Dawkins wasn't a superstar, but he was unforgettable

Amid massive expectations, Darryl Dawkins arrived in Philadelphia via Orlando at the age of 18. He was a giant man and a gentleman with a mind so creative that he was able to invent a fictional planet and write poetry that described the otherworldly strength he used to shatter two fiberglass backboards in a little less than a month..

"Darryl Dawkins is the father of power dunking," Shaquille O'Neal once said about the man who was known as "Chocolate Thunder," "Double D," and other image-evoking nicknames. "I'm just one of his sons."

Dawkins died Thursday at the age of 58, leaving us with one less unforgettable character from the world of sports.

When the 76ers drafted Dawkins with the fifth overall pick in 1975, he was described as a man-child and considered one of the foundation blocks for a team still rebuilding from a historically bad 9-73 team three seasons earlier. Jack McMahon, the late 76ers assistant coach and scout, had watched Dawkins down at Maynard Evans High School in Orlando and left convinced the kid could make the monumental jump to the NBA without spending a day in college. It was a radical idea at the time.

"Jack came to our hot, little cracker-box gym, then went back and convinced [head coach] Gene Shue that I was right for them," Dawkins told the Daily News after McMahon died in 1989.

"I didn't know if I could go from high school to the pros, but Jack said I could, and we got to be friends."

The transition from Evans High to Philadelphia and the NBA was not a smooth one, and Dawkins never achieved the greatness that McMahon saw in him.

He played in just 37 games as a rookie and averaged 2.4 points and 1.3 rebounds per game.

It was clear that he was as much a project as a prospect, but in time he became part of a serviceable center tandem with Caldwell Jones, who joined the 76ers in Dawkins' second season.

Together with Jones, Julius Erving, and Steve Mix, Dawkins was part of three Sixers teams that reached the NBA Finals only to fall short. After the last of the three, Dawkins was traded to the New Jersey Nets and Jones was sent to the Houston Rockets in the deal that brought Moses Malone to Philadelphia. The 76ers won their second NBA title the following year.

Dawkins, still only 25 at the time of his departure, finished his Sixers career with averages of 11.2 points and 6.7 rebounds per game. He was hardly a superstar, but he had become a magnetic personality who titillated fans at home in the Spectrum and on the road.

"When I took over the team, they were still telling stories about him," former 76ers president Pat Croce said from his summer home in Ocean City, N.J. "They talked about how they used to pack the Spectrum before the game because they wanted to watch him dunk the ball in warm-ups."

More than anything else, Dawkins will always be remembered for two dunks in the span of 22 days in 1979.

The first came on the road against the Kansas City Kings on Nov. 13. Dawkins scored only four points that night in a 110-103 loss, but all anybody was talking about was how he shattered the backboard on a thunderous slam that left Kings forward Bill Robinzine running for cover. The game was delayed 68 minutes in the middle of the third quarter.

"I hit it with the force of a thousand strong men, a thousand strong men," Dawkins said that night.

"It was such a sight because glass went everywhere," Erving said years later.

"Robinzine was under the basket and he was trying to get out of the way and running and Darryl . . . Darryl was in shock."

Dawkins wrote this poem about it:

Chocolate Thunder flyin'

Robinzine cryin'

Teeth shakin'

Glass breakin'

Rump roastin'

Bun toastin'

Wham, bam, glass breaker

I am Jam

It's not Keats, but it was quintessential Double D.

Ten games later, after being coaxed by Sixers fans, Dawkins performed a backboard shattering encore at the Spectrum against the San Antonio Spurs.

"The fans in Philadelphia kept saying, 'Hey, you did one on the road, you got to do one for us," Dawkins said in an NBA TV interview.

"Chocolate Thunder" obliged, taking a pass from Doug Collins before taking down the rim and the backboard in a 132-120 Sixers victory.

Dawkins suggested the debris be sent to the Philadelphia Museum of Art because he said "it is a work of art."

Dave Coskey, the former 76ers media relations director, said the recently deceased Harvey Pollack had the good sense to keep some of that debris knowing that it would someday be a collector's item.

It was a work of art by a man who was a piece of work. The late Larry O'Brien, then the NBA commissioner, warned Dawkins the act had to stop after the second destruction or he would be fined $5,000. Two seasons later, breakaway rims became standard equipment in every NBA arena.

Those rims will forever serve as Darryl Dawkins' signature contribution to the NBA. That was not what Jack McMahon had in mind when he brought the 18-year-old kid from Orlando to Philadelphia in 1975.

On the other hand, we were thoroughly entertained by the man-child and the 76ers made three trips to the NBA Finals during his tenure.

Not a bad deal at all.