Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan and the NBA's All-Time Greatest Moves

Jordan, Olajuwon, Barkley and McHale among other NBA royalty all had go-to moves—the plays they went to when the clock was running down and all the chips were laid out.

Ahead are the fade-aways, the step-backs, the up-and-unders and all the on-court signatures of the NBA's most unstoppable offensive forces.

This is the definitive list of the NBA's most indelible and transcendent single man plays.

Hank Gather's Alley Oop

Anyone who saw highlights of the man knew that his talents were extraordinary.  But little did people know just how instrumental Gather's alley-oop was to Westhead's furious offense. Many, many plays were drawn up specifically for Gathers well-honed aerial game and that in no small part led to LMU's amazing NCAA record 122.7 points-per-game.  The play was so integrated into LMU's offense that it was called on even during tight, game-ending plays.

Above you will see Gather's penultimate alley-oop jam at 1:25—on top of the world just moments before his passing.

Undoubtedly if the irrepressible Gathers had lived and taken his talents to the N.B.A. the coach—oh, if it had been Don Nelson!—would have utilized this powerful and graceful part of his game.

Yeah the alley-oop already existed long before Gathers, but he would have household-named it much sooner that Shaquille O'Neal, Larry Johnson or And-1 could have anticipated.

Tim Hardaway's Killer Crossover

Hardaway's Killer Crossover Mihttp://bleacherreport.com/slideshow/584168/new#x-Tape

When it comes to indelible moves many would argue that a pre-knee surgery Tim Hardaway's Killer Crossover, so unstoppable and beautiful in its execution, is the best to-get-free dribble in the history of the NBA.

Just ask opposing point guards like John Stockton and Gary Payton, two of the greatest point guard defenders of all-time, of which there is convincing video of the effectiveness of Hardaway's pendulum-smooth handle.  

Of course it was not just in the simple action of putting the ball through the legs one way and rocking it back across the other, but rather T's selling of the first maneuver and the speed and finesse of the second "killer" device.

Truly, this was the basis for future crossover artists like A.I. and Stephon, and probably the reason And-1 was started in the first place.

Barkley's Drop-Step

As the then fit and fearless leader of the Philadelphia 76ers, Charles Barkley threw down plenty of earth-shattering jams, but it was in his contending years with the Phoenix Suns that Barkley truly owned the block.

No play better defined this than his irrepressible drop-step. 

The speed and power of the move recalls images of forwards like Moses Malone and James Worthy, with the former having tutored the young Barkley in back-to-the-basket philosophy.

With a wide, wide frame and perfect bio-dynamics, the "Round Mound" could freeze any defender down low with a swing of his usually right foot, and not put his dribble down until the baseline spin was completed.

Now, in some cases this was called traveling, but Barkley was just too good at it.

Iverson's Crossover

Any move that has NBA higher-ups scrambling for a rule-change has to be considered revolutionary, and just as in his hair, dress and swagger Allen Iverson's crossover was pure hip-hop.

Lightning fast and harder to stay in front of then a young Barry Sander, "A.I." seemed just under control on many of his forays to the basket, but in his crossover move he dropped it just the same every time.

First, their was the set-up, a few dribble-fakes left and right, then a last micro-second hitch before dropping it real low and leaving defenders scrambling the other way.

Just ask Jamaal Tinsley, Stephon Marbury, Tony Parker and Michael Jordan how hard this move was to stop, they won't be able to.

Kobe's Crossover Fake Jumpshot

Okay, first, what is this move you ask?  Kobe comes down court and quickly fakes like he's going to crossover either right or left with a wider than shoulder length stance.  After this quick maneuver just enough space opens up for a feathery jumpshot.  If you still don't think this is a move, look back at the highlights, and all the hapless defenders who've succumbed to hundreds of variations of the Black Mamba's particularly striking go-to freeze-your-man maneuver.

Some good examples are Kobe's overtime performance in Game Four of the 2000 N.B.A. Finals, his spectacular 2006 scoring run, and the above video in which he utilized this move with utter perfection.

Karl Malone's Step-Fade

The Mailman used this crafty little step-back shot so many times Jordan himself must have winced in envy.

