Basketball Hall of Fame: Former Net Swen Nater was a rebounding force

Phil Watson

Swen Nater played 11 pro seasons, including a stint with the Nets. One of the game’s best rebounders still hopes for a call to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

For players from the 1970s and 1980s who worried the game had forgotten their achievements, the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame induction class of 2019 provided an injection of hope for their respected causes.

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Four players from that era were tabbed for induction into the Hall this September, including two-time Defensive Player of the Year Sidney Moncrief, seven-time All-Star big man Jack Sikma, defensive ace and Sixth Man of the Year winner Bobby Jones and three-time All-NBA guard Paul Westphal.

That was particularly good news for one standout from the 1970s and 1980s, Swen Nater.

A former rebounding champ while with the San Diego Clippers, Nater made a living on the glass for 11 seasons in the ABA and NBA, in the process becoming the only player to lead each league in rebounding.

Nater spoke with Nothin’ But Nets about his Hall of Fame candidacy on Friday after he was nominated by Hall of Famer Bill Walton, a guy who knows a thing or two about great center play in the NBA.

The cases for the four 2019 honorees from yesteryear were made stronger by a dearth of slam-dunk choices among the first-time eligibles in 2019, a group headlined — as it was — by Shawn Marion, Carlos Boozer and Andrei Kirilenko.

For Nater and others still awaiting their call, 2020 may not be a good year for it to happen, what with legendary performers Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett all becoming eligible for enshrinement on the next ballot.

Sikma waited more than 20 years to be enshrined after playing 14 seasons with the Seattle SuperSonics and Milwaukee Bucks. The big man was named to seven All-Star games, but never made an All-NBA team and finished with career averages of 15.6 points and 9.8 rebounds per game.

That could similarly be a factor that damages Nater’s Hall of Fame claims. He never made an All-Star Game in the NBA, although he was picked in each of his first two pro seasons in the ABA.

Nater recalled the 1979-80 season, when he led the NBA in rebounding at 15.0 boards per game with the San Diego Clippers. The last center spot for the Western Conference came down to two players.

"“Sikma scored more than me, but not by a lot, but he got the All-Star Game spot over me. It came down to the two of us.”"

Sikma averaged 14.3 points and 11.1 rebounds for a Seattle club that reached the Western Conference Finals after winning the NBA title the previous season. Nater put up 13.4 points and 15.0 boards for a Clippers club that played before sparse crowds in San Diego.

This was, of course, long before the days of YouTube mixes and League Pass, when finding the NBA on your television dial was a chore — so much of one that the NBA Finals were aired on tape delay after the late local news. Digest that one for a minute.

Nater is 69 now and has remained close to the game since retiring after the 1984-85 season, a year he spent leading the Italian Serie A in rebounding at age 35.

He was complimentary of the players to be inducted this year, but also made the point that he — and others from his era — are still awaiting their turn.

"“They deserve it and so do others. Sikma scored more points per game than I, but I was a much better rebounder. But if Bobby Jones can get into the Hall, why can’t I? Is it because I didn’t win a championship?”"

His rebounding prowess aside, Nater should get some consideration for the Hall based on the fact that no player in pro basketball history may have traveled a stranger path to the NBA.

Unconventional career path doesn’t even begin to cover it

A word that gets thrown around a lot in athletic discussions today is “unique.”

Well, it is safe to say that the path Swen Nater followed to play 11 professional seasons in the ABA and NBA and one in Italy was indeed unique.

For starters, Nater never played high school basketball.

On his website, Nater described how he eventually emigrated to the U.S. from the Netherlands at age 9, a journey than ended with the boy and his sister, Renee, being reunited with their parents and younger brother, Ibo, on national television.

By the time he was a junior at Los Angeles’ Wilson High School, Nater had grown to 6-foot-4 and was the second-tallest student in the school. But he was cut from the basketball team and didn’t try out as a senior.

Yes, a professional basketball player who never played in high school. If you’re thinking that’s rare, it is.

Through a series of providential events, Nater wound up at Cypress Community College in Orange County, discovered by their coach at the time, Don Johnson, who had been an All-American at UCLA under legendary coach John Wooden.

That discovery, according to Wooden in the video below, came at a gas station where Nater was working after graduating high school.

Nater improved rapidly at Cypress and Johnson reached out to Wooden about the Dutch immigrant. Wooden offered Nater a scholarship while being very direct about the fact the kid might not play much at all.

That was because Nater would be playing behind Bill Walton for the Bruins.

Nater said his time with Wooden, Walton and the Bruins was incredibly beneficial, more so than had he gone just about anywhere else and started every game.

