Top Five Favorite Players of the 1950's

        Hello there!  We're going to be sharing lists of our five favorite NBA players from each decade beginning with the 1950's (the actual NBA was formed in 1949).  Please take note that these are NOT the players we believe to be the best of the decades in which they played.  These are simply the players we like the most with brief explanations of why we think they are/were so darn cool.  Enjoy and thanks for reading.   

05. Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton

        Nat Clifton was the first black player to ever sign an NBA contract.  We think that's pretty darn cool.  However, the main reason why he's on this list is because of his radicle nickname.  Clifton was called "Sweetwater" because he loved Coca-Cola so much.  In the book "Tall Tales" by Terry Pluto, George Yardley recalls having Clifton over for dinner one night and because the Yardley's didn't have any soda, Nat went out and bought six cases of the stuff and asked Yardley, "You know why they call me Sweetwater, don't you?"  The guy LOVED Coca-Cola.  We LOVE Coca-Cola.  Ipso-facto, he's one of our favorites.  

04. Bob Cousy

        All you really need to do is watch Cousy's left-handed hook bank shot in this video to understand why he's on our list.

 03. Dolph Schayes

        Dolph Schayes is without question the all-time king of Jewish basketball players.  He had wicked range on his two-handed set shot and every time he connected from the field his fist would thrust into the air like a knee-jerk reaction.  We think the best Jewish player ever with an awesome set shot who raised his fist in the air after every basket he ever made should be on anyones list of favorite players from the 1950's.  

02. Bob Pettit
        It's no secret that we love great rebounders here at 80 Percent B-ball.  Well guess what?  Bob Pettit was a super great rebounder.  The 6-9, 205 pound Pettit yanked down a whopping 16.2 ballboards per game for his entire career (third highest rpg average all-time behind Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell (not bad company)).  Oh, he could put the biscuit in the basket too (26.4 ppg career average).  In game six of the 1958 NBA finals, Pettit laid the smackdown on the Celtics with a 50 point onslaught.  He also made the game winning and championship clinching tip-in in the same game.  It was the only year that the Hawks have ever won a title and it was one of only two years that a Russell-led Celtic team finished a season championshipless.  When you win a championship instead of Bill Russell, you know you're a super-duper mega star. 

             

01. Maurice Stokes 

           Check out Maurice Stokes' career stat line: 16.4 ppg, 17.3 rpg, 5.3 apg.  That is holy-crap good.  Unfortunately Stokes' career lasted only three seasons.  A few days after being knocked unconscious in a game, Stokes became very ill, went into a coma and was left permanently paralyzed.  But we're not here to talk about the amazingly uplifting story of Stokes' life post-accident or how Jack Twyman looked after him for many, many years (if you'd like to know about that story, and we hope you do, click here).  We're here to celebrate how amazing Stokes was on the court.  You already saw his awesomely versatile stat line.  At 6-7, Stokes rebounded like a center and handled/passed the ball like a guard.  In "Tall Tales", Twyman claimed, "He [Maurice] could legitimately play forward, guard or center."  Had Stokes' accident never happened, who knows how good he could have been?  Twyman also said, "I'm coming at this from a biased perspective, but I honestly believe that Maurice had a chance to be perhaps the greatest player of all time."  We sure as heck aren't going to argue with Mr. Twyman on that one.