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ESPN Classic - Mikan Was First Pro To Dominate The Post
Friday, June 3, 2005Mikan was first pro to dominate the postESPN.Com news services
PHOENIX – George Mikan, the "gentle giant" who a half-century ago brought fame and stability to the fledgling world of professional basketball and literally transformed the game, has died 18 days shy of his 81st birthday.
Mikan died at a Scottsdale rehabilitation center following a long fight with diabetes and kidney ailments. His right leg was amputated below the knee in 2000, and he had undergone kidney dialysis treatment three times a week for five years, his son Terry said.
Before the start of Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals between the Detroit Pistons and Miami Heat at AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami, there was a moment of silence to honor Mikan.
"George Mikan was the model for all big men that followed him. He won five championships and would have won six consecutive championships had he not gotten hurt one year," Heat president Pat Riley said in a statement. "He was truly a significant player from the standpoint that he was light years ahead of others from a size and fundamentals standpoint. A truly genuine human being as well as a great player. He made the game what it is today," Riley said.
A superstar decades before the term existed, Mikan was the first big man to dominate the sport. No one before had seen a 6-foot-10 player with his agility, competitiveness and skill.
When the Minneapolis Lakers came to New York in December, 1949, the marquee at Madison Square Garden read "Geo. Mikan vs. The Knicks."
"He literally carried the league," Boston Celtics great Bob Cousy said. "He gave us recognition and acceptance when we were at the bottom of the totem pole in professional sports. He transcended the game. People came to see him as much as they came to see the game."
College basketball instituted the goaltending rule because of him, and the NBA doubled the width of the free throw lane. Slowdown tactics used against him -- his 1950 Lakers lost 19-18 to the Fort Wayne Pistons in the lowest-scoring game in NBA history -- eventually led to the 24-second shot clock.
"George Mikan truly revolutionized the game and was the NBA's first true superstar," NBA commissioner David Stern said. "He had the ability to be a fierce competitor on the court and a gentle giant off the court. We may never see one man impact the game of basketball as he did, and represent it with such warmth and grace."
Shaquille O'Neal, speaking after Miami's 88-76 playoff victory over Detroit on Thursday night, said on TNT that he wanted the Mikan family to contact the Heat so he could pay for the funeral.
"Without No. 99, there is no me," O'Neal said.
Terry Mikan said he appreciated O'Neal's offer but said it would be up to his mother whether to accept it.
"It just speaks to what Shaquille is all about," Terry Mikan said. "He had a bond with my dad. They were close friends."
A private memorial service is planned in Scottsdale on Monday night. At some unspecified date, a public ceremony will be held in Minneapolis, where Mikan's ashes will be interred, Terry Mikan said.
Ray Meyer, who was in his first year as DePaul coach when he began transforming Mikan into a basketball star, said that despite Mikan's longtime illnesses, he was shocked and saddened at the death of his lifelong friend.
"He had the most positive attitude you ever heard," Meyer said. "Never once did he feel sorry for himself. He was a great basketball player, but I think he was a better human being. I loved the guy. I thought he was one of my family."
Mikan was moved last weekend from a Scottsdale hospital, where he had been for six weeks for treatment of a diabetic wound in his leg.
"He had a fierce determination to excel, which he exhibited in his athletic career and business career," Terry Mikan told The Associated Press on Thursday, "and that probably extended his life five years."
Mikan led the Minneapolis Lakers to five league titles in the first six years of the franchise's history. Nearsighted with thick glasses, he was as rough on the court as he was mild-mannered off it. Mikan led the league in personal fouls three times and had 10 broken bones during his playing career. He averaged 23.1 points in seven seasons with Minneapolis before retiring because of injuries in 1956. Mikan was the league's MVP in the 1948-49 season, when he averaged 28.3 points in leading the Lakers to the title.
"Ed McCauley was our center. Eddie was 6-9, but weighed about 185 pounds where George was probably 250," Cousy recalled. "When we'd walk down the street in a group, Eddie would brush against a pole or big tree and say `Excuse me George.' Even to someone close to his height, George seemed humongous."
A statue of Mikan taking his trademark hook shot was dedicated at the Target Center in Minneapolis in April 2001 at halftime of a Timberwolves-Lakers game.
"We were in hiatus a long time, the old-timers," Mikan said at the time. "They forgot about us. They don't go back to our NBA days."
Timberwolves star and 2004 MVP Kevin Garnett knew of Mikan, though.
"When I think about George Mikan, I skip all the Wilt Chamberlains and Kareem Abdul-Jabbars and I call him the 'The Original Big Man,"' Garnett said. "Without George Mikan, there would be no up-and-unders, no jump hooks, and there would be no label of the big man."
The Lakers moved to Los Angeles in 1960 and became one of the most successful franchises in professional sports.
"Frankly, without George Mikan, the Los Angeles Lakers would not be the organization we are today," Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss said.
Born June 18, 1924, in Joliet, Ill., Mikan didn't play high school basketball, but when he entered DePaul, Meyer, the young new coach, recognized the potential.
Meyer said he worked with Mikan for six weeks alone, making him shoot left-handed and right-handed, a procedure still known as the "George Mikan drill."
He had him punch a speed bag, take some dancing lessons to improve his grace and also jump rope.
Mikan was two-time college player of the year and led DePaul to the 1945 National Invitation Tournament title. He scored 53 points in the semifinals against Rhode Island, a phenomenal number in that era, and was named the tourney's MVP.
Mikan played one season with the Chicago Gears before moving to the new Lakers franchise.
"George was a giant among men in the early days of the NBA," said Celtics president Arnold "Red" Auerbach, who coached against him. "He was one of the greatest players of all time. He was the first player to really be an imposing and intimidating figure on the court."
Mikan coached the Lakers for part of the 1957-58 season, and was commissioner of the American Basketball Association in 1967, introducing the 3-point line and the distinctive red, white and blue ball.
He practiced law and, in his later years, began pressing the NBA and the players' union to boost the tiny pensions given to those who played in the league before 1965. Terry Mikan said most of his father's awards and memorabilia has been sold. Mikan received a monthly pension check of $1,700, his son said. Under current rules, his widow will get half that much.
Terry Mikan said one of his father's reasons for fighting so hard against his illnesses "was his hope that he would be alive when the collective bargaining agreement was reached and the decision had been finalized on the pre-65ers and their surviving families. He gave his heart and soul to that effort."
Mikan is survived by his wife of 58 years, Patricia; sons Larry, Terry, Patrick and Michael; daughters Trisha and Maureen, and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
"I've got one word that describes my dad, and that's kindness," Terry Mikan said. "Whenever he would make a toast at a family function, dad would ask us to raise our glass to kindness, and that's the type of man he was."
Information from The Associated Press was included in this report.
Mikan's career stats* Year G FG % FT % AST REB PTS 1948-49 60 .416 .772 3.6 ** 28.3 1949-50 68 .407 .779 2.9 ** 27.4 1950-51 68 .428 .803 3.1 14.1 28.4 1951-52 64 .385 .780 3.0 13.5 23.8 1952-53 70 .399 .780 2.9 14.4 20.6 1953-54 72 .380 .777 2.4 14.3 18.1 1955-56 37 .395 .770 1.4 8.3 10.5 Total 439 .404 .782 2.8 13.4 23.1 * - with Minneapolis Lakers** - stats were not available
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George Mikan, The NBA's First Superstar Center: How Lakers Legend Paved ...
George Mikan may hot have played his home games in the state of California, but he is, without a doubt, one of the most important figures in Lakers lore.
Over the course of the Lakers' 75-year history, some of the game's greatest centers have donned the purple and gold, from Wilt Chamberlain to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Shaquille O'Neal and, yes, Dwight Howard. At the front of this long line of centers stands Mikan — not in a sense of being the best or most accomplished of the group, but in the sense that he is the first in line, paving the way for others to follow his path.
As part of the Lakers' year-long celebration of their 75th-anniversary season, the franchise will raise Mikan's No. 99 into the rafters at Crypto.Com Arena, honoring the impact that the all-timer made long before the franchise moved to Los Angeles.
Learn more about the legacy that helped lay the foundation of one of the most storied franchises in professional sports.
How George Mikan paved the way for Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O'NealOne year before the NBA was known as the NBA, the Minneapolis Lakers entered the Basketball Association of America (BAA) and took the league by storm thanks in large part to Mikan, their dominant 6-foot-10 center. The 1948-49 regular season saw Mikan average 28.3 points over 60 games as the Lakers posted a 47-13 record. In the playoffs, Mikan averaged 30.3 points per game to lead Minneapolis to the BAA title, which is effectively the first-ever NBA title.
If you're wondering about his boards, rebounds weren't a recorded stat until Mikan's third NBA season.
The Lakers' 1949 title was the first of five that they would win in a span of six seasons. Over that time frame, Mikan averaged 24.3 points, 14.1 rebounds, and 3.0 assists per game and played in each of the first four All-Star games in league history.
While the league was still in its infancy, Mikan was one of the first big names to attain star status. A personal account from the late Bill Russell perfectly encapsulates Mikan's stature and influence on the game at the time:
My first basketball hero was a guy named George Mikan, who was the first real superstar in NBA basketball. I went to see him play and after the game, he came out of the locker room and walked over to me and talked to me for 20 minutes. And at the time I was third-string varsity, he was just talking to a young basketball player.
Simply put, Mikan's status as the league's first-ever superstar center laid a blueprint for Russell, who took that blueprint, improved upon it and retired as the greatest winner that the game has ever seen.
The domino effect has been felt for generations to come, as Russell was a contemporary of Chamberlain. Then Chamberlian was succeeded by Abdul-Jabbar, who was later followed by O'Neal — three game-changing centers who donned a Lakers uniform.
They don't become who they are without Mikan's impact on the game.
Mikan, of course, is the namesake of the Mikan Drill, a drill tailored for basketball players — namely big men — to work on their finishing and rebounding all at once. Abdul-Jabbar and O'Neal, two of the game's most prolific scoring bigs, both credit the drill to their successes as players.
"Of course I knew who George Mikan was," Abdul-Jabbar said of his upbringing in a 1997 Sports Illustrated interview. "In the sixth grade I was taught the Mikan hook-shot drill, right hand, left hand."
O'Neal, who is often considered the most dominant player in NBA history, used that same word to describe Mikan, saying "he cared about being dominant, he embraced being dominant. That's why he's the father of dominance.
When Mikan passed during the 2005 NBA Playoffs, it was O'Neal that paid for the funeral expenses, saying "without No. 99, there is no me." The jersey retirement is the perfect way to honor the legacy of No. 99.
George Mikan career accolades, stats, highlightsGeorge Mikan – Chicago Tribune
It's no stretch to say George Mikan revolutionized the game of basketball as its first truly effective big man. "He was everything," recalled Johnny Bach, a Bulls assistant coach who played against Mikan in the early NBA of the 1950s. "He changed the power in basketball. They had to change the rules and take the […]
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