Book of Basketball

by Simmons Bill

52. It struck me as I’m writing this—I don’t even know if Duncan has a wife and kids. Or anything about him. He’s one of those guys who could pop up in Us Weekly dating some one like Eva Mendes and you’d be thoroughly confused, only you wouldn’t be able to figure out why. 53. Bruce Bowen, Antonio Daniels, rookie Tony Parker, Malik Rose, Danny Ferry, Charles Smith, a past-his-prime David Robinson, a pretty-much-past-his-prime Steve Smith and a past-his-being-past-his-prime Terry Porter. And everyone claimed KG didn’t have help?

  54. That Lakers series was tied at 2–2 when Duncan put up a 64–30 in the next two wins (16 for 25

  in the 29-point blowout that clinched it). Shaq had a 51–22 in those games. Also, Duncan’s ’03

  postseason had the highest win share rating ever: 5.98. I’d be more excited if I knew what this means.

  55. Duncan never received enough credit here: after playing 275 of a possible 289 games the previous three years, he sucked it up and represented his country while KG passed. Why? Because KG was tired from making it past the second round for the first time. But KG is the “warrior”?

  Really? Wait, why do I keep ripping a Celtic?

  56. In my annual “Who has the highest NBA trade value?” column gimmick that started on my old website in 2001 and continued at ESPN, Duncan finished no. 2, no. 2, no. 3, no. 1, no. 2, no. 1, no. 3, no. 3, and no. 4. Through 2008, San Antonio finished 615–265 with him during the regular season, 91–57 in the Playoffs, won four titles and finished 4–0 in the Finals. Now that’s consistency.

  57. Grumpy Old Editor’s grizzled take: “No one coasted more, ever, not even Eddy Curry. Wilt coasted during so many seasons that he should have been named an honorary member of the gag pop group The Coasters. Putting Wilt in the Pantheon? I thought you were a radical.”

  58. Please check out any of Chuck’s books. He’s the only sports atheist I know—loves sports, loves following sports, doesn’t root for specific teams. Had we known each other in college, we either would have been best friends or fought to the death. Or maybe both. 59. Chuck’s footnote: “Yes, yes—I realize rebounds were ‘easier to come by’ in the pre-modern era. Everybody concedes that. But it doesn’t matter: If you divide Chamberlain’s lifetime board numbers in half, the quotient (11.45) is still competitive with the full career averages for Barkley, Moses, and Shaq. Or think about it this way: If Chamberlain had never played during the second half of any game in his entire career, he would still have eight more career rebounds than Dennis Rodman.”

  60. Forgot to mention: I thought of Chuck for a dissenting Wilt opinion because he’s the only other person I know who read Wilt’s 1973 autobiography. I think we even exchanged “What about that stewardess blowing Wilt!” emails. Do they have lifetime achievement Pulitzers? I really think the committee needs to reexamine Wilt’s body of work.

  61. Did you ever try to come up with the dumbest parallel for the Bird-Magic rivalry? I like this one: the two Shannons (Whirry and Tweed) were the Bird and Magic of Cine-max. From 1992 to 1995, Whirry starred in Animal Instincts, Body of Influence, Lady in Waiting, Fatal Pursuit, Animal Instincts II, Private Obsession, Playback and Dangerous Prey, while Tweed carried, from 1992 to 1996, Night Eyes II, Night Eyes III, Indecent Behavior, The Naked Truth, Cold Sweat, Possessed by the Night, Indecent Behavior II, Night Fire, Hard Vice, Indecent Behavior III, Hotline, Body Chemistry 4, Electra, The Dark Dancer and Scorned (probably her epic). What a stretch! And it happened right before Internet porn took off. Just like we’ll never see another Bird and Magic, we will never see anything like the two Shannons.

  62. It was just too easy to crack the Legends Club preexpansion: Wilt put up a 7 and three 9’s, Oscar/Elgin did it multiple times, and even the likes of Neil Johnston and Dolph Schayes made it. 63. Considering Bird and Magic became good friends, isn’t it conceivable—repeat: conceivable—that they’d become teammates once in their waning years? Imagine them offering Orlando a package deal for 1994–95: sign us for one year. How fast does Orlando say yes, 0.09

  seconds? How weird would it have been to have Magic on the Magic, or Bird wearing that goofy black Orlando uniform and throwing alley-oops for Shaq? And what if MJ returned from his basketball sabbatical for the ’95 playoffs? Bird, Magic, and MJ in one series? Also, I’d be wearing a straitjacket right now.

  64. The complete list of all-O/no-D small forwards from 1980–88: Dantley, English, Dominique, Aguirre, Kiki Vandeweghe, John Drew, Tripucka, Chambers, Walter Davis, Scott Wedman, Bernard King, Albert King, Jay Vincent, Purvis Short, Jamaal Wilkes, Thurl Bailey, Marques Johnson, Mike Mitchell, Orlando Woolridge, Dale Ellis, Eddie Johnson … and yes, Doc post-1983. A surprisingly large group for a 21-team league.

