by Simmons Bill
Reason no. 2. The league suffered its first betting scandal when Fort Wayne rookie Jack Molinas was nabbed for wagering on his own team. 3 Even after Molinas had been banned and commissioner Maurice Podoloff prohibited gambling on any NBA games, the damage was done and the league took an inordinate amount of abuse on sports blogs and radio shows. 4
Reason no. 3. The ’54 playoffs were screwed up by an ill-fated “What if we slapped together a six-game round robin with the top three teams in each conference?” proposal, which led to the Knicks getting knocked out in a nationally televised quagmire that lasted longer than any NFL
game. According to Leonard Koppett, “The game encompassed all the repulsive features of the grab-and-hold philosophy. It lasted three hours, and the final seconds of a one-point game were abandoned by the network. The arguments with the referees were interminable and degrading. What had been happening, as a matter of course, in dozens of games for the last couple of years, was shown to a nationwide audience in unadulterated impurity.” 5
Reason no. 4. Since everyone traveled by train and bus back then, the league stretched only from Boston to Minnesota, with just three “major” television markets in place (Boston, Philly and New York) and seven smaller markets (Minneapolis, Syracuse, Baltimore, Rochester, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis and Milwaukee). Let’s just say that the Minneapolis-Syracuse Finals in ’54 didn’t knock I Love Lucy out of the number one Nielsen spot. 6
Reason no. 5. The lily-white league desperately needed some, um … how do we put this … um …
I want to be politically correct … you know, especially after the whole Imus/Rutgers thing … so let’s just say this as discreetly as possible … um … well … the league needed more black guys!
1954–1955: THE LIFESAVER
When Syracuse owner Danny Biasone7 created the 24-second shot clock, his brainstorm didn’t do much except for speeding up possessions, eliminating stalling, hiking league scoring by 13.6
points per team and basically saving the league. How did he arrive at 24? Biasone studied games he remembered enjoying and realized that, in each of those games, both teams took around 60
shots. Well, 60 + 60 = 120. So Biasone settled on 120 shots as the minimum combined total that would be acceptable from a “I’d rather kill myself than watch another NBA game like this”
standpoint. And if you shoot every 24 seconds over the course of a 48-minute game, that comes out to … wait for it … 120 shots! Biasone came up with the idea in 1951 and spent three years selling the other owners on it, even staging an exhibition game for them in August 1954, using a shot clock, to prove the idea worked. That’s how we ended up with a 24-second clock. Of course, the nitwits in Springfield didn’t induct him until 2000, which would have been touching if poor Biasone hadn’t been dead for eight years. Really, inventing the shot clock and saving professional basketball wasn’t enough of an accomplishment to make the Basketball Hall of Fame for forty-one years? And you wonder why I’m blowing it up later in the book. Personally, I think we should create a $24 bill and put Biasone’s picture on it.
The karma gods rewarded Biasone when Syracuse beat Fort Wayne in seven for the ’55 title8 (the second-lowest-rated sporting event of all time behind Fox’s Celebrity Boxing 2). Coincidence? I say no. Scoring cracked 100 per game by the ’58 season. One year later, Boston beat Minnesota by a record score of 173–139, with Cousy finishing with 31 points and a record 29 assists. And the NBA never looked back.
