Dunks and long three-pointers. Spinning layups and graceful hook shots. Even free throws.
The points just piled up for the top scorers in the National Basketball Association (NBA), whether they were leading fast breaks or jamming home passes. Some stood near the basket, waiting to be fed the ball for a monstrous, rim-rocking throwdown. Others used lightning-quick first steps to drive down the lane, float through the air, and softly lay in the ball.
All were great. All were winners because, after all, the idea of the game is to score points.
Nobody did that better than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a six-time NBA MVP whose 38,387 points are the most in pro basketball history. He invented the “Sky Hook”—an unblockable shot that became like a lay-in for the 7-foot-2 center who also dominated college basketball when his name was Lew Alcindor.
Another brilliant center was the powerful Wilt Chamberlain, the only man to score 100 points in an NBA game. Chamberlain could palm the ball as if it were an egg, yet his gentle finger rolls made it seem as if the ball could break as he gently laid it in the basket.
For sheer grace, it has been the shooting guards who seemed to fly who truly made the NBA so popular. Michael Jordan, the MVP of all six NBA Finals in which he played—and won—is considered by many the best player ever. Kobe Bryant, the nearest thing to Jordan, has become an unstoppable force with the ball. Reggie Miller was the most dangerous shooter from downtown the league has seen. And Jerry West, so pure a shooter and memorable a player that his silhouette serves as the NBA logo, also was a pinpoint passer and excellent defender.
Not that guards are the only ones who can pile up the points. Three forwards always mentioned among the top scorers are Larry Bird, Karl Malone, and Elvin Hayes.
Bird was a deadly outside shooter from anywhere on the court, and he was so confident in his skills he challenged defenders to come try to stop him. They couldn’t.
Malone was the perfect power forward, a man whose strength let him dominate under the boards. Hayes, the Big E, never took a shot he thought would miss. He rarely did.
And then there was the Big O, Oscar Robertson, who once averaged a triple-double for a season. Everything that the other great scorers specialized in, Robertson also could do.
Put these ten men on the court against each other and each side might score a thousand points. Or more.