When asked about his decision and his time at UCLA, Nater described it in one word.

"“Priceless. Just priceless. I worked very, very hard to catch up and getting to work against Bill every day in practice was very beneficial, that and being coached by Coach Wooden. I got more experience in practice than if I had gone to another school and started, because I was playing against the best team in the country every day. “It was either find a way to make it, or you become like some of those guys who sit on the bench and go through the motions in practice because they gave up. I just kept working.”"

In 1973, Nater became the first player in the history of the NBA Draft to be selected in the first round after playing at an NCAA school without starting a single game. If North Carolina’s Nassir Little goes in the first round next month, he would become just the second player to have done so.

Nater had been drafted by the ABA’s Floridians in 1972 and the Virginia Squires had acquired his rights after the Floridians folded. Nater had been drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA and rather than go back up another all-time great big man from UCLA, Nater signed with Virginia.

He didn’t stay there long. The perennially cash-strapped Squires sold Nater to the San Antonio Spurs, where he finished the season, earning ABA Rookie of the Year and All-ABA second team honors.

After leading the ABA with an average of 16.4 rebounds per game for the Spurs in 1974-75, Nater was acquired by the Nets in a trade for Larry Kenon in June 1975.

The problem was that Nater had finished the 1974-75 season playing on a broken knee cap in his left knee and was recovering from offseason surgery that slowed him to start the next season.

The Nets ultimately traded Nater back to Virginia in late January 1976.

He spoke highly of his time with the Nets, however, and the joy of getting to play even a half a season with Julius Erving.

"“He was a great player and a good guy, too. After an away game, the rest of us would get on the bus and go back to the hotel, but Doc would stay and sign autographs until he signed the last one, then take a cab back to the hotel. He did that every single road game. You don’t see that today.”"

The the ABA and NBA about to merge, Nater made the jump to the NBA, signing with Milwaukee on June 9, 1976, about a month after the Virginia franchise had been folded by the ABA.

Nater said the qualify of play in the ABA is better than many of today’s fans and analysts realize, but also said it varied largely by team.

"“I mean, Virginia? We were horrible. (Owner Earl) Foreman had sold everybody, so we didn’t have any players. But you get New York and Kentucky together, it was a great game. Denver, San Antonio, Indiana all played great games in front of a lot of people. “The difference was that the NBA had two, or sometimes three, superstars on a team. In the ABA, you had just one. But we played exhibition games against the NBA and (the ABA) came out .500. “Those NBA guys always said the same thing, ‘We like that 3-pointer a lot.’ John Havlicek pushed for it at the 1976 All-Star Game and it wasn’t too long after that (1979-80) that it was implemented.”"

Entering the NBA and its super-deep group of superstar centers

At the time Swen Nater entered the NBA in 1976, the odds were pretty good you were going to be going up against an all-time great center just about every night.

At the time of the merger, the league was dripping with eventual Hall of Fame big men.

There was Dave Cowens in Boston, Bob McAdoo in Buffalo, aging veteran Nate Thurmond was in Cleveland, Detroit had Bob Lanier, Kareem by that time had moved on to the Lakers, Bill Walton was in Portland, Robert Parish was a youngster with Golden State and Wes Unseld held down the middle in Washington.

That’s not including the trio of Hall of Fame bigs who came over from the ABA in Artis Gilmore, Moses Malone and Dan Issel.

Nater thinks that level of competition gets overlooked now that it’s so far back in the rear view mirror.

"“I don’t think the media is aware of just how many great centers were playing back then, centers that were specialized around the key area like Kareem, Lanier, (Wilt) Chamberlain. But there were many that were outside shooters as well, such as Alvan Adams, Cowens, McAdoo. “They didn’t shoot 3s, but they pulled the defensive center away from the hoop. Today, we have ‘centers’ that shoot most of their shots from outside. It’s effective, but they’re not rebounding. The old centers were rebounders. The team depended on that on both ends of the floor. Today, the offensive rebound, as a game strategy, has atrophied.”"

Offensive rebounding was something Nater did well and took pride in.

"“When you think about it, how much is an offensive rebound worth? It could be worth six points. It could be more valuable than a steal. Plus it makes them block you out, so they may keep more people down on the boards to get the defensive rebound, so that reduces their fast-break opportunities. “There’s also a psychological effect. The shot goes up and they are already anticipating going to the other end and all of a sudden, there’s a putback dunk or a tip-in. It really takes the wind out of their sails.”"

Nater owns the one of the top rebounding rates in NBA history among players with the necessary 400 games to qualify. He had 5,297 rebounds in 13,868 NBA minutes — an astonishing rate of 0.382 rebounds per minute.