One other essential change: the fouling rules were revamped. A limit was placed on team fouls (six per quarter, followed by a two-shot penalty); an offensive foul counted as a team foul but not free throws unless the offending team was over the limit; and any backcourt foul counted as a team foul. The first change prevented teams from fouling throughout games without repercussions; the second change sped up games; and the third change made teams pay a price for fouling anywhere on the court. Sounds like three simple, logical, “why the hell didn’t they always do that” tweaks, right? It took the league eight years to figure it out. I’d compare the NBA’s first eight years to the first eight years of porn (1972–80)—yeah, some good things happened and everyone who was there remembers those years fondly, but ultimately we moved in a much better, more logical, and more lucrative direction. The porn industry didn’t take off until it transferred everything to videotape; the NBA didn’t take off until it created a shot clock. 9
1955–56: MIKAN II: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO
After his ’56 Lakers floundered to a 5–15 start and attendance petered, Big George stepped down as general manager, made an ill-fated return10 and couldn’t handle the game’s increased speed. As Koppett described it, the plodding Mikan “simply wasn’t equipped for the 24-second game. The widened foul lane he could handle; the constant running he could not.” And I’m supposed to rank Mikan as one of the top thirty players of all time? Bob Pettit filled Mikan’s void by winning the league’s first MVP trophy, leading the league in scoring and rebounding for a Hawks team that fled Milwaukee for St. Louis before the season—in retrospect, a bad career move given the success of Happy Days two decades later. 11
1956–1957: RUSSELL
Boston’s Red Auerbach traded future Hall of Famers Ed Macauley and Cliff Hagan for Russell’s rights before the 1956 draft. Why? Because he needed a “modern” center who could handle the boards, protect the rim, and kick-start fast breaks for his speedy guards. Red anticipating in 1956
exactly where the sport was heading—to a T—remains his single greatest accomplishment. Well, that and living into his mid-eighties even though he lived on Chinese food and went through cigars like breath mints. For the Celtics, Russell carried them to the ’57 title. For the NBA, Russell imported previously foreign concepts like “jumping,” “dunking,” “shot blocking” and
“blackness.” The ultimate win-win.
1957–1958: BASKETBALL CARDS
After Bowman’s 1948 set bombed with fans, Topps waited a full decade before trotting out its first NBA set. Eighty players (including veterans like Cousy and Schayes) suddenly had their own
“rookie card.” Six decades later, it’s practically impossible to find those cards in mint or near-mint condition for obvious reasons (the set sold poorly) and less obvious reasons (most of the cards were miscut, off-center, and either overprinted or underprinted).12 Russell’s short-printed rookie trails only Mikan’s ’48 Bowman rookie (worth $9K-plus in near-mint condition) in the Most Valuable Basketball Card Ever race. Another four years passed before Fleer made an ill-fated, one-year jump into the card business with a now-valuable, hard-to-find 1961–62 set that featured rookies for Wilt, West and Oscar (and might be the least exciting cards ever made). Three sets, three failures. No more basketball cards were produced until the 1969–70 season, when Topps released a “tall boy” set of ninety-nine cards that doubled as rookies for Kareem, Hondo, Willis, Pearl, Frazier and Wilkens.
Why is this important? Every relevant rookie card from 1946 to 1970 can be found in the ’48
Bowman, ’58 Topps, ’62 Fleer and ’70 Topps sets. If this book becomes the Da Vinci Code of NBA books, I’m using part of my financial windfall to buy these four sets in mint condition. The rest of the money will be spent on a Manhattan Beach house on the water, a minority stake in the Clippers that includes courtside seats, a BMW M6 convertible, hookers, divorce lawyers, a Hollywood production company that takes a ton of meetings and lunches but never actually produces anything, and expensive Zegna shirts that show off my chest hair. Move over, Donald Sterling—there’s a new sheriff in town.
