Mike Gminski had a wonderful college career, and even more so when you consider that he started it at 16 and proved tough right away.
The NBA is another beast entirely, but Gminksi did well there too, finishing with nearly 11,000 career points and almost 7,000 rebounds. He also kept a job in the league from 1980-1994. That’s a solid run.
Of course playing at that level means, except for a very rare few guys, that you’re going to play against people who are a lot better than you.
For Gminski, that meant facing up to Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, Ralph Sampson, David Robinson and, of course, as we see here, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.