So, this is a bit of a departure from my Massively Multiplayer thread! This is a single-post TLIAD format timeline briefly chronicling the hypothetical professional basketball career of Indiana athlete "Jumpin'" Johnny Wilson had he been accepted into the NBA in 1949. It's written as a tribute to Wilson, who died at the age of 91 this past Friday. For those unfamiliar with Johnny Wilson, here's his Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_Johnny_Wilson
This timeline will also briefly touch on some of the cultural aftereffects of Wilson's career on his hometown, the NBA, and the world at large.
Without any further ado, let's jump right in.
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When the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League merged in 1949 to create what we know of today as the National Basketball Association (NBA), brothers Ike and John Duffey, owners of the defending NBL champion Anderson Packers (based out of Anderson, Indiana), had a unique opportunity, and also a dilemma. Their team would be joining a league full of talented teams, including the BAA champion Minneapolis Lakers and their star center, George Mikan. The Packers had one of the most talented rosters of the newly merged league, a roster that included talented guard Frank "Flash" Brian, but needed someone who could put fans in seats. Anderson was one of the smallest markets in the league, and in order for the team to remain solvent, they'd have to sell out practically every night. They needed a flashy, athletic player, and the Duffey brothers knew of one person who might be able to fit that bill. Johnny Wilson, former Mr. Basketball and Anderson High School star, was unarguably the most talented basketball player to ever come out of Indiana at that point in time. He had tried to get a spot on the famed Indiana Hoosiers college basketball team, but the Big Ten schools had a "gentleman's agreement" at the time not to admit any black players, and Indiana coach Branch McCracken wouldn't have allowed Wilson on the team even if other Big Ten schools would have. Wilson was forced to play for a lower division college team, the local Anderson College, and had been a standout star there, winning All-American accolades and helping the school to defeat larger NCAA university teams in exhibition games. After leaving Anderson College, Wilson had decided to try his luck at baseball, and though the major leagues had begun integration in 1947 when Jackie Robinson began to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Wilson hadn't been able to make any major league squads, and instead spent the start of the 1949 baseball season playing for a Negro League team. The Duffey brothers realized that Johnny Wilson was talented, but signing him to the Packers would still be a big risk: he would be the first black player in the NBA, and would face similar obstacles to what Jackie Robinson had faced two years before. It would put a target on Wilson's back, and on the Packers as well. It risked alienating local white fans from watching the team play. However, Wilson's talent was undeniable, and by all accounts, he was a standout citizen in the community, able to handle the pressure of integration with the same grace and dignity that Jackie Robinson had shown two years before. In the summer of 1949, the Duffeys contacted Wilson and asked if he would try out for their basketball team. Wilson, who'd been considering playing for the Harlem Globetrotters, was reluctant to join this new basketball league (the Globetrotters were far more famous at the time). However, the Duffeys appealed to Wilson's hometown pride, and Wilson decided to give the NBA a shot. In early practices, he was clearly the most talented player on the team, and he was able to do something that no other NBA player at the time was able to do: dunk the basketball. The ability to dunk the ball allowed the relatively short (6' 0'') Wilson to leap over other players and score easily on them, and when he started doing it in high school, he earned the nickname he would be known by for the rest of his life: "Jumpin'" Johnny Wilson.
Almost immediately, Wilson proved to be a standout player during the Packers' inaugural season. During the very first game the team played, Wilson earned immediate notoriety by executing a slam dunk over 6' 10'' Don Otten of the Tri-Cities Blackhawks, drawing loud cheers from the hometown crowd at the Anderson Wigwam, but leading to a near-brawl after two Blackhawks players jumped off the bench to display their disagreement with Wilson's dunk. That would be a common story throughout the season: Johnny Wilson would dunk the basketball over an opposing player, leading to cheers at home and raucous boos on the road. Road crowds were especially vicious, at times throwing food and other objects onto the court and peppering Wilson with racial slurs. Dunking at the time was seen as a sign of disrespect, and when an interviewer asked Wilson about this, Wilson responded: "I don't mean any disrespect by dunking, it's just the only way a little fella like me can score on some of these big guys!" NBA referees were flummoxed: Wilson's dunking was perfectly legal, but it seemed to rile up opposing players and the crowd, with several coaches and owners calling for the dunk to be banned throughout the season. However, a majority of owners decided against banning the move, and instead decided that more physical play would bring an end to Wilson's displays of athleticism. Opposing players soon began fouling Wilson whenever he went up for dunks, and Wilson soon found himself leading the league in free throw attempts. Meanwhile, Wilson also formed a potent scoring combination with Frank Brian, one of the few players on the team who could keep up with Wilson going up and down the court. While Johnny Wilson was the team's leading scorer, averaging 22.7 points per game in his rookie season, Brian was close behind with 17 points per game, and the Anderson Packers led the NBA that year in points scored and offensive pace. The Packers would finish first in the Western Division with a 45-19 record, good for fourth overall in the league, and would qualify for the playoffs, where they would face the Tri-Cities Blackhawks in the first round. They would win that series easily, 2 games to 0, but would face closer competition against their cross-state rivals, the Indianapolis Olympians. The Olympians would upset the Packers in a tight first game, but would fall in Games 2 and 3, and the Packers would advance to the final three. In those days, the division winner with the top record would advance to the NBA Finals, while the two division winners with the second and third best records would face each other in a best of 3 semifinal, and those two teams would be the Minneapolis Lakers and the Anderson Packers, with the winner getting the Syracuse Nationals in the NBA Finals.
