We return to the Forgotten Superstars universe for a trip to look at one of the best scoring machines that college basketball had ever seen, but had off the court issues that derailed a promising pro career.Chris Jackson was the rarest of scorers-one that could penetrate the lane and yet drill a sweet jumper at will.
Jackson was a star guard at LSU, producing prodigious numbers that reminded one of the Tigers, Pete Maravich, in a time that saw the numbers rank among the best of the last thirty years.
Chris Jackson played just two years with the Tigers but would have set scoring records at just about any school other than LSU, where the stats of the Pistol were never going to be challenged even by a player with the offensive talents of Jackson.
Some of the most fun games to watch in my video collection are LSU games that feature Jackson, Stanley Roberts and freshman Shaquille O'Neal, who was the third scoring option on a team that should have been more of a tournament factor than they proved to be.
The 6'3 Jackson was a massive offensive weapon in games that I have against Loyola Marymount and Texas, both teams that tried to run with the Tigers but found themselves outgunned in games that saw both teams score over 100 points.
Jackson was more of a shooting guard than a guard that ran the point, but he was not a player that needed to have the ball in his hands at all times.
Jackson was a player that racked up a fair amount of assists for a shooting guard, so he was far from a selfish gunner that was more worried about stats than a team's numbers.
LSU scored a lot of points in the early '90s and the Tigers did not have to run everything through one player.
Jackson was the third pick in the 1990 NBA Draft as a selection of the Denver Nuggets and began to go through various off the court issues,
Jackson was diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome and began to twitch with the symptoms of the disease.
Jackson's struggles with the medication began to affect his game and his numbers began to diminish with the Nuggets.
The next issue to affect Jackson was his name change to Mahmoud Abdur-Rauf and adopting an orthodox Muslim belief that saw him do such things as refuse to acknowledge the National Anthem.
This made Abdur-Rauf a controversial figure of the time and saw him explaining his position on various shows that featured sports and non-sports.
Abdur-Rauf began to suffer from anxiety through these times that made Tourette's issues even worse and his numbers fell to the point that saw him retire briefly in an attempt to deal with the disease and its effects on his life.
Abdur-Rauf would return to the league eventually, but became more of an off the bench offensive spark than a full-time performer and would never approach the player that he had projected to be when he left LSU.
Abdur-Rauf was far better than a J.J Redick that was a good college player, who's skills did not suit the NBA game, I believe he could have been an All-Star level player at least, had the various issues not affected him and his skills.
A 51 point outburst against the Utah Jazz showed that Abdur-Rauf was more than capable of lighting up the scoreboard in the NBA.
Abdur-Rauf did win the Most Improved Player award and had a good season for Denver in 1995-96, but was traded to Sacramento in the off-season and struggled in two years there.
Other than a 41 game cameo in 2000-01 with the then-Vancouver Grizzlies, he has spent most of the seasons since then playing in various international leagues, the last few in the Japanese league even now at the age of 43.
Many would look at his career in the NBA as somewhat disappointing, I prefer to remember the comet that blazed through the sky at LSU as such a phenomenal talent and look back at those games and admire our latest member of the Forgotten Superstars Universe.
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