by Shea Serrano
12. How’s this for bad luck: The Blazers could’ve drafted Bob McAdoo in 1972, Larry Bird in 1978, Michael Jordan in 1984, and Kevin Durant in 2007.
13. “If he’s driving a Cadillac, he’s going to [play for] Kentucky, and we’re not going to get him.”
14. This is how I know that Bryon Russell is a better sport than me. There’s no way I’d have lasted more than one, maybe two jabs from Jordan before standing up, shouting something like, “You know what, Mike? Fuck you and fuck your tiny mustache,” and then leaving.
15. I don’t like Karl Malone, sure, but I would never deny that he was a marvelous basketball player (albeit, not when he was most needed to be). Here’s a question, though, and I thought about it when I was going through all the draft picks from all the years: The Knicks chose Patrick Ewing with their number-one pick in the 1985 draft. It was a good decision and a smart decision. THAT SAID, Karl Malone was the 13th pick in that same draft. Do you think that, if given the chance to go back in time and make their pick again knowing the way both of their careers played out, the Knicks would still choose Ewing? Or would they choose Malone this time?
16. In Michael Leahy’s 2005 book, When Nothing Else Matters: Michael Jordan’s Last Comeback, Leahy describes in longform all the different ways Jordan mentally attacked Brown. It’s kind of devastating. (Of course, it must be said that in 2010 Kwame signed a one-year deal with Jordan’s Charlotte Bobcats team, so maybe it wasn’t as bad as it’d always been made to look. After signing with the Bobcats, Kwame told the press, “We’re always going to be linked. I might as well come here, right?”)
17. The American version of Frédéric Weis: Shawn Bradley. He was a 7'6" version of one of the air sock things they put in the front of car lots, except teams put him in front of rims. A lot of people dunked on him, but nobody dunked on him the way Tracy McGrady dunked on him. Tracy McGrady dunked on him so hard one time during the playoffs in 2005 that the energy force from the dunk knocked the ears off Bradley’s head, which, truth be told, was probably for the best because then at least he couldn’t hear everyone laughing at him.
18. Tyronn Lue won an NBA championship as a player and he also won one as an NBA coach. And STILL his name is always first going to be attached to The Step Over. Allen Iverson was such a monumental basketball player that his gravity in history is strong enough to pull the rings off a guy’s fingers.
19. Here’s a clarification, and I’ll use Kobe as my example—that way I can say a nice thing about him since I said a mean thing about him earlier: Kobe Bryant has missed plenty of shots, and he also missed plenty of BIG shots. That said, Kobe Bryant has never once in his career choked. He has never missed a shot because he was nervous; he has only, simply, missed a shot, which is not the same thing.
HOW MANY POINTS SHOULD [SHOT] ACTUALLY BE WORTH?
There was a moment in Game 3 of the 2016 NBA Finals where LeBron James tipped what was supposed to be a pass from Steph Curry to Draymond Green back and up into the air. It happened with just under three minutes left in the third quarter, right near the three-point line, and I feel like that’s not a coincidence. I feel like it was supposed to happen at exactly right then because 3 (minutes left) + 3 (rd quarter) + 3 (point line) = 9, and nine is the precise number of universal substances and elements in Hindu philosophy,1 and also the number nine in Chinese culture is the number most often associated with the dragon,2 and also nine is the number of days it takes an anvil to fall from Heaven to Earth in Greek mythology. And all of those things are LeBron James, or spiritual extension(s) of LeBron James, and sometimes I just get so fucking excited that the universe does things like that.3 But I bring up the play right now because of what happened afterward, because it’s important. So:
LeBron deflected the pass and he and Steph both chased after the ball. LeBron got there first, and as he was gathering the ball, Steph bumped him just enough to semi-wobble LeBron’s legs underneath him. LeBron momentarily went down on all fours, but managed to keep dribbling while in a push-up position because LeBron is a Cirque du Soleil performer, I think.
LeBron got up, then whipped a pass ahead to Kyrie, who by that point had gotten out fast enough on the play to create a 2-on-1 fast break. Kyrie didn’t even bother to try and dribble because he knew LeBron’s mega-gravity would’ve fucked everything off, so Kyrie just chucked the ball up at the rim, but not near the rim, or even anywhere near the area that was near the rim. He threw that shit out of the stadium. He threw that shit out of the city limits. They played Game 3 on Wednesday, June 8. Kyrie threw the ball to Tuesday, June 7.
