5 Weirdest Players from Each Decade in NBA History

It seems like there is pretty much a universal acceptance that Michael Jordan is the best basketball player of all time, and if there isn't there should be.

Then after that you have an argument that could be made for about three to five different guys for the No. 2 spot.

That's kind of the same thing for the weirdest player of all time.  Dennis Rodman is basically accepted to have the No. 1 spot on lockdown there, but the No. 2 spot could be occupied by about five different people, depending on who you talk to.

But what about decade to decade?  Who is the weirdest player, in terms of attitude, demeanor, playing style and actions from each decade of NBA basketball?

Well the interesting thing to note is that a lot of the early greats in the game are also some of the stranger players, mostly because they played with a style that few played with, and were often viewed as ahead of their time. 

1950s 5. Dolph Schayes

What was interesting about Dolph Schayes?  Well a few things.

He is interesting to us today because he is such a throwback in terms of playing style.  Schayes was the master of the two-handed set-shot, something that would be nearly impossible today with the amount of athleticism in the game.

What else made him strange?  Well he was a famous man named Adolph; that alone is one of the most impressive feats that a man could pull off post-WWII, although it certainly helped that he shortened it to Dolph.

1950s 4. George Mikan

What's so strange about a giant white dude wearing spectacles and dominating the low post during the 1950s?  Just about everything, that's what.

Mikan is widely accepted to be the first superstar in the NBA, even if he was outshone by Bob Pettit when we look back at this era, but it was just strange when he got so popular because no basketball player was ever really at that level before.

1950s 3. Bob Cousy

Bob Cousy became a strange player because he was able to become so effective on offense even though he was just 6'1".

Back in the '50s and '60s, centers and power forwards dominated the offensive game, racking up points galore and vacuuming in rebounds like an army of Dennis Rodmans.

Cousy was basically a streetballer of the early NBA days, breaking out some behind-the-back dribbling along with his no-look passes and behind-the-back passes to completely stun the crowd and his opponents.

1950s 2. George Yardley

George Yardley was one of the better players of the 1950s, and it's hard to talk about some of the greats of the era without mentioning him.

He was one of the game's most exciting players during the decade; not only was he one of the game's first deft jump shooters, but Yardley could dunk as well.

Considering that many players from this era were boring set-shot artists, that makes Yardley pretty weird.

1950s 1. Tony Lavelli

Don't worry, I had never heard of the dude myself until a few weeks ago, and let me assure you, Tony Lavelli is a real character.

Lavelli was one of the first of the eccentric Boston Celtics.  Just think of him as Delonte West of the 1950s (no word on whether he tried to bang Dolph Schayes' mom), and many people credit him with helping to keep the Celtics franchise afloat early on, even though he only played for them for two seasons.

You see, Lavelli had a stipulation in his contract, and he only signed it once the stipulation was added, that he would get paid an extra $125 a game to play his accordion at halftime, something the fans loved.

I wish this still happened today; wouldn't you totally go to as many basketball games as possible if a different player performed for the halftime show every game?  I don't know what I'd rather see: Dirk Nowitzki being used as part of a Cirque du Soleil act or Kobe Bryant stand-up comedy.

1960s 5. Oscar Robertson

Hardened by racism like many black players in the early days of the NBA, Oscar Robertson poured all of his work into his basketball game, and it showed.

Robertson is the first and only player to average a triple-double for an entire season, and he nearly did it four different times.

Standing at just 6'5", that's definitely a strange feat.

1960s 4. Bill Russell

Bill Russell was one of the strangest big men of his era because he didn't care so much about offense like his cohorts on opposing teams, and it seemed to have worked out well for him.

Russell was fine with scoring "just" 20 points a game, so long as he knew he was killing the other team on defense and doing what he could do for his team to nab a win.

He was also indifferent to letting Wilt Chamberlain score on him down low, so long as he knew his other teammates were shut down, because he knew he could control Wilt when he wanted to, which led to his shutting Wilt down late in important games.

He was a very cerebral man, that Bill Russell.

1960s 3. John Havlicek

John Havlicek was like a '90s guard who was sent back in a time machine to play basketball in the 1960s.

He was a relentless player on the fast break when the halfcourt offense was all the rage; he was intense and could run up and down the court all day, displaying ridiculous amounts of durability and endurance.

Plus, he was a clutch outside shooter, something that was nearly unheard of, as the game was basically played from 15 feet and in.

1960s 2. Elgin Baylor

Sometimes seemingly a forgotten superstar, especially in the ranks as an all-time Lakers great, Elgin Baylor was able to do some interesting things in his days in the NBA.

Baylor was one of the first athletes to happen to be playing basketball.  He was one of the first players to completely have his game revolve around playing above the rim, and it showed in his field-goal percentages how much it helped him.

What's crazier, Baylor was an Army Reservist who was called into active duty during the 1962 season.  He was only allowed to play games on a weekend pass, so wherever the team was going for that weekend is where Baylor went, and he still scored over 1,800 points during the course of 48 games.

