by Simmons Bill
As a Celtics fan, I shudder for the future. As an NBA fan, I am pinching myself.47
April 2009. Not since Magic has a superstar doubled as such a galvanizing teammate. If there’s an enduring image of the ’09 season, it’s the way LeBron stamped his personality on everyone around him. They orchestrate goofy pregame intros (my favorite: the team snapshot), trade countless chest bumps, giggle on the sidelines, hang out on road trips and support each other in every way. What’s telling about LeBron’s in-traffic dunks—and he unleashes them more frequently than anyone since Dominique—is how he seeks out his bench for feedback, and even better, how they give it to him. It makes the forced camaraderie of the Lakers seem glaring. If you want to watch a team that pulls for each other and follows the lead of its best player, watch Cleveland.
And if you’re a Cavs fan trying to talk yourself into LeBron staying after 2010, your best chance is this: through twenty-four years, LeBron has proven to be an inordinately devoted guy. When you’re with him, you’re with him. The upcoming documentary about his high school years bangs this point home. So does the fact that he jettisoned his agents and surrounded himself with high school buddies. So does everything that happened this season. He’s as good a teammate as a player. The more I watch him, the more I wonder if such an intensely loyal guy would ever say,
“Thanks for the memories, everybody,” dump his teammates, dump his hometown and start a fresh life elsewhere. Although he isn’t surrounded by the most talented players right now, collectively it’s a team in the truest sense, with a devoted set of fans who appreciate them, and maybe that’s all LeBron James will need in the end. I thought he was a goner four months ago. I think he’s staying now. Regardless, he’s our Most Valuable Player for 2009. It won’t be the last time.
19. CHARLES BARKLEY
Resume: 16 years, 12 quality, 11 All-Stars … ’93 MVP … ’90 runner-up … Top 5 (’88, ’89,
’90, ’91, ’93), Top 10 (’86, ’87, ’92, ’94, ’95), Top 15 (’96) … season leader: rebounds (1x) …
3-year peak: 26–13–4 … best player on runner-up (’93 Suns), 27–14–4 (24 G) … ’90
Playoffs: 25–16–4 (10 G) … ’94 Playoffs: 28–13–5 (10 G) … member of ’92 Dream Team …
career: 22.1 PPG, 11.7 RPG (20th ), 54% FG … Playoffs: 23.0 PPG, 12.9 RPG, 51.3 FG (123
G) … 20K-10K Club
18. KARL MALONE
Resume: 19 years, 17 quality, 14 All-Stars … MVP: ’97, ’99 … ’98 runner-up … Top 5 (’89,
’90, ’91, ’92, ’93, ’94, ’95, ’96, ’97, ’98, ’99), Top 10 (’88, ’00), Top 15 (’01) … All-Defense (3x) … 2 All-Star MVP’s … 3-year peak: 30–11–2 … career: 25–10, 52% FG, 74% FT …
Playoffs: 25–10, 46% FG (193 G) … best player on 2 runner-ups (’97, ’98 Jazz) … member of ’92 Dream Team … career: FTs and FTAs (1st); points (2nd); rebounds (6th); games (4th); minutes (2nd), 25.0 PPG (10th), 10.1 RPG (12th), 52% FG … 35K-14K Club (one of two members)
Put it this way: You’d think less of me if I didn’t do a Dr. Jack Breakdown of Barkley and Malone, right? We can’t have that. Without further ado …
Nickname. Charles went by “The Round Mound of Rebound,” “Sir Charles,” “Chuck Wagon” …
he had nearly as many nicknames as Apollo Creed. None of them stuck. For some reason, it feels like “Chuck” (the name everyone endearingly calls him now) counts as a nickname, but that’s really just a proper name. Meanwhile, Malone had “the Mailman,” a clever alias which took on a second life in the ’97 and ’98 playoffs when shit-stirring columnists like myself started calling him
“Mail Fraud.” Edge: Malone.
Durability. Barkley missed 121 games from ’91 to ’99 and only played six 79-plus game seasons. Malone had ten 82-game seasons and seven 90-plus game seasons (including playoffs) and missed 10 games total in his eighteen Utah seasons. Guess which guy was the workout fanatic and which guy consumed fried foods, drank tons of beer and bled gravy. Edge: Malone.