No matter, though.
Because LeBron jumped, and he jumped with the sort of force where you could literally see the newtons he was exerting like how sometimes you can see heat coming up off the road in the summer; the sort of force that if you watch the replay more than twice your kneecaps’ll split in two from the stress of even seeing it; the sort of force that should’ve pushed the Earth off its orbital path and, if not that, then at least cratered its surface.
But so LeBron jumped . . . and then he reached back in time . . . and then he collected the ball in one hand . . . and then he aimed a warhead at the rim . . . and then he electro-ultra-hydro dunked it. And I promise you that when I watched it I legit felt a profound sadness in my body because I realized in real-time I would only ever live an underwhelming life in comparison to what I’d just watched.
Before the dunk, the score was Cleveland 77 and Golden State Warriors 59. After the dunk, the score was Cleveland 79 and Golden State Warriors 59. That struck me as unfair then and still strikes me as unfair now and it will strike me as unfair for the foreseeable future. There should be no scenario where what LeBron James did right then in that moment should be of equal value to, say, a 1992 Brad Daugherty jump shot, which has no artistry, or a 2015 Matthew Dellavedova runner, which has negative artistry. Artistry should be accounted for, as should negative artistry, because that’s one of the best parts of basketball.
So let’s do that. Let’s fix the value of some shots.
A 1980S ADRIAN DANTLEY THREE-POINTER WAS WORTH THREE POINTS BUT IT SHOULD’VE BEEN WORTH: Seven points. // The three-point line didn’t show up in the NBA until the 1980 season. Dantley shot all of two three-pointers that season (he missed both). He shot seven in 1981 (and made two), three in 1982 (made one), then was like, “You know what? Fuck three-pointers” in 1983 and shot zero. The most he ever attempted in a season was 11,4 and here’s where I’ll tell you that J. R. Smith, who’s roughly the same size as Dantley was and also plays the same position that Dantley played,5 shot 12 three-pointers IN A SINGLE QUARTER on two separate occasions.6 Anyway, but so the point is: Adrian Dantley making a three was a big thing. It should’ve been treated as such.7
We can extend this valuation to any player who shot (or shoots) less than a dozen three-pointers in any season.
A 1985 PURVIS SHORT [JUMPER/LAYUP/DUNK/FREE THROW] IS WORTH: Double whatever the actual value of the shot was. // Two things here: (1) I wonder what a newborn baby boy has to look like for a mother or father to look at him and say, “Purvis. This baby is a Purvis.” (2) Living a life as a “Purvis” has to be harder than living a life as a “Tom” or a “John” or whatever, so I’m doubling all of his points as retribution for the purvisication of his existence. Doing so means we get a two-season stretch where Purvis Short averaged over 50 points per game (1985, 1986) and also two games where he broke Wilt Chamberlain’s scoring record (the 59 points he put up during a game against the Nets in the 1984 season becomes 118 points and the 57 points he put up against the Spurs in the 1983 season becomes 114 points). Welcome to the Hall of Fame, Purvis.8
This valuation gets extended to just two other players because only two other players have ever had names as unfortunate as “Purvis Short”: Fennis Dembo, who suited up for 31 with the world champion Pistons in 1989, and Uwe Blab, who played for three different teams during a five-year bid in the league (1986–90). Both of those guys get their points dou
bled.
Bonus: Anyone who has (or had) an unfortunate nickname that gets used (or was used) in lieu of his legal name can receive a 10 percent increase in point valuation (free throws become 1.1, two-pointers become 2.2, threes become 3.3). That means we get point boosts for Fat Lever9 (sounds like a euphemism for a large penis), Pooh Richardson10 (too close to Poop Richardson), and Bimbo Coles11 (I suppose Bimbo Coles is better than Idiot Coles, or Doofus Coles, though only slightly). That’s it. Spud Webb is a cool name. So is Sleepy Floyd. So is Muggsy Bogues. Those guys don’t get anything.
A 1990 BUCK WILLIAMS12 10-FOOTER WAS WORTH TWO POINTS BUT IT SHOULD’VE BEEN WORTH: Three points. // Any player who plays in goggles gets an automatic 50 percent increase in value to any shot he makes. That means two-pointers are worth three points, three-pointers are worth 4.5 points, and free throws are worth 1.5 points apiece.
