Dominique Wilkins' touching tribute for former teammate

We know the drill: Each time a former athlete or current professional athlete falls from grace, his/her story is headline material.

Our 24/7 media monster is forever waiting to pounce on the athlete du jour and their hiccups.

Bad news sells good and salacious news sells even better.

Trending against the norm, here is an incredible (and heroic) story of former NBA star Dan Roundfield who died this year during a successful effort to save his drowning wife. Roundfield's story flew under the media radar until former teammate Dominique Wilkins wrote a touching tribute about "Dan the selfless leader, the husband, the father and the fearless teammate and friend.”

Human Highlight

Now to my youngins, Wilkins -- affectionately called Nique the freak -- was the orginal human highlight reel -- sorry Blake Griffen fans, the template was already established by Nique and co. 20 some years ago. Here's the link for proof: Nique the freak.

That being said, this is no doubt one of  Wilkins' best and classiest move. Read on:

When one looks at this image, they instinctively think of Dan the Atlanta Hawks player, the tenacious defender and the NBA All-Star. He was certainly all of those things, but for those of us who knew him, we look at this image and think of Dan the selfless leader, the husband, the father and the fearless teammate and friend. Dan lost his life this year at the age of 59 saving his wife of 37 years from drowning on the beaches of Aruba while on a family vacation. In his last moments, as he himself was fighting for his life, Dan fearlessly lived and died for his family, which is all he ever really wanted.  source

Link: The Lives They Loved