Melvin Joe Daniels (July 20, 1944 – October 30, 2015) was an American professional basketball player. He played in the American Basketball Association (ABA) for the Minnesota Muskies, Indiana Pacers, and Memphis Sounds, and in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the New York Nets. One of the greatest players in ABA history, Daniels was a two-time ABA Most Valuable Player, three-time ABA Champion and a seven-time ABA All-Star. Daniels was the All-time ABA rebounding leader, and in 1997, he was named a unanimous selection to the ABA All-Time Team. Daniels was enshrined into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012.
The son of Maceo and Bernice Daniels, Mel Daniels moved with his family back to his birthplace of Detroit, Michigan, from Lincoln, North Carolina, when Mel was a toddler. Mel had two sisters. Back in Detroit, the family first lived with Mel's grandfather, then in a tenement on 8 Mile Road and finally in a house on McDougall Street. Maceo Daniels worked in an automobile parts factory.
Bernice read poetry to Mel. He began writing poems by age eight and continued to write them throughout the rest of his life, generally focusing on the lives of athletes, but wrote poems about non-sports topics as well. Daniels mostly did not share his poems with his teammates, “This is the side I’ve kept quiet,” he said of his poems.
Daniels attended Pershing High School in Detroit. Pershing also produced Spencer Haywood, Ralph Simpson, Kevin Willis, Ted Sizemore and Steve Smith.
Will Robinson, physical education teacher and basketball coach at Pershing High School, recalled Daniels being absent from PE class for a few weeks. So Mr. Robinson went looking for the truant Daniels and finally found him in the hallway and ordered him to the gym. A few days later, Daniels still had not appeared in class, so Robinson went looking for him again. The way Mel Daniels, then a sophomore, remembered it, he was ordered by Coach Robinson to report to the gymnasium at 3:30 to join the basketball team.
"Chief, I want you in the gym today," Daniels recalled Coach Robinson telling him. "If you're not in the gym, I'm going to come get you and beat your a—." Will Robinson would win two state championships at Pershing, become the first black NCAA Division I coach at Illinois State in 1970 and later scout for the NFL Detroit Lions and NBA Detroit Pistons.
Daniels was slow to earn playing time in high school, playing sparingly in junior varsity games his first two seasons. He was also slow in running fitness laps under Coach Robinson's direction. "Jesus Christ, he would always be a bad last," Robinson recalled. "Not just last, but a bad last. The guys would lap him. He had a winning spirit. He tried all the time after he found out the swing of things."
Ted Sizemore, later a major league baseball player, was a high school basketball teammate of Daniels and recalled, "Will (Robinson) worked him. One thing Mel never did was give up. He kept coming back and Will made him work, work, work. He just kept developing and developing. He just did a lot of work. A lot of drills, footwork, handling the ball. He just got coordinated all of a sudden."
After growing to 6'9", Daniels showed his potential as a senior and Robinson helped him secure a scholarship at Burlington Community College in Iowa.
Daniels continued to improve in college. Playing the 1963–1964 season at Burlington Community College in Burlington, Iowa, Daniels averaged 25.2 points and 10.0 rebounds and was named a Junior College All-American. While at Burlington, Daniels was recruited to play for the New Mexico Lobos by coach Bob King. Daniels transferred, played for New Mexico from 1964 to 1967, averaged 20 points per game in his New Mexico Lobo career and was named an All-American.
Starting as a sophomore in 1964–65, the 6–9 power forward played in 27 games and averaged 17.0 points and 11.2 rebounds as New Mexico finished 19–8.
During the 1965–66 season, Daniels suffered a severe injury when he put his arm through a glass door at Johnson Gymnasium, requiring 352 stitches and almost ending his athletic career. With various sutures being put on him to close the wound over the coming days, Daniels missed only one game and averaged 21.2 points and 10.3 rebounds as the Lobos finished 16–8.
The 1966–67 team won a school-record 17 straight games to start the season as New Mexico climbed to No. 3 in the national rankings. Daniels led the Western Athletic Conference in scoring at 21.5 points, along with 11.6 rebounds as New Mexico finished 19–8.
For his career, Daniels averaged 20.0 points and 11.1 rebounds in 77 games at New Mexico. He had 44 career double-doubles, still the most in school history.
Daniels was the ninth pick of the 1967 NBA draft, selected by the Cincinnati Royals, and was also drafted by the Minnesota Muskies of the American Basketball Association (ABA). He chose to play in the fledgling ABA.
After rejecting Cincinnati (with Oscar Robertson), Daniels became the first NBA first-round pick to snub the established league and go to the ABA. "At that time, it wasn't about money for me. But y'know, 2 + 2 is still 4," Daniels said of his decision to go to the ABA. "I was offered $15,000 by Cincinnati as a bonus and $17,500 as a salary. I was offered $15,000 as a bonus in Minnesota and $30,000 as a salary. So the higher number somehow won out."
Daniels's decision to play in the ABA led to great success for him. Daniels won three ABA championships, was a two-time ABA Most Valuable Player, a seven-time ABA All-star and led the ABA in rebounding average in three different seasons. Daniels is the ABA's all-time leader in total rebounds and second in ABA career average rebounds (15.12) behind only fellow Hall of Famer Artis Gilmore of the Kentucky Colonels (17.07). His seven All-Star selections are tied with Louie Dampier for most in ABA history. Daniels had 1,608 career postseason rebounds in the ABA.
As a rookie in 1967–68 with the Minnesota Muskies, Daniels was named the American Basketball Association Rookie of the Year. He averaged 22.2 points and a league leading 15.6 rebounds in 78 games, as Minnesota finished 50–28 under coach Jim Pollard. Minnesota lost to the eventual ABA champion Pittsburgh Pipers with Connie Hawkins in the 1968 ABA Playoffs, as Daniels averaged 25.3 points and 16.1 rebounds in 10 playoff games. After the 1967–68 season, Daniels was traded to the Indiana Pacers for cash (reportedly, $75,000), Jimmy Dawson and Ron Kozlicki, as Minnesota was experiencing financial difficulty. Minnesota moved to become the Miami Floridians after the one season in Minnesota.