Lovetron beckons: legendary dunk artist Darryl Dawkins dies at 58

Darryl Dawkins of the Philadelphia 76ers dunks during a 1980 playoff game against the Atlanta Hawks. Photograph: Rusty Kennedy/AP

The biggest surprise about Darryl Dawkins’s death on Thursday is that it came at age 58. He always seemed destined to either die early or live on forever.

We were lucky that Dawkins came along before sports was ruined by image-makers and professional basketball athletes dared to show personality. Few men made basketball more fun then the 6ft 11in center for the Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Nets, Detroit Pistons and whatever minor league team was willing to extend his career long after it had burned out in the NBA.

Dawkins died Thursday in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania hospital. No cause was of death was given, an inglorious end to an oversized life.
Darryl Dawkins’s ferocious dunks became his calling card.

He claimed to have come from a planet called Lovetron and called named himself Chocolate Thunder, claiming the nickname was given him by Stevie Wonder. He was also Dr Dunkenstein and Sir Slam. The nicknames forever changed depending on how he felt. And when he dunked basketballs he did so with a ferociousness few had ever seen. Today, players regularly battle to see who can dunk the hardest, but the late 1970s when Chocolate Thunder roamed the courts, Dawkins was slamming the ball through rims in a way other players never dreamed.

Twice, he broke backboards dunking in games. Each time he shattered the glass into little shards that looked like tiny bits of ice strewn around the court. The NBA introduced collapsible rims not long after that, leaving Dr Dunkenstein to perform more traditional assaults on basketball rims.

Dawkins so loved his dunks that he often named them. His first backboard-breaking dunk deserved an outrageous nickname, therefore he called it: The Chocolate-Thunder-Flying, Robinzine-Crying, Teeth-Shaking, Glass-Breaking, Rump-Roasting, Bun-Toasting, Wham-Bam, Glass-Breaker-I-Am-Jam. Others were comparatively subtle even if they seemed just as ridiculous. Who could forget the In-Your-Face-Disgrace? Or the Spine-Chiller-Supreme?

But for all the laughs and outlandish dunks Dawkins did not have the dominating career many assumed for him when he came to the league straight from high school in 1975. He was the fifth overall pick in the draft that year and helped the Sixers make three NBA finals before his trade to New Jersey in 1982.

For his NBA career he averaged 12.0 points and 6.1 rebounds a game. Decent numbers but not the kind of Hall of Fame career his immense talent said he should have had. He seemed a player who should have gone to college, maybe maturing before coming to the NBA. Instead, he had to learn as a pro, struggling through his first few seasons. When he finally established himself, injuries kept him from basketball greatness.

He drifted for several years, floating through Italy and the Continental Basketball Association and even had a brief run with the Harlem Globetrotters, not fully retiring from basketball until 2000.

Still, few players can say they left a mark – literally – on the game and inspired perhaps the biggest equipment change in 50 years with collapsible rims.

Not bad for a kid from Lovetron who never went to college.