On 16 March 1974, in front of twelve thousand people at Reynolds Coliseum, David Thompson came down out of the air onto the back of his head and did not wake up for more than ten minutes. Two hours later he walked back into the building with fifteen stitches in his scalp. Ten years after that he fell down four steps in a Manhattan nightclub, and that one ended everything.
Nine stories, in order: the bicycle rim nailed to a tree in Shelby, North Carolina; the forty-four inch vertical leap, in the decade when dunking was against the rules; the play he and a five-foot-seven guard invented to get around that rule; the undefeated season his team was banned from the tournament; the fall; the double overtime game that ended the longest dynasty in American sport; the afternoon he scored seventy-three points and lost the scoring title by seven hundredths of a point; the staircase; and the day he collected a degree alongside his own daughter.
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CHAPTERS
0:00 The fall
Archive photographs and footage appear here for historical commentary and criticism. Many of the still images are in the public domain (Wikimedia Commons). Narration is AI-assisted; the research, writing and editing are original to this channel.
David Thompson is the Greatest College Basketball player EVER. Then Alcindor and Walton and Pistol and Cazzie and Howard Porter and many others – But David was the Greatest
worst AI voiceover ever. Fix it.
Great video.I am old enough to remember Thompson at NC state and with the Nuggets, it is a shame that he had to play under the dunk ban…basketball fans were no doubt denied some electrifying plays.State's victory over UCLA was a fantastic achievement as UCLA just didnt lose back then.
Drug kills
Everyone knows Julius Erving. No one knows David Thompson. And that's a crying shame. When they both played in the ABA, there were serious discussions over which one was the better player and the more exciting player. yes, Thompson was THAT good. Then came drugs……
David Thompson was an amazing basketball player.I was in college when I saw N.C. state beat the UCLA Bruins with Bill Walton,Keith wilkes and c.o. simply amazing! Butch Ballour
Thompson wasnt 6 foot 4, he was closer to 6 foot 2.