The Lakers were considered one of the best teams in all of basketball, and George Mikan considered the league's best player. Despite Wilson's exciting play, George Mikan had won that year's scoring title with more than 28 points per game. He was a dominant big man and he dwarfed nearly every other player on the court, but Johnny Wilson wasn't afraid of him. In fact, Wilson had dunked over George Mikan twice during the regular season, and he was looking forward to doing it again in the semi-final series. The three games were all close, with Game 1 in Minneapolis going to the Lakers. Though Johnny Wilson scored 38 points in the game, George Mikan scored 34, with none of the Packers able to answer him on the offensive end, and Mikan's stronger supporting cast led the team to a 91-87 victory. Game 2 was do-or-die for the Packers, returning to Anderson to face what could be the team's very last game. The Lakers jumped out to a nine point lead, but the Packers fought back behind the Wilson-Brian tandem, and were up 51-50 at halftime. The second half was a back and forth affair: every time the Packers looked ready to pull away, the Lakers surged back, keeping the score within eight during the remainder of the third and well into the fourth. The Lakers tied it up at 86 with just under three minutes to play, and executed a brutal triple team strategy on Wilson to try and take him out of the game. It didn't work: Wilson was able to dish the ball off to Frank Brian for a pair of crucial late buckets, while Mikan found himself losing his shooting touch at a critical juncture. The Packers would win 93 to 90 in Game 2, sending it back to Minneapolis for a decisive Game 3. The Lakers went back to double and triple teaming Wilson, but this left Packers players wide open for numerous shots, and they had to return to a man to man defense after the other Packers proved too hot to leave unguarded. Mikan had another big game, and the Lakers led by two to start the fourth quarter, but the rest of the game was all Johnny Wilson, and Wilson put the Packers up for good with a dramatic dunk right on top of George Mikan with 1:14 to go. The Lakers never regained the lead, and the Packers advanced to the NBA Finals, where they would go to war with the Syracuse Nationals in a physical seven game series that, like the Lakers series, came down to the last quarter. The Nats were a tough, defensive minded team, led by the legendary Dolph Schayes, but they didn't have an answer for Wilson, and in the end, it was Jumpin' Johnny who would play the hero as the Packers pulled away in the final quarter of Game 7 to win the first ever NBA Finals, 87 to 80.
The Anderson Packers were the world champions of basketball, and Jumpin' Johnny Wilson was now the league's biggest star. The Duffey brothers were able to keep the team afloat and in the NBA for at least one more year, all thanks to Wilson's incredible play. Jumpin' Johnny had brought both black and white fans together in Anderson, which was relatively less racially segregated than other NBA cities of its day. While there had been initial tensions at first, Wilson's calm demeanor and undeniable talent eventually brought hometown fans around, and the Wigwam had been packed for nearly every late season and playoff home game. Meanwhile, Wilson was also having somewhat of a cultural impact elsewhere as young African-Americans learned of the talented basketball star lighting up the NBA with his unique style of play. They crowded around radios that were broadcasting NBA games, they would attend games in cities where the Packers were visiting: in just one season, Johnny Wilson was making a difference, and his impact would only grow as the team's legend did. In the 1950-51 season, three more black players: Chuck Cooper, Earl Lloyd, and Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton joined the league, but none of them had as much of an impact on their teams or on the league as Wilson was having. During Wilson's second season, however, teams began to adapt their play to stop him. Teams began holding the ball and stalling, taking advantage of the league's lack of a shot clock at the time. Teams got more physical with him, knocking him to the ground and bullying him with double and triple teams in the paint. Wilson's scoring average dropped to just 17 points a game, and the Packers' record dropped as well, to 39-29. That made them third in the Western Division, and they wouldn't have home court advantage for the duration of the playoffs. They made it back to the semi-finals, and once again they'd have to face the Minneapolis Lakers, but this time around, it would be much easier: the trials of the season had galvanized the team, and Wilson had grown accustomed to his opponents' physical play. The Packers shocked the Lakers by sweeping them, 3 to 0, and returned to the NBA Finals, where their opponents would once again be the Syracuse Nationals, who'd beaten the New York Knicks in a tough Eastern Conference championship series. The Nationals had had a tough regular season of their own, and the two teams were battle tested going into the Finals, but in the end, the Packers once again triumphed, 4 games to 2.
Now two-time NBA champions, the Packers looked to make it three in a row, and looked poised to do so in the 1951-52 season. Johnny Wilson had a breakout year, becoming the league's scoring leader with an average of 23.7 points per game. The league itself contracted to ten teams, losing the Indianapolis Olympians and the Washington Capitols, and the Packers ended up with the league's best record, going 45-21. The Philadelphia Warriors reached the Finals after upsetting the New York Knicks and the Syracuse Nationals, but the Packers were upset by the Lakers in the division finals in a hard fought 3-2 series that saw the Lakers resorting to controversial stall tactics to keep the ball out of Wilson's hands. The Lakers would then triumph over Philly in the Finals, giving George Mikan his first NBA Championship. The stunning playoff loss led to some doubts about the Packers' future as an NBA franchise, but by then the Duffey brothers had put the team on stable financial footing, helped by the fact that the team had some of the highest ticket revenues in the league. The Packers would get a chance for revenge during the 1952-53 season, which would see Johnny Wilson increase his scoring output to 25 points per game, but despite Wilson's excellent performance on the court, the Packers experienced some turbulance this season, with some members of the team starting to consider Wilson a ballhog who did too much scoring and didn't pass enough to his teammates. They became somewhat jealous of Wilson's growing fame, and with team chemistry somewhat hurting, the Packers' record fell to 38-32, placing them third in the Western Division. Teams also continued the double-teaming and stalling tactics that harmed the Packers' and Wilson's offensive rhythm, though stalling on offense was beginning to plague the entire league by this point. The Packers would narrowly defeat the Rochester Royals in the opening round of the playoffs, before once again facing their familiar foes in the conference finals: George Mikan's Lakers. It had grown into one of the biggest rivalries in the league, but Jumpin' Johnny got his revenge, scoring more than 30 points a game en route to the Packers defeating the Lakers, 3 games to 1, and when the Packers clinched the final game, the hometown crowd stormed the court in jubilation. The Packers would then defeat the Knicks in a tight seven game series to win their third NBA championship in four years.
