Alex English

The most prolific scorer of the 1980s — 25,000 points in a decade while playing for consistently average teams.

Alexander English was born in Columbia, South Carolina in 1954. Milwaukee Bucks selected him in the second round of the 1976 NBA Draft. His 15-season career produced 21.5 points per game — the most points scored across the entire decade of the 1980s by any player. He was selected to eight All-Star games and named All-NBA Second Team twice. He won the scoring title in 1983 with 28.4 points per game. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997 and named to the NBA 50th Anniversary Team. He spent ten seasons with the Denver Nuggets — a team that was consistently competitive but never a championship contender — making him one of the more impactful players in franchise history without the championship validation that more celebrated contemporaries received. He became a poet and published collections of his own verse after retirement — one of professional basketball's more unexpected intellectual pursuits. He also pursued an acting career. His consistency across the 1980s — never missing significant time, always producing at near-elite level — represents one of the decade's most quietly excellent individual careers.

Smooth shooter with excellent mid-range game and high basketball IQ

One of the greatest scorers in NBA history and face of 1980s Nuggets

• All-Star 8x
• All-NBA Second Team 2x
• Scoring Champion (1983)
• Hall of Fame (1997)
• NBA 50th Anniversary Team