1958–60: COLORIZATION
Not only did Lakers rookie Elgin Baylor follow Russell’s lead by bringing hang time, explosiveness, and midair creativity into the league, but Wilt Chamberlain was finishing a one-year Globetrotters stint13 and planned on joining Philadelphia the following year. (The Warriors had drafted Wilt as a territorial pick in 1955 when he was a senior in high school. Don’t ask.) Anticipating his arrival, the
league created an offensive goal-tending rule, nicknamed the Wilt Chamberlain Rule, that prohibited offensive players from tipping shots on the rim. The rule evolved over the years because, in the tape of Wilt’s 73-point game in ’62, he redirected a number of jump shots from teammates into the basket before they hit the rim, something that wouldn’t be legal now. They had to have tweaked the rule in the mid-sixties. By the way, you know you’ve arrived in life when you get a rule named after you. 14
The Dipper exceeded all expectations in his rookie season, averaging a record 37.6 points, capturing the Rookie of the Year, MVP, and MLBHC (Most Likely to Bang Hot Chicks) awards and even inspiring NBC to expand its telecasts to Saturday and Sunday afternoons.15 On the other hand, Wilt became so frustrated by constant pounding from smaller opponents that he briefly retired in the spring of 1960. With other stars like Cousy complaining about the interminable length of the season 16 (as well as constant traveling, low salaries, the physical toll from a brutal schedule and the league’s refusal to protect them from doubleheaders and back-to-back-to-back games), the NBA suddenly faced its second crisis: a public breach with its stars. This wouldn’t fully manifest itself for another four years. And then? It manifested itself. Like a bitch.
1960–61: THE SCORING BOOM
Not necessarily a good thing. Why? Nobody played defense, and every game looked like a disjointed All-Star contest or even worse a college pickup game where nobody runs back on D
because they’re sweating out the previous night’s keg party. The ’61 Celtics led the league in scoring (124.5 per game) and averaged 119.5 field goal attempts and 33.5 free throw attempts. To put those numbers in perspective, the 2008 Celtics averaged 76 field goal attempts and 26 free throw attempts per game. That’s insane. Play suffered so badly that NBC dropped the NBA one year later despite a memorable ’62 Finals.17 The following season (’63), commissioner Maurice Podoloff slapped together a production team to “broadcast” the All-Star Game and the NBA Finals, then sold a syndication package to local affiliates around the country like it was American Gladiators or The Steve Wilkos Show. Unbelievable.
Because of the inordinately high number of possessions, the statistics from 1958 to 1962 need to be taken with an entire shaker of salt and possibly a saltwater taffy factory.
Within five seasons, scoring increased by 18.6 points, field goal attempts increased by more than 4
per quarter, there were nearly 18 more rebounds available for each team, and shooting percentages improved as teams played less and less defense.
Then the ’62 season rolled around and the following things happened:
1. Wilt averaged 50 points
2. Oscar averaged a triple double
3. Walt Bellamy averaged a 32–19
4. Russell averaged 23.6 boards and fell two behind Wilt for the rebound title
Hard to take those numbers at face value, right? And that’s before factoring in offensive goaltending (legal at the time), the lack of athletic big men (significant) and poor conditioning (which meant nobody played defense). I watched a DVD of Wilt’s 73-point game in New York and two things stood out: First, he looked like a McDonald’s All-American center playing junior high kids; nobody had the size or strength to consider dealing with him. Second, because of the balls-to-the-wall speed of the games, the number of touches Wilt received per quarter was almost unfathomable. Wilt averaged nearly 40 field goal attempts and another 17 free throw attempts per game during his 50-point season. Exactly forty years later, Shaq and Kobe averaged a combined 52
points a game on nearly the same amount of combined field-goal/free-throw attempts. 18 Things leveled off once teams started taking defense a little more seriously, although it took a full decade to slow down and resemble what we’re seeing now statistically (at least a little). Here’s a snapshot every four years from 1962 on. Notice how possessions, rebound totals and point totals began to drop; how shooting percentages kept climbing; and beyond that, how the numbers jumped around from ’62 to ’74 to ’86 to ’94 to ’04 to ’08. 20
Compare the numbers from ’62 and ’08 again. Still impressed by Oscar’s triple double or Wilt slapping up a 50–25 for the season? Sure … but not as much.
