Connie Hawkins

Hawkins was so dominant on the New York City playground circuit as a teenager that NBA legends who played against him in those games routinely described him as the most gifted player they had ever seen — a consensus opinion from people who had seen everyone.

The NBA formally apologized to Hawkins and settled his lawsuit for $1.3 million in 1969, acknowledging that the blacklisting was unjust and that his career had been irreparably harmed by an association he had no real part in.

Hawkins is considered one of the first players to truly hang in the air and palm the basketball in the ways that later became associated with Julius Erving and Michael Jordan — a pioneering physical genius whose innovations came before the sport was ready to see them.

Despite losing his prime years to the wrongful banishment, Hawkins still managed to make four NBA All-Star teams after age 27 — a testament to his extraordinary natural gifts that even years of stolen career could not fully diminish.