Rankings the best NBA nicknames of all time

5. Chocolate Thunder

He was “Chocolate-Thunder-Flying, Robinzine-Crying, Teeth-Shaking, Glass-Breaking, Rump-Roasting, Bun-Toasting, Wham-Bam, Glass-Breaker-I-Am-Jam.” A quixotic Floridian with a penchant for destroying backboards, Darryl Dawkins established himself as a force inside following his selection by the Philadelphia 76ers straight out of high school in the 1975 NBA Draft.

Ever quotable, Dawkins’ mixture of finesse in the paint and earth-rocking power sent shockwaves across the league, courtesy of Planet Lovetron. He even gave his own dunks nicknames, ranging from the conventional “Rim-Wrecker” to something more fit for the title of a song on a jazz fusion record, like “Spine Chiller Supreme.”

But the man’s own nickname, the best of several he acquired over the years, remains legendary, in part because of its origin. In an interview with SLAM magazine in 2011, Dawkins relayed that Stevie Wonder had bestowed the name, via a staffer who would describe in-game action, including Dawkins’ own aptitude for slam dunks, to Wonder, who would respond: “’Hey, the big chocolate guy just put down a thunder dunk. The chocolate guy with another monster dunk.’”

The world, and the NBA, is a slightly dimmer place without Dawkins, who played professionally until 2000 and passed away in 2015. He wasn’t the first to tear down or shatter a backboard in-game – in fact, as Terry Pluto noted in his classic ABA tome Loose Balls, Pittsburgh Condor Charlie Hentz destroyed two backboards in a single game against the Carolina Cougars in 1970 – but Dawkins’ unbelievable athleticism added a layer to dunking that would go on to influence generations thereafter, and his nickname evokes that beauty.