The Smartest Basketball Players of All Time

[dbestpro]

Vlade Divac. He had no natural skill but constantly was a pain in everyone's side with one clever play or flop after another. Maybe the best big man passer ever.

[Mel_13]

You can really make a case for any of those 1970s Knicks. Those were the smartest teams in NBA history.

Do you see some rough parallels between the 69-73 Knicks and the 03-07 Spurs?

Old school coach
Defense first
Share the ball
Quiet big man captain
Broadway/Hollywood PG
SG making impossible plays
High BBIQ role players

[Hornets1]

Birdman

JR Smith

Kenyon Martin

Delonte West

Jayson Williams

Gilbert Arenas

Ron Artest

Sun Yue

just to name a few.......

[temujin]

Do you see some rough parallels between the 69-73 Knicks and the 03-07 Spurs?

Old school coach
Defense first
Share the ball
Quiet big man captain
Broadway/Hollywood PG
SG making impossible plays
High BBIQ role players

Absolutely.

[temujin]

I forgot one.

Kresimir Cosic.
Three Euros with Yugoslavia in the 70s.
Best big man passer ever to play in Europe.

Later Croatian ambassador in the US during the 91-95 war.
Basically #2 of the regime.

[disciple]

I'm not sure how you can measure this without looking at a players accomplishments in basketball while NOT on the floor. I would think the smartest players would become coaches.

So my list in no particular order:

Phil Jackson
Jerry Sloan
Paul Westpaul
Rick Carlisle
Larry Brown
Don Nelson
Doc Rivers
Steve Kerr
George Karl
Rick Adelman
Mike Dunleavy, Sr.

[Blake]

David Robinson starts and ends the list - a true genius, math, pianiast and humanitarian - he may not have shown it on the court (basketball was never his true passion)

I think Isiah Thomas should be on the list of smartest BBIQs....

funny how someone like David can be near genius off the court, but basically made his career because of his pure athletic ability....

while Zeke was brilliant on the court and has been nothing short of a dumbass off the court in almost every area of his life.

book smarts =/= playground smarts

[howbouthemspurs]

Becky Hammon!!

No contest! She is Brilliant!

[ambchang]

The ? Thats the common misconception. Just because the Celtics beat the 6ers/Warriors, doesn't mean that Wilt didn't get his. Wilt is they ever averaged it out I would guess that Wilt averaged 30/15 against the Celtics. And the Lakers would have won the 69 championship had Wilt not been benched in the fourth quarter, a quarter in which the Celtics out rebounded and out scored the Lakers because Wilt didn't play. The coach had some kind of personal hate for Wilt and is probably the only coach in NBA history who won 55 regular season games, took the team to the finals and still got fired (because he didn't let Wilt re-enter the game).

I understand your love for Wilt, but Russell did that "pals-with-you" thing with Chamberlain to soften him up, then the 2nd he retired, starting bashing Wilt.

You can say Russell was a sneaky little jackass, but Wilt did get duped.

[JoshO501]

ron harper, mario elie