Book of Basketball

by Simmons Bill

  34. You’re not gonna believe this, but GM Rob Babcock was fired shortly afterward. 35. Right before the playoffs, I wrote the following: “My buddy Gus asked the other day, ‘Has anyone ever won the Comeback Player of the Year award for their performance in the same season?’ I say we give him that award, along with the Most Sobering Reminder That We’re Idiots for Caring About Professional Sports award.”

  36. Well, after I wrote this section for the book, I attended a Clips-Nets game with my buddy Sal. Vince came out like gangbusters and finished with 42. At one point Sal said matter-of-factly,

  “Wow, Vince is trying tonight.” When fans notice if you’re trying, there’s a 100 percent chance you failed to reach your potential as a player.

  37. Underrated playoff game: Magic and Mullin “guarding” each other in Game 2 of their ’91

  series, with Magic dropping 44 and Mullin getting 40 as both teams said, “Screw it, they’ll cancel each other out.” G-State prevailed, 125–124, in the last great moment of the TMC era. 38. Golden Boys is worth a read if only for the no-holds-barred “Is this dude gay or what?” section on Laettner, which almost seems brazen now. I don’t think Laettner was gay; he just went to Duke. 39. Bing took care of himself, dealt wonderfully with the media, did a ton of charity work, became one of the country’s leading black businessmen, founded the NBA Retired Players Association and was named Detroit’s Humanitarian of the Year in 1985.

  40. Bing battled eyesight problems and eventually went legally blind in one eye. Spike Lee claims in his NBA memoir that Bing measured jump shots not by looking at the basket but by glancing down at his position on the court because he couldn’t see the rim. Seems more far-fetched than the ending of He Got Game.

  41. Bobby played at Norfolk State with Pee Wee Kirkland, Hooker Grant and Mad Dog Culpepper. Have there ever been three greater nicknames on the same team? What chain of events needs to happen for someone to earn the nickname “Hooker” again? And how can I help?

  42. Grumpy Old Editor reports that Howell may have been the ugliest player of the ’60s: “He looked like he should have had bolts in his neck.”

  43. Owner Irv Levin swapped franchises with John Y. Brown that summer, sending Washington, Wicks, Kevin Kunnert, and Williams’s rights for Marvin Barnes, Billy Knight, Tiny Archibald, and two second-round picks without telling Red, a colossally one-sided deal that, as always, somehow worked out for Red: Williams was a bust, Archibald revived his career, one second-rounder became Danny Ainge, and Red dealt Knight for Rick Robey, who eventually netted Dennis Johnson. So in a roundabout way, the awful Westphal trade was responsible for Bird, Ainge, Tiny, and DJ becoming Celtics.

  44. If Boston passed on Bird, Portland was picking next, then the Lakers. Let’s say Portland passed on Bird because they wanted immediate help given Walton’s uncertain injury status. Had the Lakers taken Bird and waited for him—a good possibility with Jerry West in charge—they would have landed Magic a year later and had Bird, Magic and Kareem. Holy shit. 45. That type of trade happened routinely in the ’70s and ’80s: a team stupidly deciding, “Hey, let’s trade our best all-around player and the heart of our team for an overrated star who’s a bigger name and might be able to sell more tickets.” Now teams just wait until the overrated star becomes a free agent, then they overpay him and kill their cap space. This counts as progress in the NBA. 46. Fun Artis fact: after Kentucky signed him, they measured him for reporters at the press conference. Artis was seven-foot-eight when they included his mammoth afro. Seven-foot-eight!

  47. Artis snapped at Maurice Lucas once and chased him across the court, cornered him, then got decked by a roundhouse right. The punch put Lucas on the map and reinforced the whole “Artis is a big pussy” argument.

  48. Through 2008, T-Mac ranked fourth in career playoff scoring, at 28.5. Not as good as it sounds. His career playoff record: 16–27.

  49. Walsh’s close friends include Peter Vecsey and Dan Klores (the latter a documentary filmmaker and formerly powerful PR guy in New York). There’s a reason you’ve never read a negative Donnie Walsh piece.

  50. Now you’re asking, “Why put Dumars at no. 75, then?” Because he was a winner, he was clutch, and he would have been fun to play with. By the way, the Pistons took him 18th in the ’85

  draft, one spot ahead of Boston. The Celts were one Detroit brain fart, one coke binge, and one heart malfunction away from getting Dumars, Lenny Bias and Reggie Lewis in consecutive drafts and dominating the ’90s. Alas.

