He controlled the game not with fancy play or sleight-of-hand, but with fundamentally sound play. He did things the right way, and throughout the history of the game, no one has done it better.

Robertson's Career Stats

Robertson was the first of the "big-guards" in the NBA. Walter Iooss, Jr. NBAE/Getty Images

Others have won more championships, scored more points, dished more assists and collected more rebounds, but none mastered all phases of the game as well as the man known as “The Big O.”

If the triple-double is the standard we now use to measure a player’s versatility, then Robertson is the most versatile player the sport has ever produced.

In 1961-62, his second season in the NBA, he averaged a triple-double for the entire season -- 30.8 points, 12.5 rebounds and 11.4 assists a game. He missed averaging a triple-double in four more seasons by no more than one rebound or one assist per game. For the first five seasons of his career (384 games), he averaged 30.3 points, 10.4 rebounds and 10.6 assists.

“My game was just to go out and start playing,” he said. “If you play hard enough, you’re going to get your shots, you’re going to get your rebounds and you’re going to get your assists. I never put an emphasis on one area of the game, but to play successfully and win, you have to do two things -- rebound and play defense. That hasn’t changed throughout the history of the game.”

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For all the legendary feats he performed on the basketball court, his most meaningful contribution has nothing to do with putting a ball in a basket. In 1997 he donated a kidney to his daughter, Tia.

“I’m no hero,” he said. “I’m just a father.”

Calling Robertson “just” anything is under-appreciating the man. His style, grace, intelligence and leadership, to say nothing of his sheer talent, helped lay the foundation for what the NBA is today.M

He grew up in a segregated housing project in Indianapolis and learned how to shoot a basketball by tossing tennis balls and rags with rubber bands wrapped around them into a rickety peach basket. He battled racial discrimination throughout his career and never wavered from his drive to make things better for those who came after him.

His trademark became an unblockable one-handed shot where he held the ball almost directly over his head.

Vintage Oscar: 56k | 300k

He went on to win the national scoring title three times at the University of Cincinnati, was a three-time College Player of the Year honoree, and co-captain of the gold medal-winning 1960 U.S. Olympic team.

He was just as dominant in the NBA, finishing third in the league in scoring his rookie season with a 30.5 average. He was Rookie of the Year and went on to play in 12 consecutive All-Star Games.

Robertson has always been a leader, on and off the court. He served as president of the NBA Players Association from 1963-74 and has been president of the retired NBA Players Association as well. The famed Oscar Robertson lawsuit, so-named because he was the president of the players’ union at the time (1970), led to free agency in the NBA.

He won one NBA title, directing the Milwaukee Bucks to the crown in 1971, only their third season of existence.

The Bucks had drafted Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) in 1969 and made it to the Eastern Conference Finals in his rookie season. The next season they acquired Robertson, who had played his entire career with the Cincinnati Royals, and they cruised through the regular season with 14 more victories than any other team and swept the Baltimore Bullets 4-0 in the NBA Finals. Winning the title seemed almost effortless once they acquired Robertson.

“Oscar made everything simple,” said K.C. Jones, who for years as a Boston Celtic went up against Robertson. “Nobody ever wants to admit they’re afraid of another player, but it was scary the things that Oscar could do to you. He had a certain presence. They call it a lot of things today, but back then it was just something that he emitted.

“He was a basketball player, plain and simple, and he could do it all.”