by Simmons Bill
percent of the players. Even the records bore out the chaos: no team won more than 52 games and only one lost more than 28 (the Nets). Meanwhile, the “ABA was a quality league” argument gained steam when nine alumni became ’77 All-Stars and five played prominent roles in the ’77
Finals. The infusion of ABA blood made the league faster, deeper, and infinitely more athletic; other than Bill Walton, the league’s most thrilling players were ABA guys (Doc, Ice, Thompson and Moses). The days of a potbellied Nelson logging big minutes in the Finals were long gone, personified by Phoenix returning every key player and finishing 34–48. Still, it was an upheaval of sorts. Like watching the water in a pool thrashing around after a cannonball.
The water kept splashing the following summer, when eleven of the top eighteen draft picks switched by trade and two were repackaged a second time. Trading picks was a relatively recent trend; as late as 1971, everyone picked in their spots and that was that. All hell broke loose in 1977, with two trades netting Milwaukee the first, third and twelfth picks in a superb draft—and, of course, they botched two of them (Kent Benson and Ernie Grunfeld, back in the halycon days when teams could waste two top-twelve picks on slow white guys without getting creamed on the Internet and talk radio). Still, they were the first team to say, “We’re going to rebuild with multiple picks,” a relatively bold move in a league where nearly every franchise was losing money and worrying about its precarious relationship with fans.73 We also had our first full-fledged free agency summer in 1977, with Jamaal Wilkes (Lakers), Gus Williams (Seattle), Truck Robinson (New Orleans), Bobby Dandridge (Washington), Jim Cleamons (New York) and E. C. Coleman (G-State) switching teams. 74 Usually teams banged out compensation themselves, with the most famous example happening in ’79, when Boston signed Detroit’s M. L. Carr and it ballooned into a larger deal: Carr and two future number one picks for McAdoo (used to land Parish and McHale a year later). When San Diego signed Walton that same summer, the teams couldn’t agree and left it up to the league. The wackiest free agent transaction will always be the ’79 Clippers signing Brian Taylor from Denver, then giving up two second-round picks, four kilos of cocaine and their best drug connection as compensation. 75
Despite unprecedented upheaval, our first postcannonball Finals (Portland-Philly) made everyone happy: CBS (highest-rated Finals ever), the NBA (Bill Walton, backing up the “great white hope”
hype), Brent Musburger (who nicknamed Walton “Mountain Man” and tried to become the Cosell to his Ali), basketball purists (delighted that Portland “saved” the league), and virulent racists (who enjoyed the way this series was “analyzed” by mainstream media). The Sixers were painted as a disorganized schoolyard team, a product of the ABA and its “look at me” culture, just a bunch of high-priced blacks who didn’t care about making each other better. They had players with nicknames like “Jellybean”76 and “World,” their layup lines were more famous than any of their wins, and because everyone was out for themselves, Doc was unfairly considered to be more sizzle than steak. By contrast, Portland played like Russell’s old Celtics teams and thrived on fast breaks and ball movement, with everything hinging on Walton’s once-in-a-generation skills. They started three white guys, their best player had red hair and their point guard had a crew cut. Their deliriously happy fans filled a 12,666-seat bandbox and made every game sound like a mid-sixties Beatles concert. Even their rough but lovable bald coach barked out orders and looked like he should have been running one of those Dead Poets Society--type boarding schools. So when the Blazers swept the Lakers, then rallied back from a two-games-to-none lead by winning the next four from Philly, they defeated the NBA’s two biggest quote-unquote problems in one felt swoop: Kareem (the surliest of superstars, someone who had just worn everyone out) and the overtly prejudiced belief that undisciplined, overpaid black guys really were ruining the game. That’s why Portland’s “quest” to save basketball made for ratings magic. As long as Walton and the Blazers were kicking some selfish black ass, the average white sports fan would pay attention to the NBA. (And if the Blazers didn’t keep kicking some selfish black ass? Then the NBA was in trouble.) 77
1977–78: THE BLOWN TIRE
If ’77 was the NBA’s craziest season, then the ’78 season had to be its most damaging. Let’s rank the problems in order of least harmful to most harmful.
