Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Monday, there are 50 days remaining.Back in 1996, the NBA asked a group of basketball experts to come up with a list of the 50 greatest players in the history of the league. It was the 50th anniversary of the NBA, after all.
It was an impressive list, of course, with the likes of Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Rick Barry, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Michael Jordan, etc. The full list can be seen here.
A hundred years from now, those players likely will still be on any list of top-50 players in league history. But what about some other players on that list, the ones toward the back end of 50 ... Paul Arizin, Dave Bing, Sam Jones, Hal Greer, Dave DeBusschere, Bill Walton, Robert Parish and a few others?

























