by Earl Monroe
The operation went really well because the surgeons at Kernan were some of the best in the country. After the operation I had straight plaster casts fitted on both of my legs, from almost up to my hip to the tops of my ankles. I couldn’t bend my legs or walk, so my guy Smitty came down on the train, picked me up from the hospital, and drove me to Germantown in the backseat of my El Dorado. That’s where I stayed for the entire summer, in my basement apartment in my mother’s house. Anyway, it was tough being at home all alone, even if I didn’t have to go upstairs to get anything: I had everything I needed down there, including a refrigerator full of food, a bar with drinks, and a nice soft leather sofa to lie on to watch TV. But if I wanted to change channels on the TV I had to get up and do that manually on the set because this was before remotes. And getting up like that every time I wanted to change the channel was very tiring with these casts and whatnot. So I just left the channel wherever it was and watched a lot of stupid shows and that was it. From time to time, though, I had to get up to go to the bathroom. Luckily, I was young and didn’t have to urinate all the time and was able to hold my bowel movements for hours. Still, it was a struggle just to get to the toilet and back to the sofa. By the time I had done all of this I’d be tired as hell. With everyone going about their business and nobody at home until the evening to help me, I was stuck. Then, when they did get home, I would whine and complain.
One day I remember giving some real thought to trying to drag myself up the stairs, which would have been extremely difficult with those heavy plaster casts on both of my legs. On that day my mother had gone off with my crutches and left them upstairs. So I thought I would go get them, but I had never tried to do that before because I was worried about falling down the stairs and lying at the bottom, unable to move. So I just stayed where I was in the basement and endured.
This made me realize how difficult life must be for people with handicaps. There are things that people who don’t have disabilities just do automatically without ever even thinking about it. But those who are not able to do those things do think about them. So going through this period in my young life when I couldn’t even do the simplest of things for myself gave me a deeper appreciation for what people with disabilities have to go through every day of their lives. I realized at that moment that it’s a big thing to want to do stuff and not be physically able to do it. So that was a kind of wake-up call for me, because I knew in time I was going to heal. Eventually I would get back to my normal routine of playing basketball, something I truly loved and was getting paid handsomely to do. So what did I have to complain about compared to a person with a handicap? Nothing. So after that revelation I stopped whining and complaining about my condition and vowed to move on and make the most of the life I was blessed to have.
The casts stayed on my legs for six weeks. Then, one day in August, Smitty picked me up from Germantown and took me back to Kernan Hospital in the backseat of my Cadillac to have them removed. After they took the casts off I started going to rehab at Kernan, working with a therapist named Neil, who helped me get strength and motion back in both legs. When we first started therapy on my knees I was very reluctant. See, I had stitches going across my knees as opposed to up and down on the side, as the surgeons had advised. So I had to get used to bending my knees when I did squats because it felt like the stitches would just pop open when I bent down to do them. That’s when I realized that the surgeons had been right when they advised me to do vertical cuts and I was wrong. I had let my vanity overrule their judgment, but that was water under the bridge now. I had to just make do now and suck up my fear that the wound would not open, which it didn’t. Still, it took me a long time to get myself to the point where I actually felt comfortable doing squats and bending my knees. Maybe two weeks. In the meantime I was doing extension-type stuff to get my legs back up to normal movement, in addition to massage, whirlpool therapy, and heat treatment (Bill Neill really had great hands and I always went back to him). It was a process to work myself back into playing condition, and I was so serious about it I didn’t even go out to parties during my rehab. I wanted to be as ready as possible when training camp started sometime in mid-September, and for our first game against the San Diego Rockets on October 14 in Baltimore.
