13 NBA players who transformed basketball the most

The debate over whether Michael Jordan or LeBron James is the “GOAT” has been going on so long now it’s past the point of tedious — even more so because there shouldn’t be any debate.

Jordan won 10 scoring titles, captured six NBA titles (and was named most valuable player each time), was named Defensive Player of the Year in 1988 and made the all-league defensive first team nine times.

James? He’s led the league in scoring just once, won half as many league titles, has never been named Defensive Player of the Year, and has made the all-defensive team five times. Yes, he’s got more rebounds and assists than M.J., but apart from that, there’s simply no comparison.

If anyone should be mentioned in the same breath as Jordan in the conversation about who’s the greatest of all time, it shouldn’t be James, it should be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Maybe people have forgotten, because he retired more than 30 years ago, but Abdul-Jabbar is still the league’s all-time leading scorer. He won two scoring titles, was a six-time champion just like Jordan, and won one more MVP award than Mike — more than anybody else.

Kareem was also far more dominant in college than Jordan was. In fact, he was perhaps the most successful college player ever, winning three national championships and being named player of the year three times. And he was only eligible to play for three years, because freshmen weren’t allowed on the court back then.

The main reason Abdul-Jabbar is no longer in the conversation has nothing to do with what he accomplished and everything to do with recency bias. A lot of people today never saw Kareem play, but they have seen LeBron, so they go with what they know. James is an image that’s vivid in their mind; Abdul-Jabbar is just a name on a stat sheet they may never have even seen, except in a few old clips.

More interesting than the badly biased debate over who’s the GOAT (a ridiculous term, when you think about it) is the question of who’s the most influential NBA player of all-time. Who had the biggest impact on the game? Who changed its course the most? I asked myself that question and came up with a list of 13 players who were so good, so innovative, that they fundamentally changed the game. Here’s my list, from No. 13 to No. 1. My top pick may shock you, but remember: This isn’t about choosing the best players, but the ones who most left their mark on the game.

Let the debate begin.

13.

Dirk Nowitzki

Nowitzki was a trailblazer in several respects. His fadeaway jumper made him the first 7-footer to be a legitimate outside shooting threat, connecting on 38 percent of his 3-point tries during his career. He played 21 seasons with the Dallas Mavericks (including 15 playoff appearances, two trips to the NBA Finals and one championship) — the longest tenure for any player with a single franchise.

A native of Germany who played club ball there rather than college ball stateside, he’s widely regarded as the best European to ever play in the league.

12.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Why is Kareem so far down the list after I argued that he belongs in the conversation for best ever? Because he was actually too good. Abdul-Jabbar changed the game fundamentally during his career, but it didn’t last, because no one could do what he did. No one who came after him could ever duplicate his biggest weapon, the sky hook, and I can think of just one player who came close to following in his footsteps: Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs.

Abdul-Jabbar’s height (7-foot-2) was such an advantage at UCLA — where he was known as Lew Alcindor — that the NCAA made it illegal to dunk the ball in 1967. Over the next few years, other big men took the court evening the playing field a bit, so the NCAA rescinded the so-called “Alcindor Rule” in 1975.

11.

Julius Erving

People tend to forget about Dr. J, but he took the game to new heights, literally, with his above-the-rim play and dynamic dunks. The Doctor was the flashiest star the game had ever seen, although he had competition in the person of ABA rival David “Skywalker” Thompson. What hurt him was the fact that he spent is first five seasons (his most productive statistically) in the American Basketball Association, where he won three scoring titles and was a double-digit rebounder every year.

Erving finished his career with more than 30,000 points scored, two ABA championships and an NBA title in 1982-83, one of three times in four years the 76ers faced the Lakers in the Finals. But as good as he was, it was his style that elevated him (literally) to the status of game-changer.

10.

Larry Bird

Bird revolutionized his position with his silky smooth outside shot and was one of the most versatile players ever to play forward. He’s the only player in history to average 20 points, 10 rebounds and five assists for his full career, and he’s one of just two players to have more than one 50-40-90 seasons (field goal, 3-point and free-throw percentage). He’s got two; Steve Nash has four.

The NBA adopted the 3-point shot during Bird’s first season, but he made himself right at home beyond the arc, hitting 40.6 percent of his shots from distance as a rookie. He paced the league in 3-pointers for two consecutive seasons in the mid-1980s, at which point he also became the league’s all-time leader in that category. Along with Magic Johnson, he helped transform pro basketball into a truly major spectator sport.

9.