We can extend this valuation as an across-the-board increase to anyone who wore goggles during a game because I respect goggles very much.13 They’re the most sophisticated basketball accessory.
(Horace Grant was, and will forever remain, the Alpha Basketball Goggle Wearer. Nobody was fucking with him goggle-wise. Some of my other favorite goggle wearers: Hakeem Olajuwon briefly wore them in 1991 after getting elbowed in the face by Bill Cartwright so hard that it broke his eye socket. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar started wearing them after suffering a couple of scratched corneas and also some weird disease where his eyes started to dry out.14 James Worthy15 started wearing them after an eye injury in 1985. Reggie Miller wore them for a bit after he had his eye socket broken in 1996. Amar’e Stoudemire wore them for the rest of his career after suffering a detached retina in 2009. And my favorite one: Tony Parker wore them temporarily after a shard of glass scratched his eye during a fight in a New York nightclub between Drake and Chris Brown, which is just about the most Tony Parker way of all to suffer an eye injury.)
A 1992 JOHN STOCKTON LAYUP WAS WORTH TWO POINTS BUT IT SHOULD’VE BEEN WORTH: Five points. // John Stockton’s playing height was listed as 6'1". That’s six inches shorter than the height of the average player,16 and roughly 10 inches shorter than most of the dinosaurs plodding around near the rim. As such, considerations have to be made for anyone under 6'2" who is skilled enough and deft enough to score a layup (let’s say that a layup is any shot that occurs within 5 feet of the rim that isn’t a dunk). So let’s add 150 percent valuation increase to every layup by a player under 6'2". Added bonus: Anyone who is 6'1" and under and white who dunks it in a game gets a million points.
A 1997 BILL WENNINGTON LAYUP WAS WORTH TWO POINTS BUT IT SHOULD’VE BEEN WORTH: Zero points. // This is the opposite of the John Stockton blurb. Bill Wennington was a 7-foot-tall cement truck.17 Layups are not okay when you’re 7 feet tall. Dunk it. That’s your job. That’s what you need to do when you get the ball near the rim. If you don’t, then you get penalized.
We can extend this valuation to anyone who’s 7 feet tall or taller, because shooting a layup when you’re 7 feet tall or taller has got to be the most unimpressive shit of all.18
A 2002 GARY PAYTON ASSIST WAS WORTH ZERO POINTS BUT IT SHOULD’VE BEEN WORTH: One point. // I know that assists aren’t worth points, and that’s fine. In just about every case, they shouldn’t be worth points. But sometimes they should be.19 Like the time Gary Payton threw a (completely unnecessary) between-the-legs jump pass to Shawn Kemp at half court that ended up leading to a dunk. Or the time Gary Payton caught a three-quarters court pass and then, rather than turn around and lay it up, he simply passed it backward between his legs to a teammate who dunked it. Or the time Gary Payton chased down an errant pass on a fast break, jumping out of bounds to retrieve the ball, snatching it with his talons, then throwing it back in bounds between his legs to a teammate for a layup. (There’s no official stat for it, but I gotta assume Gary Payton led the league in the between-the-legs assists.)
I chose 2002 here because that’s the season he averaged the most assists of his career (nine per game), but we can stretch the valuation out to cover his entire career: Give Gary (and only Gary) one point for every one of his assists for the entirety of his career.
A 2008 ANTOINE WALKER THREE-POINTER WAS WORTH THREE POINTS BUT IT SHOULD’VE BEEN WORTH: $1.7 million each. // There’s no point valuation adjustment here. This is more important than that. This is a bank account adjustment. Antoine Walker filed bankruptcy in 2010 despite having earned well over $100 million during his career. So if we take the 61 threes he made in 2008, which was the last year of his career, and we give him $1.7 million for each one, then he’ll get most of that back.
This valuation, like the one above about Payton, is only applicable to Walker. And Allen Iverson, too. Let’s give him his money back also.