Crisis no. 1: the drive-by shooting of the Blazers. Walton went down with Portland sporting a 50–10 record and generating buzz that they might be the greatest team ever. In one felt swoop, the NBA lost its signature team, most visible white star, most compelling story line and most entertaining team not just for ’78 but ’79 and ’80, too. Imagine Jordan breaking his foot during Chicago’s 72-win season and disappearing for the next three years. How does that Heat-Sonics Finals in ’96 grab you? Or consecutive Indiana-Utah Finals in ’97 and ’98? Get the idea? Walton’s injury was practically a death blow until Larry and Magic showed up. 78
Crisis no. 2: cocaine. Everywhere at this point … and nobody knew it was bad yet. I don’t need to spell it out for you. Just watch Boogie Nights. You should, anyway. I made ten references to it already and could easily go for thirty more. Just rent it. It’s a real film, Jack.
Crisis no. 3: consecutive Bullets-Sonics concussions. Do you realize the ’78 and ’79 Finals were the only NBA Finals of the past half century that didn’t have a recognizable superstar or big-market team? The ’78 Finals stretched over eighteen agonizing days to accommodate CBS; Unseld won Finals MVP and a brand-new car, although the ceremony was marred when the distraught head of CBS asked if he could borrow Unseld’s car to kill himself in it. The bad luck extended beyond Walton going down: the league barely missed out on a Sixers-Nuggets Finals in
’78 (“Thompson versus the Doctor!”) and a thoroughly entertaining Spurs-Suns Finals in ’79
(“Davis and Westphal take on the Iceman!”). If Stern had been running the league in ’78 and ’79, you might have seen that decade’s equivalent of Dick Bavetta or Bennett Salvatore reffing a few of those pivotal Spurs-Bullets, Sixers-Bullets and Nuggets-Sonics games. And you know it’s true. 79
Crisis no. 4: the CBS problem. A heated contract negotiation that spring resulted in a four-year,
$74 million deal that the network tried to back out of even as it was signing it. As part of the deal (and we’re using that word loosely), CBS was given carte blanche to run playoff games on tape delay, tinker with playoff dates/times and scale back on the number of Sunday telecasts. And cable TV hadn’t been invented yet. Yikes.
Crisis no. 5: fighting. Fighting had always been considered part of basketball, an inevitable outcome of a physical sport (much like hockey). Willis Reed put himself on the map by cleaning out the ’67 Lakers. Maurice Lucas made his reputation by dropping Gilmore. Dennis Awtrey lasted ten years because he was the Guy Who Once Decked Kareem. Ricky Sobers turned around the ’76 Warriors-Suns series by socking Barry. Calvin Murphy had the league’s most famous Napoleon complex, frequently beating up bigger guys and scoring a knockout over six-foot-nine Sidney Wicks. So when the Blazers and Sixers had their ugly brawl in Game 2 of the ’77 Finals, nobody was really that appalled. It started when Darryl Dawkins tried to sucker-punch Bobby Gross (hitting teammate Doug Collins instead), then backpedaled right into a flying elbow from Lucas, 80 followed by the two of them squaring off like 1920s bare-knuckle boxers before everyone jumped in. After getting ejected, Dawkins couldn’t calm down and ended up destroying a few toilets in the Philly locker room. Was anyone suspended? Of course not! Not to sound like Grumpy Old Editor, but that’s the way it worked in the seventies and we loved it! Portland swept the last four games and everyone agreed afterward that Lucas’ flying elbow was the turning point of the series. It was the perfect NBA fight for the times—no injuries, tremendous TV and a valuable lesson learned about sticking up for your teammates. 81
Fast-forward to October: Sports Illustrated revolves its NBA preview issue around “the Enforcers,” s
ticking Lucas’ menacing mug on the cover and glorifying physical players in a pictorial ominously titled “Nobody, but Nobody, Is Gonna Hurt My Teammates.” In retrospect, it’s an incredible piece to read; the magazine took intimidating-looking pictures of each enforcer like they were WWF wrestlers, with Kermit Washington (gulp) posing shirtless like a boxer. Each picture was accompanied with text to make these bruisers sound like a combination of Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson. An example: “Kermit Washington, the 6’8”, 230-pound Laker strong man, is a nice quiet person who lifts weights and sometimes separates people’s heads from their shoulders. In one memorable game last November in Buffalo, Washington ended an elbow skirmish with John Shumate by dropping the 6’9” forward with a flurry of hooks and haymakers.
