YouTube Gold: Chris Mullin

An unlikely all-time great, Mullin had a brilliant sense of how to play basketball

When Mike Krzyzewski took over at Duke in 1980 at just 33, he had immense promise, as Bob Knight and Tom Butters understood, but he also had a lot to learn. One of the biggest things he had to learn was how to recruit at Duke, which was very different than recruiting at Army.

In his first full recruiting cycle, he hadn’t learned how to target the sort of recruits he could get at Duke and, a bit like a young predator on the Serengeti, didn’t know how to identify and pursue a target. He would learn quickly how to do it but that was a problem for a couple of years and there were some big misses. One of the biggest, as it turned out, was Brooklyn born-and-bred Chris Mullin.

Mullin chose to stay home at St. John’s, where he had a brilliant career before moving on to the NBA in 1985.

He went to the Golden State Warriors with the #7 pick and by his second season, realized he was an alcoholic.

He took care of his addiction and went on to build a Hall of Fame career, playing on the Dream Team among many other honors.

This video is a highlight reel and you’ll either notice or remember that he’s anything but fast. All he did was play ball, and he played it brilliantly.