1960s 1. Wilt Chamberlain

Wilt Chamberlain was everything to everybody, and that's why he has become almost more of a legend at this point than an actual person, kind of like Babe Ruth.

Chamberlain was larger than life, literally, and he was able to put up numbers that will never be seen again—not by a long shot.

He was a flashy dresser, a womanizer (according to himself at least) and the superstar that Los Angeles always needed that never really amounted to his full potential in terms of winning multiple championships.

1970s 5. Walt Frazier

Clyde Frazier was the player that New York needed.  He rolled around in fancy cars, wore fancy clothes and talked in a way that made him seem like an exotic pleasure to be treasured.

Frazier was also one of the most artful defenders of his time, making stealing the ball into an art form that was rarely seen before and has rarely been seen since.

The uniqueness of Frazier lived a long time because of his inclusion in the MSG Network telecast of Knicks games, where he can be seen unleashing one of his usual rhyming sayings.

He's kind of like the Yogi Berra of basketball.

1970s 4. John Brisker

The heavyweight champion of the ABA, as he was famously called, was one of the more interesting forgotten figures in basketball history.

The great talent he had for the game was overshadowed by his willingness to touch gloves and come out swinging with an opponent doing something he didn't like.

Even stranger, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports Brisker disappeared in Uganda in 1978. His family said that he was personally invited by Idi Amin, the President of Uganda, who was well known for his human rights abuses.

One theory states Brisker was killed by an anti-Amin firing squad when Amin was overthrown in 1979. That was never found to be true, but Brisker was pronounced legally dead in 1985. 

1970s 3. Bill Walton

The NBA's resident hippy, or one of the coolest guys to step on a basketball court, depending on how you look at him, was definitely one of the stranger players in his time in the NBA.

Walton was a well-known Dead Head, having seen the band over 650 times, and he even traveled to Egypt to watch them play in front of the Pyramids in 1978, a concert in which he joined the band on stage to play drums.

1970s 2. Pistol Pete

Pistol Pete was a marvel to watch; it's just too bad that he never won a title to make his legacy worth a whole lot more than an awe-inspiring player on some decent teams at best.

The Pistol was a long-distance shooter before it made sense to be a long-distance shooter, and he was a miracle worker with the basketball, doing things with it that nobody had done before.

He could see every angle for a pass—hell, he didn't even really need to look to see the angle—and he was able to get the ball to anywhere on the floor no matter what the defense was doing.

1970s 1. Dave Cowens

Few players were as dedicated to playing basketball as Dave Cowens was.

Cowens was always the most intense player on the floor; looking at giving 110 percent as slacking off, Cowens always gave 348 percent, and he expected everyone else to do the same.

Well there's nothing weird about giving a crap about the game, is there?  Well no, but when you care about it so much that you'd rather go drive a taxi for half a season than see yourself get sucked down into not caring as much about the game, then you're a pretty strange fellow.

1980s 5. Magic Johnson

The 1980s produced some characters, one of the most iconic being Magic Johnson.

Johnson was obviously weird on the court, as he was one of the few players up to that point in NBA history that could legitimately play every position on the court, and do it better than the guy he's guarding.

You've got to be a pretty eccentric dude to call yourself Magic and expect everyone else to follow suit, and really, I don't think that would have worked out for any other player in the history of the game.

1980s 4. Marvin Barnes

Marvin Barnes is one of those odd decade-straddlers, but he was at his best in the 1980s, so I included him in the '80s group.

He mostly made news after his career ended for being the guy to get arrested once a week, or so it seemed, but his biggest contribution to NBA weirdness has to be his most famous quote.

When flying from Kentucky to St. Louis in the '70s, the plane was to cross a time zone and technically arrive four minutes before it took off.  Barnes said, "I ain't gettin' on no time machine," left and rented a car.

1980s 3. Michael Ray Richardson

Michael Ray Richardson was widely viewed as the next Walt Frazier, but as would happen to players throughout the '80s and '90s, he got to cocaine and cocaine got to him.

After failing multiple drug tests, Richardson was banned from the league in 1986, eventually being restored in 1988 until he started failing tests again in 1991.

Richardson was a staunch critic of his expulsion from the league, complaining that guys like Chris Mullin (who had a drinking problem) were just as self-destructive as he but weren't tossed from the league, claiming it a double standard because he was black and Mullin was white.

1980s 2. World B. Free

One of the more flamboyant players of the 1980s, exemplified by his name change.

People had called him "World" for a good portion of his career and he referred to himself as an All-World player, so in 1981 he decided to go ahead and change his name from Lloyd to World and just get it over with.

1980s 1. Darryl Dawkins

As if there was ever another choice for the weirdest player in the 1980s, Darryl Dawkins has a legitimate hold of the second-weirdest-player-ever title.

Dawkins was most well known for his nickname Chocolate Thunder and his ability to bring down backboards in a chaotic shower of bits of glass and muscle, but he was even stranger than that.