Bad luck. Barkley made the Eastern Finals as a rookie before Toney’s feet crumbled, Doc started fading and Moses’ rear end expanded. Still, Philly didn’t have to completely panic—they screwed Chuck by trading the number one pick in the ’86 draft for Roy Hinson and $750,000 (why not just take Brad Daugherty?), then dealing Moses for Jeff Ruland and Clifford Robinson in one of the five worst trades of the eighties that didn’t involve Ted Stepien. That meant poor Chuck had to carry a series of uninspiring Philly teams before cannibalizing them and forcing the Phoenix trade. Barkley had good teammates for the remainder of his career, but he was thirty by that time and his cholesterol level was already at 522. As for Malone, his buddy Stockton took care of him for nearly two full decades and gave him a wingman for roughly 700,000 high screens. Something tells me Barkley would love to go back in time to 1984 and switch places with him. 48 Edge:
Barkley.
Draft-day outfit. Barkley wore a double-breasted maroonish purple sportscoat with a matching tie that made him look like an eighties movie usher or a security guard at a casino that’s going out of business. Malone wore a silver-blue sports coat with a blue shirt, cream-colored pants and a pink tie that only went down to his navel. I’ll put it this way: Barkley’s outfit was funny, but Malone’s outfit makes me laugh out loud even twenty-four years later. No contest. Edge: Malone. 49
Ability to finish in transition. Everyone was afraid to take a charge from Malone, a brilliant finisher who was built like a defensive end and always led with his right knee (with the message being “This is going right into your nuts if you stand in front of me”). But you know what? He couldn’t top Barkley in those early Philly years, when Chuck was a frightening blend of power and finesse and even he couldn’t figure out how to harness it. He ate up Bird’s best teams because they lacked athletes who could handle him in transition, especially when he grabbed a rebound and took off on one of those rollicking full-court forays that usually ended up with him throwing a two-handed tomahawk in DJ’s mug as the Spectrum erupted. That’s his legacy, at least for me. Wake me up when we see someone under six-foot-five do a better impression of a runaway train. Nobody ever caused more players to cower for their lives than Barkley; if they kept stats for something this dumb, I’d bet anything that nobody tried to take a charge from Chuck from 1984
through 1991. It never happened. The guy was a force of nature. Edge: Barkley.
Most distinct strength. Moses was the best offensive rebounder of my lifetime; Barkley was second. 50 From ’87 through ’90, Chuck averaged nearly five offensive rebounds a game. He grabbed 510 offensive rebounds in 123 playoff games. He holds the NBA record for most offensive rebounds in a half (13) and quarter (11). Did I mention that the guy was six-foot-four-and-a-half? When will we ever see anything like that again? As for Mal-one, he mastered the screener’s role in the high screen better than anyone ever. How much of that success hinged on the familiarity of playing with Stockton? A shitload. But that became one of the deadlier plays in NBA history … you know, as long as it wasn’t happening with 2 minutes left in a huge game. Edge: Malone.
Defining game. For Barkley, it has to be the 56-point ass-kicking against G-State in the ’94
Playoffs right after C-Webb’s shoe commercial came out and included a clip of Webber dunking on Barkley. That’s one of my ten favorite “Hardwood Classics” games and an all-around evisceration of epic proportions. For Malone, unfortunately, it’s Game 1 of the ’97 Finals—right after he had been handed the MVP Award, when he choked on two go-ahead free throws in the last 20 seconds and Jordan drained the game-winner. We never took the Mailman seriously as an MVP
again. At least I didn’t. Edge: Barkley.
Defining record. Either “15 field goals in one playoff half” or “most points scored within 90
minutes of finishing off 100 chicken wings at the Ground Round” for Barkley. I can’t decide. For Malone, it’s definitely his “most 2,000-point seasons (twelve)�
�� record, which LeBron will be breaking in 2017. Edge: Malone.
Defining tough-guy story. Malone avenged Isiah’s 44-point killing of Stockton with a vicious elbow that busted open Isiah’s eyebrow and would have earned a thirty-five-game suspension had it happened today. 51 Barkley didn’t just start a fight with Shaq (not a misprint), he fought the ’90
Pistons in a brawl that spilled into the first two row of the stands in Detroit and became the spiritual godfather of the Artest melee (with Chuck even taking a swing at a fan). If you got into a brawl, you wanted either guy on your side … but Chuck had a higher upside. Edge: Barkley.