Nater ranks 32nd in NBA history with an average of 10.8 rebounds per game. His 13.1 rebounds per game during his three ABA seasons placed him fourth all-time.

Among players with at least 400 NBA games, Nater ranks sixth with a total rebounding percentage of 20.9, trailing only Andre Drummond (24.4), Dennis Rodman (23.4), Reggie Evans (21.9), DeAndre Jordan (21.6) and Dwight Howard (20.9).

Notice that Nater’s rebounding rate is far ahead of anyone from his own era — the next closest are Malone and Walton at 19.8 percent.

Nater is also one of just eight players to score 30 points and grab 30 rebounds in the same game, turning the trick on Dec. 19, 1976, against the Atlanta Hawks, scoring 30 points and getting 33 rebounds — 15 on the offensive glass.

The other members of that club include Wilt Chamberlain, Moses Malone, Elvin Hayes, Jerry Lucas, Walt Bellamy and Nate Thurmond.

Rodman made the Hall of Fame primarily on the strength of his rebounding. Nater makes a compelling case to do the same.

Late start didn’t stop Nater from gobbling glass

Swen Nater didn’t play basketball competitively until he was in community college, but became one of the best rebounders the game has ever seen despite the late start.

The answer to the question of how he was able to develop that rebounding skill so quickly is a simple one. He worked at it.

"“I loved to jump, but I was a horrible jumper when I first started playing. But I worked and worked and ended up getting to about a 34-inch vertical. I did a lot of squats and did a lot of jumping with a 30-pound weight jacket, dunking 10 times in a row with it on.”"

And there was one old tool that helped Nater a lot, the classic McCall’s Rebounder, which is still around today. The adjustable height of the machine goes up to 12 feet, with a ball placed in a rack to be pulled down, improving a players timing, balance, grip strength and perception.

"“A ball goes up and hits the rim, it’s loose. It’s my job to get it. It was like an addiction, I had to get it. It was a competitive thing with me and some other guys and whoever got the rebound wins.”"

He said some of his passion for rebounding was instilled in him from his collegiate coaches, Don Johnson and John Wooden. Wooden, Nater said, had three rules for rebounding.

"“Assume every shot is missed, get your hands up and go get the ball. A lot of guys forget that first step, assuming every shot will be a miss. And the more you go after rebounds, the more you wear down the other guy. Then you get a bunch of them.”"

In Nater’s era, the pace was faster and teams looked to get out in transition much more than they do in today’s game. Nater says the cumulative effect of running on a team can be big in wearing an opponent down.

"“Milwaukee (Thursday night) started running, which is what they need to do to score, and was wearing the other team down. Then they stopped for some reason and the game got away from them.”"

Nater now works as a sporting goods buyer for Costco Corporation in the Seattle area after a nine-year stint as a coach at San Diego Christian College (then Christian Heritage College), where he built the program from the ground up in 1985 and remained until 1994, winning a National Christian Collegiate Athletic Association championship in the process.

"“They had no athletics at the school, no gym. We practiced at 5 in the morning at a high school and I got there at 4 to clean the floor and Windex the backboards, just like Coach Wooden used to do. “I love teaching, I love the post game and I do basketball clinics. Whenever my wide and I go on vacation, where ever it is, I call the high school coach and do a three- or four-hour free clinic on the post game, rebounding, big man play.”"

He also has written six books on basketball, two in conjunction with Wooden and one with Pete Newell, a Hall of Fame coach known for his expertise working with big men.

Nater would like to think what he’s done since leaving the game as a player should be considered as well.

"“I think you get inducted as a player and the only thing they look at it your playing. I’ve contributed to the game by writing books — one on John Wooden’s teaching methods, one on Coach Wooden’s offense and Pete Newell’s Big Man book.”"

As for what it would mean to him, Nater said the benefits would be huge … and tangible.

"“I’m a motivational speaker and with that credential (being a Hall of Famer), you’re going to get a lot more gigs.”"

But he has another reason that is closer to home.

"“I’d like it for my grandkids. They want their pa-pa to be a Hall of Famer. I’d take them with me if I were ever inducted.”"

Swen Nater played during the greatest era for big men the NBA has seen and more than held his own, leading the NBA in rebounding and earning a reputation for being tireless on the backboards.

Considering the unique path he took to get there and all he’s done to promote the game since his playing days ended, a Hall of Fame berth would be a fitting reward for one of the most unexpected lifetimes in basketball we may ever see.

Phil Watson

More than 30 years in media, with the first 20-plus in print, before crossing the digital divide in 2012. A newly minted grandfather who is happy to be back offering up some opinions, analysis and, from time to time, a bit of snark.