Jim Pollard Was A Great Basketball Player

Today, some quick reflections on one of basketball’s greatest and certainly least acclaimed, relative to his talent, players, Jim Pollard.

He played on all 5 Minneapolis Lakers’ title teams, teaming with the great dominant, big man, George Mikan.

Pollard could leap “out of the building,” and was known as the “Kangaroo Kid,” later a nickname given to another basketball great, Billy Cunningham.

One other thing, my late friend Joe Green, who gained my father’s respect because he tried to help me, this despite Joe’s involvement in the late fifties/early sixties, college basketball scandal, which really hurt fans such as my dad, talked of Pollard’s greatness.

Joe Green could play and certainly Jack Molinas, a misguided talent, really could play and was the third overall pick in the 1953 NBA draft.

Many times, eating his muffin which he did ever so slowly in late night diners, Green told me that Molinas felt he could play with anyone in the NBA, except Jim Pollard.

Pollard was that great!

Jim Pollard, pictured and “rising above.”