Young fans and players need to recover certain things about the past of the greatest game ever invented and jettison others. Both these players have been discussed in this forum before. But some times some things are so extraordinary that they must be repeated, because they point the way to the undiscovered country that the game might still evolve toward.
Once upon a time on courts long long ago, there were two men that came along and approached the game quite differently than it had been played at the highest levels before or since. Allen Iverson, who came along much later, could have done it had he been born at a different time and played in a more tolerant time. Probably some more existed that I do not know about before and since.
But these two men did it once. They went to the undiscovered country and returned played what could be in college and the NBA. And these are Youtube feeds that capture just the surface of how differently they showed the game could be played. And both of them believed they were the harbingers of things to come, not evolutionary dead ends.
Show these feeds to old board rats grown cynical and doubtful about the future possibilities of the game.
Show these feeds to young boys and girls raised in an age of terror, pessimism, knock-offs and doubt.
These two men were originals.
Uninhibited in their exploration of the undiscovered country.
Infinite in all directions on the sacred wood.
Not harbingers of how it might be.
But of what can be.
Of what is.
When the blinders come off.
I love both men equally.
I wish I could find a better feed of Earl.
Ignore the imbecility of "the greatest basketball player ever." There is NO greatest basketball player ever.
The thing to learn is what can happen on offense, when the defense NEVER knows what the offensive player might do next.
Maravich...
Monroe...
