For three decades we’ve covered many amazing basketball characters, but some stand above the rest—not only because of their on-court skills (though those are always relevant), but because of how they influenced and continue to influence basketball culture, and thus influenced SLAM. Meanwhile, SLAM has also changed those players’ lives in various ways, as we’ve documented their careers with classic covers, legendary photos, amazing stories, compelling videos and more.
We compiled a group of individuals (programming note: 30 entries, not 30 people total) who mean something special to SLAM and to our audience. Read the full list here and order your copy of SLAM 248, where this list was originally published, here.
“They say I’m hopeless/As a penny with a hole in it.”
—Dionne Farris, “Hopeless”
For us, at SLAM, at that time, it was always that pass. The one Tony Gervino brilliantly used as cover art for Issue 8. 1995 ’til infinity. From the exit series that ended Jordan’s comeback. But made him come back. It was this cover that made Shea Serrano become a basketball griot. It allowed a reintroduction.
The Anfernee Hardaway Experience was something different. Something basketball at the NBA level hadn’t experienced. The new generation’s first hybrid. Part Oscar, part Magic, part Gervin, part Pippen. All Tracy McGrady before Tracy McGrady became the next Penny. Like a muthafucka invented strictly for Super Nintendo NBA Live 95. By the time he appeared on his first SLAM cover, he was already on some low-key legend shit. Memphis basketball God, Parade Magazine National High School Player of The Year, Blue Chips co-superstar, NBA Rookie All-Star Game MVP, All-NBA Team 1, NBA Finals appearance, leader of the game’s new generation of “We got next.”
Yet what we forget: He got shot. Forgot that all of this career called his could have been just a dream, that none of it was supposed to happen. That the second that bullet entered his right foot, ricocheting off the ground during a drive-by robbery in front of his aunt’s house in Binghampton in April 1991 during his freshman year at then-Memphis State University (University of Memphis, now), the end was supposed to follow.
Hopeless. Yet, his “oh, shit” moment became his “closer to God” moment. He script-flipped what should have been his basketball and Black life stereotype of a young kid from where “we” from getting shot into what Benji Wilson and more recently Quincy Reese Jr never had the chance to. Which is the part of Penny we don’t discuss enough. The resilience of an 18-year-old not allowing the circumstances he came up in and around define him—but still shape him. Allowing a bullet to provide clarity instead of despair, anger, hate. All of that is lost when we look at Penny because he made sure we never saw what he saw when he looked in the mirror at that point in his life. His foot. A Penny with a hole in it. Never again.
Because a superhero emerged. A basketball alien. A 6-7 point guard with destination talent at almost every phase of the game. Speed, bounce, range, handles, vision, creativity, instincts, leadership abilities, defensive awareness, who was fundamentally sound with survival in him that made him immune to intimidation. Fearless. Young, gifted and generational. Personable. Chill. Unassuming. Humbly arrogant. Unbothered. True to exactly who he was. Strong enough to carry his NCAA squad (only a year after being shot) to the Elite Eight, then his NBA squad (only three years later) to the NBA Finals. Second SLAM cover, toothpick sic. Revenge tip. Blue pinstriped fit. Shining like pre-green copper.
But the cultural impact (almost) overshadowed the magic (get it?) he was producing on the court. His sneaker acumen and foresight made him illuminati. Foams? Him. Air Max namesakes 1, 2, 3, 4? Him. The only other basketball player at the time to have Nike signatures besides 50, 34 and 23. 1Cent, heaven sent. But God had other plans.
The injuries stacked like cordwood piles. Putting a halt (not a full stop) to an ascend that was legendary. Centual. More than just an athlete, he year-after-year inched closer to single-name American icon status by showing glimpses and flashes of what he had left inside, of what wasn’t stolen from him. Just because the game forced him to stop bouncing the ball never meant the ball stopped bouncing for him. A return to his Mecca allowed the world to see that his basketball mind and heart were far superior and in-need than his basketball body and skills. Deon, not Deion. His coaching, too, became his calling.
He’s become the basketball equivalent of Gale Sayers, Stephen Strasburg. A GOAT for whom the only reason isn’t considered the GOAT is because injuries loved them so much. That singular, idiosyncratic, unparalleled, one-of-a-kind type who, if we just talked about what they showed us—and what they did when they were able to play—we’d admit that they were almost unarguably the best we’d ever seen. Bill Walton. Yao Ming. Grant Hill. Derrick Rose. Penny’s probably above all of them on basketball’s “what if” list. Which makes “what will never be again” much more appropriate.
And oh, one last thing about that first cover, the “wrap-around” cover, the last time we’d see Jordan wearing “45” cover. Two months after it hit the stands, his alter ego Lil Penny was introduced to the world. Shit ain’t been the same since.
Photo via Getty Images.
