Book of Basketball

by Simmons Bill

  2. Phoenix lowballed Joe Johnson so insultingly that he asked them not to match Atlanta’s

  $70 million free agent offer, leading to Phoenix accepting Boris Diaw and two future first-rounders for him. So the Suns had just come within two wins of the ’05 Finals and built a run-and-gun identity; suddenly they were dealing a twenty-four-year-old potential All-Star, the perfect swingman for their system and a deadly shooter who could even play backup point guard, and they were only getting back a bench player and two future picks? Also, how could they botch the Johnson situation so badly that he asked to leave? With Nash, Amar’e, Marion and Johnson, you’re set for the rest of the decade. That’s it. That’s your core. That’s your guarantee for 57-plus wins a year and a specific style that can work. Surround them with role players and veteran buyout guys and you’re contending until Nash breaks down, and even then, you can just shift the offense over to Johnson as the main creator. How can you give that guy up? So what if he’s insulted and doesn’t want to come back? He’ll get over it! You’re paying him $14

  million a year and he gets to play with Steve Nash! Arrrrrrrrgh. 42

  3. Instead of picking Rajon Rondo with the twenty-first pick in ’06 (the pick acquired from Chicago), they shipped his rights to Boston for Cleveland’s 2007 number one and

  $1.9 million. A few weeks later, they gave Marcus Banks $24 million. Would you rather have a potential up-and-comer like Rondo for cheap money or a proven turd like Banks for five times as much? Tough call. If you just had a head injury. 4. They gave Diaw a five-year, $45 million extension that summer, which meant the Diaw/Banks combo now earned as much money every year as Joe Johnson. Awesome. 5. So the Iguodala/Deng/Rondo pick became number twenty-four in the ’07 draft … and naturally, the Suns sold it to Portland for $3 million. Why didn’t they just take Spanish star Rudy Fernandez (Portland’s pick)? You can’t play the luxury tax card because Fernandez wasn’t planning on joining the NBA for at least a year; it would have been savvy if Phoenix had stashed him in Europe as an asset down the road. Instead, owner Sarver announced to his fans, “Screw you, I’d rather have the $3 million, I’m taking the cash.” One year later, Fernandez would have been a top-ten pick after lighting it up in Spain; he even gave the Redeem Team everything it could handle in the 2008

  Olympics. Can you quantify the damage there?43

  I hate delving into the Marty McFly Zone when many of the aforementioned screwups were interrelated, but let’s figure out how the Suns could have turned out if cheapskate owner Robert Sarver didn’t sign off on the aforementioned bipolar game plan in 2004. We know for sure that they could have had a six-man nucleus of Nash, Marion, Stoudemire, Johnson, Leandro Barbosa and Deng/Iguodala from 2004 to the present that shouldn’t have been touched, and we know they dumped first-rounders in ’05, ’06 and ’08 for tax purposes. Even if they surrounded that nucleus with draft picks, minimum-wage veterans and February buyout guys and did nothing else, wouldn’t they have been positioned for the short term and long term better than any franchise in the latter half of this decade? The bigger question: why own an NBA team if you’re going to cut costs? What’s the point? Why would that be fun? So people could stare at you during dinner and whisper, “Hey, that’s the cheap-ass who owns the Suns”? This pisses me off. What a wasted chance, and what a waste of Nash’s prime.

  (Note to the Phoenix fans: You can now light yourselves on fire.)

  14. What if Orlando had kept Chris Webber’s draft rights instead of trading him?

  Remember when the Magic defied 1-in-66 odds to win the ’93 lottery, giving them the number one pick for the second straight year in maybe the biggest stroke of luck in NBA history? Since Webber was the ideal complement to Shaq (a great passer who could play the high post, crash the boards, run the floor and defend the rim), we spent the next few weeks wondering how anyone could match up with Shaq, Webber, Nick Anderson, Dennis Scott and Lord knows who else over the next ten to twelve years. Magic GM Pat Williams had other ideas: he was swayed by Penny Hardaway’s workout right before the draft, which Williams described afterward by saying, “I’ve never seen someone come in and do the things that Penny Hardaway did in that workout.”44 On draft day, Williams shocked everyone by swapping the first pick to Golden State for the third pick overall and first-rounders in ’96, ’98 and ’00, a move that was widely panned at the time and nearly caused a riot in Orlando. No NBA trade received more attention, went in more directions over a ten-year span and spawned more what-ifs. Webber battled with Warriors coach Don Nelson constantly as a rookie (Webber wanted to play forward, Nellie wanted him to play center) during a 50-win season in which Tim Hardaway was recovering from a torn ACL. The following year, Hardaway returned with C-Webb, Latrell Sprewell (first-team All-NBA in ’94), Chris Mullin (just past his prime), Rony Seikaly, Avery Johnson and Chris Gatling … I mean, that’s a pretty nice top seven, right? Webber didn’t care; he had an opt-out clause and wanted out. Stuck between a rock and Shawn Kemp’s boxers, the Warriors swapped him to Washington for Tom Gugliotta and three number ones and inadvertently damaged his career (see the grisly details). Meanwhile, Hardaway exceeded everyone’s expectations, led Orlando to the ’95 Finals and made an All-NBA first team—and then he clashed with Shaq (Shaq bolted for L.A.), devolved from an unselfish playmaker to a me-first scorer and blew out his knee in Phoenix. Bad times all around.

