The Book of Basketball (26 page)

28.
Back then, they called Russell the first “Negro” coach. That phrasing eventually faded away, much to everyone’s relief, especially Vinny Del Negro’s.

29.
Just kidding. All Red did was arrange the illegal abortions. Okay, that was a joke, too. Should I just get out now? Yeah, I should get out now.

30.
Wilt signed for $100,000 before the ’66 season; Russell received $100,001 (yes, intentional). From a prestige/credibility standpoint, those contracts made the NBA seem just as stable as the NFL and Major League Baseball.
Look, our guys make big money, too!
You have to love the fact that we once lived in a world where rich athletes were considered a positive.

31.
This franchise moved to Long Island because it couldn’t land enough game dates in NYC. And you wondered why Dr. J grew big hair.

32.
I exaggerated. Speaking of afros, Oscar Gamble’s 1976 baseball card has been in the glove compartment of every car I ever owned; it’s a good-luck charm. One time I was pulled over for speeding and when I was searching for my license and registration, the Gamble card fell out. I noticed the cop trying not to smile, so I muttered something like, “That card cracks me up.” The cop let me go with a warning. The moral of the story: everyone loves big-ass afros.

33.
Gary Bettman ignored these lessons and tried a similar strategy with the NHL, nearly destroying it in the process. And he came from the NBA! I love professional sports.

34.
Baseball player Curt Flood gets credit for standing up to The Man and paving the way for a new era of sports contracts, only Barry did the same two years earlier. So why doesn’t he get credit? Because Rick Barry was a dick. I keep telling you!

35.
I watched a Suns-Hawks ’70 Xmas game and Walk was the hairiest NBA player ever: chest hair, neck hair, shoulder hair, you name it. So what were the odds of an extremely hairy white center named Neal Walk becoming an All-Star? I say 0.000000004 percent.

36.
That wasn’t even the best thing about this All-Star Game: Haywood won MVP along with a 1970 Dodge Challenger and a $2,000 RCA television. Nice! That might be my favorite prize ever—not just for sports, but for any game show, raffle or anything else. Do you think Spence was driving the Challenger when he dropped the RCA off at an L.A. pawn shop 8 years later?

37.
If you think agents are scumbags now, they were ten times more scumbaggy in the ’60s and ’70s. Makes you wonder if Scott Boras came from the past.

38.
ABA owners created the phrase “hardship case” to make the Haywood signing seem more palatable to the outside world and give it a perceived legal framework. In other words, the phrase meant nothing. Awesome.

39.
Elgin’s ring (they gave him one) was probably whipped against the wall of his Clippers office 17,000 times since 1972. He qualifies for the Ewing Theory because the Lakers ripped off a 33-game win streak right after he retired, but that’s unfair because it took so much dignity for him to walk away from a guaranteed title. He left with his head held high. In other words, it was the complete opposite of how GP’s career ended.

40.
It took another 36 years before anyone even broke 20 again—when the ’08 Rockets won 22 straight.

41.
No joke: I adopted Sharman’s strategy as a parenting tactic with my daughter. Keep her off the pole! I gotta keep her off the pole!

42.
In ’71, Wilt averaged a 20–18–4 and shot 54.5%. In ’72, Wilt averaged a 15–19–4 and shot 64.9%. He attempted 1,226 FGs and 669 FTs in ’71; that dropped to 764 FGs and 524 FTs in ’72. So he
did
sacrifice.

43.
Too bad they didn’t keep track of TOs when Wilt played—that’s another record he would have gone out of his way to break. Can’t you hear Chick Hearn saying, “My God, what is the Big Dipper doing? He just intentionally sailed his tenth pass of the game into the stands!”

44.
In fairness to George, he led the ’73 Pacers in scoring when they won the title, then carried the ’75 Pacers to the Finals and averaged a stunning 32–16–8 in 18 playoff games with a jaw-dropping 111 TOs. George also had 8 TOs in the ’74 ABA All-Star Game. The guy couldn’t toss his car keys to a valet without someone else catching them.

45.
Wilt almost made this list a fourth time for shooting 72.7 percent from the field in ’73. That one feels breakable to me—if the right aging, gigantic center came along who only shot dunks and layups, it could fall. Rigor Artis shot 67 percent in ’81 and 65 percent in ’82. Maybe 43-year-old Shaq will do it.

46.
Pete Maravich holds the white-guy record for points (68); Jerry Lucas for rebounds (40); Mark Eaton for blocks (14); Dirk Nowitzki/John Stockton for steals (9); and Dan Majerle/Rex Chapman for threes (9). Peja Stojakovic had 10 threes in a game but I don’t count the Euros as true white guys. Just a personal thing with me.

47.
The lesson, as always: don’t mess with the karma police.

48.
There were six ABA commishes in all: Mikan, Jack Dolph, Bob Carlson, Mike Storen, Todd Munchak and Dave DeBusschere. Here’s a good rule of thumb: if your fledgling league has 6 commissioners in 9 years, you probably aren’t making it.

49.
I made those last five sentences up. Sorry, Tommy. By the way, he’s the only NBA author to repeatedly use the word “baby” in his prose, as in “Kareem was great, but Cowens was better, baby!” Strangely, this would become a broadcasting crutch for the insufferable Tony Siragusa two decades later.

50.
This was one of the ABA’s underrated achievements, right up there with Villanova and Western Kentucky being forced to forfeit their 1971 records and NCAA tournament prize money because ABA commish Jack Dolph left his briefcase open at the ’71 All-Star Game and reporters noticed signed contracts for Harold Porter and Jim McDaniels. I nominate this for Dumbest Commish Moment Ever. Not even Gary Bettman can top it.

