Greensboro native Bob McAdoo is, in one sense, the first one-and-done in ACC history: after transferring into UNC from a JUCO, he left after just one season, getting drafted by the Buffalo Braves in 1972 with the #2 pick (in one of the great draft fiascos of all time, LaRue Martin went #1 and Julius Erving went…#12).
He was an under-appreciated pioneer, a center who stepped away from the basket when almost no one else did. In a very real sense, he was a basketball revolutionary.
And like a lot of revolutionaries,
he was misunderstood before he was appreciated.
McAdoo played for Buffalo, New York, Boston, Detroit, New Jersey, Los Angeles and Philadelphia before finishing up in Europe.
As noted, he was often misunderstood, but a lot of that was because he was in unstable situations. Buffalo was a poorly managed franchise. New York’s style was slow and dull, which was a poor match. He got to Boston right around the time owner John Y. Brown nearly drove Red Auerbach to the Knicks and was only a Celtic for a season.
Then it was on to Detroit, where his trade ultimately helped bring Robert Parish and Kevin McHale to Beantown to team up with Larry Bird for the NBA’s greatest ever frontcourt.
And oddly, it was in LA, as a reserve, that McAdoo made his greatest mark, helping the Lakers to win two NBA titles in four years.
It took years for the game to catch up to him. By the time he got to the Lakers, Magic Johnson pioneered the idea of positionless basketball as a 6-9 point guard, but it took many more years before McAdoo’s skill set was common.
If he had gotten to a stable franchise early in his career, he could have been a massive presence in the game. As it was, he was hugely influential, sort of basketball’s John the Baptist, telling us where the game was going.
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