Before Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Shaquille O\u2019Neal, there was George Mikan.<\/p>\n
Mikan was not someone who was destined to be an athlete. He met DePaul coach Ray Meyer when he was in high school, and Meyer saw potential in the awkward 6-10 teenager. He had him do a number of things to increase his athleticism and agility, including, famously, the Mikan Drill, which would have an enormous impact later.<\/p>\n
He went on to a trailblazing career in the NBL, the BAA, and finally, the NBA, where he won five championships with the Minneapolis Lakers.<\/p>\n
Mikan was a revolutionary player in his day, and he dominated the league, forcing several rules changes, including the widening of the lane from six feet to 12, banning goaltending, and the introduction of the shot clock.<\/p>\n
As we mentioned, the Mikan Drill had an enormous impact too: a young player named Lew Alcindor picked it up around 1957, shortly after Mikan retired, and when Alcindor was in the fifth grade.<\/p>\n
The Mikan Drill is basically going from left to right, doing hook shots and short shots in the lane. It really develops ambidextrousness, footwork, and how to use the glass.<\/p>\n
So Mikan\u2019s direct influence on the game continued, through Alcindor, now known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, until his retirement in 1989.<\/p>\n
It would be a brilliant thing for Victor Wembanyama, or Khaman Maluach, or, really, any young big man to have in his bag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Shaquille O\u2019Neal, there was George Mikan.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,7432,590,85],"class_list":["post-820814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-main","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}