Elgin Baylor

Before there was Michael Jordan, before there was Dr. J, there was Elgin Baylor. People forget just how good Baylor was, in part because he played in the 1960s, and in part because his scoring exploits were overshadowed by those of Wilt Chamberlain. But there’s no doubt that Baylor’s athleticism and skill set revolutionized the game.

No one had seen anything like it before. Baylor never led the league in scoring, but his 38.3 average in 1961-62 ranks fourth on the all-time list (Wilt Chamberlain averaged an incredible 50.4 points a game that same year). A year earlier, he had averaged 34.8 points and 19.8 rebounds, as Chamberlain led in both categories. In one 1961 game, Chamberlain scored 78 points — the second-most of his career — in a classic duel with Baylor, who had 63 as his Lakers beat the Philadelphia Warriors 151-147 in triple-overtime.

Baylor ranks 10th on the all-time list for rebounds per game, just ahead of Dennis Rodman. Baylor twice set the NBA’s single-game scoring record: Netting 64 points in 1959 and topping it a year later with 71, an effort that still ranks among the top 10 all time.

8.

Oscar Robertson

The Big O was Magic Johnson before Magic Johnson. He was Russell Westbrook before Russell Westbrook. After being named College Player of the Year at the University of Cincinnati, he continued his career with the Cincinnati Royals in the NBA, where he averaged more than 30 points a game in six of his first seven seasons (then won the scoring title with a 29.2 average in Season 8).

A six-time assist leader, Robertson averaged a triple-double for the entire season in 1962, the first player to do so. He finally won an NBA title in 1971, after being traded to Milwaukee, where he teamed up with Abdul-Jabbar.

7.

Bill Russell

Like Abdul-Jabbar, Russell was so good at what he did best — in this case, rebounding — that no one was really able to follow in his footsteps. Only Chamberlain averaged more rebounds per game than Russell’s 22.45 for his career. Other than those two, no one averaged more than 16.22.

Russell paved the way for rebounding machines like Nate Thurmond, Dennis Rodman, Dwight Howard and Andre Drummond. And he was better than all of them. Of the four highest single-game rebounding totals in history, Russell owns three of them, and he’s one of just two players to have pulled down 50 or more in a game (Chamberlain is the other). Plus, none of Russell’s successors even came close to his five MVP awards or 11 NBA championships.

6.

Magic Johnson

Johnson led the league in assists four times and steals twice. He won five titles, three MVP awards and an NCAA title. But his leadership and versatility are what put him so high on this list. Along with Bird, he took the NBA from a distant third behind football and baseball in the American consciousness and brought it to the mainstream.

Two games were really all it took: In 1979, as a sophomore, he led the Michigan State Spartans past Bird’s Indiana State team for the NCAA crown in an epic battle of two greats. Then, the following year, he helped put the L.A. Lakers in the NBA Finals for the first time since 1973. The Lakers won the series in Game 6, thanks to Magic. The team’s point guard, he switched to center when Abdul-Jabbar was sidelined with an injury. He played all five positions in the game, scoring a game-high 42 points with 15 rebounds and seven assists. And he was still just a rookie at the time.  

5.

Bob Cousy

Cousy was the NBA’s prototypical point guard. His flashy moves paved the way for everyone from Magic Johnson to John Stockton, Russell Westbrook to Jason Kidd. Beginning in 1952, he led the NBA in assists for eight consecutive seasons, a record that stood until Stockton surpassed it in 1996. Cousy won six titles with the Boston Celtics.

Cousy was an innovator off the court, as well. No major sports league had a players union in 1954, and the NBA didn’t have a minimum salary, pension or health plan for its players. Cousy responded by forming the National Basketball Players Association, then served as its president. After he retired, he served as head coach at Boston College for six seasons, posting an overall record of 114-38 and qualifying for the NCAA or NIT tournament five times.

He later coached the NBA’s Cincinnati Royals, served as a soccer league commissioner and a broadcaster. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019.

4.

Stephen Curry

No one changed the game as much in the 21st century as the Golden State Warriors point guard, who transformed the 3-point shot from a secondary weapon into a dagger. He led the league in 3-pointers five straight seasons starting in 2012-13, when he set a record with 272. He broke that record with 286 two years later, and shattered it with 402 the year after that — mark that still stood in 2020.

That same year, he led the Warriors to a record 73 regular-season wins and became the only player ever to be chosen as unanimous league MVP, winning the award for the second straight year. Before that, guards had won the award just 14 times in 59 seasons (eight of them having been claimed by Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson). Curry’s first award began a string of four straight seasons in which the MVP was claimed by a guard, evidence of how Curry had shifted the focus of the game from the big men to the guards.