  So what if Orlando just kept Webber? Does Shaq still leave after the ’96 season? (Impossible to say.) Would Webber have thrived as the Robin to Shaq’s Batman? (I say yes.) Who would the Magic have targeted with their ’94 cap space instead of Horace Grant? 45 (My guesses: Detlef Schrempf and Steve Kerr.) Would they have made the ’95 Finals with Shaq, C-Webb, Scott, Anderson, Brian Shaw and my two free agent guesses? (I say yes.) Would they have had a better chance against the ’95 Rockets with that team? (Actually, yes.) As for Penny Hardaway, he takes Tim Hardaway’s minutes on that aforementioned 50-win Warriors team, thrives in Nellie’s offense with Spree, Mullin and Owens flanking him, and potentially becomes a Hall of Famer for all we know. Just remember, C-Webb and Penny were both top-forty talents who never reached their potential for reasons that aren’t entirely satisfying. Had the trade never happened, maybe one of them (or both of them) would have reached that potential. Let’s give them starting spots on the What-If All-Stars.

  13. What if Anthony Carter’s agent never messed up?

  A forgotten footnote in NBA history: when Anthony Carter’s agent (Bill Duffy) never faxed Miami a letter exercising Carter’s $4.1 million player option for the 2003–4 season.46 After the deadline passed, Carter became a free agent (whoops!) and Miami suddenly had enough cap space to throw a $60 million, six-year offer at Lamar Odom. One summer later, they packaged Odom, Caron Butler, Brian Grant’s cadaver and a 2006 first-rounder to L.A. for Shaq. Two obvious repercussions here: First, Miami never wins the 2006 title if Duffy doesn’t screw up. Second, since Miami couldn’t have gotten Shaq without Duffy, where else could Shaq have landed when the Lakers had to trade him? 47 Could Dallas have stolen him for something like Michael Finley, Devin Harris, Alan Henderson’s expiring contract and a number one pick? Would Denver have offered Marcus Camby, Nene Hilario and Voshon Lenard? Could the Bulls have hijacked him for Eddy Curry (a free agent after the season), Antonio Davis (expiring) and a first-round pick? I say Dallas had the best chance, which means they would have avoided that crippling Dampier move, gotten Shaq, and kept their best four guys (Nowitzki, Howard, Stackhouse and Terry). How many titles are we thinking there? Two? Three? When I emailed him about this last summer (subject line: “Insanely Random Question”), Cuban responded, “[I have] no idea if we would have gotten him, but I know Shaq wanted to come.”

  You know what that means? If we’re making the list of Guys Who Prevented Us from Seeing a Pissed-Off Stern Hand a Sobbing Cuban the Lawrence O’Brien Trophy, here’s the top five in no particular order: Dwyane Wade, Bill Duffy, Bennett Salvatore, Don Nelson and Isiah Thomas (for stupidly taki
ng Penny’s contract in the Marbury deal and giving Phoenix enough cap space to woo Nash the following summer).

  Hey, speaking of Isiah …

  12. What if the Knicks never hired Isiah Thomas?

  This could have been its own bizarro “Where Amazing Happens” NBA commercial called “Where Isiah Happens.”

  (Cue up the annoying piano music that haunted me every time I tried to fall asleep after hearing it for six straight months during the ’08 season.)48

  Picture: The ’05 Suns celebrating after a playoff win.

  Caption: Where Phoenix dumps the Stephon Marbury and Penny Hardaway contracts on some unsuspecting sucker and remakes its team into a contender happens.

  Picture: The ’07 Bulls celebrating after a playoff win.

