YouTube Gold: Every Blocked Skyhook, Updated

It’s a bigger club than we realized

When Lew Alcindor, now known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, was in college, the NCAA banned dunks to limit his dominance.

Didn’t really work - he won three national titles at UCLA and lost two games in three years. Freshmen weren’t eligible in the 1960’s, but UCLA was the defending national champions his freshman year and the freshmen played the varsity team and won 75-60, so you can be sure UCLA would have beaten Texas Western or whoever else was in the way in 1966.

It also didn’t work because Jabbar worked on the Mikan drill relentlessly and learned to shoot the hook shot with either hand. His Skyhook became the greatest offensive weapon in the history of basketball. It was nearly unblock able.

But not completely.

An earlier compilation we linked to claimed only four players blocked it - Wilt Chamberlain, Nate Thurmond, Bill Russell and Bill Willoughby.

Turns out that’s not true.

This video shows several other guys including Nate Thurmond, Ralph Sampson, Hakeem Olajuwon and Robert Parish getting it.

Even so, Jabbar so thoroughly mastered the shot that he could shoot it from 15-18 feet out, with either hand, and did so until he was 42. It was a beautiful and devastating weapon.