George Mikan
June 18, 1924 — June 1, 2005 — Joliet, Illinois / Scottsdale, Arizona
George Mikan was professional basketball's first dominant big man — a 6'10" center for the Minneapolis Lakers who won six championships in seven years, forced the NBA to change its rules twice to slow him down, and became the league's first genuine superstar in the years before television made the NBA a national institution.
The Big Man Who Changed the Game
Born on June 18, 1924, in Joliet, Illinois, Mikan was considered too tall and too clumsy to play basketball as a teenager. A college coach, Ray Meyer at DePaul University, saw his potential and spent two years turning him into an athlete — developing his footwork, coordination, and shooting touch through relentless drill work. The result was transformative. Mikan became the dominant force in college basketball, then in the National Basketball League, then in the BAA, and finally in the merged NBA. He was so much more effective than any other center that the NBA widened the lane from six feet to twelve feet specifically to move him further from the basket — a rule change immediately nicknamed the "Mikan rule." The NBA also banned goaltending (blocking shots near the top of the backboard) in 1945, another rule change made largely because of how Mikan was using his height advantage.
Minneapolis Lakers Dominance
With the Minneapolis Lakers from 1947 to 1956, Mikan won six championships — two in the National Basketball League, one in the Basketball Association of America, and three in the NBA. He led the league in scoring three times. When Madison Square Garden posted a marquee for a game between the Knicks and the Lakers, it read simply: "GEO. MIKAN vs. KNICKS" — acknowledging that he was the attraction. He was selected as the greatest basketball player of the first half of the twentieth century in a 1950 Associated Press poll. He retired in 1954and briefly returned in 1955-56 before leaving for good. He averaged 23.1 points per game for his career at a time when many teams scored fewer than 80 per game.
Did You Know?
George Mikan was so influential that the NBA's most prestigious awards bear traces of his legacy in unexpected ways. When the league selected its 25 Greatest Players in 1971 and its 50 Greatest in 1996, Mikan was on both lists — the only player from the pre-television era of professional basketball to be so widely recognized decades later. He also served as the first commissioner of the American Basketball Association (ABA) in 1967-68, introducing the red-white-and-blue ball and the three-point line that would eventually be adopted by the NBA.
Legacy
George Mikan was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1959 — in the inaugural class. The Los Angeles Lakers, descendants of the Minneapolis franchise, retired his number 99 and honor him as the ancestral origin of a dynasty. He died in Scottsdale, Arizona, on June 1, 2005. His career traced the entire formation period of professional basketball — from barnstorming leagues through the NBA's first television contracts — and his influence on the rules, structure, and physical identity of the game is visible in every arena that now celebrates seven-foot centers as the most valuable commodity in basketball.