Curated playlist
Centers (basketball)
- Andrea BargnaniAndrea Bargnani walked into the 2006 NBA draft as the most scrutinized big man to come out of Europe in years. The 7-foot Italian power forward had drawn comparisons to Dirk Nowitzki for his perimeter shooting, his footwork, and his…
- Elvin HayesElvin Ernest Hayes scored 39 points and held Lew Alcindor to just 15 in front of 52,693 fans at the Houston Astrodome on the 20th of January, 1968. It was the first nationally televised regular-season college basketball game in history,…
- Pau GasolPau Gasol Sáez was born on the 6th of July, 1980, in Barcelona, at Sant Pau Hospital, where both of his parents worked. He was 11 years old when Magic Johnson announced his HIV-positive status in 1991, and that news, heard at school,…
- Tim DuncanTim Duncan was born on the 25th of April 1976, on the island of Saint Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and he nearly never played basketball at all. His first passion was swimming. His sister Tricia had competed at the 1988 Summer…
- Joel EmbiidJoel Embiid scored 70 points on the 22nd of January 2024, breaking a franchise record that had stood since Wilt Chamberlain set it in 1967. He did it in a regular-season game against the San Antonio Spurs, finishing with 70 points, 18…
- Patrick EwingPatrick Aloysius Ewing Sr. was born on the 5th of August, 1962, in Kingston, Jamaica, one day before his home country declared independence. He would go on to become one of the most recognizable and dominant big men in the history of…
- Hakeem OlajuwonHakeem Abdul Olajuwon did not pick up a basketball until the age of 15. He was a soccer goalkeeper in Lagos, Nigeria, a city he would later describe as "very cosmopolitan" with "all different types of people." His first real exposure to…
- Bill RussellBill Russell won eleven NBA championships in thirteen seasons, a record in North American professional sports that no team has matched since. He won his first title in 1957 and his last in 1969, bookending a run so dominant that his…
- Kevin LoveKevin Love's uncle is Mike Love, a co-founder of the Beach Boys. His cousins Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, and Dennis Wilson were also founding members of the same group. Love was born on the 7th of September 1988, in Santa Monica,…
- Moses MaloneMoses Eugene Malone Sr. grew up in Petersburg, Virginia as an only child, raised almost entirely by his mother Mary, who had left school after the fifth grade. She worked to give him a life she never had. He repaid her by becoming one of…
- Nikola JokićNikola Jokić was selected 41st overall in the 2014 NBA draft. His name was announced on a news ticker near the bottom of the ESPN telecast, famously overshadowed by a Taco Bell commercial airing above it at the same moment. No one watching…
- Shaquille O'NealShaquille Rashaun O'Neal was born on the 6th of March, 1972, in Newark, New Jersey, to a mother named Lucille and a biological father, Joe Toney, who would vanish from his life before it had barely begun. Toney was imprisoned for drug…
- Chris BoshChris Bosh once stood at center court in Toronto's Air Canada Centre as fans broke into a chant usually reserved for the league's biggest stars: 'MVP'. It happened on the 7th of February 2007, after Bosh scored a career-high 41 points at…
- Wilt ChamberlainWilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in a single game. Not in a pickup game, not in some forgotten exhibition. On the 2nd of March 1962, on a neutral court in Hershey, Pennsylvania, against the New York Knicks, a man who stood 7 feet 1 inch…
- Giannis AntetokounmpoGiannis Sina Ougko Antetokounmpo was born on the 6th of December 1994, in Athens, Greece, to Nigerian parents who had no work permits and struggled to find steady employment. As a boy in the neighborhood of Sepolia, he and his older…
- Dikembe MutomboDikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo arrived in Washington, D.C. in 1987 speaking almost no English. He had grown up in Kinshasa, attended Boboto College to prepare for a medical career, and spoke French, Spanish,…
- Dolph SchayesAdolph Schayes practiced so relentlessly at New York University that his coach, Howard Cann, once said, "He was in the gym practicing every spare minute. We had to chase him out." That habit turned into a professional career spent entirely…
- Kareem Abdul-JabbarOn the road against Utah on the 5th of April 1984, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar caught a pass from Magic Johnson and rose into his skyhook from 15 feet. The ball arced over Mark Eaton, a 7 foot 4 inch shot-blocking specialist, and dropped through…
- Arvydas SabonisArvydas Sabonis was selected by the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round of the 1986 NBA draft, but he would not step onto an NBA court until 1995 - nine years later, at the age of 30. By then, he had already won a gold medal at the…
- George MikanGeorge Mikan stood six feet ten inches tall, weighed 245 pounds, and wore thick round spectacles , and he single-handedly forced professional basketball to rewrite its own rules. Born on the 18th of June 1924, in Joliet, Illinois, Mikan…
- Phil JacksonPhil Jackson holds eleven NBA championships as a head coach, a record no other coach in league history has matched. Born on the 17th of September, 1945, in Deer Lodge, Montana, he grew up in a household where dancing and television were…
- Yao MingYao Ming weighed 11 pounds at birth in Shanghai on the 12th of September 1980 , more than twice the average weight of a Chinese newborn. His mother stood 6 feet 3 inches tall. His father stood 6 feet 7 inches. Both had played professional…
- Andrew BogutAndrew Bogut stood seven feet tall, and on the 28th of November 1984, he was born in Melbourne to Croatian immigrants who had arrived in Australia in the 1970s. At fifteen, he was cut from the Victoria junior state representative team.…
- Artis GilmoreArtis Gilmore stood 7 feet 2 inches tall and played 670 consecutive professional basketball games without missing a single one. Born on the 21st of September, 1949, in Chipley, Florida, Gilmore grew up as one of 10 children in a family…
- Christian LaettnerChristian Laettner topped an ESPN fan poll as the most hated college basketball player in history. That vote came more than twenty years after he left Duke University. By then he already held a spot in multiple halls of fame and a…
- Rik SmitsRik Smits was born in Eindhoven on the 23rd of August 1966, and by the time he reached the NBA Finals in 2000, he had spent every professional season of his life in one uniform: the Indiana Pacers. That kind of loyalty to a single…
- Rudy GobertRudy Gobert-Bourgarel was born on the 26th of June, 1992, in Saint-Quentin, a town in the north of France, a long way from the NBA arenas where he would one day become one of the most feared defenders the sport has ever produced. He grew…
- Joakim NoahJoakim Simon Noah was born in New York on the 25th of February, 1985. He played professional basketball for more than a decade. Though most of his career unfolded in the United States, he wore the colors of the France national team. At the…
- Kosta KoufosKosta Koufos was born on the 24th of February 1989, the son of Greek immigrants in Canton, Ohio. His full name, Konstantine Demetrios Koufos, carried the weight of a heritage that would eventually pull him across two continents and into…
- Luc LongleyLuc Longley was born in Melbourne on the 19th of January 1969, and by the time he was 25 years old he was standing at the Fremantle Port watching a new football club unveil itself to the world. He called Fremantle "one of the world's great…
- Vlade DivacVlade Divac arrived at the Los Angeles Lakers in 1989 speaking no English, carrying a style of play that most American fans had never seen from a seven-foot center. He could pass like a point guard. He could fake a fall with the subtlety…