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Throughout his NBA and ABA career, Hightower was nicknamed "Spain", which referred to his stint with Real Madrid. In 1968, Real Madrid head coach Pedro Ferrándiz said Hightower was his team's greatest all-time player. Ferrándiz said that if Hightower had stayed with his team, he would have been one of the greatest all-time players in Spanish basketball. In 2019, Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez called Hightower "legendary". Hightower's tall and slender frame was described as "stringbean-ish" by "Detroit Free Press" writer Jack Saylor.