  65. When Smith struggled as a Celtics rookie, Boston fans quickly arrived at the same conclusion:

  “There’s nooooooooo way this guy can make it.” He did leave one legacy: He was the single greatest H-O-R-S-E player in the history of the Celtics. Not even Bird could beat him. 66. The Best Porn Name All-Stars: Dick Pound, Pete LaCock, Ken Bone, Misty Hyman, Ben Gay, Magic Johnson, Rich Harden, Dick Trickle, Rusty Kuntz, Billy “the Whopper” Paultz, Butch Huskey, Randy “Big Unit” Johnson, Hot Rod Williams, Dick Pole and Wayne Chism, with Mo Cheeks and Dick Harter as coaches.

  67. Magic (’79) and Isiah (’81) weren’t just the first two men to kiss each other in prime time; they were the first underclassmen to get picked first in the NBA draft; from 1946 to 1992, only three others (Chris Washburn, Chris Jackson and Kenny Anderson) were picked in the top 5. 68. Kudos to me for using Magic and Long Dong Silver in an analogy that had nothing to do with sex. I continue to amaze myself.

  69. Magic’s performance in a deciding Game 3 was one of the worst ever by a Pyramid guy: he missed 12 of 14 shots, bricked two free throws in the final 30 seconds and air-balled the series-deciding shot.

  70. During the same time, the Doobie Brothers had a similar platoon going with Michael McDonald and Patrick Simmons as their lead vocalists. Like Nixon, Simmons had been there first

  … and like Magic, McDonald was clearly more talented and capable of pushing the band to another level. Mikey Mac left for a hugely successful solo career—twenty-five years later, he’s still cranking out albums and spitting all over microphones. I should also mention that (a) the woman who broke his heart and caused “Minute by Minute,” “What a Fool Believes” and “I Keep Forgetting” must have given him the greatest sex ever, and (b) my buddy Bish and I made a dunk video on a 9-foot rim in 1988 set to Mikey Mac’s “Our Love” that will end my career if it ever lands on YouTube.

  71. An excerpt: “Calling on Magic [in the clutch] is like asking Busby Berkeley to step in and direct the climactic scene in an Ingmar Bergman movie.” I was just thinking that! Nobody slammed out awkward pop culture references like SI in the seventies and eighties. 72. Eddie: Sinatra; Magic: Dean; Arsenio: Sammy. I always thought The Black Pack would be a great documentary: they were on top of the world for four years, then Magic got HIV, Eddie’s career went in the tank and Arsenio had financial problems. And that’s just the start of it. I’d say more, but my legal team just electroshocked me.

  73. Something rarely mentioned here—the combination of Magic’s HIV, Warren Beatty getting old and Eddie Murphy left a huge void for Hollywood Alpha Dogs getting laid by the elite of the elite. Then Leo DiCaprio and Ben Affleck showed up. Void filled!

  74. GQ’s Charlie Pierce believed that Magic and alter ego Earvin battled like Superman and Bizarro Superman. Earvin had a longtime girlfriend named Cookie; Magic cheated on her relentlessly. Earvin had an illegitimate son; Magic carried on like the boy didn’t exist. Earvin was a shrewd investor who tripled his NBA income off the court; Magic behaved like a college kid on spring break. Post-HIV Earvin educated everyone about his virus; post-HIV Magic bragged about his earlier, wilder ways.

  75. The philosophy: If his one-night stand didn’t share his bed all night, the event was somehow okay. I wish I had thought of this rule in college. Wait, why am I making fun of t
his? Can’t the Supreme Court pass this as a law?

  76. The All-Depressing Comeback Starting Five: Cousy (re-activated himself as Cincy’s player-coach for seven painful games in ’68) and Jordan (Wizards version, 2001–3) at guard; Cowens (returned as a bench player for the ’83 Bucks) and Magic (’96) at forward; Mikan (post-shot-clock, 1956) at center; Red Holzman (’77 Knicks) as coach; and Jerry West (Grizzlies, 2002–6) as GM.

  77. The lowlight happened when Howard Stern appeared as a guest, farted the song “Wipe Out,”

  and made every inappropriate Magic-related joke possible. Desperate to stem a ratings slide, an overmatched Magic had to smile thinly and absorb the abuse. I can’t remember a time when another celebrity was humiliated that publicly, and for that long, without Corey Haim being involved. The show capsized within eight weeks, costing syndicators more than $10 million. 78. Out of respect for the mission of this book, I will resist all urges to take potshots at my least favorite NBA player for the next 3,000 words. You have my word.

