The best player time forgot: Chris Jackson





It's a shame how the the court of public opinion has essentially banished this guy into virtual obscurity. Imagine A.I. with an "automatic" jumper... and a 36 inch vertical leap to boot.

I vividly remember when Chris Jackson was dropping 50 and 60 points on people at will, both in high school and at LSU. He even had a 50 point game or two in the pros.

Too bad CJ/A-R essentially said "F-it" to basketball when he became devout in his religious beliefs. It's also unfortunate that pro coaches never quite figured out how to use him, since he was a point guard in size only. (It wasn't until A.I. hit the league that someone figured out what to do with a player of this kind.)
 
HBCUs said:
He's from Gulfport. He now goes by the name Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. (sp)
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His prediction came true about Gulfport.

When he was playing and all the HU-BUB was swirling around him, he was building a house down there.....................Predicted he would never get a chance to move in that house.........His words. :nod:

When he left the NBA and was getting thing's finished.........................THAT HOUSE BURNED TO THE GROUND before he set 1 foot inside.:nod:
 
While living in Lake Charles for some of my freshman year in high school, the local newspaper company American Press had a basketball tournament at Lake Charles-Boston High School and Chris Jackson out of Gulfport, MS came down and totally changed my mind about basketball. That guy what a phenom!
 
staggalee83 said:
His prediction came true about Gulfport.

When he was playing and all the HU-BUB was swirling around him, he was building a house down there.....................Predicted he would never get a chance to move in that house.........His words. :nod:

When he left the NBA and was getting thing's finished.........................THAT HOUSE BURNED TO THE GROUND before he set 1 foot inside.:nod:
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Yeah, I remember that. I was impressed that he even attempted to move back to Gulfport, knowing the kind of attitudes that awaited him there. That whole episode was sad.
 
mighty hornet said:
What happened? I don't remember
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When he was going though that episode when he would not stand for the National Anthem, them Gulfport/Coast mofo's went from "CRIS JACKSON......GULFPORT's SAVIOR" to "ABDUL-RAULF...................#$%&@". :lol:

If you from Mississippi, you would remember the PRE-KATRINA ATTITUDE that existed down there.

He knew them necks was gonna try something and they did.
To this day nobody has been caught or implicated in the burning of his house.
 
mighty hornet said:
What happened? I don't remember
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The local 'welcome wagon' burned his house down. (Beautiful house, from what I saw on the news.) Guess folks were still upset about his refusal to pledge allegiance to the flag. What kills me is that these were probably some of the very the same folks who cheered him at Gulfport High and closely followed him at LSU.
 
:topic:

Poor Dale Brown. :smh: He had UNREAL talent during that era and had no idea what to do with it. Remember Chris Jackson's sophmore year when Brown also had Shaquille O'neal, Stanley Roberts, AND Maurice Williamson (another guard who averaged 40 points a game in high school)?

I remember Jackson and Williamson once combining for 80 points in a game-- one had 37, the other had 43. If I remember correctly, that team never made it past the sweet sixteen. :lol: Rick Stansbury, send help.
 
Wikipedia said:
Since retiring from NBA, he has built a mosque in his home town of Gulfport, Mississippi, and has become an Imam. He transformed property that had been a crack-house into the mosque as a symbol of his mission to mobilize the neighborhood to rid itself of drugs and crime.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Abdul-Rauf


my best friend was telling me when Chris Jackson came into Lake charles for the American Press Tournament...stuff of legend..
 



C-LeB28 said:
While living in Lake Charles for some of my freshman year in high school, the local newspaper company American Press had a basketball tournament at Lake Charles-Boston High School and Chris Jackson out of Gulfport, MS came down and totally changed my mind about basketball. That guy what a phenom!
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This story was well-chronicled in "Don't Count Me Out," a book mainly about Dale Brown and LSU b-ball team during the C.J. years (C.J. is on the cover). There is a chapter call the C.J. Phenemonon that features that Iconic moment in Lake Charles.

I still have the book on my nightstand at home. C.J. is still my favorite b-ball player of all time. He average 29 pts per game as a freshman (still a NCAA record). I still remember standing in lline at Goudchaux's in Cortana for his autograph of the Don't Count Me Count Book. LOL.
 
Chris Jackson is legendary in the ranks of NCAA players. It's sad to see what happened to him.
 
CJ was the bomb, but I still think they started messing with his medication because he started having those tics kinda bad after his first year in the NBA. It was NEVER as pronounced before he got in as it was the year after.... Nonetheless, my boy was the bomb-diggity!!
 
C-LeB28 said:
While living in Lake Charles for some of my freshman year in high school, the local newspaper company American Press had a basketball tournament at Lake Charles-Boston High School and Chris Jackson out of Gulfport, MS came down and totally changed my mind about basketball. That guy what a phenom!
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WE musta been at the same tournament cause CJ was the best basketball player I have ever seen up close.

I never saw a kid who could stroke it from the timeline.

His team was playing Washington Marion I believe and a dude from WMHS tried to slap the floor as CJ cross the timeline and CJ just pulls up at the timeline while ol dude was slapping the floor and..........DA NETS SANG!!!!!!!

Dude was like 5'11 MAYBE on a good day. At LSU he was JESUS!!

He had every kid in my neighborhood trying to do that between da legs dribble to set up his shot.

SUPER BALL PLAYA!!!!!!
 
Don't know if he's on the list (I didn't open the link), but the guy that I don't understand why "he gets no love/respect" is Bernard King. That dude was the best perimeter player in the league for a stretch of 3-4 years when Magic and Bird first came along. He used to light those cats up...even Dr. J.
 
C-LeB28 said:
While living in Lake Charles for some of my freshman year in high school, the local newspaper company American Press had a basketball tournament at Lake Charles-Boston High School and Chris Jackson out of Gulfport, MS came down and totally changed my mind about basketball. That guy what a phenom!
Click to expand...

The American press tounament (i think used to be the popey's tournament) was one of the premiere tounaments in the south plenty of future nba stars played in it.
 
Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf is one of my all-time favorite players and he paid the price for his strong beliefs. When he embraced Islam and changed his name, he decided not to stand for the National Anthem. He was booed. The next time he decided to pray instead of do the anthem. That was basically the end of his career in the NBA that night. A short time later he went from starting point guard averaging 12 to 15 points a game to out of the league with no NBA team even making him an offer. His agent couldn't get him a job so he retired and focused on Islam. He moved back to Gulfport and racists targeted his house and finally burned it down. Then, after being retired a few years I saw him play in the some event in Jackson against former college and pro players and he was still great. He finally got back in the NBA, but with Toronto. He stayed their only a short time. A few months ago, I turned to the NBA channel and saw him playing overseas. They said he is 37 and he came off the bench and was lighting it up still.
 
HBCUs said:
... It's also unfortunate that pro coaches never quite figured out how to use him, since he was a point guard in size only. (It wasn't until A.I. hit the league that someone figured out what to do with a player of this kind.)
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Note quite right. That was actually figured out with Nate "Tiny" Archibald back in the 70's. He is still the only player to lead the NBA in scoring and assists in a single season.
 
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