Dan Issel - Domination

Daniel (Dan) Paul Issel (born October 25, 1948 in Batavia, Illinois) is a retired American professional basketball player and coach.

Upon Issel's graduation in 1970 he signed to play basketball for the Kentucky Colonels of the American Basketball Association (ABA). In his first season, Issel led the ABA in scoring with a scoring average of 29.9 points per game, and pulled down 13.2 rebounds per game. He was named the ABA Rookie of the year in 1971, and was selected to the All-ABA Second Team. The following season, Issel raised his scoring average to 30.6 points per game, made the All-ABA First Team, and was named MVP of the 1972 ABA All-Star Game.

In 1975, Issel won an ABA title with the Colonels, who also featured sharp-shooting guard (and fellow ex-Kentucky Wildcat) Louie Dampier, as well as 7-2 center Artis Gilmore. After the Colonels' championship season Issel was sold by the Colonels' owners to the short-lived Baltimore Claws franchise and ended up with the Denver Nuggets for the following season.

Issel remained with the Nuggets following the ABA's merger with the NBA in 1976, and represented Denver in the 1977 NBA All-Star Game. He continued playing through the 1984-1985 season, and received the NBA's J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award in 1985 for his outstanding service to the community.

Issel accumulated over 27,000 points in his combined ABA and NBA career. At the time of his retirement the only professional basketball players to have scored more points than Issel were Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain and Julius Erving.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• basketball
• sports
• talk
• personals
• tv
• athletics

[astroclips]

WOAH. This guy very UNDERRATED. Killer in the post. Its too bad he's not known to many NBA fans nowadays.

[VeoShock]

Yea, Dan was the man. I agree, he is very very UNDERRATED.  A beast.

[Bassmon53]

I met Dan tonight at the Nuggets-Thunder game. Very gracious guy. What a legendary player. My daughter and my niece's husband said "Who's Dan Issel?" and i replied, "Look up in the rafters for number 44."

They found it.

[EvoCize]

OMG. Issel was a beast. Dude can score with the best of them. A hard nose player that proved he belong with the big boys especially being drafted sooooo low in the draft. He was easily a steal for the team that drafted him. One of the bes to EVER PLAY.

[therealmcnulty]

he dominated beer drinking mexicans too, not just basketball

[plrogers1]

I recall Dan coming to a party my brother Greg had..... I was probably 10 years old. He had to duck thru every doorway !

[AdreasTheGreat]

his gamestyle was similar to dirk nowitski and also was a very tough guy!but the competition was huge back in 70-'s and 80's but he won 2 ABA rings

[megamanmaniac]

@astroclips He was known for telling a fan to "have another beer."

[abysmalatrocious]

@najeenixonnixon I collect replica jerseys, and after watching this, I decided that I was going to buy one of those Revolution 30 (Swingman, not the $250 authentics) of Nuggets 44 Issel. I'm 37 (in 2010), and can you believe that it wasn't until 1999 when I was 26, that I knew Issel could dunk? Just like Blair Rasmussen, I couldn't believe Issel could dunk. Then again, I was 10 when Issel was in his prime, but didn't have cable tv.

[najeenixonnixon]

His gap isn't as big as Leon Spinks's. Thats a relief.

[abysmalatrocious]

@najeenixonnixon He had an accident in his 7th or 8th grade gym class, and has been missing those teeth since. I think that he took an inadvertentl elbow from a classmate. I'm surprised he wasn't wearing his teeth in that game, as he obviously wore it most other times. I like Issel, too.

[abysmalatrocious]

My favorite dunk was the upfake, bounce, step-step, right hand dunk. I did NOT know that he could do that two-handed dunk! Just like Blair Rasmussen, Marc Acres, Bill Laimbeer, I would NEVER have believed that these guys could dunk, until I saw it.

[MrGizmospal]

He could have played for another 2-3 years he gave it up for his love of horses. One of the very best to ever hit the hardwood..

[ratsplayingbasketbal]

damn he could jump