It took me a while to get adjusted to playing after the operation and the rehab, and when training camp opened in mid-September I started slowly. I didn’t want to mess things up, and Skip’s kneepads helped me tremendously throughout this period, especially with the right knee, which was worse off than the left. So I wore Skip’s kneepad on my right knee regularly. This was the first time I had really been seriously hurt like this, so I took everything slowly during those early practices because I didn’t want to risk having any setbacks. But at the same time I wanted to be up to speed as quickly as I could. That’s just my mind-set as a player. I basically wanted to do whatever was best for me to get back. I never even thought about the operation in terms of it possibly being a career-ending thing, like I wasn’t going to be able to do this or that move. No. I just thought of the operation as a corrective, elective procedure, and I knew that as soon as my knees felt better I would be back right where I was before the bursitis. I never was traumatized by the surgery. It was just a matter of having to do it so I could get back to being the player I was before. That was my mind-set then and it is the same today. I just didn’t want to take a risk and go backward, and that was why I took things slowly at first, especially since I hadn’t had surgery before.
The NBA was expanding to 17 teams for this season, having added 3 new franchises: the Buffalo Braves, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Portland Trail Blazers. The league was also divided into two conferences, East and West, with four divisions: Atlantic, Central, Midwest, and Pacific. The Bullets landed in the Central Division along with the Atlanta Hawks, Cincinnati Royals, and the expansion Cleveland Cavaliers. Some of the placements didn’t make a whole lot of geographic sense to me. Like why were Cleveland and Cincinnati placed in the Central Division instead of the Midwest? And why was Phoenix in the Midwest instead of the Pacific? Was it because Phoenix isn’t on the coast? And finally, why did they place the Bullets in the Central Division instead of in the Atlantic when Baltimore is so much closer to the Atlantic than Buffalo is? It was a little confusing at first, but hey, I got used to it because what could I do about it? All I had to do was play basketball wherever the Bullets landed, so it really wasn’t a big thing to me.
After training camp broke I didn’t play in our first game against San Diego because Coach Shue felt I wasn’t quite ready to play mentally or physically. We won that first game anyway, 123–105, with Jack Marin’s 28 points leading the way. But the story of that game was that Gus Johnson played fabulous defense against Elvin Hayes, one of the great scorers in the game, holding him to just 12 points. Now that was something.
Three days later, when we hosted the Lakers, I did feel ready, because nothing got me up like playing against Jerry West, and with Oscar Robertson, Dave Bing, Hal Greer, Archie Clark, and Walt Frazier all looming on the schedule, I knew that it was now or never. Anyway, we beat the Lakers in overtime, 118–116. I only scored 8 points in that game, but six of my teammates scored in double figures, again led by Jack Marin, who had 25. Jerry went off on us that night, scoring 34 points even though Fred Carter and Eddie Miles were dogging him all over the court. Wilt chipped in with 23, but it was not enough to save them from defeat.
After dropping our third game to San Francisco 125–105 at home and beating the Royals in Cincinnati, we were set to face our “enemy,” the New York Knicks, in Baltimore on October 23. We had been pointing toward this game as a team since we’d lost to them in the playoffs the previous spring, when they were on their way to becoming NBA champions for the first time. So mentally I thought the team was ready, and we were. We beat them that night 98–92, upping our record to four and one while the Knicks fell to four and two. Fred Carter and I led the way with 21 points apiece, and four other Bulle
ts reached double figures. Willis Reed led the Knicks with 25 points, while DeBusschere chipped in with 18. Fred Carter’s fierce defense against Walt Frazier held Clyde to only 10 points. There was a large crowd in the Civic Center that night and everyone went away feeling good, except the Knicks.
The next day we flew into Milwaukee to play against the much-improved Bucks, who had acquired Lucius Allen, Bob Boozer, and Oscar Robertson in major trades. We fell in double overtime, 122–120. Lew Alcindor dropped 39 points that night, scoring on an array of eye-popping sky hooks, dunks, and turnaround jumpers. Man, he was awesome that night, and he totally dominated Wes in the paint because of his six-inch height advantage. My knees were starting to feel stronger and I had 25 points that night, though Wes Unseld led us with 27 gritty points against the much taller Alcindor. Up next was a surprising Detroit Pistons team that had come out of the gate with an eight and zero record. They beat us in a hard-fought, close game, 109–103. Detroit had much improved its team by drafting Bob Lanier, the six-foot-11-inch All-American center from St. Bonaventure, and Terry Driscoll, a six-foot-seven sharpshooting forward from Boston College. Jimmy Walker led the Pistons with 20 points that night and was starting to look like he was going to be a star in the league.