  79. Longest runs of excellence: Kareen, Nicklaus, Meryl Streep, Ric Flair, The Simpsons, Don Rickles, Clint Eastwood, Shawn Michaels, Jim Murray, Colonel Sanders, Johnny Carson, Don King, Walter Cronkite, Nina Hartley, Annie Leibovitz, Siegfried & Roy, Marv Albert, M&M’s, Martin Scorsese, Johnny Cash, Converse Chuck Taylors, Michael Buffer (three references in the Pantheon!), Vin Scully, Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, Peter North, Roger Angell, U2, composer John Williams, the Rolling Stones and the U.S. Constitution. 80. The secret to Kareem’s success: stretching. Kareem did yoga before anyone even knew what the hell yoga was. I’d make the “yet another reason to hate yoga” joke here but promised you a potshot-free zone. See? I’m a man of my word.

  81. Two centers lied about their heights: Kareem and Walton, who claimed to be 6′11″ when he was at least 7 ′2″. It’s always funny when NBA players lie about their height—it’s not like we can’t see, right?

  82. Nobody was a bigger whiner than Kareem except Rick Barry, but I gotta defend him here: opponents were allowed to “bend” the rules to defend him. In Giant Steps, Kareem mentioned that referee Richie Powers allowed Dave Cowens to manhandle him and jump over his back for rebounds in the ’74 Finals. Elliot Kalb looked it up: Powers officiated Games 1, 3, 5 and 7 of the series … all Milwaukee defeats. Hmmmmm.

  83. Like Oscar, Kareem had one too many early brushes with racism and never really recovered. When his high school coach tried to motivate him by yelling that he was “playing like a nigger,”

  Kareem entered what he would call later “my white-hating period.” Can white guys have a white-hating period? I think I had one when I was little.

  84. Kareem also appeared in a fight scene in Bruce Lee’s last movie (Game of Death), as well as episodes of Mannix, Emergency!, Man from Atlantis, Tales from the Dark Side, 21 Jump Street and Diff’rent Strokes on the last of which he played Arnold’s substitute teacher, Mr. Wilkes. Couldn’t they have called him Mr. Kabbar?

  85. Nobody remembers Kareem averaging a 33–14 with 23 blocks in 5 games, or that he stayed back in L.A. for treatment and didn’t even get to celebrate Game 6 with his team. This might be the best Finals MVP argument ever: Do you reward Kareem for carrying L.A. to 3 wins, or Magic for playing a game that Bob Ryan later called the best he’d ever seen in person? I vote for Kareem because Game 6 wasn’t a must-win—Philly still had to win Game 7 in L.A. Not likely. 86. Lucius Allen “ran” Kareem’s Bucks/Lakers teams from ’75 thru ’77; he was so mediocre that Kareem actually led the ’75 Bucks in assists with a paltry 263.

  87. In Round 2, they beat a Warriors team that featured Rick Barry, Gus Williams, Jamaal Wilkes, Phil Smith and a center combo of Clifford Ray and rookie Robert Parish. Kareem averaged 37

  points for the series and dropped a 36–26 in Game 7.

  88. According to Elliott Kalb, Kareem outscored Wilt 201–70 in five regular season games in ’72, then 202–67 in six playoffs games (although Wilt’s team won the series). In Game 6, with Oscar only able to play 7 minutes with an abdominal strain, Kareem put up a 37–25–8 and Wilt countered with a 22–24. The year before, Wilt outplayed Kareem in the Western Finals even though the Lakers fell in five.

  89. Jerry West told SI in 1980, “Kareem is a player. A great, great, great basketball player. My goodness, he does more things than anyone who has ever played this game. Wilt was a force. He could totally dominate a game. Take it. Make it his. People have thought that Kareem should be able to do that too. No. That would not make him a player of this game.” He’s a player. A player!

  90. Kareem had Airplane and Game of Death; Wilt had Conan the Destroyer, which should be the first DVD release if Criterion ever makes an Unintentional Comedy Collection. Wilt spends the entire movie riding around on a horse and trying to seem angry; even the horse was a better actor than Wilt. He never made another movie.

  91. I vote that we name this gene after them: “Jordruss Gene.” It’s a specific pattern of chromosomes unique to them.

  92. Including playoff games and MJ’s 34 postbaseball games in ’95, that’s a 632-game stretch over six-plus seasons. That’s not unfathomable—that’s de fathomable. 93. Young MJ was definitely stat-obsessed. During the ’89 season, Jordan became so infatuated with triple doubles that he kept asking the official scorer what he needed during games (two more assists, one more rebound, whatever). The NBA found out and told the scorer that he couldn’t give the info out. Sounds a little Wilt-esque, no?