The summer of 1953 would be an interesting one for the Packers, as the Boston Celtics and Red Auerbach came courting the team's biggest star. Auerbach had watched Johnny Wilson blossom into the NBA's biggest star, and wanted to pair him up with his own exciting superstar, the talented point guard Bob Cousy. Auerbach was one of the first NBA coaches to realize the potential of black players in the league, and had drafted Chuck Cooper to the Celtics in 1950. Auerbach aggressively lobbied Wilson to join the Celtics, believing that the chemistry problems Wilson had experienced with his teammates during the season still existed. However, despite the temptation of playing on the Celtics, in a bigger market and for a bigger paycheck, Wilson remained loyal to his hometown, and stayed with the Packers. Auerbach tried to sweet talk the Duffey brothers into trading their star, with attractive packages of players (Auerbach pretty much told the Duffeys that "no one but Cousy" was off-limits) and cash considerations, but Wilson convinced the Duffeys not to trade him, and the Duffeys realized that Wilson could bring them and the team more money than any of the Celtics players ever could. In the end, Wilson remained an Anderson Packer, and the team went into the 1953-54 season looking stronger than ever. Wilson's scoring average dipped a bit as he played a more team oriented brand of ball while retaining his spectacular athleticism. Meanwhile, Wilson's style of play gained national exposure as NBA games began airing on national television for the first time, on the DuMont Television Network, which for the first time allowed young African-Americans around the nation to see the player most of them had only heard of on the radio or read about in the papers. Jumpin' Johnny Wilson became a household name as he led the Packers to a 47-25 record in the Western Division and eventual date with, you guessed it, the Lakers in the division finals. However, Wilson's team would fall short, as the Lakers would beat them 2 games to 1 en route to the team's second NBA championship. Despite the loss, Wilson remained strong in defeat, as his national TV exposure had opened up new avenues of fame. The Duffey brothers would open up a shoe factory in Anderson, producing "Jumpin' Johnny" shoes as their signature product. Meanwhile, the NBA adopted the shot clock, forever ending the stalling tactics that had limited Wilson's game. The sky was about to literally be the limit for Anderson's shining star.
1954-55 would see Jumpin' Johnny average the highest point total of his career, 27.8 points per game, and the Packers raced to their best record ever, 52-20. They dominated the league, with Wilson's spectacular dunks lighting up TV screens across the nation. Some would call Wilson "The Man Who Saved DuMont", with NBA games becoming the highest rated program on the network and allowing it to remain in business during what would have otherwise been a financially hazardous time. The NBA still had 10 teams, though the Fort Wayne Pistons found themselves squeezed by the presence of the nearby Packers, and would move to Detroit at the start of the 1955-56 season. The Packers would become the first (and thus far, only) team to sweep through the playoffs without losing a single game, though to their credit they only had to beat two teams to do so: the Fort Wayne Pistons and the Syracuse Nationals. The Packers returned in 1955-56, and would come up against a pair of new rivals: the St. Louis Hawks, led by all-star forward Bob Pettit, and the rising Boston Celtics, led by Bob Cousy and coached by Red Auerbach, who had once tried to woo Johnny Wilson to the team. Pettit's Hawks would provide the stiffest challenge for the Packers in the Western Division Finals, but would fall 3 games to 2, allowing the Packers to advance to the NBA Finals yet again, where they would come up against the Boston Celtics, who had upset the Philadelphia Warriors thanks to a miracle pass from Bob Cousy to the Celtics' Bill Sharman with two seconds remaining in the deciding game. However, the Celtics would find themselves overwhelmed by the Packers' speed, and would be swept in the Finals, 4 games to 0. The Packers had now won five out of the last seven NBA championships, and Jumpin' Johnny Wilson was undoubtedly the league's biggest star, with fame across the country. He was now considered the "Jackie Robinson of the NBA", an inspiration and role model to millions of young black children throughout the country, and just as the Civil Rights Movement was in its infancy after Rosa Parks' refusal to leave her seat on a Montgomery city bus in 1955, Wilson was one of the pre-eminent athletic trailblazers in the nation.
The 1956-57 season, however, would see a changing of the guard in the league as transcendent center Bill Russell was drafted by the Boston Celtics, transforming the game forever. Suddenly, Johnny Wilson found himself up against a player who could answer him on the defensive end, and in the very first game the Celtics and Packers played against each other that year, Wilson found his dunks blocked by Russell not just once, or twice, but three times in total. While few other teams had a defensive answer for Wilson, there had clearly been a changing in the winds, and the Packers and Wilson performed noticeably worse that year. Despite the new defensive giant in Boston, the team still easily finished with the best record in the Western Division (42-30), and found themselves back in the Finals once again for a grudge match against the Boston Celtics and another chance to win a third straight title and their sixth championship in seven years. The Packers fought valiantly against the Celtics, but the Celtics, which had adopted a fast paced style of their own thanks to Russell's ability to deflect shots back onto the court and provide fast breaks for his team, proved to be just a bit faster and a bit tougher, and won a hard fought seven game series, dethroning the Packers. The 1957-58 season saw most of the league's teams starting to adapt to the new style of play, leaving the Packers behind, and for the first time in the team's history, they missed the playoffs, finishing just behind division rivals Detroit and Cincinnati for the third and final playoff spot. Despite Wilson's fame, the Packers' poor performance had led to declining ticket sales, something the small town Packers couldn't afford, and it was clear to the Duffey brothers that the team's fortunes had turned. Though the Packers survived into the 1958-59 season, fans and players knew that it would be the team's last. Despite this, the Packers valiantly fought their way back into playoff contention, with Wilson continuing to lead the team in scoring, rebounds, and assists in his tenth season in the league. The Packers finished second in the division behind the St. Louis Hawks, and would meet the Hawks in the division finals, in an epic seven game showdown. One last time, Packers fans filled the Wigwam, cheering their team and their star, Jumpin' Johnny Wilson. The home game won the first six games of the series, taking it back to St. Louis for the seventh and final game. Bob Pettit and Johnny Wilson had a duel for the ages, with both men scoring 40 points and battling it out on both sides of the court. With just a minute to go, the Packers held a 110-109 lead, and Wilson had a chance to clinch the game, only for Pettit to make a crucial defensive stop, stealing the ball from Wilson and driving the length of the court for a go-ahead layup. The Packers couldn't respond, and the Hawks held on to win, 113 to 110. It would be the last game for the Anderson Packers, as the team would fold immediately after the end of the season.
The Packers had existed for ten years, winning the NBA championship in half of those years, with an NBL championship to boot. At one time, they'd been the most popular team in the league, thanks to the spectacular play of Jumpin' Johnny Wilson, the face of the franchise and the first true superstar of the league. After folding, the Packers' players were dispersed to other teams. Once again, Red Auerbach tried to get Wilson on the Celtics, but he ultimately fell to the Detroit Pistons, where he'd experience four moderately successful seasons and would help the team to several playoff berths, though the Boston Celtics remained dominant, winning the NBA championship every remaining year of Wilson's career. By the time Wilson's second season on the Pistons rolled around, all of that jumping and running had caught up to him, and knee and leg injuries caused him to miss considerable time during his last three years in the league. He retired in 1963, and at the time was considered probably the best player in the history of the NBA, though Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain would soon eclipse him. He retired as the NBA's all time leading scorer with just over 19,000 career points, another record Chamberlain would soon eclipse, and was also cited as perhaps the most influential basketball player of his time, credited with popularizing the slam dunk at the professional level. During Wilson's career, the dunk became a part of the repertoire of many NBA players (even George Mikan began attempting dunks after Wilson popularized the practice, though he soon abandoned this pursuit). Wilson popularized basketball on television, though its ratings would begin to dip in the 1960s after the Packers folded and Wilson began experiencing injuries, and wouldn't pick back up again until the end of the decade. Thanks to the basketball ratings boom, the DuMont Network was able to stay alive long enough to become the fourth major television network in the United States, though it would lose its NBA broadcasting rights to CBS in the 1960s.
