Rankings the best NBA nicknames of all time

30. Fat

In today’s age of triple-double proliferation and normalization, with Russell Westbrook, James Harden and LeBron James making the surreal seem standard, one man frequently appears in graphics whose proto-Russ antics laid a blueprint for physical tenacity as a means of racking up box score stats. Lafayette Lever, the man who would become Fat, played point guard for the go-go Denver Nuggets of the 1980s, a team whose offensive outbursts bordered on the absurd at times.

Despite his size, a Westbrook-esque 6’3”, Lever partnered with Alex English to lead the Nuggets for most of the decade. He earned himself two All-Star nods, in 1988 and 1990, and routinely averaged more rebounds per game than assists, a relative anomaly for a guard at the time. He is one of only three players in NBA history, the others being Jason Kidd and Wilt Chamberlain, to record 15 plus points, rebounds and assists in a single playoff game, which he accomplished on April 30, 1985 in a win against the Utah Jazz. The Nuggets recently recognized Lever’s contributions to their franchise by retiring his number 12.

To his credit, Lever averaged nearly 17 points per game over the course of his career, but it’s his 43 career triple-doubles, good for eighth overall, have lent him a renewed relevance in 2018. In 1985-’86, in fact, Lever recorded 16 triple-doubles, a mark only surpassed now by the likes of Westbrook, Harden, Magic Johnson, Oscar Robertson and Wilt Chamberlain. Whether you believe that the triple-double is merely an arbitrary collection of double-digit figures in a vacuum or not, one thing is for certain: Fat Lever’s do-everything mentality helped give rise in its own way to the current generation of playmakers.