He claimed to be an alien from the planet Lovetron where he practiced "interplanetary funkmanship" in the offseason and spent time with his girlfriend, Juicy Lucy.

On top of that, as if you needed anything else, Dawkins also named his dunks, including the backboard breaker, which was dubbed, "The Chocolate-Thunder-Flying, Robinzine-Crying, Teeth-Shaking, Glass-Breaking, Rump-Roasting, Bun-Toasting, Wham-Bam, Glass-Breaker-I-Am-Jam."

1990s 5. Vernon Maxwell

Vernon Maxwell, or Mad Max as he came to be known, was most well known for his three-point shooting along with his erratic behavior and constant bouts with the law.

His most insane moment came in 1995 when he charged into the stands and punched a fan, a decade before Ron Artest made it cool.  Maxwell said that the fan had heckled him over his wife's miscarriage.  What did the league fine him?  A cool $20,000 and 10 games on the bench, and that's it.

1990s 4. Shaq

You could really put him in the '90s or 2000s, but Shaq's peak of strangeness came in the 1990s, and I really don't think that could be debated.

I mean, what could he possibly have done in the '00s that would have topped four rap albums including classics like Shaq Diesel and Shaq Fu: Da Return, or his Oscar-worthy performance in Kazaam?

1990s 3. Bison Dele

Bison Dele is what you would consider to be an eccentric person, even when compared to other basketball players in his age.

Coming into the league as Brian Williams, he changed his name to Bison Dele to honor both his Native American and African ancestry.

On top of that, Dele retired in 1999 just before the start of the season at the peak of his ability with nearly $40 million still left on his contract with Detroit.

1990s 2. Charles Barkley

What is there to say about Charles Barkley that hasn't already been said?

In a way it seems like Chuck is stranger now because he is given a constant outlet for his mind to pour into with TNT, a job that television executives back in the early '90s would shudder to think he would have just 15 years later.

Barkley is of course famous for claiming that he, and other athletes for that matter, are not role models to children.  Instead, children should be looking up to teachers and parents as a more realistic goal in life.

1990s 1. Dennis Rodman

Dennis Rodman is the King of Kooky, the Colossus of Crazy, the Sultan of Strange, the Boss of Berserk, the Master of Mental.  Should I keep going or do you pretty much get the point?

Dennis Rodman couldn't go a day without making headlines later in his career, evidenced by his constantly changing hair style and what I would say was the peak of his crazy when he ended up marrying himself in 1996. 

2000s 5. Latrell Sprewell

You know the '00s were a weird set of years strung together when a dude who choked his coach is only at No. 5 on the list of strange fellows from the time.

Aside from choking PJ Carlesimo for his criticism that he threw at him during a practice, Spree was also famous for saying after getting a $21 million offer from the Timberwolves that he has, "a family to feed...If Glen Taylor wants to see my family fed, he better cough up some money. Otherwise, you're going to see these kids in one of those Sally Struthers commercials soon." 

Umm...what?

2000s 4. Chris Andersen

Chris Andersen is one of the few players to have been banned from the league since the cocaine years came to an end sometime during the late '80s.

After setting white people back a decade in the 2005, Andersen was suspended from the league in 2006 for violating the anti-drug policy.  The suspension came from multiple tests for "drugs of abuse" which could include anything from cocaine to PCP.

Aside from that, Andersen is tattooed from head to toe with colorful ink topped off with a giant "BIRDMAN" tatted across his neck.

2000s 3. Stephon Marbury

I have never seen, met or even heard of a person who got a tattoo above their Adam's apple who is a completely normal person, and the same goes for Stephon Marbury.

Marbury started off his career with the normal problems of player from the decade, not wanting to cede looks to Tom Gugliotta who was Kevin Garnett's sidekick at the time, a spot that he wanted to take over, so he demanded to be traded.

Later in his career he became just a strange dude overall, putting out YouTube videos where he eats vaseline and getting a tattoo of his shoe company's logo on his dome.

2000s 2. Rasheed Wallace

Rasheed Wallace was on one of the strangest basketball teams of the decade and a part of one of the weirdest championship teams of the decade—that's got to say something about his weirdness.

Wallace is known for constantly arguing with referees and for shouting "Ball don't lie!" after a player misses a free throw stemming from a foul called on Rasheed that he saw as questionable.

My favorite story about Rasheed is from 2007 when he was in a game against the Nuggets, stole an inbound pass and heaved the ball from 60 feet at which point he yelled "Glass!" as the ball flew through the air and banked in.

2000s 1. Ron Artest

The player who gave Dennis Rodman the best run for his money since he retired is easily Ron Artest, although he never really came close to dethroning the king.

Artest is of course most known for his charging into the stands and swinging randomly at fans after he was hit with a cup of beer near the end of a Pacers-Pistons game back in 2004, generating the longest suspension in NBA history.

More recently, Artest has been an advocate for mental health, famously thanking his therapist first after the Lakers won the title in 2010.

As cool as it may be that he did that for mental health awareness, it's definitely not a normal thing to do, although I can't say it was surprising.

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