Former Denver Nuggets star David Thompson was ahead of his time.
The Athletic has ranked every first overall pick in NBA history and former Denver Nuggets swingman David Thompson, the high-flying North Carolina native who spent his first seven seasons in Denver, managed to land at #25. Thompson was actually selected by the Atlanta Hawks with the first overall pick in the 1975 NBA Draft but he would choose to sign with the ABA’s Denver Nuggets instead.
For an explosive athlete like Thompson, the NBA was too conservative for his style and likely reminded him too much of the NCAA, where the “Lew Alcindor” rule made dunking illegal. Interestingly enough, the Nuggets would be one of four teams to join the NBA after Thompson’s rookie season.
Falling right behind former Houston Rockets superstar Yao Ming and just ahead of Blake Griffin, another one of the NBA’s elite leapers, Thompson seems to be ranked just where he should be.
One of the most successful college players, Thompson was ACC Player of the Year and a consensus first-team All-American each of the three years he played for NC State. He led the Wolfpack to a national championship in 1974 and won the award for the NCAA Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player. The following year, he was recognized as the national Player of the Year and his number 44 jersey remains the only jersey to be retired by NC State.
Thompson didn’t slow down once he made it to the big leagues, winning Rookie of the Year for the 1975-76 season after averaging 26.0 points, 6.3 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.2 blocks per game, leading the Nuggets to a 60-24 record and a trip to the ABA Finals (where they would lose to Julius Erving’s New York Nets.
That was the second time that Thompson would come second to Erving as a rookie, as he was named the runner-up to Dr. J in the 1976 ABA Slam Dunk Contest.
However, Thompson was named as the MVP for the ABA All-Star Game after a 29-point, 8-rebound performance. It wouldn’t be the last time he won All-Star MVP honors.
One of the Nuggets’ best success stories, “Skywalker” (as we was aptly nicknamed) was an All-Star his first four seasons in Denver. The Nuggets would reach the NBA playoffs the following three seasons though they never made it past the Western Conference Finals.
At the end of the 1977-78 season, he would score 73 points against the Detroit Pistons in the team’s final regular season game. These were the most points scored in a single game since Wilt Chamberlain notched 100 points against the New York Knicks in 1962.
Unfortunately, Thompson would suffer from plantar fasciitis and only appear in 39 games, causing Denver to miss the playoffs for the first time since drafting him. Thompson promptly developed a substance abuse problem, and the scintillating start that he had to his career was beginning to look like his end.
While Thompson would score 25.5 points per game in the 1980-81 season, Denver would still miss the playoffs with a 37-45 record. This is even with Nuggets legends Dan Issel and Alex English both scoring above 20 points per game as well, which shows just how terrible the team had become defensively.
Denver opted to bring Thompson off the bench in 1981-82, his last season with the Nuggets, and he averaged just 14.9 points per game (by far the lowest scoring average of his career). With Denver managing to reach the playoffs with Thompson in a reduced role, they were able to stomach the trade request made by their former leading scorer, and sent him to the Seattle SuperSonics in the 1982 offseason.
Thompson reached the playoffs with the SuperSonics in his first season with the team and was even named as an All-Star despite averaging just 15.9 points per game. Sadly, Thompson would only play 19 games for Seattle the following season, thanks to a knee injury he suffered falling down a staircase at Studio 54. He would retire after that injury at just 29 years old.
Skywalker’s story ended tragically but he’s highly respected for what he was able to accomplish before his foot injury. Credited with making the alley-oop popular, his vertical leap was an inspiration to the games later high-flyers.
Even “His Airness,” Michael Jordan.
“I was in love with David Thompson,” Jordan said during his 2009 speech. “Not just for the game of basketball but in terms of what he represented. We all go through our trials and tribulations, and he did. And I was inspired by him.”
As Nuggets current star Nikola Jokic would say, Thompson was “Michael Jordan before Michael Jordan came around.”
Thompson was named to the Hall of Fame in 1996.