A 2014 RAY ALLEN THREE-POINTER IS WORTH THREE POINTS BUT IT SHOULD’VE BEEN WORTH: One point. // Congratulations to the San Antonio Spurs on winning the 2013 NBA Championship in Game 6.20
A 2016 KYRIE IRVING CROSSOVER-TO-MID-RANGE JUMPER IS WORTH TWO POINTS BUT IT SHOULD BE WORTH: six points. // It’s exactly three times as exciting as his regular midrange jumper so it should be worth exactly three times as much. Also, this one gets an incremental multiplier built into it based on the number of times he’s done it in a row. What I mean is, okay, so say he hits two crossover-to-midrange jumpers in a row. The first one is worth six points, but the second one gets double the point allotment because performing a crossover-to-midrange jumper twice in a row is very, very difficult and also very, very dope (so that second one would be worth 12 points). If he does it three times in a row then he gets triple the points (18), four times in a row equals quadruple the points (24), and so on and so forth. Can you even picture how fucking live a stadium would get if Kyrie hit a 24-pointer in a big playoff game?
We can extend this valuation to any of the premier ball handlers in history because it only works in their hands. You can’t be fumbling around with the ball and shit. It doesn’t look nearly as cool.
1. Specifically, it’s Vaisheshika philosophy: Earth, Water, Air, Fire, Ether, Time, Space, Soul, and Mind.
2. A symbol of magic and power.
3. Bonus: LeBron wore the number 9 at the 2004 Olympics.
4. It was in 1986. He made one, which puts his average that season at around 9 percent, which isn’t very good, if you were wondering.
5. Or at least one of the same positions.
6. Denver at Chicago, February 22, 2008; Detroit at Denver, March 12, 2011.
7. Here’s a neat Adrian Dantley stat: As I’m writing this book, there have been 41 20,000-point scorers. Adrian Dantley is on the list, and his 61.7% True Shooting percentage is the highest among them. So despite not being that great at three-pointers, he’s the most efficient big-time scorer in NBA history.
8. Purvis had a brother who played in the NBA. His name was Eugene Short. He didn’t go by “Eugene,” though. He went by “Gene.” HIS NAME WAS GENE SHORT.
9. Real name: Lafayette. (Bonus: There was a player in the ’70s named Roland Morris whose nickname was Fatty.)
10. Real name: Jerome.
11. Real name: Vernell.
12. Buck Williams was a 6'8" power forward. He played for the Nets from 1982 to 1989, but I only ever associate him with the Blazers (he played with them from 1990 to 1996). I wish more people were nicknamed Buck. Buck is such a dope nickname. I’m a big fan of any first nickname that rhymes with a curse word. (It’s not too well known, but “Buck” was also an early nickname for Magic Johnson. An article in the New York Times from 1987 says it was given to him as a shortened version of “Young Buck,” a nickname he’d been given when he was a rookie on account of how much energy he had.)
13. A quick aside from an article I wrote for Grantland in 2014: In 2014, I was coaching a seventh-grade basketball team. There was a kid on there nicknamed Glue (he was a very good defender, so that’s why we called him Glue). Early in the season, Glue missed practice the day before one of our games because his dad was taking him t
o get new glasses (which he was very excited about), along with prescription goggles to wear when he played basketball (which he was less enthusiastic about). Glue showed up on game day with both, but chose to wear his glasses during pregame walk-throughs. I asked him about his goggles. He said they were in his locker. I asked him why they weren’t on his face. He said he was gonna put them on for the game, that he didn’t need them yet. I asked him if he was sure. He said he was sure. Minutes later, a basketball ricocheted off the rim and hit him square in the face. His glasses immediately snapped in two. When he realized what had happened, he shook his head, picked the broken pieces up off the court, tried in vain to mush them back together, looked up, realized that I was looking at him, then said, “Is this a movie?” Coaching middle-school basketball was a fun, funny thing.
14. Corneal Erosion Syndrome, which sounds super made up.
15. In 1996, Worthy’s goggles were inducted into the Smithsonian. That’s not a joke. Someone at the Smithsonian was legit like, “You know what we should have here?” Then someone else was like, “What?” And then that first person was like, “James Worthy’s goggles.” And then that other person was like, “Oh fuck.”
16. The average height of an NBA player has been 6'7" literally every year since the 1981 season.
17. He played 13 seasons in the league, winning three championships with the Bulls in 1996, 1997, and 1998 (though, in the interest of accuracy, I’d like to point out that he missed the 1997 playoffs due to an injury). The most memorable moment of his career was when Jordan passed the ball to him at the end of the 55-point game against the Knicks in 1995 and Wennington dunked it to win the game.