Johnny Wilson also enabled professional basketball to eclipse college basketball in popularity in Indiana. Though Indiana went a few brief years without an NBA team after the Packers folded, Indianapolis would be awarded an NBA franchise at the start of the 1966-67 season. The team would be called the Indiana Racers (the team briefly considered the name Pacers, but decided against it, considering it to be too close to the now legendary Packers name), and would go on to match the Packers' five NBA championships, though it would take them 40 years to accomplish this feat, considerably longer than the Packers' seven. Wilson's hometown of Anderson, Indiana also continued to prosper even after the Packers folded. The Duffey brothers' meat packing business collapsed, but their new shoe-selling business exploded in popularity, and Duffey brand shoes would eventually become the third leading brand of athletic shoes in the world, behind Nike and Reebok. "Lacing up my Duffeys" became a household slogan amongst young athletes, with the company leading the way in sponsoring basketball players and using them to promote shoes. While Duffey didn't keep making shoes in Anderson forever (Duffey, like their competition, would eventually begin producing most of its shoes overseas by the end of the 20th century), the company's corporate headquarters became a fixture of downtown Anderson, and attracted other major companies as well, enabling the once-industrial city to diversify its economy and survive the departure of automotive jobs in the 1980s and 1990s. The Anderson High School Wigwam would be transformed into a massive complex that not only housed a 13,000-seat multipurpose arena, but a museum as well, and even after the original Anderson High School closed in 2001, would remain a popular tourist attraction that chronicled the history of Indiana athletics while hosting both athletic events and concerts. As of 2019, Anderson is a thriving exurb of Indianapolis, home to nearly 100,000 people and a wide variety of shops, restaurants, and businesses. The shining new Anderson High School building, which opened in 2002, has a massive statue of Jumpin' Johnny Wilson in front of the building, a tribute to the man who put his hometown on the map and transformed basketball forever.
And as for Jumpin' Johnny Wilson himself? He would go on to become one of the first black NBA coaches when he took over for Bobby "Slick" Leonard as the coach of the Indiana Racers in 1979, after coaching at the collegiate level and as the assistant coach of the Detroit Pistons during the 1960s and 1970s. He would coach the Pacers to an NBA championship in 1982, and would retire from the NBA in 1991, returning to his hometown of Anderson to be a community leader, mentor, and businessman. He was named one of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players Of All Time for the league's 50th anniversary in 1996, and remains perhaps the best known NBA player of the 1950s and one of the league's first true legends, with his iconic image an indelible part of the league itself: he became the silhouetted athlete on the NBA's logo. Despite the trials and tribulations he suffered during his career, the racial vitriol from fans and the tension with his fellow players, Wilson remained courageous and bold, and was never afraid to do his own thing as one of the greatest pioneers in the history of basketball. His legend continues to this day, inspiring future basketball stars around the world, and the stories of his amazing basketball feats continue to be passed down by those who competed with him and those who were inspired by him.
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"Can you imagine what a tandem of Bob Cousy and Johnny Wilson would've been like back in the day? No doubt the Celtics would have won more than ten straight championships had Jumpin' Johnny been on the team back in 1953. Thirteen in a row isn't out of the question. Then again, maybe it's for the best that Auerbach was never able to get him on the Celtics, because can you imagine how the racist, pearl-clutching NBA fans of the 1950s would have reacted to a Bob Cousy to Johnny Wilson half-court alley oop? Forget the comparisons to Marty McFly playing 'Johnny B. Goode' at the Enchantment Under The Sea dance, this would have been like Marty McFly playing Black Sabbath and then biting the head off a live chicken and spitting it into the crowd. People already wanted to kill Jumpin' Johnny just for dunking, an alley oop would have driven even the hometown Boston Celtics crowds into a bloodthirsty frenzy. It's like Marty said, 'I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet, but your kids are gonna love it'. Yes, yes we do."
-Bill Simmons, from The Book Of Basketball What If? chapter: "13. What If Red Auerbach had gotten Johnny Wilson on the Celtics in 1953?"
"And I guarantee that if Johnny Wilson had been a Celtic, I would have insisted that everybody call me Jumpin' Bill Simmons as a kid. Johnny Wilson might have faced a league full of scrubs like George Mikan and Dolph Schayes, but he dominated the hell out of them, and, along with the shot clock, pretty much saved the NBA back in the 1950s. He was David Thompson before David Thompson, Michael Jordan before Michael Jordan. No, he wasn't as good as Michael Jordan, but against the competition he faced, he absolutely looked like Michael Jordan in those old clips. You know how people are always saying, if you ripped a guy out of the 1990s and sent him back to the early 50s, he'd dominate the league? Well, Johnny Wilson is that guy, 35 years ahead of his time and he played exactly how you'd expect a guy like that to play. His incredible free throw line dunk during one of those games during the 1954-55 season literally doesn't look real, it looks like someone edited the video to put a modern basketball player in there because that's how astonishing he looked back then. I can't put Johnny Wilson any higher on this list simply because once he went up against "real" competition*, the weaknesses in his game were glaringly exposed, but I absolutely have to put him in the Pantheon for what he accomplished in the early days of the league. I might be cheating just a little bit to put him all the way up here, and all apologies to John Havlicek for bumping him for Wilson, but a guy like Jumpin' Johnny Wilson is too important to the history of the league to exclude him from the top 12, and there's no doubt in my mind that he would have succeeded in the modern NBA. Plus, he passes one of my most important tests for any player on this list: the Anderson Packers never, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER, EVER, EVER, under any circumstances, would have traded him. Red Auerbach could have kidnapped Ike Duffey, tied him up, stuck a gun to his head, and told his brother John that he'd kill him if he didn't trade Johnny Wilson to him**, and John probably still would have at least had to think about it.
*(Bill Russell.)
