A devout Catholic, George Mikan ended up as one of the first
superstars of basketball. Mikan did
things that his predecessors had never imagined, and that his descendants would
imagine and do in way better, more entertaining ways. Mikan came to basketball during an era where
nothing about it was fun, due in large part to everyone being too stupid to
realize that tall people could dunk and that African-Americans should probably
be allowed a part in all this. He
averaged 23 points a game in his career, which is all the more impressive when
you consider he had a worse field goal percentage than Jamal Crawford. As a general rule of thumb, anyone with a
worse field goal percentage than Jamal Crawford is not worth your time and
should be ignored.
Astute readers may notice around this time that there is a
vast swath of time that has been skipped between Dr. Basketball’s invention of
the sport and George Mikan’s professional debut in 1948. If these smarmy, holier-than-thou readers
would take a second to look at the history of basketball in that time, they
will find that oh God is it ever awful.
Really, all of basketball before the 1960s was a colossal waste of time
in terms of enjoyment even if it did keep the vampires at bay. To get a good idea of how much fun basketball
was during that time period, please read The
Great Gatsby, a research paper by high school student Steven “Willy”
Williamson on The Great Gatsby by F.
Scott Fitzgerald. When you have finished
it, read it again and continue doing so until you have read it at least 15
times without breaks. This is how
exciting basketball was.
 |
| Wake up, we're almost done here. |
The sport was in such a poor state that a man from Wyoming
turned out to be the biggest innovator of his generation. Wyoming!
Nothing good has come out of Wyoming since ever because there is nothing
in Wyoming to come out of it. No, there
is just Kenny Sailors, the jump-shootin’ bandit who played for several made-up
teams just before the creation of the NBA.
Sailors had one good year in his career: in 1949, the first season of
the NBA, when he averaged 17 PPG.
Otherwise, he was kind of bad at most everything. Everything, that is, except INNOVATION!
Yes, Sailors is the man who invented the jump shot, the
fifth-most exciting way to shoot a basketball behind dunk, layup, hook shot,
granny, and from a cannon. It is one of
the most efficient ways to shoot the ball, however, which made all the difference
at the time. Until Sailors introduced
his INNOVATION! to the world at large, basketball players were forced to guess
at how to shoot the ball. The most
common form was the rugby-style punt, which has since found prominence in
football. No one had ever thought of
doing what Sailors was doing.
No one, that is, except women.
 |
| One of these types. |
It’s true: it was women who first invented the jump
shot. During World War II, the American
landscape was severely lacking sports stars, as most were squandering their
primes defending their countries or playing baseball. This left a void for women to fill, a nice
change of pace from women having their voids filled[1]. Women began to play in basketball leagues
across the United States, with only the most backwards of basketball outposts
requiring them to undertake a reverse Juwanna Mann, also known as a Mike
Miller. There had been no sort of
training system in place for women either, meaning each player brought their
own homespun twist on how basketball was meant to be played. Some came from exceptionally violent
basketball backgrounds and used their physicality to beat the other women
around them into submission in much the same way Jason Kidd would decades later[2]. Others had never been taught about dribbling
and instead relied on an array of fancy passes to move the ball. And others?
Others used the jump shot.
Kenny Sailors watched many of these games in his college
days, as Wyoming was then known as a hotbed for spectator sports. Sailors recognized that no man was doing what
these women were and began to slowly work the shot into his own arsenal. When asked where he had come up with the
idea, the greedy Sailors lied, taking all the credit for himself. As the women’s leagues had been dissolved by
then and all their members murdered, no one was there to question him. Women across the nation were disheartened and
went about inventing their own style of basketball, lest they be constantly
compared to the men’s game. Meanwhile,
the highest levels of the sport saw men adopting the jump shot post haste, to
the point that everyone used it by the time the NBA was created. This was the turning point for the men’s and
women’s games: Sailors, using the powers associated with his racist-stereotype
Gypsy upbringing, put a curse on the women’s game, forcing them to play a more
ground-based style of basketball that was less visually appealing for all time.
Sadly, even Sailors’ “INNOVATION!” wasn’t enough to make
basketball entertaining. While the jump
shot made it viable to score from farther than a foot away, there was still no
incentive to do so. A basket was worth
the same two points from anywhere on the court and shooting from farther away
did nothing to change that. It didn’t
even activate a dual ball bonus. No, the
tallest men still dominated the league, to the point that every game was an
exercise in who could pass to Neil Johnston the most. As it turned out, this was a very beneficial
strategy for the 76ers, as everyone else insisted on passing the ball to their
center. Basketball was disgusting enough
that passing to the opposition was the most effective winning strategy.
Time waits for no man, however, which was why this era
thankfully came to an end (eventually).
There were still impressive talents during this period, though most
agree that these talents usually had one skill[3]. Basketball was just learning how to be a
spectator sport and how it would exist on a national stage. It was a very slow learner. All you really need to know about this era is
that a bunch of guys in the Hall of Fame played during it and are in the Hall
of Fame because nostalgia is a bitch.
It’s the same reason that in 50 years, we’ll be grousing about Andre
Miller’s legendary career. This was an
era where every player was Andre Miller.
 |
| "I scored 50 in a game? Get out of here, I don't believe you." |
For the purposes of impressing your basketball-loving
friends and asshole older relatives here are a few names that you should keep
in mind to drop whenever they start questioning your overall knowledge. Please do not bother with looking up anything
about these players, as you will be so fucking bored by everything you
learn. For example: did you know that
Bob Pettit was the son of sheriff and once set the record for points in an SEC
game with 60? Of course you didn’t, because
nobody cares about either of those things.
If those were interesting facts, we’d all be grousing about when Ron
Howard scored 35 points against his kid’s basketball team or something.
Anyway, some important names to remember:
George Mikan: Did you know that he isn’t Bob Pettit?
Bob Pettit: Did you know that he isn’t George Mikan?
Paul Arizin: Did you know that he isn’t Bob Pettit or George
Mikan?
Hal Greer: The first human Green Lantern and Philadelphia’s
leading career scorer.
Vern Mikkelsen: The most Minnesotan person of all time,
Mikkelsen also played basketball. In the
NBA!
Dick Schnittker: His name is not an expletive.
Dolph Schayes: The first and least successful Hitler clone,
as he was cloned when Hitler was just a regular asshole.
Laramie Richard: The top scorer for the 1958 New York Knicks, he also presumably had hobbies outside of basketball, some of note even.
Clyde Lovellette: A famous vagabond, he played for every NBA
team in existence during his career, which is to say he played for four teams.
Gene Shue: Remains the only person to have been in the NBA
in the 1950s and not average double-digit rebounds.
Jack Twyman: Half of the only duo in history to each average
30 points a game, but the bad half.
Gene Tenace: Wrong again, asshole, he played baseball.
Harry Gallatin: Invented fruit punch and blue raspberry gallatin.
Monk Meineke: A notorious germaphobe, Meineke was out of the league after just three seasons. He would go on to have the same name as two famous things but not be related to either.
Kleggie Hermsen: Did you know he played for the Indianapolis Olympians? Sometimes naming things is harder than it looks!
Willie Naulls: Look, I don't care. Just make up some names, nobody's going to call you on it. I made up Laramie Richard, and nobody noticed that. Fuck this.
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