IT’S said that 25 percent of basketball athletes around the world are left-handed. In the National Basketball Association, some of the prominent southpaws from the past include William Felton (Bill) Russell, David (The Admiral) Robinson, David (Dave) Cowens, Willis Reed Jr., Robert Jerry (Bob) Lanier, William (Billy) Cunningham, Nathaniel (Nate) Archibald, Gail Charles Goodrich Jr., Artis (The A Train) Gilmore, Christopher Paul (Chris) Mullin and Leonard Randolph (Lenny) Wilkens.
The aforementioned players were no ordinary roundballers but rather legendary greats who all are members of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
All earned at least one NBA title during their incandescent playing careers with the exception of Lanier, Gilmore, Mullin and Wilkens. The 7-foot-2 Gilmore did win a championship with the Kentucky Colonels in the old American Basketball Association (ABA) in 1975. Russell owns 11 NBA championship rings from 12 Finals trips with the Boston Celtics from 1956-69 – the most rings by any player in league history – and gained five Most Valuable Player trophies (tied with Michael Jordan for second all-time best behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s total haul of six). The NBA Finals MVP hardware is named after the iconic Boston Celtics center.
Archibald, a 6-foot-1 guard, is the only player in NBA annals to pace the majors in scoring and assists during the same season when he registered averages of 34.0 points and 11.4 assists in 80 games with the Kansas City-Omaha Kings in 1972-73. (Note that during the 1967-68 wars, Oscar Robertson of the Cincinnati Royals topped the NBA in points and assists per game but he did not win both statistical titles because they were based on totals rather than averages at the time. Robertson appeared in just 65 games out of 82 due to various injuries.)
Wilkens is one of only three men to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a player and head coach, the others being all-time University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) mentoring great John Wooden and William Walton (Bill) Sharman, who won four NBA crowns (1957, 1959, 1960 and 1961) as a 6-foot-1 guard with the Boston Celtics and piloted the Los Angeles Lakers to the 1972 NBA crown with a 69-13 record, including an all-time league record 33-game winning streak at one stretch.
Wilkens secured an NBA title ring in 1979 as the head coach of the Seattle SuperSonics. At the time of his coaching retirement, Wilkens, who steered the NBA-dominated U.S. team to a gold-medal finish during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, owned the most number of regular-season victories in NBA history at 1,332.
(The now-retired Don Nelson has since surpassed him with 1,335.) Unknown to many, Russell actually was not a left-hander all his life. Russell, whose parents named him after William Felton, the president of Southeastern Louisiana College in Hammond, was naturally right-handed.
But his Uncle Bob had been unsuccessful in becoming a first baseman in the Negro baseball leagues and blamed the failure on not being left-handed. He was therefore determined to make his nephew a southpaw.
“One time we bought a 22-pound turkey and Bill started in on the leg,” recalled Russell’s father. “Before he got through he fell asleep with the unfinished turkey leg in his right hand. Uncle Robert went over and switched it to his left. Billy’s been a left-hander ever since.”
Today, there also are a number of lefties plying their trade in the NBA. The list includes James Harden (Houston), Chris Bosh (Miami), Manu Ginobili (San Antonio), Michael Conley (Memphis), Zach Randolph (Memphis), Goran Dragic (Phoenix), Michael Beasley (Miami), David Lee (Golden State), DeAndre Jordan (LA Clippers), Josh Smith (Detroit), Derek Fisher (Oklahoma City), Greg Monroe (Detroit), Brandon Jennings (Detroit), Tayshaun Prince (Memphis) and Thaddeus Young (Philadelphia).
During the current 2013-14 season, Harden ranked fifth in the league in scoring with a 25.4-point clip for the playoffs-appearing Rockets. (Ahead of The Beard were Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant, 32.0 ppg; New York’s Carmelo Anthony, 27.4; Miami’s LeBron James, 27.1; and Minnesota’s Kevin Love, 26.1.)
Young placed third in steals (2.11 spg) behind the LA Clippers’ Chris Paul (2.48, he also paced the NBA in assists at 10.7 apg) and Minnesota’s Ricky Rubio (2.32). Jordan won the statistical crowns in rebounding (13.6 rpg) and field goal percentage (.676) to become the third player in NBA annals to accomplish the feat in the same season, the others being Dwight Howard and Wilt Chamberlain.
The 7-foot Clippers center also ranked third in blocked shots at 2.48 bpg (trailing only New Orleans’ Anthony Davis, 2.82, and Oklahoma City’s Serge Ibaka, 2.70). How important are the lefties of the world? Well, they are important enough for a day to be declared in their honor. It’s International Left-Handers Day on August 13 of every year.