RALEIGH, N.C. – David Thompson still can dunk. Just ask Tom Burleson. 

Burleson, the starting center on North Carolina State’s 1974 NCAA championship team while former Nuggets star Thompson was a swingman, holds a basketball camp each summer in his native Avery County in western North Carolina. He regularly invites Thompson, who long has been nicknamed “Skywalker.’’ 

“He can still dunk,’’ Burleson said Saturday after the Wolfpack title team was introduced during 50th-anniversary festivities at halftime of North Carolina State’s 81-70 win over Boston College at PNC Arena. “At my camp, he still dunks a little bit. He got a squeegee dunk last summer. But it was a dunk.” 

That’s not bad considering the 6-foot-4 Thompson turns 70 in July. 

When Thompson was a star at North Carolina State and with the Nuggets from 1975-82, his vertical leap was 44 inches. So, what might it be now? 

“It’s more like 24,’’ he said. 

But that’s still good enough to dunk, right? 

“I’m good at climbing the ladder,’’ Thompson said. “I probably could alley-oop if you put up enough money.” 

Hearing what Thompson said, Monte Towe, the 5-7 point guard for the champion Wolfpack, laughed. 

“I wouldn’t bet against him,’’ said Towe, who is Thompson’s best friend and joined him on the Nuggets from 1975-77. “If you gave him a $20 bill, he could still run up there and dunk.” 

At halftime Saturday, Thompson could have put the crowd into a frenzy had he thrown down a dunk. Nevertheless, the fans were still amped. 

Thompson was the last member of the legendary North Carolina State team to be introduced and he got a big round of applause. He then waved enthusiastically. 

“We’ve got great fans here,’’ Thompson said. “Just to be remembered every five or 10 years or so (at a reunion) is always great. Just having most of the guys back together and some of the guys that we don’t see that often, it’s been awesome. Fifty years is a long time.” 

Thompson said he’s been to four or five reunions over the years for the 1974 team. With all the players from then now either close to or over 70, he does realize that the team is well on the back end of reunions. 

“We’ve lost a couple of guys (off the team). Moe Rivers, we just lost him a couple of months ago,’’ said Thompson, referring to the starting guard who died in November. “We’re not getting any younger. But any time we can get together and be celebrated, we’re all for it.” 

North Carolina State in 1973-74 went 30-1 to end UCLA’s seven-year run of NCAA titles. The Wolfpack upset the Bruins 80-77 in double overtime in a national semifinal before defeating Marquette 76-64 in the championship game an hour away from campus in Greensboro, N.C. 

Thompson, then a junior, averaged 26 points per game and was named National Player of the Year. The Wolfpack had gone 27-0 in 1972-73 but were on probation and barred from television and from the NCAA Tournament, so that was the season Thompson really emerged in the national spotlight. 

Thompson went on to be the NBA’s No. 1 draft pick by Atlanta in 1975 but opted instead to sign with the Nuggets, who then were in the ABA. He played one star-studded ABA season before going on to make three NBA All-Star Games with the Nuggets. 

“That really was the team that put us on the map nationally,’’ Thompson said of the Wolfpack 50 years ago. “To win the national championship, become an All-American and National Player of the Year was big. And then to be the first pick and go out to Denver and bring the alley-oop to the ABA.” 

Thompson finished his NBA career by playing for Seattle from 1982-84 and was out of the NBA before he was 30 after having drug issues and suffering a knee injury. But he still had done plenty by then and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1996. 

“He was Michael Jordan before there was Michael Jordan,’’ Nate McMillan, a Raleigh native who played at North Carolina State from 1984-86 before becoming an NBA player and coach, said while attending Saturday’s game. “He’s a local legend here. I was there when they honored him by putting up a statue.” 

North Carolina State last December unveiled a statue of Thompson on campus. It was constructed with his sneakers exactly 44 inches off the ground and shows him going high in the air with a basketball. 

Father time has curtailed Thompson’s vertical leap. But, yes, he still can dunk. 

The David Thompson file

4× NBA All-Star (1977–1979, 1983)

NBA All-Star Game MVP (1979)

2× All-NBA First Team (1977, 1978)

ABA All-Star (1976)

ABA All-Star Game MVP (1976)

All-ABA Second Team (1976)

ABA Rookie of the Year (1976)

ABA All-Rookie First Team (1976)

ABA All-Time Team

No. 33 retired by Denver Nuggets

NCAA champion (1974)

NCAA Final Four Most Outstanding Player (1974)

National college player of the year (1975)

3× Consensus first-team All-American (1973–1975)

3× ACC Player of the Year (1973–1975)

3× First-team All-ACC (1973–1975)

No. 44 retired by NC State Wolfpack