YouTube Gold: Chris Mullin

One of the greatest of NBA players and someone who should be a role model for a current Blue Devil

When people talk about NBA greats, one name that rarely comes up is Chris Mullin, but for anyone who is uncertain, Mullin was truly great.

By every day standards he was a tremendous athlete but by NBA standards? Not so much.

He was a very good athlete though and after a rough stretch in the early part of his career, where he had to overcome alcoholism, Mullin excelled.

Like JJ Redick, he became fanatical about conditioning and emerged as one of the best pure shooters in NBA history, but he was more than that: Mullin was a superb all-around player. He wore #17 in honor of John Havlicek and like Havlicek, he rarely stopped moving.

He was on two of the greatest Olympic basketball teams of all time: the overwhelming 1984 team that Bob Knight coached to gold and of course the Dream Team in 1992.

He set a standard of excellence that few people have ever reached. Today, when we see Kon Knueppel play, we think that this should be his role model. He’s not in the superb shape that Mullin was, but he could have a similar trajectory.