You can see clearly at 1:53 and 2:31 in the video that Malone's powerful maneuver ended with a jump-stop back if on the move, or if in triple-threat, a jab-step fake for equal space and then a feathery fade-away.

Malone definitely did not come into the League with this move in tow, he crafted over years and years of hard work, and showcased it best during the mid-90s, culminating with its overwhelming efficiency in the great Jazz runs of '97 and '98.

You could argue that if tough-as-nails Malone actually came back he could drop 12-15 a night with this timeless act.

Kevin McHale's Up-and-Under

Besides having a blistering early-90s hard-rock soundtrack, the above video shows Kevin McHale's amazing move in all its glory.

Barkley himself called McHale the greatest post-player of all-time, and it is the up-and-under which he perfected over 12 indomitable seasons solidifying Chuck's and many basketball purists viewpoint.

McHale may have always been the second option on the team, but if the Celtics needed a bucket, giving the ball to McHale on the block, back-to-basket, was as good a choice as the Lakers giving it to Kareem.

Planting himself firmly around 5-to-10 feet back, McHale would front his man and with both hands on the ball quickly sweep right under the arms of the defender one or two times before going up for the soft under-handed layup.  

Forget the crossover, the befuddled opposition would almost always be heading in the other direction without McHale ever having put the ball on the floor.

The Dream Shake

Hakeem Olajuwon, the prototypical 90's big man, with more footwork than Ronaldo and quickness to boot, holds a special spot on this list.

In the early-to-mid 90s only a few guards in the league had the kinds of turn-a-rounds, step-throughs, jukes and pump-fakes this guy possessed (Sorry Kevin Mchale!).

But his most elusive move was a rock-a-way beauty in which Hakeem would fake left then right then step-through toward the baseline on his man and if that didn't quite dupe him maybe he'd throw in a one-handed ball-fake before softly netting a jumpshot or layup.

Just ask David Robinson, who in the '95 Western Conference Finals faced too many of the Dream's moves to count and saw his team shook right out of the playoffs by the eventual Champion Rockets.

George Gervin's Finger Roll

George "Iceman" Gervin's finger roll was one-of-kind, not because it had never been done before, but because the panache and style he executed it with had not been seen before.

According to Michael Jordan, when he (Jordan) entered the league he had never seen such refinement in a man's game, the man he was talking about was George Gervin.

The smoothest of the smooth, Gervin averaged 26.2 PPG over his career with the Spurs and Bulls, and countless bread-and-butter finger rolls led to his scoring dominance.

Michael Jordan's Fadeaway

Michael Jordan.  

What else is there to say?

The man had so many facets to his game that a move list is almost impossible, but Jordan's fadeaway, which I argue he solely invented out of hard work, imagination and ingenuity, was an act of unique transcendence in the possibilities of guard post-play.

After 1993, when some of Jordan's otherworldly athletic abilities slightly waned, he focused on a move that would cement his legacy in posterity, one that he could still dominate with.

That was his fadeaway.

So many players succumbed to it in the mid-to-late 90s and early 2000s, and Jordan's style was so omnipresent in the League atmosphere he created, that it was quickly and easily, if not close to perfectly, emulated.

Of course, Jordan never minded that other players copied his shot, mainly Kobe Bryant and a host of young guards and forwards, but he as well as anyone knew it's not what you do, it's how you do it.

Six titles, anyone?

Kareem's SkyHook

Kareem Abdul Jabbar is a man that honed a move, a shot that, in all likelihood, could never be stopped — even to this day.

More likely to this day, actually, because no one even does it.

The Skyhook embodied not only his greatness in scoring, Jabbar's the NBA's all-time leader with 38,387 career points, but the knowledge and discipline he achieved in mastering his hook for 25 years.

The most go-to of go-to moves for first the Milwaukee Bucks and then the Los Angeles Lakers, perhaps Chris Kaman explained it best in the above video why the younger generation hasn't embraced their own version of Jabbar's vaunted shot.

"I think a lot of times people don't want to shoot (it) because it is Kareem's shot and they want their own thing. The jumphook's not anybody's.  Everybody can shoot that.  But when you shoot that Skyhook, that's Kareem's Skyhook.  It's nobody else's."

What other shot can you truly say that about?