YouTube Gold: G-Man vs. Kareem

Mike Gminski had a wonderful college career, and even more so when you consider that he started it at 16 and proved tough right away.

The NBA is another beast entirely, but Gminksi did well there too, finishing with nearly 11,000 career points and almost 7,000 rebounds. He also kept a job in the league from 1980-1994. That’s a solid run.

Of course playing at that level means, except for a very rare few guys, that you’re going to play against people who are a lot better than you.

For Gminski, that meant facing up to Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, Ralph Sampson, David Robinson and, of course, as we see here, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Jabbar had a very long NBA career, playing from 1969-1989. Even in his later years, as he was here, Jabbar was magnificent. He was in superb shape, had decades of tremendous work habits and of course you couldn’t do anything with the sky hook.

The younger Gminski gave him a good game, scoring 19 points to Jabbar’s 21. For those who haven’t seen Gminski, he looks ponderous sometimes, but he was much more athletic than he looks here. He was a revelation for a lot of people.