IN THE PRE-LEAGUE PASS days of minimal cable channels and a national TV “schedule” that made it seem as though the NBA had five teams (Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia) playing a round-robin, the exploits of Alex English and the Denver Nuggets could feel fictional. Newspapers said there was a guy named Alex English leading the NBA in scoring at about 28 ppg. And that he had a teammate, Kiki Vandeweghe, who was second. And their team’s games usually ended with a score like 137-129.
That’s how I learned about the Hall of Famer English, and even though I was a kid in the ’80s, he and the Nuggets were overlooked by adults back then, too. Just ask an NBA fan of any age this question: Who scored the most points in the 1980s? Even if they know Michael Jordan’s career started too late and that Magic Johnson was too pass-first, they have a host of household names to offer up. Moses Malone. Larry Bird. Dominique Wilkins. George Gervin. . The 6-7, 190-pound English outscored all of ’em. English used his