On October 30 we went up to Philadelphia to play the 76ers. I got a couple of days’ rest in Baltimore and received some massage treatments on my knees, and they felt a lot better by the time we rolled into the Spectrum to play in front of my hometown crowd. I didn’t want to disappoint my family and old friends, and I didn’t. That night I won my duel against my old Baker League sidekick, Archie Clark, outscoring him 30 to 24, and we beat the 76ers 123–110. We followed that up the next night back in Baltimore with a 106–103 win over Phoenix, but my knees started acting up again. The doctors had told me this would happen, that it would be up and down and the pain would go away and come back until it stopped for good, which was the day I was looking forward to. I only scored 12 points in that game, but the most important thing was that we won, finishing six and three for the month of October. Not bad considering I wasn’t at full strength yet, so I was optimistic about our team winning in the days ahead, after I got back at the top of my game.
November was an up-and-down month for us, but even steven in terms of winning and losing games: We won eight but also lost eight. We beat the Knicks for the second time that season on November 12 in the Garden, 110–108, behind 25 from Eddie Miles and 23 from Kevin Loughery. Clyde and Willis combined for 64 points in the losing effort. Beating the NBA Champion Knicks was good for us. Despite our .500 record, the press was talking about the spirited rivalry that had developed between our two teams, which was real. Every time we played the Knicks now, it was a hard-fought game with a lot of team and personal intensity on display. The day before this game, on November 11, we had picked up a really good player from the Lakers, John Tresvant, a six-seven forward, for a 1972 second-round draft pick (who turned out to be Paul Stovall). I saw John Tresvant really helping our team as a sub for Jack Marin or Gus Johnson, and as a fill-in starter for either one of them if they ever got injured.
Two teams beat us badly that month. On November 21—my 26th birthday—we got blown out by the Hawks in Atlanta, 130–103. I scored 16 points that night, but rookie “Pistol Pete” Maravich, who admitted to being influenced by my style of play, doubled me up with 32. Being the competitor that I was, I would have to wait until another time to go up against Maravich properly, when my knees were well. Then we would see what the results would be, and I was confident they would be different. But I added Pete to my list of ballplayers I looked forward to playing against.
The other big defeat came six days later in Boston, when five different Celtics scored at least 20 points and they embarrassed us, 153–107. I scored only 4 points in that beat down, with my knees really sore. But that was no excuse for their 46-point margin of victory; we just really played badly as a team that night. For the month of November I averaged just over 16 points a game, with two 30-point nights and two other nights when I scored in the high 20s. But I also scored in single digits four times that month, which was a direct result of the pain and uneasiness I was still going through with my knees.
What I was beginning to realize was that I was going to have to learn to play through my discomfort, to block out the twinges of pain and trust in the surgery and in my rehab. I had to play as I had in the past and just believe that my knees would hold up and that everything would be all right, even when I took risks, which I had to do if I was going to be the old Earl the Pearl, or Black Jesus, who would walk on water. I was getting closer every night I played, though sometimes I found that I was having trouble taking some of the risks I had taken before because I was afraid my knees would give out. That had to stop, and the only way it would was if I trusted more in my belief that the surgery and rehab had been effective and that my knees had healed. So it was just a matter of time before I believed in it totally and my game returned to the way it had been before and I could play freely, take risks, and execute all my moves. Now, though, I had up and down nights (as both my surgeon and my trainer told me I would). I realized that healing from injury is a process, and that it involves a psychological barrier the mind has to jump over. And my mind-set had to be that I would push through all of this adversity and come out of this struggle as good as or better than I ever was.
So that’s where my head was at going into December, which we opened with a 97–93 loss to the Lakers in Baltimore. Jerry West and I had a real shoot-out that night, with him getting 37 points and me notching 33. I felt good physically that night even though we lost, but I knew now that there would be other games when I would struggle with the pain. After the loss to Los Angeles we won four in a row, then lost two, then won another, and our wins and losses seesawed back and forth like that over the next four games. One of our wins during that stretch came on Christmas Day in Baltimore, when we defeated the Chicago Bulls 128–112, overcoming 41 points from Bob Love, who seemed to be scoring from everywhere. We followed that up two days later in New York with a disappointing 110–105 loss to the rival Knicks in what was another fiercely fought game. That night me and Clyde went at each other in a thrilling head-to-head matchup, with him getting 33 points while I dropped 31. Kevin and Eddie Miles both scored 20, but it wasn’t enough to overcome Dick Barnett’s 31. It was disappointing because we led both at the half and going into the final quarter, but they got hot and beat us in the last few minutes. Like I said, this series was becoming almost like a war, the way both teams battled each other.
