1. David Thompson, NC State, 1973-1975

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

I still think David Thompson is the greatest player ever in college basketball. David was the queen on the chessboard. He could go everywhere: inside, outside, rebounding. His impact was felt all over the floor. He changed the game. Everyone from then on wanted to be a Skywalker. – Len Elmore, quoted in Legends of NC State Basketball by Tim Peeler

David Thompson is the best player in ACC basketball history.  That’s not a controversial conclusion, but is it unassailable?  Who else has an argument? 

I’d say Sampson has an argument, and… that’s it.  Laettner is my number three, and even if you give him every possible advantage, I don’t see a line of reasoning that leads to the conclusion that he was better than David Thompson.  As for Sampson, he was consensus national Player of the Year three times compared to once for Thompson.  So why does Thompson rate ahead?  It comes down to three things.

1. The three vs. one thing is an oversimplification.  Sampson did not win all the awards in 1981.  Danny Ainge won the Wooden Award and the NABC Award, and Mark Aguirre won the Sporting News Award.  Even in Sampson’s senior year of 1983, Jordan won the Sporting News award.  So Sampson’s three is really more like 2.5.  Thompson, in addition to his sweep of the 1975 awards, also won the AP award in 1974, while Bill Walton won the others.  So Thompson’s one is really more like 1.5.
2. Competition for the awards.  Sampson was competing with Danny Ainge, Terry Cummings, Mark Aguirre, James Worthy, and sophomore Michael Jordan.  Thompson was competing with Bill Walton, generally considered to be one of the five best college basketball players of all time. 
3. Tournament play.  Thompson had one of the all-time great NCAA Tournament performances in 1974, dethroning UCLA and leading the Wolfpack to a national championship.  Sampson’s tournament history was characterized mostly by frustration and missed opportunity.

I’ve mentioned a couple of times the ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia that I have from 2008.  DT is the top-ranked ACC player in their listing of the 50 greatest college basketball players.  The full list of ACC players is:

#8, David Thompson

#13, Christian Laettner

#16, Ralph Sampson

#17, Michael Jordan

#18, Tim Duncan

#27, Phil Ford

#33, Grant Hill

#45, Art Heyman

#46, Len Bias

#47, John Lucas

All of these are reasonable selections except for Hill and Lucas, who have no business in the Top 50 in my opinion.  But back to Thompson.  The seven players listed in front of him are:

#1, Lew Alcindor/Kareem

#2, Oscar Robertson

#3, Bill Russell

#4, Bill Walton

#5, Pete Maravich

#6, Jerry West

#7, Bill Bradley

I’m not going to tread on sacred ground by arguing that Thompson was better than Alcindor, Robertson, or Russell.  But the comparison with Walton is interesting, because they were contemporaries and collided so memorably in 1974.  Looking at the record, it’s not obvious that Bill Walton was a better player than David Thompson.  Their careers coincided, but not perfectly; Walton played 1972-74, while Thompson was 1973-75.  One way to look at it is this.  Each of them played one year without the other – 1972 for Walton, 1975 for Thompson.  Each ran away with National Player of the Year honors in that year.  If we call that a wash, then it comes down to 1973 and 1974.

In 1973, the edge clearly goes to Walton.  He was national player of the year in a landslide, and he had probably the greatest championship game of all time with 44 points on 21-for-22 shooting against Memphis to cap a 30-0 season.  Thompson was a first team All-American but not a serious challenger for player of the year.  However, I do think there are some mitigating factors.  Walton had been national POY the season before, and he played for a program that had won six straight national championships and went 175-5 over those seasons.  It’s impossible to overstate the amount of momentum there was for Walton to win that award again, assuming the Bruins were successful, which they were.  Thompson was certainly known by reputation, but he had never played a varsity game before that season.  Considering the circumstances, I doubt it was possible for Thompson to have won over Walton.  He averaged 25 points and 8 rebounds on 57% from the floor and 82% from the line and was named ACC Player of the Year for a team that went undefeated.  What else could he have done? If he had averaged 35 instead of 25, would he have beaten Walton?  I doubt it.  So while I do think we have to give Walton an edge, I don’t think it’s as much of an edge as the voting totals would imply.

In 1974, I say the edge goes to Thompson.  It starts with the fact that NC State won on the floor.  NC State slew the dragon and stopped UCLA’s run of seven straight championships. Thompson led the way and was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.  The voters for national honors started to recognize Thompson’s greatness.  It’s interesting to contrast the AP and the UPI player of the year balloting.  The UPI was announced in early March, which means the votes were taken before the end of the regular season.  Walton won easily.  But the AP vote was announced on April 2, after the NCAA Tournament.  Thompson won by 43 votes.  So the best vote we have, from the most credible organization, and the one that accounts for the entire season, went to Thompson.  Walton had won national POY in a landslide the previous two years.  He was already considered one of the greatest college players of all time.  Consider how easy it would have been for the voters to simply vote for him again and the excellence required for someone to overcome that.  Only another all-time great could do it.  That’s David Thompson.

The one disappointment of Thompson’s career was how it ended.  NC State, Maryland, and North Carolina were three of the best teams in the country in 1975.  After getting swept by Maryland in the regular season, the Wolfpack snuck by them in the ACC Tournament semifinals.  Thompson scored 30 points in the first 30 minutes but then cramped up and was unable to finish the game. How much the injury carried over to the final is hard to say, but he had a subpar performance as Carolina pulled out a 70-66 win.  This was the first year that the ACC got an at-large team into the NCAA Tournament, but the powers that be selected Maryland instead of the Wolfpack, and Thompson’s career was over.