Curated category
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…
- 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.
- 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…
- 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.
- 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.
- Patrick EwingPatrick Aloysius Ewing Sr. was born on the 5th of August, 1962, in Kingston, Jamaica, one day before his home country declared independence.
- 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…
- Bill RussellBill Russell won eleven NBA championships in thirteen seasons, a record in North American professional sports that no team has matched since.
- Kevin LoveKevin Love grew up in Lake Oswego, Oregon, where he played basketball from his earliest days. As a child, he practiced bounce passes with a cardboard box and…
- 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…
- 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…
- 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…
- 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'.
- 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…
- 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…
- 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…
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 …
- 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…
- 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…
- 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.
- 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…
- Artis GilmoreArtis Gilmore stood 7 feet 2 inches tall and played 670 consecutive professional basketball games without missing a single one.
- 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…
- 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…
- 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…
- Joakim NoahJoakim Simon Noah was born in New York on the 25th of February, 1985. He played professional basketball for more than a decade.
- 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…
- 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…
- 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…