1961–62: THE FIRST RIVAL
Abe Saperstein’s American Basketball League died quickly, but not before planting the seed for two future NBA ideas: a wider foul lane (16 feet) and a three-point line. The ABL also gambled on
“blackballed” NBA players, including Connie Hawkins, who averaged a 28–13 for Pittsburgh and won the league’s only MVP award. In the one and only ABL Finals, the Cleveland Pipers defeated the Kansas City Steers, three games to two, with future Knicks star Dick Barnett leading the way. The ABL disbanded midway through its second season, with the league-leading Steers declared league “champs.” Good rule of thumb: if you have a franchise named the Kansas City Steers in your professional sports league, you probably aren’t making it. If you have a team called the Hawaii Chiefs, you almost definitely aren’t making it. And if you name a team (in this case, the Pittsburgh Rens) after the abbreviation for “Renaissance,” you definitely aren’t making it. 21
1962–63: THE VOID
When Bob Cousy retired after getting his fifth ring, the Association lost its most popular player and someone who ranked alongside Mickey Mantle and Johnny Unitas from a cultural standpoint. Cooz got treated to an ongoing farewell tour throughout the season, as well as the first-ever super-emotional retirement ceremony that featured Cooz breaking down and some leather-lunged fan screaming, “We love ya, Cooz!” Who would step into the Cooz’s void as the league’s most beloved white guy? Did West have it in him? What about Lucas? Yup, the league was becoming blacker and blacker … and if you were a TV network thinking about buying its rights in a bigoted country, this was not a good thing.
(On the flip side, with Lenny Wilkens thriving on the Hawks and Oscar running the show in Cincy, the old “blacks aren’t smart enough to run a football or basketball team” stereotype started to look stupid … although it never really disappeared and even resurfaced as a key plot line during season one of Friday Night Lights in 2007.) 22
1963–64: THE SIT-DOWN STRIKE
January 14, 1964, Boston, Massachusetts.
(We’re going with a paragraph break and parentheses to build the dramatic tension. Sorry, I was feeling it.)
Frustrated by low wages, excessive traveling and the lack of a pension plan, the ’64 All-Stars make one of the ballsiest and shrewdest decisions in the history of professional sports, telling commissioner Walter Kennedy two hours before the All-Star Game that they won’t play without a pension agreement in place. With ABC televising the game and threatening Kennedy that a potential TV contract will disappear if the players leave them hanging in prime time, Kennedy agrees fifteen minutes before tip-off to facilitate a pension deal with the owners. Attica! Attica!
Attica!
How this night never became an Emmy Award-winning documentary for HBO Sports remains one of the great mysteries in life. You had Boston battling a major blizzard that night. You had every relevant Celtic (current or retired) in the building, including the entire 1946–47 team, as well as a good chunk of the league’s retired stars playing an Old-Timers Game before the main event. You had an All-Star contest featuring five of the greatest players ever (Wilt, Russell, West, Oscar and Baylor) in their primes, as well as a number of other relevant names (Lucas, Havlicek, Heinsohn, Lenny Wilkens, Sam Jon, Hal Greer) and the greatest coach ever (Auerbach) coaching the East. You had Larry Fleisher advising the players in the locker room, a powerful lawyer who brandished significant influence with the players down the road. You had the first instance in American sports history of professional stars risking their careers and paychecks for a greater good. And ultimately, you had what turned out to be the first pension plan of the modern sports era, the first real victory for a player’s union in sports history.23 Other than that, it was a pretty boring night.
Halberstam unearthe
d two classic tidbits while reporting Breaks of theGame. First, the leaders of the “let’s strike” movement were Heinsohn, Russell and Wilkens. The votes were split (Halberstam’s estimation: 11–9 in favor) and a few influential stars wanted to play and negotiate later … including Wilt Chamberlain. Even during far-reaching labor disputes, Wilt did whatever was best for him. Classic. And second, just when it seemed like the dissenting players might convince everyone else to play, Lakers owner Bob Short sent a message down to the locker room ordering West and Baylor to get dressed and get their asses out on the court, sending the entire locker room into “Screw these guys, we’re not playing!” mode. And they didn’t. The seeds for free agency and big-money contracts were planted on this night. Again, you’re telling me this wouldn’t be a good HBO documentary? Where’s Liev Schreiber? Somebody pour him a coffee and drive him to a recording studio!