  51. Tim Hardaway was the first perimeter guy who blew out his knee and came back relatively the same. Nobody before him ever fully recovered. The six most tragic examples: Billy Cunningham, Marques Johnson, Bernard King, Maravich, Moncrief and Elgin Baylor. 52. Remember, Keaton had a slight lead over Tom Hanks heading into their second decade of the Funny/Cool/Hip Guy Who Can Also Get Serious competition; then poor Keaton fell off the face of the earth and Hanks started winning Oscars. Now Hanks looks at him like Mariah Carey looks at Whitney Houston: “Yeah, maybe you won the first battle, but I won the war. Handily. Now go do some more crack, bitch! ”

  53. Poor Nellie learned a valuable lesson: you can’t ride rookies when they’re making ten times as much money as the coach.

  54. I went to one Bullets-Celtics game where I was absolutely and totally convinced that C-Webb was stoned during the game. I was with a buddy who was smoking a ton of pot at the time and he felt the same way; you tend to notice when other people seem high. It’s like being in your own personal ESP Club.

  55. Considering Webber earned nearly $200 million, can you call him disappointing? He ended up being no. 72 instead of no. 28 … is that the worst thing in the world? I think it comes down to one issue: You know when you go to a car wash and they offer you the “everything” package? Only a few NBA players are chosen every generation for the “everything” package. If they fuck it up even a little, it’s disappointing. So yeah, Webber finished no. 72. But he still goes to sleep every night knowing he could have been forty or fifty spots higher. And if he doesn’t think about it, then that explains everything.

  56. My funniest example: Orlando fired Brian Hill in 1997. Vancouver hired him and he led them to a sizzling 31–123 record before getting fired in 2000. Five years later, you know who hired him again? Orlando! The NBA coaching situation is so abysmal, teams rehire guys they already fired. Does that happen in any other walk of life? That’s like CBS announcing in 2013 that they’ve decided to give Craig Kilborn his own late night show.

  57. I love this fourth argument. It’s the same reason why Milwaukee should have hired me as its GM in 2008, or why the Clips should have done the same in 2009. Why the hell not? You’re going nowhere anyway! Why not make the fans feel like they have a man of the people in charge? Why not get people talking? What’s more likely to lead PTI for a week in May: “Bucks Hire John Hammond as GM” or “Bucks Hire ESPN Columnist as GM”? Wouldn’t that become one of the biggest sports stories of the year? Now that’s a hiring that definitely passes the Mom Test. 58. Growing up in Carolina, Thompson shot hoops on a dirt surface in his backyard. Some wonder if this led to his freakish jumping ability, especially since MJ grew up playing on a dirt court. If my son shows any promise at all with hoops, I’m building a clay basketball court in my backyard. 59. That was one of the great random sports days: Havlicek’s final game, Thompson exploding for 73 (a record for noncenters for 28 years), Gervin responding with 63 and Gary Player coming back from seven strokes to win the ’78 Masters. If ESPN Classic had ever started a show called The Greatest SportsCenters We Ever Could Have Had, April 9, 1978, would rank right up there. 60. Another weird fact about April 9, 1978: Thompson broke Wilt’s record for most points in a quarter (32) and held it for five hours until Gervin broke it (33). Also, Thompson made 20 of his first 21 shots in the game. Strangely, everyone agrees that he wasn’t forcing shots or gunning for the title. He just had it going.

  61. The Studio 54 incident happened in 1984, well after the likes of An
dy Warhol and Liza Minnelli had stopped hanging out there. Had Thompson’s career ended in ’79 because he got flung down a Studio 54 stairwell by Bianca Jagger’s boyfriend or something, now that would have been cool.

  62. In ’77, Thompson bumped fellow ABA stars Doc and Gervin to second-team All-NBA. In ’78, he bumped Westphal, Maravich and Walter Davis. Thompson was not messing around. 63. I included FT attempts per game because it gives you a good idea for how someone was attacking the rim. Average 8 or more and you’re attacking the rim. I love making blanket statements.

  64. Iverson peaked at 25 and not 24. I made the executive decision to bump Iverson’s age down a year because he spent five months in jail and missed his senior year of high school. You know when a boxer gets described as a “young 35,” it’s really code for “he spent 8 years in the joint”?

  Iverson may have been 25 during the ’01 season, but it was a “young 25.” So there. 65. Spree and Penny made first-team NBA’s for the first time at 24; Vince made second-team for the only time at 24. If you’re drafting a fantasy team this year, look out for those 24-year-olds!