As of 2020, Curry has eight of the top 20 3-point shooting games in history, including two of the top four, and ranks third on the all-time list in just 10-plus seasons, behind only Ray Allen and Reggie Miller, both of whom played 18 years.

3.

Wilt Chamberlain

“The Stilt” dominated the game statistically in a way no one ever had. Looking at the numbers, even today, will make your head spin. Michael Jordan owns the highest career scoring average of any player, but his best average for a single season was 37.1. Chamberlain topped that figure in each of his first four seasons, averaging an unbelievable 50.4 points a game in 1961-62 and 44.8 the next year — the only two times anyone has ever averaged more than 40 points in a game.

Wilt led the NBA in scoring in each of his first seven seasons. On March 2, 1962, Chamberlain became the only player to ever score 100 points in a game, and even today has 15 of the top 23 scoring games in NBA history.

But Chamberlain wasn’t just a scorer. Even as his point totals declined during the second half of his career, he continued to dominate the boards. He was the league’s top rebounder 11 times in 14 seasons, including his first four and last three. His career per-game average of 22.9 ranks first all-time.

One thing Chamberlain couldn’t do well was shoot free throws. So, in high school, he would stand at the top of the key, toss the ball toward the basket, then take a two-step running leap and dunk it. This led to a ban on the practice when he entered college.

2.

Michael Jordan

It’s hard to overstate Jordan’s impact on the game, but his influence extended past his wizardry on the court to pop culture and beyond. If Johnson and Bird took NBA into the big time, Jordan elevated it into the stratosphere, becoming the most famous athlete on the planet.

He led the NBA in scoring 10 times — including three seasons after he retired for the first time to try his hand at baseball (he hit .202 with 30 stolen bases and 51 RBI for the Double-A Birmingham Barons in 1994). Three of his six NBA titles came before that break; three others came afterward.

Jordan starred in the most successful basketball movie ever, appearing opposite Bugs Bunny in 1996’s Space Jam, which grossed $230 million worldwide. The silhouette symbol of Jordan going up for a dunk, owned by Nike, became one of the two most iconic basketball symbols in history, along with Jerry West’s profile on the NBA logo. And the Air Jordan shoe itself became the most famous sneaker in history.

Jordan’s five MVP awards are tied with Bill Russell’s as the second most ever, trailing only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s total. In retirement, he became the only former NBA player to serve as owner of a team in the league, the Charlotte Hornets.

1.

George Mikan

His nickname says it all: “Mr. Basketball.” It’s hard to comprehend today just how dominant Mikan was during the NBA’s formative years. He only played nine seasons, but in that time won seven pro titles — one more than Jordan: two in the National Basketball League, one in the Basketball Association of America, and four more after the two leagues merged to form the NBA.

In 1947, the bespectacled giant became the first and only player in the NBL’s 12-year history to score more than 1,000 points in a season, leading the league in scoring. He won three more scoring titles and also led the NBA in rebounding during two of the five seasons when that statistic was kept. It was Mikan who made the center position most teams’ focal point, a situation that continued for the rest of the century, through Chamberlain, Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaq.

At 6-foot-10, Mikan towered over most of his opponents in an era when players were much smaller than they are today. Mikan’s dominance was responsible for three huge changes in the NBA’s rules — the main reason he’s listed at No. 1. The league adopted the goaltending rule to keep him from blocking shots on the way down and doubled the width of the lane to 12 feet so he couldn’t camp out under the basket without violating the 3-second rule. (The foul lane is still known as “the key” because it was shaped like a key before Mikan came along.)

The NBA adopted its 24-second shot clock in response to a game in which the Fort Wayne Pistons refused to shoot in order to keep the ball away from Mikan, who had scored 15 of the Lakers’ 18 points to that point. The Pistons ran out the game clock, winning the lowest-scoring game in league history, 19-18.

Mikan retired in 1956 as the first player to score 10,000 points in his career, but he wasn’t done innovating yet. In 1967, he became the first commissioner of the American Basketball Association and designed its distinctive red-white-and-blue basketball.

Honorable mentions: Kobe Bryant, James Harden, LeBron James, Allen Iverson, Russell Westbrook, Rick Barry, Pete Maravich, Shaquille O’Neal, Kevin Durant, Charles Barkley.

Photo: Stephen Curry of Golden State drives around Garrett Temple of the Washington Wizards in a 2016 game. Keith Allison, CC BY-SA 2.0