**(You know Red had to have at least halfway considered doing this back in the summer of 1953 when his team was still languishing at the bottom of the Eastern Division.)"
-Bill Simmons, from The Book Of Basketball Hall Of Fame chapter: "#12: Johnny Wilson"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_Johnny_Wilson
This timeline will also briefly touch on some of the cultural aftereffects of Wilson's career on his hometown, the NBA, and the world at large.
Without any further ado, let's jump right in.
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When the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League merged in 1949 to create what we know of today as the National Basketball Association (NBA), brothers Ike and John Duffey, owners of the defending NBL champion Anderson Packers (based out of Anderson, Indiana), had a unique opportunity, and also a dilemma. Their team would be joining a league full of talented teams, including the BAA champion Minneapolis Lakers and their star center, George Mikan. The Packers had one of the most talented rosters of the newly merged league, a roster that included talented guard Frank "Flash" Brian, but needed someone who could put fans in seats. Anderson was one of the smallest markets in the league, and in order for the team to remain solvent, they'd have to sell out practically every night. They needed a flashy, athletic player, and the Duffey brothers knew of one person who might be able to fit that bill. Johnny Wilson, former Mr. Basketball and Anderson High School star, was unarguably the most talented basketball player to ever come out of Indiana at that point in time. He had tried to get a spot on the famed Indiana Hoosiers college basketball team, but the Big Ten schools had a "gentleman's agreement" at the time not to admit any black players, and Indiana coach Branch McCracken wouldn't have allowed Wilson on the team even if other Big Ten schools would have. Wilson was forced to play for a lower division college team, the local Anderson College, and had been a standout star there, winning All-American accolades and helping the school to defeat larger NCAA university teams in exhibition games. After leaving Anderson College, Wilson had decided to try his luck at baseball, and though the major leagues had begun integration in 1947 when Jackie Robinson began to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Wilson hadn't been able to make any major league squads, and instead spent the start of the 1949 baseball season playing for a Negro League team. The Duffey brothers realized that Johnny Wilson was talented, but signing him to the Packers would still be a big risk: he would be the first black player in the NBA, and would face similar obstacles to what Jackie Robinson had faced two years before. It would put a target on Wilson's back, and on the Packers as well. It risked alienating local white fans from watching the team play. However, Wilson's talent was undeniable, and by all accounts, he was a standout citizen in the community, able to handle the pressure of integration with the same grace and dignity that Jackie Robinson had shown two years before. In the summer of 1949, the Duffeys contacted Wilson and asked if he would try out for their basketball team. Wilson, who'd been considering playing for the Harlem Globetrotters, was reluctant to join this new basketball league (the Globetrotters were far more famous at the time). However, the Duffeys appealed to Wilson's hometown pride, and Wilson decided to give the NBA a shot. In early practices, he was clearly the most talented player on the team, and he was able to do something that no other NBA player at the time was able to do: dunk the basketball. The ability to dunk the ball allowed the relatively short (6' 0'') Wilson to leap over other players and score easily on them, and when he started doing it in high school, he earned the nickname he would be known by for the rest of his life: "Jumpin'" Johnny Wilson.
Almost immediately, Wilson proved to be a standout player during the Packers' inaugural season. During the very first game the team played, Wilson earned immediate notoriety by executing a slam dunk over 6' 10'' Don Otten of the Tri-Cities Blackhawks, drawing loud cheers from the hometown crowd at the Anderson Wigwam, but leading to a near-brawl after two Blackhawks players jumped off the bench to display their disagreement with Wilson's dunk. That would be a common story throughout the season: Johnny Wilson would dunk the basketball over an opposing player, leading to cheers at home and raucous boos on the road. Road crowds were especially vicious, at times throwing food and other objects onto the court and peppering Wilson with racial slurs. Dunking at the time was seen as a sign of disrespect, and when an interviewer asked Wilson about this, Wilson responded: "I don't mean any disrespect by dunking, it's just the only way a little fella like me can score on some of these big guys!" NBA referees were flummoxed: Wilson's dunking was perfectly legal, but it seemed to rile up opposing players and the crowd, with several coaches and owners calling for the dunk to be banned throughout the season. However, a majority of owners decided against banning the move, and instead decided that more physical play would bring an end to Wilson's displays of athleticism. Opposing players soon began fouling Wilson whenever he went up for dunks, and Wilson soon found himself leading the league in free throw attempts. Meanwhile, Wilson also formed a potent scoring combination with Frank Brian, one of the few players on the team who could keep up with Wilson going up and down the court. While Johnny Wilson was the team's leading scorer, averaging 22.7 points per game in his rookie season, Brian was close behind with 17 points per game, and the Anderson Packers led the NBA that year in points scored and offensive pace. The Packers would finish first in the Western Division with a 45-19 record, good for fourth overall in the league, and would qualify for the playoffs, where they would face the Tri-Cities Blackhawks in the first round. They would win that series easily, 2 games to 0, but would face closer competition against their cross-state rivals, the Indianapolis Olympians. The Olympians would upset the Packers in a tight first game, but would fall in Games 2 and 3, and the Packers would advance to the final three. In those days, the division winner with the top record would advance to the NBA Finals, while the two division winners with the second and third best records would face each other in a best of 3 semifinal, and those two teams would be the Minneapolis Lakers and the Anderson Packers, with the winner getting the Syracuse Nationals in the NBA Finals.
