No. 2: Bill Laimbeer
“You’d take, like, Ricky Mahorn — he’d hit ya’ and all that, but he’d hit ya’ and you knew you were gonna get hit. But he didn’t try to maim ya’. Bill would try to hurt you, though.” – Larry Bird on Bill Laimbeer
Summary: The biggest and baddest Detroit Piston of the 1980s “Bad Boys,” Bill Laimbeer deserves to be high on this list.
A borderline sociopath in the way in which he unabashedly stirred up both fights and psychological distress during gameplay, Laimbeer was at the core of the NBA’s most physical force in what was ultimately the sport’s most physical era.
Credited as being one of the dirtiest players in league history, Laimbeer didn’t hesitate when it came to throwing elbows, raking his opposition’s eyes or taking the feet right out from a fellow basketball player mid-air (I mean, the guy had a video game called “Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball” for crying out loud!).
What made Laimbeer even more fierce was the fact that he could seemingly take it just as well as he dished it out. Even when the legendary Celtics center Robert Parish knocked him down with a hellacious hammer fist, Laimbeer seemed to slowly nod to himself as he steadily shook off the haze, almost as if to say, “Hey. Not bad.”
Bill Laimbeer hits Alonzo Mourning in the throat and flips off crowd: