reserve on the Eastern Conference All-Star Team. His 28.1 scoring average was his highest in five years, and the 52 points he scored in a double-overtime game on December 7 against the New York Knicks were the most by an NBA player that season.

Wilkins was honored by several sports publications^[who?] the next season as the NBA Comeback Player of the Year. He scored an average of 27.7 points per game in the first month of the season. He then suffered a setback when he fractured the ring finger on his right hand on December 15, sitting out the next 11 games. He returned to rack up 29.4 points per game on .487 shooting in January, then added 31.5 points per game on .519 shooting in February. By the end of the season, his scoring average was up to 29.9, second in the league behind Michael Jordan's 32.6. When Wilkins scored his 31st point in a February 2 game against the Seattle SuperSonics, he broke Bob Pettit's franchise scoring record of 20,880 points. He had developed into a full-fledged three-point threat, hitting 120 of 316 attempts from long range to shatter his previous career bests. He was later selected to the All-NBA Second Team. The Chicago Bulls swept the Hawks in the first round of the playoffs 3-0.

Wilkins showed no signs of fading in his 12th NBA season, even after a tumultuous midseason trade. After 11½ years with the Atlanta Hawks, Wilkins was traded to the Los Angeles Clippers on February 24 in exchange for Danny Manning. This is still the only time in NBA history a team in first place in their conference traded its leading scorer after the All-Star break. Prior to the trade Wilkins averaged 24.4 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 2.3 assists for Atlanta, leading the club to a 36-16 record. At midseason he appeared in his eighth NBA All-Star Game. However, Hawks management and new coach Lenny Wilkens felt Manning and his skills might help the team more during the stretch run. The top-seeded Hawks lost in the conference semifinals to the Indiana Pacers. Wilkins left Atlanta as the team's all-time leading scorer with 23,292 points. In his final 25 games of the season Wilkins averaged 29.1 points and 7.0 rebounds. On March 25 he returned to Atlanta in a Clippers uniform and tallied 36 points and 10 rebounds against his former team. Overall, Wilkins's 26.0 scoring average ranked fourth in the NBA. He concluded the season with 24,019 career points, placing ninth on the NBA's all-time list. Wilkins became a free agent after the 1993–94 season and signed with the Boston Celtics. Shortly after the signing, he helped Dream Team II to a gold medal at the 1994 World Championship of Basketball.

European champion[link]

Unhappy with his role on a rebuilding Celtics team, Wilkins signed to play for Panathinaikos of the Greek League. He averaged 20.1 points and 7.4 rebounds for Panathinaikos in the Euroleague,^[5] and helped them win the Euroleague title in 1996, alongside teammates Fragiskos Alvertis, Stojan Vranković, and Panagiotis Giannakis. During the Euroleague Final Four, that was held in Paris, he had 35 points and 8 rebounds in the semifinal against CSKA, and a double-double, with 16 points and 10 rebounds against Barcelona in the final. His performances earned him the Final Four MVP award. He also won the Greek Cup with Panathinaikos, and was named the MVP of the Cup Final. However, he failed to win the Greek Championship, as his team Panathinaikos, lost the Greek League Finals to their arch-rivals, Olympiacos, 3 games to 2.