The Lakers were considered one of the best teams in all of basketball, and George Mikan considered the league's best player. Despite Wilson's exciting play, George Mikan had won that year's scoring title with more than 28 points per game. He was a dominant big man and he dwarfed nearly every other player on the court, but Johnny Wilson wasn't afraid of him. In fact, Wilson had dunked over George Mikan twice during the regular season, and he was looking forward to doing it again in the semi-final series. The three games were all close, with Game 1 in Minneapolis going to the Lakers. Though Johnny Wilson scored 38 points in the game, George Mikan scored 34, with none of the Packers able to answer him on the offensive end, and Mikan's stronger supporting cast led the team to a 91-87 victory. Game 2 was do-or-die for the Packers, returning to Anderson to face what could be the team's very last game. The Lakers jumped out to a nine point lead, but the Packers fought back behind the Wilson-Brian tandem, and were up 51-50 at halftime. The second half was a back and forth affair: every time the Packers looked ready to pull away, the Lakers surged back, keeping the score within eight during the remainder of the third and well into the fourth. The Lakers tied it up at 86 with just under three minutes to play, and executed a brutal triple team strategy on Wilson to try and take him out of the game. It didn't work: Wilson was able to dish the ball off to Frank Brian for a pair of crucial late buckets, while Mikan found himself losing his shooting touch at a critical juncture. The Packers would win 93 to 90 in Game 2, sending it back to Minneapolis for a decisive Game 3. The Lakers went back to double and triple teaming Wilson, but this left Packers players wide open for numerous shots, and they had to return to a man to man defense after the other Packers proved too hot to leave unguarded. Mikan had another big game, and the Lakers led by two to start the fourth quarter, but the rest of the game was all Johnny Wilson, and Wilson put the Packers up for good with a dramatic dunk right on top of George Mikan with 1:14 to go. The Lakers never regained the lead, and the Packers advanced to the NBA Finals, where they would go to war with the Syracuse Nationals in a physical seven game series that, like the Lakers series, came down to the last quarter. The Nats were a tough, defensive minded team, led by the legendary Dolph Schayes, but they didn't have an answer for Wilson, and in the end, it was Jumpin' Johnny who would play the hero as the Packers pulled away in the final quarter of Game 7 to win the first ever NBA Finals, 87 to 80.
The Anderson Packers were the world champions of basketball, and Jumpin' Johnny Wilson was now the league's biggest star. The Duffey brothers were able to keep the team afloat and in the NBA for at least one more year, all thanks to Wilson's incredible play. Jumpin' Johnny had brought both black and white fans together in Anderson, which was relatively less racially segregated than other NBA cities of its day. While there had been initial tensions at first, Wilson's calm demeanor and undeniable talent eventually brought hometown fans around, and the Wigwam had been packed for nearly every late season and playoff home game. Meanwhile, Wilson was also having somewhat of a cultural impact elsewhere as young African-Americans learned of the talented basketball star lighting up the NBA with his unique style of play. They crowded around radios that were broadcasting NBA games, they would attend games in cities where the Packers were visiting: in just one season, Johnny Wilson was making a difference, and his impact would only grow as the team's legend did. In the 1950-51 season, three more black players: Chuck Cooper, Earl Lloyd, and Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton joined the league, but none of them had as much of an impact on their teams or on the league as Wilson was having. During Wilson's second season, however, teams began to adapt their play to stop him. Teams began holding the ball and stalling, taking advantage of the league's lack of a shot clock at the time. Teams got more physical with him, knocking him to the ground and bullying him with double and triple teams in the paint. Wilson's scoring average dropped to just 17 points a game, and the Packers' record dropped as well, to 39-29. That made them third in the Western Division, and they wouldn't have home court advantage for the duration of the playoffs. They made it back to the semi-finals, and once again they'd have to face the Minneapolis Lakers, but this time around, it would be much easier: the trials of the season had galvanized the team, and Wilson had grown accustomed to his opponents' physical play. The Packers shocked the Lakers by sweeping them, 3 to 0, and returned to the NBA Finals, where their opponents would once again be the Syracuse Nationals, who'd beaten the New York Knicks in a tough Eastern Conference championship series. The Nationals had had a tough regular season of their own, and the two teams were battle tested going into the Finals, but in the end, the Packers once again triumphed, 4 games to 2.
Now two-time NBA champions, the Packers looked to make it three in a row, and looked poised to do so in the 1951-52 season. Johnny Wilson had a breakout year, becoming the league's scoring leader with an average of 23.7 points per game. The league itself contracted to ten teams, losing the Indianapolis Olympians and the Washington Capitols, and the Packers ended up with the league's best record, going 45-21. The Philadelphia Warriors reached the Finals after upsetting the New York Knicks and the Syracuse Nationals, but the Packers were upset by the Lakers in the division finals in a hard fought 3-2 series that saw the Lakers resorting to controversial stall tactics to keep the ball out of Wilson's hands. The Lakers would then triumph over Philly in the Finals, giving George Mikan his first NBA Championship. The stunning playoff loss led to some doubts about the Packers' future as an NBA franchise, but by then the Duffey brothers had put the team on stable financial footing, helped by the fact that the team had some of the highest ticket revenues in the league. The Packers would get a chance for revenge during the 1952-53 season, which would see Johnny Wilson increase his scoring output to 25 points per game, but despite Wilson's excellent performance on the court, the Packers experienced some turbulance this season, with some members of the team starting to consider Wilson a ballhog who did too much scoring and didn't pass enough to his teammates. They became somewhat jealous of Wilson's growing fame, and with team chemistry somewhat hurting, the Packers' record fell to 38-32, placing them third in the Western Division. Teams also continued the double-teaming and stalling tactics that harmed the Packers' and Wilson's offensive rhythm, though stalling on offense was beginning to plague the entire league by this point. The Packers would narrowly defeat the Rochester Royals in the opening round of the playoffs, before once again facing their familiar foes in the conference finals: George Mikan's Lakers. It had grown into one of the biggest rivalries in the league, but Jumpin' Johnny got his revenge, scoring more than 30 points a game en route to the Packers defeating the Lakers, 3 games to 1, and when the Packers clinched the final game, the hometown crowd stormed the court in jubilation. The Packers would then defeat the Knicks in a tight seven game series to win their third NBA championship in four years.
The summer of 1953 would be an interesting one for the Packers, as the Boston Celtics and Red Auerbach came courting the team's biggest star. Auerbach had watched Johnny Wilson blossom into the NBA's biggest star, and wanted to pair him up with his own exciting superstar, the talented point guard Bob Cousy. Auerbach was one of the first NBA coaches to realize the potential of black players in the league, and had drafted Chuck Cooper to the Celtics in 1950. Auerbach aggressively lobbied Wilson to join the Celtics, believing that the chemistry problems Wilson had experienced with his teammates during the season still existed. However, despite the temptation of playing on the Celtics, in a bigger market and for a bigger paycheck, Wilson remained loyal to his hometown, and stayed with the Packers. Auerbach tried to sweet talk the Duffey brothers into trading their star, with attractive packages of players (Auerbach pretty much told the Duffeys that "no one but Cousy" was off-limits) and cash considerations, but Wilson convinced the Duffeys not to trade him, and the Duffeys realized that Wilson could bring them and the team more money than any of the Celtics players ever could. In the end, Wilson remained an Anderson Packer, and the team went into the 1953-54 season looking stronger than ever. Wilson's scoring average dipped a bit as he played a more team oriented brand of ball while retaining his spectacular athleticism. Meanwhile, Wilson's style of play gained national exposure as NBA games began airing on national television for the first time, on the DuMont Television Network, which for the first time allowed young African-Americans around the nation to see the player most of them had only heard of on the radio or read about in the papers. Jumpin' Johnny Wilson became a household name as he led the Packers to a 47-25 record in the Western Division and eventual date with, you guessed it, the Lakers in the division finals. However, Wilson's team would fall short, as the Lakers would beat them 2 games to 1 en route to the team's second NBA championship. Despite the loss, Wilson remained strong in defeat, as his national TV exposure had opened up new avenues of fame. The Duffey brothers would open up a shoe factory in Anderson, producing "Jumpin' Johnny" shoes as their signature product. Meanwhile, the NBA adopted the shot clock, forever ending the stalling tactics that had limited Wilson's game. The sky was about to literally be the limit for Anderson's shining star.