  66. ACC teams were notorious for overpaying players in the ’70s. The famous Thompson recruiting story (possibly apocryphal): he grew up in Carolina dreaming of playing for UNC, only NC State offered his family boatloads of cash, leading to Dad saying “Yes!” and a devastated Thompson sobbing through the ensuing press conference.

  67. Hermo walked onto the Saders in 1990 like Mark Wahlberg in Invincible, only if the ending never happened and Wahlberg had Brian Scalabrine’s game and looked like a beefier Kurt Nimphius. (By the way, these are all compliments. I loved Hermo. Anyone who could go from intramurals to Division I without cutting down his keg party appearances was right in my wheelhouse.) His biggest mistake was missing the Internet by 15 years; I would have absolutely started a www.airhermo.com blog and probably gotten kicked out of school. I guarantee he’ll bring this book into a New York City bar within 2 weeks of its release and show 75 complete strangers this footnote, followed by everyone doing a series of shots. Please have one on me, Hermo. 68. In that same documentary, Issel blamed the pressure of being the “$800,000 Man” for expediting Thompson’s demise: “I think David changed when he got his big contract.” This part was only missing a “Push It to the Limit” montage of Thompson taking friends to the bank, marrying someone while wearing a white tuxedo (à la Tony Montana), then bringing the wedding party over to look at a tiger.

  69. I had Rodman ranked at no. 69 for two months before realizing the unintentional significance. 70. The ’92 Pistons averaged 44.3 rebounds a game; Rodman grabbed 42% of them. Russell’s highest percentage for one season was 35%; Wilt’s highest was 37%. 71. Rodman acted up throughout the playoffs, got suspended for a game and removed his sneakers during crunch time in one big moment in the Rockets series. He wasn’t a distraction as much as a dirty bomb. Let’s just say that Madonna (his flame at the time) was a bad influence on him. Also, I think they created four new forms of VD together.

  72. The referee who called Pete’s 5th foul that night? You guessed it—the guy who was serenaded by more “Bull-shit” chants than anyone ever, Mr. Dick Bavetta! Only Dick could help eject someone going for 75 points.

  73. In the 68-point game, Maravich makes six or seven jumpers from three-point range like he’s shooting free throws.

  74. Seeing Maravich on the Celts reminded me of the White Shadow episode when street legend Bobby Magnum (played by former UCLA star Mike Warren, who later starred in Hill Street Blues and played Preacher in Fast Break— now that’s an IMDb.com page!) joined Carver High and removed the team’s ceiling for a few days before bookies from Oakland found him, then he tried to steal Coach Reeves’ TV and everything went to shit. By the way, when I say “reminded me,” I mean “reminded me even as it was happening when I was only ten.” Even back then, I was making convoluted comparisons between sports and pop culture.

  75. Press Maravich made Marv Marinovich, Richard Williams and J. D. McCoy’s dad seem like Joey, Danny and Uncle Jesse by comparison. And you thought I was kidding about convoluted comparisons.

  76. Another legend fitting this “lost years” criteria: Bird quit IU as a freshman, spent the next year playing pickup ball and being a garbageman and eventually came back for ISU. He entered the NBA a year later than he should have (maybe two) had he been happy at Indiana. 77. Grumpy Old Editor: “Monroe’s spin move paved the way for misdirection dribbles of all kinds and arguably changed the way traveling was called, for better or worse.” Um … I say this is a good thing!

  78. Dave DeBusschere told William Goldman once that he watched everyone’s eyes when he defended them, never buying any fakes until they actually looked at the basket … but Pearl was the one guy who never looked at the basket until right when he was releasing the ball, making him impossible to defend. Thought that was interesting.

  79. Indiana signed English as a free agent and stupidly traded him for George McGinnis. That was one of my favorite makeup trades ever—the previous year, Denver had stupidly traded Bobby Jones for McGinnis. Poor McGinnis was like the shittiest gift in a Yankee swap; you never wanted to be the one who ended up with him at the end of the night.

  80. These were the days when newspapers ran box scores with FGs made, FTs made, total points and that was it. Ryan’s favorite “Dantley” ever: “9–28–46.” When Kevin Durant went 24-for-26

  from the line in a 46-point effort against the Clips in January ’09, I immediately thought, “That’s a great Dantley!”

