David Thompson is one of only 9 players in history to win Naismith Award and make Hall of Fame

Did you know that Packinsider.com has a whole section dedicated to the history of NC State athletics? If you haven’t checked it out, go ahead and do that when you get some free time we like to think it’s pretty interesting stuff.

Over the next few months, we are going to be hitting you with nuggets of NC State history that you may not know about.  Here is one that we just came across…

Did you know that NC State’s David Thompson is one of only 9 Naismith Award winners to make the Basketball Hall of Fame?

Naismith Award + @Hoophall:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Pete Maravich
Bill Walton
David Thompson
Larry Bird
Ralph Sampson
Michael Jordan
Patrick Ewing
David Robinson

👉 https://t.co/7zlPXWt88t pic.twitter.com/63w845pTbS

— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) October 5, 2018

That list is like the who’s who of basketball greats.

David Thompson was awarded the Naismith at the end of his 1974-75 season with NC State. He helped lead the Wolfpack to their first national championship in 1974. Thompson was known as “Skywalker” for his incredible vertical leap. Thompson was the first overall draft pick to the Atlanta Hawks in 1975 but elected to play for the Denver Nuggets in the ABA. He continued to play with the Nuggets after the ABA-NBA merger before being traded to the Seattle Supersonics. Thompson was twice named to the All-NBA team and was selected to four All-Star games. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1996. (NCAA)

But just think about that. Of all the college basketball greats who won the ‘player of the year’ award, only 9 of those guys went on to make the Hall of Fame. It goes to show you that NCAA basketball and NBA basketball are really two different games, and if you’re great at one level, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be great at the other. Congrats to DT for being one of the few that was.