1954-55 would see Jumpin' Johnny average the highest point total of his career, 27.8 points per game, and the Packers raced to their best record ever, 52-20. They dominated the league, with Wilson's spectacular dunks lighting up TV screens across the nation. Some would call Wilson "The Man Who Saved DuMont", with NBA games becoming the highest rated program on the network and allowing it to remain in business during what would have otherwise been a financially hazardous time. The NBA still had 10 teams, though the Fort Wayne Pistons found themselves squeezed by the presence of the nearby Packers, and would move to Detroit at the start of the 1955-56 season. The Packers would become the first (and thus far, only) team to sweep through the playoffs without losing a single game, though to their credit they only had to beat two teams to do so: the Fort Wayne Pistons and the Syracuse Nationals. The Packers returned in 1955-56, and would come up against a pair of new rivals: the St. Louis Hawks, led by all-star forward Bob Pettit, and the rising Boston Celtics, led by Bob Cousy and coached by Red Auerbach, who had once tried to woo Johnny Wilson to the team. Pettit's Hawks would provide the stiffest challenge for the Packers in the Western Division Finals, but would fall 3 games to 2, allowing the Packers to advance to the NBA Finals yet again, where they would come up against the Boston Celtics, who had upset the Philadelphia Warriors thanks to a miracle pass from Bob Cousy to the Celtics' Bill Sharman with two seconds remaining in the deciding game. However, the Celtics would find themselves overwhelmed by the Packers' speed, and would be swept in the Finals, 4 games to 0. The Packers had now won five out of the last seven NBA championships, and Jumpin' Johnny Wilson was undoubtedly the league's biggest star, with fame across the country. He was now considered the "Jackie Robinson of the NBA", an inspiration and role model to millions of young black children throughout the country, and just as the Civil Rights Movement was in its infancy after Rosa Parks' refusal to leave her seat on a Montgomery city bus in 1955, Wilson was one of the pre-eminent athletic trailblazers in the nation.
The 1956-57 season, however, would see a changing of the guard in the league as transcendent center Bill Russell was drafted by the Boston Celtics, transforming the game forever. Suddenly, Johnny Wilson found himself up against a player who could answer him on the defensive end, and in the very first game the Celtics and Packers played against each other that year, Wilson found his dunks blocked by Russell not just once, or twice, but three times in total. While few other teams had a defensive answer for Wilson, there had clearly been a changing in the winds, and the Packers and Wilson performed noticeably worse that year. Despite the new defensive giant in Boston, the team still easily finished with the best record in the Western Division (42-30), and found themselves back in the Finals once again for a grudge match against the Boston Celtics and another chance to win a third straight title and their sixth championship in seven years. The Packers fought valiantly against the Celtics, but the Celtics, which had adopted a fast paced style of their own thanks to Russell's ability to deflect shots back onto the court and provide fast breaks for his team, proved to be just a bit faster and a bit tougher, and won a hard fought seven game series, dethroning the Packers. The 1957-58 season saw most of the league's teams starting to adapt to the new style of play, leaving the Packers behind, and for the first time in the team's history, they missed the playoffs, finishing just behind division rivals Detroit and Cincinnati for the third and final playoff spot. Despite Wilson's fame, the Packers' poor performance had led to declining ticket sales, something the small town Packers couldn't afford, and it was clear to the Duffey brothers that the team's fortunes had turned. Though the Packers survived into the 1958-59 season, fans and players knew that it would be the team's last. Despite this, the Packers valiantly fought their way back into playoff contention, with Wilson continuing to lead the team in scoring, rebounds, and assists in his tenth season in the league. The Packers finished second in the division behind the St. Louis Hawks, and would meet the Hawks in the division finals, in an epic seven game showdown. One last time, Packers fans filled the Wigwam, cheering their team and their star, Jumpin' Johnny Wilson. The home game won the first six games of the series, taking it back to St. Louis for the seventh and final game. Bob Pettit and Johnny Wilson had a duel for the ages, with both men scoring 40 points and battling it out on both sides of the court. With just a minute to go, the Packers held a 110-109 lead, and Wilson had a chance to clinch the game, only for Pettit to make a crucial defensive stop, stealing the ball from Wilson and driving the length of the court for a go-ahead layup. The Packers couldn't respond, and the Hawks held on to win, 113 to 110. It would be the last game for the Anderson Packers, as the team would fold immediately after the end of the season.
The Packers had existed for ten years, winning the NBA championship in half of those years, with an NBL championship to boot. At one time, they'd been the most popular team in the league, thanks to the spectacular play of Jumpin' Johnny Wilson, the face of the franchise and the first true superstar of the league. After folding, the Packers' players were dispersed to other teams. Once again, Red Auerbach tried to get Wilson on the Celtics, but he ultimately fell to the Detroit Pistons, where he'd experience four moderately successful seasons and would help the team to several playoff berths, though the Boston Celtics remained dominant, winning the NBA championship every remaining year of Wilson's career. By the time Wilson's second season on the Pistons rolled around, all of that jumping and running had caught up to him, and knee and leg injuries caused him to miss considerable time during his last three years in the league. He retired in 1963, and at the time was considered probably the best player in the history of the NBA, though Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain would soon eclipse him. He retired as the NBA's all time leading scorer with just over 19,000 career points, another record Chamberlain would soon eclipse, and was also cited as perhaps the most influential basketball player of his time, credited with popularizing the slam dunk at the professional level. During Wilson's career, the dunk became a part of the repertoire of many NBA players (even George Mikan began attempting dunks after Wilson popularized the practice, though he soon abandoned this pursuit). Wilson popularized basketball on television, though its ratings would begin to dip in the 1960s after the Packers folded and Wilson began experiencing injuries, and wouldn't pick back up again until the end of the decade. Thanks to the basketball ratings boom, the DuMont Network was able to stay alive long enough to become the fourth major television network in the United States, though it would lose its NBA broadcasting rights to CBS in the 1960s.
