Arizona basketball legends remembered...

This is another old timers' story about a couple of basketball players who many consider the best and the most talented players to ever hit the hardwood in the state of Arizona.

Long before Mike Bibby, Channing Frye and Jerryd Bayless came two stars from the 1960s, James Dugan and Isaac Bonds. They are legends. Both of them were recently inducted into the Arizona High School Hall of Fame -- Dugan in 2007 and Bonds in 2009.

Both men are now in their mid 60s and both of them are far removed from the basketball court -- Dugan is retired and living in New Rochelle, New York, while Bonds is retired and living in his hometown of Winslow, Arizona.

In 1963, they came from all over the state as thousands crowded into the small-town gymnasium in Winslow to witness the two phenoms perform. The game may go down as the best game ever played in Arizona involving two prep athletes who performed at the top of their game from the opening horn to the final tick on the clock.

I wish I had been there.

Instead, I was in college, just a couple of hundred miles away. Bonds, the most prolific scorer in Arizona prep history, scored 48 points that night, while Dugan pumped in a Flagstaff school record of 54 points. The fans looked on in awe as they sat in their seats and witnessed greatness from two very talented teenagers.

Unfortunately, Dugan's high school career was overshadowed by a punching incident during a game that same season in Prescott when he decked a player following some heavy trash-talking. Dugan said years later that he punched the wrong guy. Chances are he was punching out at the world and not just one opponent. At any rate, Dugan and Bonds left it all on the court. Bonds averaged 40 points a game his senior season and Dugan was not far behind. And of course, in those days there was no three-point line. Can you imagine what those two could have done if they had grown up on the basketball court in this day and age!