Every time the Sixers and Celtics renewed their blood feud in Boston Garden in the 1980s, former Daily News columnist Mark Whicker once wrote, there were only three people laughing in the entire building before tipoff — Darryl Dawkins, seated on the bench, and the two ballboys at his feet, listening to the Sixer center’s nonstop patter.
Seems to me that’s the best way to remember Dawkins, who died Thursday at age 58, of an apparent heart attack. As a showman and a prankster and an endless self-promoter.
As a guy who always left ’em laughing.
This made Dawkins, a sculpted 6-foot-11, 250-pounder, endlessly frustrating to his coaches, who believed that if only he would take the game more seriously he could deliver on his considerable potential.
But it also made him one of the NBA’s all-time great characters.
A story, courtesy of former Sixers general manager Pat Williams, now an Orlando Magic executive: The team used the fifth pick of the 1975 draft to take Dawkins out of Orlando’s Maynard Evans High School, making him the first high school player to jump to the NBA (one year after the ABA’s Utah Stars took future Sixer Moses Malone, from Petersburg, Virginia).
Dawkins settled in an apartment in South Jersey. One day Williams, a one-of-a-kind figure himself, called to see how his new center was doing.
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“This is Dawk,” Darryl said into the phone, “and I’m ready to talk.”
Williams was flabbergasted. This was an 18-year-old kid? And to this day Williams, an accomplished banquet speaker, regrets that he didn’t respond as follows: “This is Pat, and I’m ready to chat.”
Dawkins’ career gathered momentum from there. He picked up a nickname (Chocolate Thunder) from none other than Stevie Wonder, a home planet (Lovetron) from who knows where. He brawled with Portland enforcer Maurice Lucas in the 1977 Finals — Dawkins wound up accidentally slugging teammate Doug Collins instead — and destroyed the restroom in the home locker room afterward, when he felt the other Sixers didn’t have his back.
Then he began demolishing backboards. Did it twice in the 1979-80 season. Called one of them, over a luckless Kansas City Kings forward named Bill Robinzine, “Chocolate Thunder Flyin’, Robinzine Cryin’, Teeth Shakin’, Glass Breakin’, Rump Roastin’, Bun Toastin’, Wham Bam, Glass Breaker I Am Jam.”
He had names for his other dunks, too. Names like the “Sexophonic Turbo Delight,” “Spine Chiller Supreme” and “Yo Mama.”
It has been said that when he was asked if he knew where they signed the Declaration of Independence, his response was, “At the bottom.” And it has been said that when he was asked his favorite color, his response was, “Plaid.”
“I never take anything serious,” he told me in October 2012. “I don’t take myself serious. If you hurt my mother, my kids, my wife, my family, I’d go to jail. I’d be sitting in jail, in a lounge chair with a cigar. But you’ve got to do a lot to make me mad.”
Everybody tried to light his fire, no one more than Sixers coach Billy Cunningham. One day he dressed Dawkins down on the apron of the practice floor. Told him he had to grow up, had to take better care of himself, had to work on his game. And after all that — after a highly successful coach of a team with championship aspirations delivered the sternest of tongue lashings — Dawkins playfully tripped Cunningham as he walked away.
“That was just me,” Dawkins admitted that day three years ago.
The Sixers tired of him after seven seasons, and traded him to the Nets. He also played for the Pistons and Jazz during his 14-year NBA run, his career averages of 12 points and six rebounds shockingly so-so for a guy of his size and skill set.
“People always thought there was more there,” Williams was saying over the phone Thursday. “I’m not sure there was.”
He pointed out that Dawkins wasn’t as big as most centers, that the Sixers had hoped he would grow a few inches when they drafted him, but he never did. And muscular as he was, Williams added, Darryl was a good athlete, not a great one.
Then he arrived at the crux of the matter.
“I don’t know how serious he was about the game,” Williams said. “I don’t think he ever loved the game. He loved the life and entertaining.”
Dawkins played overseas. He played for the Harlem Globetrotters. And later in life he actually got into coaching — imagine that — serving as head man for Winnipeg of the International Basketball Association, the Pennsylvania Valley Dawgs of the USBL and at Lehigh Carbon Community College.
He and his third wife Janice had by then settled in Allentown with Tabitha, Janice’s daughter from a previous relationship, and the couple’s two children.
He also said in 2012 he had become a more spiritual person, and a doting father.
“I’ve grown up some,” he said.
Then he laughed, and talked about what a soft touch he was for his kids — how Janice would tell them no, and he always said yes. He talked about how he had water guns scattered throughout the house. How he goofed on his kids the way he used to goof on his coaches.
And he talked about how Tabitha, who is afflicted with Downs Syndrome, had him wrapped around her finger.
“Tabitha sees the world just for what it is,” he said. “Here’s a 7-foot black guy with a 4-foot-6 little white kid, and people are saying, ‘What’s he doing with her?’ And she says, ‘That’s Daddy Darryl. Do you love me, Daddy?’ … She only knows how you treat her. She doesn’t care about black or white or whatever.”
Darryl taught her to shoot foul shots, danced with her, made her feel special.
Left her laughing.
Everyone else, too. Heck of a legacy.