  94. The list: 1957 (Game 7, triple OT); 1962 (Game 7, Philly plus Game 7, L.A.); 1963 (Game 7, Cincy); 1965 (Game 7, Philly); 1968 (Game 7, Philly); 1969 (Games 4 and 7, L.A.). 95. Russell retired four months before Kareem entered the NBA. Put it this way: from what we know about Russell’s competitive fire, am I really supposed to believe that Russ didn’t watch a few UCLA games in ’68 and ’69 and think, “I am getting old, it’s time to get out of Dodge soon”?

  By the way, why did everyone want to leave Dodge so badly? What was Dodge? Did we ever figure this out? Did that saying start because someone laid a horrendous fart in a Dodge Dart in like 1965?

  96. The biggest piece Kobe was/is missing: he just wasn’t that cool. Forget about being the coolest guy in the room; Kobe wasn’t ever the coolest guy on his team. Like A-Rod, Kobe always seems to be playing the part … and you’re either cool or you’re not. This will make sense in a few more pages.

  97. The most famous of the stories: The time LaBradford Smith lit him up, strutted too much, and got outscored 47–0 by MJ the next night. This one is slightly apocryphal: Smith outscored MJ 37

  to 25 on March 19, 1993. The next night, a pissed-off MJ scored 36 by halftime and finished with a 47–8–8 … but Smith did score 15. Chicago won both games. 98. After getting swept by the ’91 Bulls, Detroit assistant Brendan Suhr said, “I think [MJ] finally realized that one player can’t win at this level, that the farther you get in the playoffs, teams can always stop one man. He finally sees that.” Sure. But you can’t “see it” if your teammates suck. 99. Jordan’s averages in his six Finals: 31–7–11, 36–5–6, 41–9–6, 27–5–4, 32–7–6, 34–4–2. That’s four 42 Club appearances, by the way.

  100. True MJ facts: Scored 40-plus thirty-seven times in the ’87 season; first with back-to-back 50-point Playoffs games (’88); by the end of the ’91 season, he had the NBA’s highest scoring average in the regular season, Playoffs and All-Star Game (and still does); he scored 60-plus five times (once in the playoffs) and 50-plus another thirty-four times (seven in playoffs); holds the record for consecutive games scoring double figures (866); only player to score 20-plus points in every Finals game (minimum: ten).

  101. Well, unless Stern suspended him and told him to play baseball for 18 months. I didn’t want to spoil the story.

  102. It can’t be forgotten that Jordan left the NBA for 21 months and rebuilt his body for baseball—stronger legs, thicker physique—didn’t play competitively at all, then hopped right back into the NBA schedule with five weeks to play
in March ’95, and within five games, he’d already made a game-winner in Atlanta and scored 55 at MSG.

  103. Here’s how great Jordan was: for his single greatest moment, he blatantly cheated … and nobody gave a shit. If anything, we applauded him for his ingenuity. Imagine if Kobe won the NBA title with a shove like that. We’d be bitching about it all summer. By the way, I always thought it was poetic that MJ pushed off a guy named Russell to swish the shot that clinched his status as the best ever.

  104. There’s an extended moment after the ’88 Eastern Finals ended when we see McHale give inspired advice to Isiah, followed by Isiah thanking him and slapping his hand. I remember screaming at the TV, “What the hell? Don’t talk to him! What are you doing?” That’s just the way it worked back then.

  105. Pitino angered Jordan with his comments after Game 3. MJ’s next three games: 47–11–6, 38–8–10, 40–5–10. Pitino signed with the University of Kentucky a few weeks later. I’m sure it was a coincidence.

  106. Jordan frequently razzed Krause for his slovenly looks and generally unattractive appearance, as well as Krause’s penchant for taking too much credit for the success of the Jordan era. And really, MJ was right. Saying Jerry Krause built the six-time champion Chicago Bulls is like calling Lord of the Rings a Sean Astin flick.

  107. I always thought Magic’s presence at courtside as an NBC announcer (as well as Bird’s inevitable retirement) played a big part in this game: For the first time, the league belonged to Jordan and Jordan alone. Drexler was in the way. He had to be wiped out. And if Magic got to witness it from midcourt, even better.

  108. This was a bigger moment than it might seem. See, Oakley is the real-life Shaft. You know those bar fight scenes in Road House when Swayze stands there motionless, with just a thin smile on his face, as ten drunk guys are brawling a few feet away? That’s Oakley. You could hire extras to play gang members at a party, then have them fire blanks at each other ten feet away from Oakley and I’m not sure he’d flinch. My favorite Oakley fact: he served as MJ’s enforcer in Chicago, now they’re both retired … and from what I can tell, he’s still Jordan’s enforcer. Could there be a better tribute in life to someone’s kickassability than MJ himself deciding, “You know what? I need to make sure he’s still on my side. I don’t care if we’re in our forties.” Personally, I think Oak should have become the next great action hero. He’s got the looks, the size, the swagger