Unintentional comedy. For whatever reason, both guys were wildly fun to imitate. My old boss Kimmel could spend fifteen solid minutes talking like Malone; all you do is deepen your voice, refer to yourself in the third person, talk in abrupt sentences in the present tense, add a slight southern accent and use a lot of double negatives. 52 For Barkley, just make him sound like Muhammad Ali circa 1973 after about four drinks, then have him repeat himself over and over again and start sentences with prepositions like “First of all …” and “Number one …” Frankly, I can’t decide. So I left it up to Kimmel. His take? “Karl Malone love making up jokes. Karl Malone always say, ‘laughter is the best Mexican.’” Couldn’t have said it better myself. Edge: Malone.
Defensive prowess. Malone got better as the years passed and started making All-Defense teams after the midway point of his career, even reinventing himself as a grizzled defense/picks/rebounding guy for the ’04 Lakers: he did a fabulous job defending Tim Duncan in Round 2, holding him to just 17.5 points and 38 percent shooting in the last four games (all Laker wins). Then he injured a knee in the Minnesota series and crushed L.A.’s hopes for a title. Too bad. As for the shorter Barkley, his low-post defense ranged from consistently bad to legitimately atrocious, although he tallied a decent share of steals, blocks and momentum-swinging fast-break blocks. Barkley’s kryptonite was any tall power forward with a polished low-post game (the McHale/Duncan types). That’s when he moved into “crap, I’m just going to have to outscore you”
mode. Big edge: Malone.
Acuity for handling male pattern baldness. Barkley shrewdly shaved his head; Malone kept going and going and going with the Ed Harris look, finally shaving his head during the late nineties (but not before doing some Rogaine ads first). Edge: Barkley.
Peak year. We’re using that MVP season for Malone even though I’ve been pissing on it throughout the book: 64 wins, 27.4 points, 9.9 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 55% shooting and first-team All-D is nothing to sneeze at (even in a diluted league). For Barkley, we’re going with that secretly incredible ’90 season when he tossed up a 25–12–4 on an uninspiring Philly team and dragged them to a division title, 53 shooting an ungodly 60 percent from the field even though he stupidly hoisted up 92 threes (making 20 of them). Do you realize that Barkley made 686 of 1,085
two-pointers that year? That’s 64 percent! During one of the most competitive seasons in the history of the league! And he wasn’t even six-foot-five! Edge: Barkley.
Crunch-time abilities. They both had fatal flaws: Malone routinely and famously shrank from the moment; Barkley thought he was better than he was. Always better off playing Tony Almeida than Jack Bauer, Chuck measured himself by Jordan and wanted to dominate close games just like MJ
did … and that’s what usually ended up killing his teams in the end. Even if those 56-point Golden State explosions rarely happened, Chuck carried himself in crunch time like he had dozens of them bursting out of his pockets. Watch some of those playoff contests from ’93 to ’95: had Chuck shared the ball in crunch time instead of firing up dumb threes, trying to run fast breaks and doing the “I’m getting the ball, backing in and stopping our offense for 6 seconds while I decide what to do” routine, the Suns would have captured the title at least once. But he couldn’t do it. He always wanted to be The Man even though he wasn’t totally that player. And that’s why he doesn’t have a ring. I actually think you’d have a better chance of winning a hypothetical ring with Malone than Barkley—like Garnett, Malone always secretly knew his place. Barkley didn’t. 54 Edge: even.
Fatal flaw. The deer-in-the-headlights routine in big games for Malone. Time and time again, he came up short when it mattered (Game 1 of the ’97 Finals and Game 6 of the ’98 Finals were the best examples), and it’s impossible to forget NBC’s Bill Walton just ripping him apart during that
’97 Finals and repeatedly asking in a cracking voice, “What has happened to Karl Maloooooooone?” But you know what? I can forgive that. Plenty of great players didn’t totally have “it” inside them. Here’s what can’t be forgiven: Barkley’s refusal to stop partying or get himself into reasonable shape; his career should have been 15 percent better than it was. 55When Pippen lobbed shots at Barkley’s lack of conditioning after their unhappy ’99 marriage, Ron Harper defended Scottie by saying, “Everybody knows Charles is a great guy, but every year he’s talking about winning a championship, and then he comes to training camp out of shape. That shows what kind of guy he is. Pip wants to win. If you aren’t doing what you should be doing, he’s going to let you know.” Ouch. Barkley got himself in shape for those first two Phoenix seasons and that’s it. 56 Malone stayed in superb shape for two solid decades. Major edge: Malone.
