Talent approaching Holy Grail status, we invest time searching for and cultivating unicorns, "something highly desirable but difficult to find or obtain."
And we celebrate unicorns throughout art and literature, John Nash in A Beautiful Mind, Mozart in Amadeus, Elton John in Rocketman, Michael Oher in The Blind Side. Artistically, basketball blogs won't make the list.
How would basketball unicorns appear?
Systems like the Hollinger PER capture the concept imperfectly. You say, "that's an impressive list. "Yet, Bernard King clocks in at 100 and Bill Russell at 112, just ahead of Andre Kirilenko, all far behind Clyde Lovelette at 45 and Andre Drummond at 36. Kobe Bryant doesn't crack the top 20. Kobe's a unicorn, Lovelette not so much.
Some unicorny names appear on the current season PER rankings, especially if we acknowledge that unicorns come in many different sizes and shapes. And sample size distorts the picture, notably during pandemics.
Zion Williamson feels like a unicorn, yet has a PER of 21.72, currently 28th in the NBA.
"Who died and made Hollinger king?"
It's not as though there's one "Hall of Unicorns." Win Shares is another metric that identifies player achievement. If you must know and need a headache, this Reddit Win Share discussion informs us.
Where would we discover unicorns? Pete Carril (unicorn-like himself) noted that more players would come from the wrong side of the tracks than from homes with three car garages. Yet, Princeton's unicorn was a banker's son who scored 58 points in an NCAA consolation game and became an NBA champion and a US Senator.
Larry Bird and Isiah Thomas had a minor verbal dustup which seemed unbecoming for a pair of possible unicorns. Suffice it to say that nobody is born into the NBA.
Unicorns appear on a relative scale. A WNBA player (Shey Peddy) materialized at our high school.
For coaches, player development seeks transformation of good into excellent, excellent into extraordinary. We don't hear, Drew Hanlen, unicorn maker. Maybe we should.
What's in unicorn DNA? It often produces size, strength, skill, game savvy, unselfishness, relentlessness, resilience. Yet we might argue that Muggsy Bogues, Spud Webb, or Calvin Murphy were unicorns.
Can coaches be unicorns? Someone rising from a manager to become an NBA coach (Lawrence Frank) is unicornish but an NBA player to NBA coach (Doc Rivers, Tyronn Lue) feels less so.
Can unicorns be evil? Readers appreciate that unicorns are in the eye of the beholder. Unicorns reflect goodness, so defrocked billionaires like Donald Sterling can't appear on my unicorn list.
Unicorns. It's tricky. DNA and discipline, relentlessness and resilience. Who and what are yours? Naturally, doing my research, the Ringer.com beat me to it with their unicorn rankings (but they didn't inspire this piece).
Lagniappe. Who are my favorite basketball unicorns?
1. Russell and Chamberlain (they made each other possible)
2. Pete Maravich
3. Dean Smith, mathematician, gentleman, humanitarian
4. Ernie D (DiGregorio)
5. Lew Alcindor/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (superstar, statesman)
Mine won't be yours; plus I'm old.
Lagniappe 2. No big deal. "Technique beats tactics." That doesn't mean tactics are chopped liver. Only the best tactical video out there.