“I’ve played pro football, coached pro football, played pro basketball and played a lot of baseball, Said teammate Bud Grant. And "George Mikan was the greatest competitor I’ve ever been around.†Getty
The clarion call of the Los Angeles Lakers enticed basketball's greatest big men, even when they weren’t located in LA. Before Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, and Shaq, George Mikan carried the torch, not only for Laker centers but for big men everywhere. As the legendary Celtic Bill Russell told Mikan at the NBA 50th Celebration, ”You were my hero. I studied everything you did.”
The 6’10” 250-pound trailblazer also inspired a litany of rule changes, thanks to his unprecedented dominance. Here’s how George Mikan began basketball’s big man revolution during the game’s formative years.
Infamously, Mikan slept on 8 by 6 foot bed made my inmates at the Illinois State Penitentiary.
No Glasses in Basketball
Most elite basketball talents cruise through developmental years, crushing future accountants, firefighters, and lawyers. George Mikan, on the other hand, failed to make his high school team. The reason? “You just can’t play basketball with glasses on.”
Back then big men were considered necessary inconveniences required for the bohemian task of rebounding. Once they served their purpose, the faster, nimbler, more skillful guards stole the show. As Mikan told the Chicago Tribune, “No matter where a tall guy went in those days, there was always someone to tell him he couldn’t do something.”
DePaul went to the Final Four in '43 and won the NIT in 1945 with Mikan at center. Wikipedia
Development At DePaul
The transformation from high school washout to collegiate legend resembles an illiterate man eventually ruling Wall Street. So how did Mikan make the unheard-of leap? Dancing and a simple repetition that players from squirts to stars still do today, appropriately dubbed the Mikan drill.
That’s right, at DePaul University coach Ray Meyer put Mikan in the ballroom to improve his footwork. He also made him hit the speed bag and jump rope with the boxing team. In 1942 this “cross-training” was unheard of but yielded amazing results.
Paring that non-basketball work with the endless repetition of “When the ball comes through the hoop, you catch it and put it up with your other hand,” Mikan went from bumping giant to skilled menace. As Wilt Chamberlain later put it, “He showed the world a big man could be an athlete. Not just some big guy who could hardly walk and chew gum at the same time. He was a splendid athlete. He was the first true superstar of the League.”
“He was big and he was heavy, and when I say heavy, he was big-boned. He was a big, strong presence on the inside of the game," said Grant.
Basketball Wasteland
At that time becoming a lawyer was a much safer path than basketball which barely constituted a professional sport. Multiple fledgling leagues fought for solvency, employing plumbers, doctors, and bartenders part-time. However, Mikan’s sterling college career which included an 81-17 record, made him a sought-after commodity. He signed for an inconceivable five-year $60,000 (just shy of $1 million in today’s money) contract to stay in his hometown Chicago American Gears of the NBL. After two years amid strife with ownership, the team changed leagues and ownership before landing in Minneapolis as the Lakers.
Swede Carlson said, “I used to like to pass him the ball, cut out around and then listen to the sound the guy guarding me made when he ran into George.†NBA.com
A Man Amongst Boys
Regardless of league or team, Mikan absolutely slaughtered the competition with relentless efficiency. ”I had a right-handed hook, and everyone had been overplaying me,” Mikan later related to The New York Times. ”One summer, Coach Meyer had me shoot a thousand hook shots a day, 500 from each side. My lefty hook became better than my right, and it was hard for anyone to stop me.”
Former college teammate Jack Phelan saw both sides of Mikan's greatness as a college teammate and professional adversary, “Without a doubt, he had the sharpest elbows that God ever made, and I mean that sincerely. You know that statue out there in Minneapolis? Part of my teeth are on that statue.”
Mikan became the NBA first great big man.
A True Game Changer
In college, they instituted goaltending to stop Mikan's previously unseen tactic of swatting away anything near the rim. In the pros, they widened the lane from 6 to 12 in hopes of moving Mikan away from the rim, a feat his opponents struggled to accomplish on their own. Still, the big man influence remained his most impressive feat beyond the stats and wins.
Bob Cousy said of Mikan, “He literally carried the League. He gave us recognition and acceptance when we were at the bottom of the totem pole in professional sports.” Kareem, perhaps the greatest big man ever, echoed that sentiment, “He showed us how to do it. I certainly would not have the hook shot that went in if it wasn’t for the fundamentals I learned from George Mikan’s game.”