‘Shumate came apart in sections,’ an eyewitness said.”
Wow, punching people never sounded so cool! Since SI was the influential sports voice at the time—remember, we didn’t have ESPN, USA Today, cable or the Internet yet—the tone of that issue coupled with kudos given to Murphy and Lucas the previous season may have inspired the violent incidents that followed. Lucas was a valuable player who wasn’t good enough to command an SI cover unless it was for something else … you know, like beating the shit out of someone. Was it okay to punch other players in the face? According to Sports Illustrated, actually, it was. As long as you had a good reason.
Fast-forward to opening night: Kent Benson sneaks a cheap elbow into Kareem’s stomach, doubling Kareem over and sending him wobbling away from the play in obvious pain. An enraged Kareem regroups and charges Benson from behind, sucker-punching him and breaking his jaw.82
Unlike other ugly NBA events from the past, this one had a black-guy-decking-a-white-guy clip playing on every local newscast around the country, with the black guy doubling as the league’s signature player of the seventies. Uh-oh. The league decides against suspending Kareem, deeming it punishment enough that he’s missing two months with a broken hand from the punch.
Fast-forward to December: Kermit gets belted by Houston’s Kevin Kunnert after a free throw and they start fighting. Kareem jumps in to hold Kunnert back, Kermit nails Kunnert (who slumps over holding his face),83 then Kermit whirls around, sees Rudy Tomjanovich running toward him and throws what Lakers assistant Jack McKinney later called “the greatest punch in the history of mankind,” breaking Rudy’s face on impact and his skull after it slammed off the floor. Kareem later described the punch as sounding like somebody had dropped a melon onto a concrete floor. Rudy rolled over, grabbed his face, kicked his legs and bled all over the court as everyone watched in horror. The final damage: two weeks in intensive care, a broken jaw, a broken nose, a fractured face and a skull cracked so badly that Rudy could taste spinal fluid dripping into his mouth.
Four forces were working against Kermit other than, you know, the fact he nearly killed another player. With Kareem’s haymaker happening two months earlier, the combination of those punches spawned dueling epidemics of “NBA Violence Is Out of Control!” headlines and editorials (with everyone forgetting that SI had glorified that same violence ten weeks earlier) and “Why do I want to follow a league that allows black guys to keep kicking the crap out of white guys when I’m a white guy?” doubts (the underlying concern that nobody mentioned out loud unless you were sitting in the clubhouse of a country club, as well as the subplot that scared the living shit out of CBS and the owners). Second, the only existing replay made Kermit seem like an unprovoked madman out for white blood, but the cameras missed Kunnert’s initial elbow and the rest of their fight, catching the action only after Kunnert was sinking into Kareem’s arms and Rudy was running at Kermit. Third, Saturday Night Live made light of the incident on “Weekend Update,”
showing the punch over and over again for a gag and giving it new life. 84 And fourth, with TV
ratings faltering, attendance dropping and the league battling the “too many white fans, too many black players” issue, really, you couldn’t have asked for worse timing. It was a best/worst extreme—the most destructive punch ever thrown on a basketball court, the perfect specimen to throw such a punch, 85 the worst result possible, the worst possible timing (CBS’ contract was up after the season) and the worst possible color combination (a black guy decking a white guy). Kermit was suspended for sixty days without pay—no hearing, no appeal, nothing—losing nearly
$54,000 in salary and becoming Public Enemy No. 1. (This went well beyond a few death threats. After Kermit returned from the suspension, police advised him against ordering hotel room service because they worried someone would poison him.) And Rudy eventually sued the league for $3
million, with his laywers portraying Kermit as a vicious Rottweiler who had been allowed off his leash by neglectful owners. Nothing good came from this incident. Nothing.