Personality/charisma. Barkley wins over Malone and everyone else in league history. Who would have been a more fun teammate than Charles Barkley? He loved gambling, drinking, eating, and busting on everyone’s balls. (Wait, that sounds like me!) As for Malone, he was fun to hang out with if you wanted to herd some cattle or needed a workout partner at 7:00 a.m. Um, I’ll take Chuck. And you wonder why he never reached his potential. Major edge: Barkley.
Head to head. They only met twice in the playoffs: 1997 and 1998 (with Utah winning both times), but Barkley was injured in ’98 and only played 4 games (87 minutes in all), while the tight
’97 series was swung by the obscenely lopsided Stockton-Maloney matchup. In ’97, Malone averaged 22 points and 11.5 rebounds and shot 45 percent (56 for 125); Barkley went for 17.2
points and 11.0 rebounds and shot 42 percent (27 for 63). Not exactly Hagler-Hearns. When they were playing for quality teams in their primes (’93 and ’94), they met in the regular season seven times: the Suns won five, with Barkley averaging 23.4 points, 11.4 rebounds and 4.3 assists and Malone averaging 21.8 points, 8 rebounds and 3.4 assists. Edge to Barkley. And then there’s this one: Heading into the ’92 Olympics, many thought the Dream Team would be Malone’s breakthrough. Jack McCallum even wrote, “Many observers think that [Malone and Pippen] will benefit the most from the worldwide exposure, since both are extremely photogenic athletes who, as Malone puts it, ‘haven’t exactly been plastered all over everything.’” So what happened?
Barkley emerged as the Dream Team’s second-best player, number one power forward and breakout star. That has to count for something, right? Chuck blended in with great teammates better than Malone did, led the team in scoring and became its dominant personality. It’s just a fact. By the end of the Olympics, SI was describing him as the “talk of the Olympic games,” with McCallum gushing, “His astonishing range of abilities—outrebounding much taller players, running the floor like a guard and getting his shot off with either hand while bouncing off bodies around the basket—seem more pronounced when performed within the Dream Team galaxy.” 57
What happened to Malone? He sank into the shadows as a supporting player (like one of those SNL
cast members who appears in the opening credits after the main cast with one of those “and featuring Karl Ma lone …” graphics), getting press only after he raised a fuss about competing against an HIV-positive Magic before the ’93 season. 58 Then Barkley carried Phoenix to 62 wins and gave the Bulls everything they could handle in the ’93 Finals. After the ’93 season, the Barkley-Malone argument was dead; Barkley had won. After the ’94 season? Still dead. Then Malone kept chugging along
and chugging along, Barkley let himself go and things began to shift. Barkley’s apex was definitely better, but not so much better that it outweighed Malone’s longevity and consistency. Malone maximized the potential of his career; Barkley can’t say the same. It’s true. Final edge: Malone (barely).
17. BOB PETTIT
Resume: 11 years, 10 quality, 11 All-Stars … MVP: ’56, ’59 … Runner-up: ’57, ’61 … Top 5
(’55–’64), Top 10 (’65) … ’55 Rookie of the Year … 4 All-Star MVPs … 3-year peak: 28–18–3 … leader: scoring (2x), rebounds (1x) … career: 26.4 PPG (6th), 16.2 RPG (3rd) …
Playoffs: 26–15–3 (88 G) … best player on one champ (’58 Hawks) and 3 runners-up (’57,
’60, ’61) … first member of 20K-10K Club
I’m asking for a little leap of faith, like when you watched The Hangover and never questioned how the boys could have done so many different things in Vegas during one ten-hour blackout. 59
Could Pettit hang with guys like Duncan and Bosh today? Probably not. Offensively, I think he’d be okay—a less athletic cross between Carlos Boozer and Paul Pierce. (Pettit had three go-to moves: a don’t-leave-me-alone 18-footer, a leaning jumper coming off screens and a reliable turnaround that Bob Ryan once called “monotonous.” He couldn’t dunk unless a donut and coffee were involved. Tom Heinsohn once described Pettit’s cagey offensive game by calling him “the master of the half-inch.” Mrs. Pettit had no comment.) Defensively, you wouldn’t be able to hide him. But everyone from that era describes Pettit the same way: Relentless. Banger. Warrior. Hard-nosed. Remember Boston’s more physical playoff games when Bird couldn’t get his outside