  81. The worst of the deals: L.A. gave him away for a washed-up Spencer Haywood right before Magic’s rookie year, Dantley averaged 28 in Utah, L.A. won the title anyway, and Haywood didn’t make an impact other than probably snorting the most lines at Jack Nicholson’s house that season. 82. The plot for Chuck: An annoying Little League star (Chuck) stops pitching because he’s concerned about the threat of nuclear war. Inspired by Chuck’s noble stance, a few famous professional athletes (led by Amazing Grace, played by English) decide to stop playing as well until some antiweapon legislation is passed or something. By the end of the movie, you’re actually rooting for a nuclear holocaust just so Chuck will die. It’s that bad. 83. Dantley was listed at six foot five. No way. Dennis Johnson was two inches taller. 84. I couldn’t pick between them. Sorry. So yes, it’s actually a thirteen-player team with a three-man injured list, impossible under the current roster rules. Sue me. 85. Our country is so uptight that this point might be considered racist. Here’s my defense: Manute Bol was fucking purple. I don’t know what else to tell you.

  86. Crazy Spud facts: Did you know he played for 14 seasons? Or that he started for six years—two in Atlanta, four in Sacramento?

  87. Darko should sue Chad Ford for raising everyone’s expectations too high, most famously with a 2002 column (look it up for comedy’s sake) when he printed the following quote from Pistons scout Will Robinson: “That kid’s going to be a star. He’s a 7-footer that plays like a point guard. That kid’s something special.” Also from Robinson: “He’s going to own the game. Own the game. We’re going to have to build a new arena. The only thing that could destroy a kid like that is a woman.” And a lack of talent and confidence. That, too.

  88. That only happened for three people: Bannister, Cadillac and Popeye. They were the Bird, Magic, and MJ of ugly.

  89. Here’s how ugly Steppe was: in high school, I used to sneak one of those Zander Hollander NBA yearbooks (the ones with all the profiles and pictures) into math class, then pull out the page with Steppe’s picture intermittently during math class to crack up my buddy Bish in the back row. Always worked, too.

  90. Strange Lucas fact: his photographic memory was so remarkable that he ended up writing a couple of memory books. There’s a chance he’s memorizing this page right now. 91. During a supercompetitive ’77–’78 season, Truck averaged an astonishing 23–16 for the Jazz and made first-team All-NBA with Doc, Walton, Thompson and Gervin. Since he bounced around so
much (four teams in his first five seasons) and got traded in ’79 while averaging a 22–14, it’s possible Truck got his nickname by threatening to run over his coach in a truck or doing truckloads of blow.

  92. Ray-Ray should have won Finals MVP. I flew back to Boston for Game 6 and sat one row in front of Allen’s father and a family friend. We ended up talking for a few minutes. Mr. Allen complained that Doc Rivers had benched his son too long in Game 5 and said angrily, “He didn’t want him to win Finals MVP, that’s what that was about!” Don’t you love when parents are irrational about their kids? There should definitely be a PTI- type show where parents of various star athletes argue sports-related topics and eventually turn everything back to irrational arguments about their kids.

  93. That’s my nickname for elite FT shooters who ice games at the line; they’re almost like closers in baseball with how they protect leads. You can’t win a title without a cooler. As Rick Adelman’s Blazers teams will tell you.

  94. That’s the complete list of relevant centers and power forwards who played on Allen’s team from 1999 through 2007. Ray Allen will now light himself on fire.

  95. Three other things I want to see during an NBA game: the wave going in opposite directions (would it cause an earthquake or something?), the arena going dead silent before a key FT attempt from an opponent (would totally psych out the other team), and the crowd rattling an opposing FT

  shooter by screaming, “The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you! THE

  POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!”

  96. Three scenes make Game kinda-sorta worth it for me: Denzel waxing poetically about Pearl, the Denzel-Jesus game, and the aftermath when a winded Denzel hands the letter of intent to Jesus, who drops it in disgust. The next few seconds were more in Denzel’s wheelhouse than Tim Wakefield trying to sneak a fastball past Albert Pujols. He shakes his head, just a beaten man headed back to prison who needs to get one final message across, finally keeping eye contact with Allen and telling him, “You get that hatred out of your heart, or you’re just gonna end up another nigger … [pause] … like your father.” Now that, my friends, is a chill scene. 97. Two of those exits came at the hands of Reggie Lewis and Boston. In the summer of ’93, Lewis died and MJ went to play baseball; suddenly Miller had gotten rid of his toughest foes in the East. Miller couldn’t have guarded Lewis unless he was allowed to hand-check him with a taser. 98. A shady call and more evidence that the NBA was determined to get New York in the ’94