51.
Those were the only ’72 draft picks who played 350-plus career games and averaged 10-plus points. The next seven picks after LaRue Martin (number one) and McAdoo (number two): Dwight Davis, Corky Calhoun, Freddie Boyd, Russ Lee, Bud Stallworth, Tom Riker, Bob Nash. Was that a draft class or the cast of an all-male porn movie?

52.
The number of semiathletic white small forwards from the mid-’70s is staggering: in ’76 alone, we had Don Nelson, Ford, Gibbs, Bill Bradley, Dick Snyder, Tom and Dick Van Arsdale, Scott Wedman, Jack Marin, Keith Erickson and Larry Steele playing 20-plus minutes a game (and Kenny Reeves for the Bulls). Anytime you have a position that features two Dons and three Dicks and your league is supposed to be entertaining, that’s probably not a good thing.

53.
Look, you can’t discuss young Moses without mentioning that, as many claim, he initially expressed himself mostly through grunts. The iconic Moses story: during his second ABA season, Moses injured his foot and the trainer couldn’t find anything wrong with it. Moses disagreed by simply saying, “Foot broken.” And it was.

54.
It’s a good thing that Moses didn’t end up on the ’75 Spirits: they had Marvin Barnes at his crazy apex, New York schoolyard legend Fly Williams, legendary head case Joe Caldwell and a swingman named Goo Kennedy. That’s right, Bad News, Fly and Goo on the same team! Too bad they never signed Splooge Simpson.

55.
I defy you to find a weirder coaching resume than the one belonging to KC Jones: Brandeis University (head coach, ’67–’70); L.A. Lakers (assistant, ’72); San Diego Conquistadors (head coach, ’73); Bullets (head coach, ’74–’76); Celtics (assistant, ’79–’83; head coach, ’84–’88); Sonics (head coach, ’90–’91); New England Blizzard of the women’s ABL (’97–’98). My head hurts.

56.
That had to be doubly insulting for Elgin—not just getting booted, but booted and replaced by Rick Barry? That’s like having your college girlfriend dump you for the biggest douche on the varsity crew team.

57.
It’s really a shame that the dude who runs the “Awful Announcing” blog wasn’t around back then.

58.
I showed this clip to the Sports Gal, who defended Barry by saying, “He didn’t mean it that way. Look at the way he was smiling. It looks like a half watermelon. I really don’t think he meant it the bad way. Maybe he didn’t know what it meant. Did he get fired?” Um, yes. Yes, he did.

59.
These were the days when networks routinely had all-white broadcast teams without considering the racial implications. Now we’ve swung the other way—you’re only allowed to have two white guys on a studio show and that is
it!
You hear me? Only two!

60.
A great rule of thumb for the “Would he be good on TV?” question: could you see him giving a funny best man’s speech? If not, then don’t hire him. Proving my point: I’d want to attend any wedding where Charles Barkley gave the best man’s speech. And so would you.

61.
Every NBA DVD should have three audio choices: English, Spanish and Moses Malone. I’m not apologizing at any point in my life for these Moses jokes. The man couldn’t speak English and didn’t seem interested in learning how to try. What else can I tell you?

62.
Magic absolutely loved the phrase “winnin’ time.” Every pivotal moment revolved around “winnin’ time,” as in “Michael knows right now it’s winnin’ time!”

63.
Yes, I include myself.

64.
Here’s what Bob sounded like that first year (say this urgently out loud): “Scottie dribbles to the left … Mullin is on him … Scottie passes to Jordan … Jordan makes a move to his left … dribbles twice … gives it up to Kukoc … here’s Kukoc … Kukoc on the drive!
… It goes in! …
and the Bulls lead
eighteen to sixteen! … Kukoc has six points for the Bulls! … Now here’s Jackson dribbling it up the floor for Indiana … ”
And so on. I hate when play-by-play guys talk too much. We have a TV. We can see.

65.
That’s right, I used “YouTube” as a verb there. Sorry, I was feeling it.

66.
At the time I wrote, “It’s too bad Vecsey can’t be the sideline reporter for the Oscars, just so he could interview people like Matt Damon and say things like, ‘I guess that’s why you’re telling friends that you want to dump Winona Ryder!’ That stunned look of resignation/horror/disgust/embarrassment that Vecsey constantly evokes should have an impact beyond the sports world.”

67.
The Slam Dunk Contests is a hundred times better in person than on television. Even if there’s only one memorable dunk the entire night, it’s still worth sitting there for three hours enduring all the other crappy events. I was there for Dwight Howard’s Superman dunk in 2008 and that was a
moment.

68.
My favorite
Loose Balls
anecdote that doesn’t involve Barnes: the ABA fell behind in payments that summer to Fruth, so when one executive mentioned that they’d take care of the fee soon, Fruth told him, “I know you will, because if you don’t have $25,000 on my desk by Friday, Julius Erving will be working in my garden.” Classic! Long live the Fruth!

69.
How many meetings do you think Stern had with high-powered lawyers from 1984 to 2009 where he tried to figure out ways to weasel out of the St. Louis pact, failed, then unleashed a parade of
f-
bombs and kicked everyone out of the conference room? The over/under has to be 39.5.

70.
Portland also had the fifth pick that year, stupidly taking Wally Walker over Adrian Dantley in a typical “let’s take the white guy, maybe he’s not as good as the black guy, but our fans will love him” 1970s move. They could have landed Dantley, Malone
and
Lucas in the same summer; instead, they dealt Moses, botched the Walker pick and
still
won the ’77 title.

71.
This ranks up there in the Dumb Sequences pantheon: so you sell Doc and mortgage your future for Tiny Archibald? Huh? Those picks turned out to be number two overall two years in a row (Phil Ford and Otis Birdsong). And with that, three-plus decades of Nets hell had begun!