YouTube Gold: NBA Teammates And Rivals On How Great Muggsy Bogues Was
We’ll see the next Michael Jordan before the next Muggsy Bogues
When you look at the NBA of the 1980’s and ‘90’s, you see a lot of amazing players: Magic. Bird. Barkley. Hakeem. Kareem. And on and on.
However, no one scared people quite the way that Muggsy Bogues did.
At 5-3, he was an absolute terror on defense because you never knew where he was coming from. He could circle you and be around you before you had any idea.
Temple coach John Cheney said it was like guarding a groundhog when he had the ball, which is one of the better lines we ever heard.
In this video, his NBA teammates and rivals talked about how unusual he was. Greg Anthony says here that he told his old UNLV teammate Larry Johnson that Bogues was really strong. Johnson told him that Bogues could bench press 450 lbs. And he meant it. He also had a 44” vertical.
Later in the video one teammate said that Bogues used to be a wrestler and another says that former UNC star JR Reid said he bet he could pin Bogues and then Bogues apparently picked him up and dropped him on his head, pinned him and wouldn’t let him up.
Reid is 6-9 and 270.
In short, Bogues was the most unusual player in NBA history.