After that loss we bounced back by winning 6 in a row, including our final game of 1970 when, on December 30, we defeated Buffalo in Baltimore, 106–90. I scored 21 points in that game, while Jack Marin led the way with 24. We ended the year with a 21 and 16 record, and our 6-game winning streak stretched through January 7 and 8, when we posted back-to-back wins over the Atlanta Hawks in a home-and-away series. In the first game, in Atlanta, we avenged our earlier loss to them with a 110–102 win. That game was very satisfying for me personally because I got the upper hand on Pete Maravich, outscoring him 32 points to 23. Then we went back to Baltimore and defeated them again, 125–104, with Gus Johnson exploding for 31 points in his physical war with Bill Bridges. In the game before, in Atlanta, they had fought each other to a draw, with Gus tallying 14 and Bill notching 11. It was always interesting to hear these two exceptionally physical men grunting and bumping each other under the basket when they collided. It was unbelievable. The same kind of physical battle could be expected whenever Gus played against Dave DeBusschere, too, you know. Because DeBusschere, Gus, and Bill Bridges were hard-nosed, blue-collar players who never, ever backed down from a challenge. So it was a pleasure and a wonder to watch Gus go up against those two guys.
For our next game, on January 10, we traveled out to Milwaukee to play a rapidly improving Bucks team led by their increasingly dominant young center Lew Alcindor, who was already making an indelible mark on t
he NBA game. Seven feet two inches tall, agile, and gifted with an indefensible array of shots (including his patented Sky Hook), he was fast becoming the dominant player in the game. Now he had been teamed with the great Oscar Robertson, Bob Boozer, and another emerging star, Bob Dandridge, who I had played against my final two years in college. Anyway, the Bucks were a very good team that year, and when we arrived in Milwaukee to play them their record was 35 and 7, while ours was 26 and 16.
That night they destroyed us 151–99—our worst loss of the season—with Bob Dandridge (who I feel belongs in the Hall of Fame) exploding for 34 points while Alcindor put up 30, totally dominating the smaller Wes Unseld. Yet, despite the whipping the Bucks laid on us, Gus Johnson made the most memorable play in the game. What happened was, with about two minutes left in the game and the Bucks ahead by 46 points, Gus came down the floor and went up with one of those windmill dunks of his and threw it down so hard everyone heard the wire that held the backboard up snap, pow! and the backboard shattered and the entire contraption came down, boom, splat, onto the floor! Everybody was amazed, including Alcindor! Gus bruised his forearm on the play and was sent to the hospital for precautionary x-rays, which turned out to be negative. They also had to stop the game for a while. I thought it was for an hour, but a local sportswriter said it was for “33 minutes.” Another writer said that Gus was “on a search-and-destroy mission” when he made that dunk. He might have been right saying it was a “search-and-destroy mission,” but I don’t know about the 33-minutes report because I was there and they didn’t have a replacement backboard in Milwaukee Arena. So they had to go out and find a backboard somewhere to finish that game, and I think that would have taken longer than 33 minutes. I don’t know. Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me.
Anyway, all the players were really pissed that they went to find a backboard to finish the final 2 minutes of a game that was already decided by nearly 50 points. What was the point in doing that? But they did and we finished the game. But by the time it was over there were only a handful of the 10,000-plus people who had filled the seats at the opening tip-off. After watching that dunk, Lew Alcindor said he thought it was one of “the most memorable shots” he’d ever seen. I also read in Sports Illustrated or somewhere else that Alcindor said, “Wes Unseld was a real physical player, but Gus Johnson could get a job as a hockey puck he was so tough.” And he was.