Johnny Wilson also enabled professional basketball to eclipse college basketball in popularity in Indiana. Though Indiana went a few brief years without an NBA team after the Packers folded, Indianapolis would be awarded an NBA franchise at the start of the 1966-67 season. The team would be called the Indiana Racers (the team briefly considered the name Pacers, but decided against it, considering it to be too close to the now legendary Packers name), and would go on to match the Packers' five NBA championships, though it would take them 40 years to accomplish this feat, considerably longer than the Packers' seven. Wilson's hometown of Anderson, Indiana also continued to prosper even after the Packers folded. The Duffey brothers' meat packing business collapsed, but their new shoe-selling business exploded in popularity, and Duffey brand shoes would eventually become the third leading brand of athletic shoes in the world, behind Nike and Reebok. "Lacing up my Duffeys" became a household slogan amongst young athletes, with the company leading the way in sponsoring basketball players and using them to promote shoes. While Duffey didn't keep making shoes in Anderson forever (Duffey, like their competition, would eventually begin producing most of its shoes overseas by the end of the 20th century), the company's corporate headquarters became a fixture of downtown Anderson, and attracted other major companies as well, enabling the once-industrial city to diversify its economy and survive the departure of automotive jobs in the 1980s and 1990s. The Anderson High School Wigwam would be transformed into a massive complex that not only housed a 13,000-seat multipurpose arena, but a museum as well, and even after the original Anderson High School closed in 2001, would remain a popular tourist attraction that chronicled the history of Indiana athletics while hosting both athletic events and concerts. As of 2019, Anderson is a thriving exurb of Indianapolis, home to nearly 100,000 people and a wide variety of shops, restaurants, and businesses. The shining new Anderson High School building, which opened in 2002, has a massive statue of Jumpin' Johnny Wilson in front of the building, a tribute to the man who put his hometown on the map and transformed basketball forever.
And as for Jumpin' Johnny Wilson himself? He would go on to become one of the first black NBA coaches when he took over for Bobby "Slick" Leonard as the coach of the Indiana Racers in 1979, after coaching at the collegiate level and as the assistant coach of the Detroit Pistons during the 1960s and 1970s. He would coach the Pacers to an NBA championship in 1982, and would retire from the NBA in 1991, returning to his hometown of Anderson to be a community leader, mentor, and businessman. He was named one of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players Of All Time for the league's 50th anniversary in 1996, and remains perhaps the best known NBA player of the 1950s and one of the league's first true legends, with his iconic image an indelible part of the league itself: he became the silhouetted athlete on the NBA's logo. Despite the trials and tribulations he suffered during his career, the racial vitriol from fans and the tension with his fellow players, Wilson remained courageous and bold, and was never afraid to do his own thing as one of the greatest pioneers in the history of basketball. His legend continues to this day, inspiring future basketball stars around the world, and the stories of his amazing basketball feats continue to be passed down by those who competed with him and those who were inspired by him.
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"Can you imagine what a tandem of Bob Cousy and Johnny Wilson would've been like back in the day? No doubt the Celtics would have won more than ten straight championships had Jumpin' Johnny been on the team back in 1953. Thirteen in a row isn't out of the question. Then again, maybe it's for the best that Auerbach was never able to get him on the Celtics, because can you imagine how the racist, pearl-clutching NBA fans of the 1950s would have reacted to a Bob Cousy to Johnny Wilson half-court alley oop? Forget the comparisons to Marty McFly playing 'Johnny B. Goode' at the Enchantment Under The Sea dance, this would have been like Marty McFly playing Black Sabbath and then biting the head off a live chicken and spitting it into the crowd. People already wanted to kill Jumpin' Johnny just for dunking, an alley oop would have driven even the hometown Boston Celtics crowds into a bloodthirsty frenzy. It's like Marty said, 'I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet, but your kids are gonna love it'. Yes, yes we do."
-Bill Simmons, from The Book Of Basketball What If? chapter: "13. What If Red Auerbach had gotten Johnny Wilson on the Celtics in 1953?"
"And I guarantee that if Johnny Wilson had been a Celtic, I would have insisted that everybody call me Jumpin' Bill Simmons as a kid. Johnny Wilson might have faced a league full of scrubs like George Mikan and Dolph Schayes, but he dominated the hell out of them, and, along with the shot clock, pretty much saved the NBA back in the 1950s. He was David Thompson before David Thompson, Michael Jordan before Michael Jordan. No, he wasn't as good as Michael Jordan, but against the competition he faced, he absolutely looked like Michael Jordan in those old clips. You know how people are always saying, if you ripped a guy out of the 1990s and sent him back to the early 50s, he'd dominate the league? Well, Johnny Wilson is that guy, 35 years ahead of his time and he played exactly how you'd expect a guy like that to play. His incredible free throw line dunk during one of those games during the 1954-55 season literally doesn't look real, it looks like someone edited the video to put a modern basketball player in there because that's how astonishing he looked back then. I can't put Johnny Wilson any higher on this list simply because once he went up against "real" competition*, the weaknesses in his game were glaringly exposed, but I absolutely have to put him in the Pantheon for what he accomplished in the early days of the league. I might be cheating just a little bit to put him all the way up here, and all apologies to John Havlicek for bumping him for Wilson, but a guy like Jumpin' Johnny Wilson is too important to the history of the league to exclude him from the top 12, and there's no doubt in my mind that he would have succeeded in the modern NBA. Plus, he passes one of my most important tests for any player on this list: the Anderson Packers never, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER, EVER, EVER, under any circumstances, would have traded him. Red Auerbach could have kidnapped Ike Duffey, tied him up, stuck a gun to his head, and told his brother John that he'd kill him if he didn't trade Johnny Wilson to him**, and John probably still would have at least had to think about it.
*(Bill Russell.)
**(You know Red had to have at least halfway considered doing this back in the summer of 1953 when his team was still languishing at the bottom of the Eastern Division.)"
-Bill Simmons, from The Book Of Basketball Hall Of Fame chapter: "#12: Johnny Wilson"