  Caption: Where Chicago dumps Eddy Curry and his gigantic ass for two lottery picks and copious amounts of cap space happens.

  Picture: The ’07 Raptors celebrating after a playoff win.

  Caption: Where Toronto finds some dummy to take Jalen Rose’s contract off their hands and aid its rebuilding process happens.

  Picture: San Antonio’s 2005 trophy celebration.

  Caption: Where San Antonio dumps Malik Rose’s contract for a cap-friendly center who helps them win the title happens.

  Picture: Steve Francis sitting glumly on the Knicks bench.

  Caption: Where Orlando finds someone to take Steve Francis’ horrendous contract so they can free up $15 million in cap space happens.

  Picture: The ’08 Blazers celebrating after a last-second win.

  Caption: Where the 2008 Blazers become the NBA’s most likable young team because they found a taker for Zach Randolph happens.

  Picture: Anucha Browne Sanders celebrating on the courthouse steps. 49

  Caption: Where a humiliating $11 million sexual harassment settlement happens.

  Picture: A white SUV.

  Caption: Where a Truck Party happens. 50

  Picture: Curry and Randolph looking overweight, like they just barbecued Nate Robinson on a grill and ate him.

  Caption: Where an NBA frontcourt that includes two C-cups happens.

  Picture: A mostly empty Madison Square Garden.

  Caption: Where a sixty-year tradition of professional basketball going down the tubes happens.

  Picture: Isiah sitting on the bench with that frozen, blank look on his face like he’s either flatlining or planning to kill everyone in the locker room after the game.

  Caption: Where Isiah happens.

  (Follow-up note: Has any GM in NBA history ever directly altered the fortunes of seven franchises for the better? Portland, San Antonio, Phoenix, Toronto, Orlando, Chicago, New York … that’s nearly 25 percent of the league! He is missed. By the other GMs.)

  11. What if Maurice Stokes never went down?

  Not an injury what-if because the Royals star technically didn’t get injured playing basketball; he contracted encephalitis, a fluke of an illness that happens only if an undiagnosed bacterial infection or undiagnosed brain trauma is left untreated, worsens and eventually causes brain damage. Poor Stokes banged his head in the final game of the ’58 season against Minneapolis, flew back to Cincinnati that night, never got treated over the next three days, flew to Detroit for a playoff game and played sluggishly, then finally collapsed on the plane home. So a fluky combination of factors—poor medical treatment, multiple flights (the last thing you want to do with brain trauma) and poor Stokes gutting out a playoff game when he felt terrible—led to brain damage and Stokes spending the rest of his shortened life in a wheelchair.

  How good was Stokes? He averaged a 17–16, 16–17 and 17–18 in his only three seasons as the NBA’s first ahead-of-his-time power forward, like a taller Charles Barkley, a six-foot-seven, 275-pounder who pounded the boards, handled the ball full-court, and had a variety of Baylor-like moves around the basket (scoop shots, finger rolls and the like). Had he avoided gaining weight in his late twenties (you never know with this stuff), Stokes would have been a mortal lock for the NBA’s 50 at 50. Given that Oscar was a future territorial pick for the Royals, we can safely assume that an Oscar-Stokes combo would have altered the course of a Finals or two in the sixties. From a big-picture standpoint, the NBA lost its most charismatic black star of the fifties and sixties. What a shame. There wasn’t a single silver lining except for an improbable, feel-good human interest story that we’ll continue in the Jack Twyman section of the Pyramid. 51

  10. What if Memphis instead of Cleveland landed Lebron?

  Take a trip back to the 2003 lottery with me. We’re down to Cleveland and Memphis in the final two. If the Grizzlies draw number two, they turn the pick over to Detroit because they stupidly traded a conditional number one for Otis Thorpe five years earlier (a pick that only had top-one protection in 2003).52 If the Grizz draw number one, then they keep the pick and get LeBron. Suddenly we’re presented with the greatest hit-or-miss moment in the history of professional sports—like going on Deal or No Deal, getting down to two suitcases and having a 50/50 chance of winning $500 million. For a few seconds, ESPN’s camera shows Jerry West, who has the same look on his face that Forrest Gump had when he groped Jenny’s boobies for the first time. If Jerry had dropped dead right then and there, nobody would have been surprised. Well, we know how it turned out: Cleveland got the first pick, Memphis got nothing, and a heartbroken West retired and eventually disappeared off the face of the earth, presumably to spend the next few years playing Russian roulette in Southeast Asia like Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter. (Sorry to throw consecutive movie references at you, but the situation demanded two of them and that’s that.) Now look at the domino effect over the next five years if Memphis gets that pick:

  LeBron joins a deep Grizzlies team (Pau Gasol, Shane Battier, Mike Miller …) that won 50

  games despite getting nothing from that ’03 draft. A little better than starting out on a lottery team with knuckle-heads like Ricky Davis and Darius Miles, right?