The Lakers coldly traded Kermit during his suspension, shipping him to Boston for my favorite Celtic at the time, Charlie Scott. Dark day in the Abdul-Simmons house. I remember attending my first Kermit/Celtics game, seeking him out in warm-ups, finding him, and thinking, “That’s him, that’s the guy,” then watching him fearfully like he was like Michael Myers or something. He may have been the league’s first pariah. But Kermit won Boston fans over immediately. Here was this tragic, forlorn figure carrying himself with undeniable dignity, attacking the boards with relentless fury, injecting life into Cowens like nobody had since Silas, throwing every repressed emotion into these games. Sometimes when the Garden was quiet—and that happened a lot, since we only won 32 games and fans were fleeing in droves—you could even hear Kermit grunt when he grabbed a ballboard: uhhhhhhhhh. Kermit averaged 11.8 points, 10.5 rebounds and 52 percent shooting in just twenty-seven minutes per game. By the end of the season, Kermit had become my favorite Celtic and I was convinced that Rudy’s face had attacked Kermit’s fist.
Of course, we traded him that summer. Go figure.86 He moved to San Diego and then Portland, where Blazer fans embraced him the way the Boston fans had. When Halberstam wrote beautifully about him a few years later—really, one of the great character profiles ever written of an athlete—Kermit evolved into something of a victim, culminating in John Feinstein writing an entire book about the punch in 2002. 87 Maybe Rudy was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but so was Kermit. Like hundreds of NBA players before him, Kermit threw an angry punch with mean-spirited intentions … only this one connected. He became the league’s Hannibal Lecter, the guy who threw The Punch and nearly killed someone. The NBA took violence more seriously after that, making fighting ejections mandatory and handing out longer suspensions, although it’s turned into somewhat of an urban legend that Kermit’s punch changed everything. The league didn’t make a concerted effort to shed fighting completely until an ugly Knicks-Bulls brawl in the
’94 Playoffs spilled into the stands with a horrified David Stern in attendance. That was the tipping point, not Kermit’s punch.
1978–79: LIFE SUPPORT
Here’s where the perception that the NBA was in trouble took hold, thanks to tape-delayed playoff games, declining attendance, star players mailing in games, Walton’s continued absence, Buffalo’s move to San Diego, Erving’s disappointing play in Philly, a 75:25 black-to-white ratio and something of a smear campaign from various newspaper columnists and even Sports Illustrated. Since sports fans in 1978 and 1979 took their cue from SI, everyone was thinking the same thing: “The NBA is in trouble.” Even if it wasn’t necessarily true. With Boston already owning Bird’s draft rights, Indiana State’s undefeated ’79 season assumed greater significance for NBA fans as it unfolded. Bird loomed as the potential savior of a floundering Celtics franchise, and when Bird battled Magic’s Michigan State squad in the 1979 NCAA Finals, that boosted Magic’s profile to savior status as well. By sheer coincidence, two of the league’s three biggest markets (L.A. and Chicago) controlled the first two picks in the ’79 draft. The Lakers won the coin toss and Magic, while Chicago’s ensuing tailspin ended with Jordan saving th
em five years later. Throw in Boston signing Bird and everyone wins! 88 Within a year, Bird saved the Celtics, Magic gave Kareem a pulse for the first time in five years, Philly finally built the right cast of role players around Doc, all three teams won 60-plus games and made the Conference Finals and Magic put himself on the map with the clinching game of the Finals.
A bigger savior was coming that summer: cable. Just weeks after the NBA signed a three-year,
$1.5 million deal with the USA Network for Thursday night doubleheaders and early round playoff games, ESPN launched the first-ever twenty-four-hour sports network on September 7, 1979, paving the way for SportsCenter, fun-to-watch highlights, and an eventual competitor for the league’s cable rights. You couldn’t find better advertising than slickly packaged game summaries that featured every exciting dunk, pass, and big shot and left out all the unseemly stuff. (You know, like fistfights, empty seats, utter indifference, and players jogging around and looking spent for the wrong reasons.) For the record, David Stern believes the arrival of ESPN and cable TV had more to do with saving the NBA than Bird and Magic, although he feels like the whole