Lakers' legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to join 'Dancing With The Stars' cast this season

What's the story?

ESPN announced on Friday morning that there will be an all-athlete edition of Dancing With The Stars premiering on ABC (along with ESPN are owned by Disney) on April 30th. One of the more interesting athletes joining the cast will be Los Angeles Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

In case you didn't know...

Abdul-Jabbar was drafted first overall in the 1969 NBA Draft after leading UCLA to three NCAA Championships. He finished his historic NBA career with 38,387 points; which still ranks first overall.

The closest active NBA players are Dirk Nowitzki and LeBron James; who are sixth and seventh all-time in scoring respectively, but they are over 7,000 points behind Abdul-Jabbar.

The heart of the matter...

The NBA Hall of Famer Abdul-Jabbar will join controversial former Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding, NFL cornerback Josh Norman, and several other athletes on the 26th season of Dancing With The Stars.

The Dancing With The Stars Twitter account posted the reveal on Friday morning as well.

NBA Legend @kaj33 will be joining @lindsayarnold in the ballroom for #DWTS: Athletes! pic.twitter.com/Td65Ed1VN2

— Dancing with the Stars (@DancingABC) April 13, 2018

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is 70 years old and also MUCH taller than his dancing counterpart as he stands at 7'2". He'll bring an interesting dynamic to the competition that hasn't been seen among the athletes who have competed in the past.

Though athletes have been a mainstay among the cast in Dancing With The Stars, this is the first time they will go with a season made completely of athletes.

What's next?

The 26th season of Dancing With The Stars is just a little over two weeks away when the season premiere takes place on Monday, April 30th on ABC. The start of this season will coincide with the start of the second round of the NBA Playoffs.

Author's take...

I'll admit that I never really watched Dancing With The Stars until a couple of seasons ago when former Chicago Cub David Ross competed since I'm a life-long Cubs fan. I think that Abdul-Jabbar will definitely be the crowd favorite to go far in the competition. It'll be a lot of fun seeing what he can do on the dance floor.