  Picking second, Cleveland takes Carmelo and built around ’Melo, Carlos Boozer and Carlos Boozer’s chest hair. Since Denver GM Kiki Vandeweghe took Nikoloz Tskitishvili over Amar’e Stoudemire in 2002, it goes without saying Kiki would have been stupid enough to take Darko at number three over Chris Bosh. The rest of the draft probably unfolds the same way, although Chad Ford still probably has the immortal Maciej Lampe going ninth to the Knicks.

  What are the odds LeBron stays in Memphis after his rookie contract ends? I’m going with between 0.000001 and 0.009 percent. And that might be high. Which means he becomes a free agent following the 2007 season, leading to numerous lousy teams devoting their ’06 and ’07

  seasons to carving out enough cap space for him, as well as Isiah failing to plan ahead, inadvertently knocking New York out of the LeBron sweepstakes and a summer of rioting in the streets of Manhattan the likes of which we haven’t seen since the ’77 blackout and the Son of Sam murders. Also, LeBron’s departure swiftly kills basketball in Memphis, with the Grizzlies moving to England and becoming the London Hooligans. (Actually, what am I saying? That still might happen.) And every title from 2008 to 2020 might look different. That’s about it.

  9. What if Ralph Sampson entered the 1980 draft?

  In April 1980 the rejuvenated Celtics were coming off 60 wins and preparing for a bloodbath with Philly in the Eastern Finals … and as this was happening, they won the coin flip giving them the number one pick (thanks to the McAdoo trade one year earlier). The seven-foot-four Sampson was finishing a much-hyped freshman year at Virginia (15–11, 5 blocks a game); we forget this now, but Sampson ranked right up there with Walton, Kareem and Wilt once upon a time on the This Guy Is Going to Join the NBA and Obliterate Everyone Scale. 53 The Celtics quietly started lobbying him: Come play with us. You’ll compete for a title right away with Bird, Cowens, Maxwell and Tiny on the greatest franchise ever. Why risk getting hurt? You and Bird could own this league for the decade. When Sampson improbably turned them down, they
settled on plan B: trading that pick (along with number thirteen) for Robert Parish and number three (Kevin McHale), then winning three titles within the next six years.

  Do they win those trophies with Sampson? That depends on how you project his career had he skipped those last three college years—in which he never improved playing with inferior teammates while facing slowdown tactics and triple-teams—and got thrown into the fire at the highest possible level on a contender. In 1980, Auerbach believed that Sampson had the athletic ability and instincts to become the next Russell. I always thought Sampson was like a postmerger Kareem sans the Sky Hook: same height, same body, slightly disappointing rebounder and shot blocker (though still solid in both departments), but a mismatch for nearly everyone because of his size and quickness. Those last three college years significantly damaged his ceiling. He never developed a money-in-the-bank shot; if anything, he bought into the whole “Sampson is a guard in a big man’s body” hype, started screwing around 20 feet from the basket and tried to run fast breaks like a mutant Bob Cousy Throw in a dreadful Houston team in his rookie season and that’s four wasted seasons in his formative years. He never recovered. Imagine Ralph learning the ropes in Boston, mastering the rebounding/shot-blocking thing, playing high-pressure playoff games, running the floor with a great fast-break team and getting fed easy baskets from Bird from 1980 to 1984. On paper, that would have been the cushiest situation in NBA history for a franchise center. 54 Would that have been better than a McHale/Parish combo? Depends on how you feel about Auerbach’s “next Russell” assessment. Red flipped out publicly after Sampson turned them down, hissing that Ralph was being “hoodwinked by glad-handlers” and adding, “The people who advised him to stay in school will have trouble sleeping nights. They’re taking away earning potential he’ll never get back, and they’re forgetting that if he gets hit by a car, it’s the end of the line. It’s ridiculous. If he were an intellectual genius and was planning on being a surgeon, you could see him wanting to go to school.” Considering Sampson only played four healthy NBA seasons and filed for bankruptcy a few years later, maybe Red knew what he was talking about. (Whether he assessed Ralph’s ceiling correctly is another story.) But Ralph stayed in school, leading to …