From 1946 when a bunch of basketball barnstormers organized into a professional league, white guys were shooting "set" shots and free throws "granny" style .....to the 21st century when short is 6'3" and multi-racial muscle-men fly through the air for dunks, layups, floaters, jump shots, hook shots.  Long bombers have grown very valuable with the 3pt line added in 1979.  In this blog, I'm going to break down the game into its 4 components and to talk about the great players who exemplified these areas of the game.  The components are: Shooting, Defense, Rebounding, and Passing.  There are great players who did one of these extremely well.  There are super players who managed to master 2 components.  There are quite a few phenomenal players who managed to exemplify 3 components and there are just a few Best of the Best who mastered all 4 components of the game.  I'm leaving out a few who probable deserve more mention, but I just talking about dominance during a long career.  For instance, for a short period, Bill Walton was probably one of the best Centers to ever play the game, but his dominance only lasted a couple of years and his lack of longevity will probably keep him off this blog.  I'll start first with shooting.