Darryl Dawkins

Darryl Dawkins was one of two players to go straight from high school to the NBA, drafted fifth overall out of Maynard Evans High School by the Sixers in the 1975 NBA Draft. He is a former professional basketball player, most noted for his days with the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Nets, although he also played briefly for the Detroit Pistons and Utah Jazz late in his career. He was a fan favorite because of his backboard-shattering dunks. He broke two backboards in the 1979-80 season: one at Kansas City's Municipal Auditorium on November 13, 1979 and a second backboard 23 days later at the Philadelphia Spectrum. Because his dunks resulted in delays while teams went to find another backboard, the NBA eventually modified their basketball rims to make them collapsible in the event another superstar wanted to emulate Dawkins' dunks. His nickname was "Chocolate Thunder" and he claimed to be an alien from planet Lovetron where he spent off-season practicing "interplanetary funkmanship" and where his girlfriend Juicy Lucy still lived. In 2005, along with other former pro basketball players, Dawkins auditioned for an NBA analyst position with ESPN as part of the network's reality series Dream Job. He is currently the head coach of the American Basketball Association's Newark Express.