Mookie Blaylock: The Most Forgotten Defender of the 90s… OVERSHADOWED BY A FATAL MISTAKE | FPP

To this day, he is one of the most forgotten yet great defenders in NBA history. He took the JuCo route to eventually end up on the Oklahoma Sooners, as a crucial piece of their 1988 team who made it to the NCAA National Championship game before losing to Danny Manning and the Kansas Jayhawks. After two seasons of D1 basketball, he would enter the 1989 NBA draft and be chosen 12th overall by the New Jersey Nets. His career began with promise, but as the Nets loaded up with guys like Derrick Coleman, Drazen Petrovic and Kenny Anderson, Blaylock was eventually phased out, yet his best years would come with the Atlanta Hawks. He would spend almost all of the 1990s on Hawks team who featured guys like Dominique Wilkins, Kevin Willis, Steve Smith and Dikembe Mutombo. During this time, Blaylock was crucial to the great defense which these Hawks were known for. Blaylock would routinely be atop the steals leaderboards, while also holding his own as one of the better passers of his era; as overall, there weren’t many two way players better than Mookie Blaylock during the era he played. He never was able to make it past the second round, and always seemed to struggle in the playoffs, but he still spent over a decade in the NBA as an above average starting point guard, and an elite defender. His last few years were spent on bad Golden State teams, but after his career is where things took a dark turn. Blaylock had struggled with alcohol while he was playing, but it became a crippling addiction after his retirement, leading to plethora of DUIs and eventually in 2013, he would find himself responsible for a vehicular homicide, as caused a head on collision, which took the life of Monica Murphy, and led to him spending time in prison. Blaylock was the quietest player on and off the court, but likely struggled with his demons alone because of this. There is no excuse for his mistake, but as a basketball player, he was one of the greatest defenders of his generation.

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