18.8 PPG, 3.0 RPG, 3.9 APG, 46 FG%, 81 FT%
“Before the arrival of “Magic” Johnson there was another “Magic” — “Black Magic,” also known as “Earl the Pearl.” He was Earl Monroe, a dazzling ballhandler and one-on-one virtuoso who made crowds gasp with his slashing drives to the hoop.
Monroe joined the NBA in 1967 and parlayed his talents into a distinguished 13-year career. He was part of a changing of the guard in the NBA, arriving at a time when high scorers like Dave Bing and Jerry West were showing that the backcourt could rack up points just as effectively as the center position. He finished with a career average of 18.8 ppg.
Spectators were amazed not only by the number of points that Monroe scored but also by how he scored them. “The ultimate playground player,” is how Bill Bradley once described him to the New York Post. He loved to spin and twist through the paint and then launch off-balance, circus-like shots in the tradition of the Harlem Globetrotters. His shots went in often enough for Monroe to compile a respectable .464 career field-goal percentage and earn four All-Star Game appearances. More importantly, he was a key leader on two excellent teams of the late 1960s and early 1970s-the Baltimore Bullets and the New York Knicks.
Monroe grew up in a tough South Philadelphia neighborhood. As a youth he was more interested in soccer and baseball than in basketball, but by age 14 he had grown to 6-3 and had drawn the attention of school basketball coaches. Although he wasn’t immediately adept at basketball, Monroe played center during most of his youth. His “shake-and-bake” moves originated in the tough contests played on Philly’s asphalt playgrounds. “I had to develop flukey-duke shots, what we call la-la, hesitating in the air as long as possible before shooting,” he once explained.” [Read]
[Note: RSS readers, there is a video within this blog]
[Sources: NBA.com, YouTube, Basketball-Reference.com]
