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Watch the Top 10 plays from Darryl Dawkins' career, including a pair of backboard-shattering dunks.
Darryl Dawkins (born January 11, 1957 in Orlando, Florida) is a former professional basketball player, most noted for his days with the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Nets, although he also played briefly for the Detroit Pistons and Utah Jazz late in his career.
*Biography
Without Darryl Dawkins, the NBA would have been a whole lot less fun. Dawkins was an enormous man who skipped college for the NBA, broke backboards, named his dunks, dreamed up imaginary planets, played some darn good basketball, and generally spent a career as one of the most enigmatic and entertaining players in the game.
The 6-foot-11, 252-pound Dawkins was terrifically strong, could run the floor, had a nice jumper, and could rebound and block shots. He 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.
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, Dave Meyers, Marvin Webster, and Alvan Adams.
With his size, speed, and touch, Dawkins was expected to take over the league. But he handled the expectations in typical fashion.
In 1977--78 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.
In a game against the Kansas City Kings in November 1979 Dawkins threw down such a massive dunk that the backboard shattered into a thousand tiny shards, sending the Kings' Bill Robinzine ducking for cover and amazing a nation of fans. 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 backboard-breaking dunk "Chocolate Thunder Flying, Robinzine Crying, Teeth Shaking, Glass Breaking, Rump Roasting, Bun Toasting, Wham, Bam, Glass Breaker I Am Jam." 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," "Double D," and "Chocolate Thunder."
Also, he claimed to be an alien from planet Lovetron where he spent off-season practicing "interplanetary funkmanship" and where his girlfriend Juicy Lucy still lived.
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 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.
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 1982--83 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. |
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