The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy – Read Now and Download Mobi

ALSO BY BILL SIMMONS

Now I Can Die in Peace:
How the Sports Guy Found Salvation Thanks
to the World Champion (Twice!) Red Sox

For my father and for my son.
I hope I can be half as good of a dad.

FOREWORD
Malcolm Gladwell

1.

Not long ago, Bill Simmons decided to lobby for the job of general manager of the Minnesota Timberwolves. If you are a regular reader of Bill’s, you will know this, because he would make references to his campaign from time to time in his column. But if you are a regular reader of Bill’s column, you also know enough to be a little unsure about what to make of his putative candidacy. Bill, after all, has a very active sense of humor. He likes messing with people, the way he used to mess with Isiah Thomas, back when Thomas was suffering from a rare psychiatric disorder that made him confuse Eddy Curry with Bill Russell. Even after I learned that the Minnesota front office had received something like twelve thousand emails from fans arguing for the Sports Guy, my position was that this was a very elaborate joke. Look, I know Bill. He lives in Los Angeles. When he landed there from Boston, he got down on his hands and knees and kissed the tarmac. He’s not leaving the sunshine for the Minnesota winter. Plus, Bill is a journalist, right? He’s a fan. He only knows what you know from watching games on TV. But then I read this quite remarkable book that you have in your hands, and I realized how utterly wrong I was. Simmons knows basketball. He’s serious. And the T-wolves should be, too.

2.

What is Bill Simmons like? This is not an irrelevant question, because it explains a lot about why The Book of Basketball is the way it is. The short answer is that Bill is exactly like you or me. He’s a fan—an obsessive fan, in the best sense of the word. I have a friend whose son grew up with the Yankees in their heyday and just assumed that every fall would bring another World Series ring. But then Rivera blew that save, and the kid was devastated. He cried. He didn’t talk for days. The world as he knew it had collapsed. Now that’s a fan, and that’s what Simmons is.

The difference, of course, is that ordinary fans like you or me have limits to our obsession. We have jobs. We have girlfriends and wives. Whenever I ask my friend Bruce to come to my house to watch football, he always says he has to ask his girlfriend if he has any “cap room.” I suspect all adults have some version of that constraint. Bill does not. Why? Because watching sports is his job. Pause for a moment and wrap your mind around the genius of his position. “Honey, I have to work late tonight” means that the Lakers game went into triple overtime. “I can’t tonight. Work is stressing me out” means that the Patriots lost on a last-minute field goal. This is a man with five flat-screen TVs in his office. It is hard to know which part of that fact is more awe-inspiring: that he can watch five games simultaneously or that he gets to call the room where he can watch five games simultaneously his “office.”

The other part about being a fan is that a fan is always an outsider. Most sportswriters are not, by this definition, fans. They capitalize on their access to athletes. They spoke to Kobe last night, and Kobe says his finger is going to be fine. They spent three days fly-fishing with Brett Favre in March, and Brett says he’s definitely coming back for another season. There is nothing wrong, in and of itself, with that kind of approach to sports. But it has its limits. The insider, inevitably, starts to play favorites. He shades his criticisms, just a little, because if he doesn’t, well, what if Kobe won’t take his calls anymore? This book is not the work of an insider. It’s the work of someone with five TVs in his “office” who has a reasoned opinion on Game 5 of the 1986 Eastern Conference semifinals because he watched Game 5 of the 1986 Eastern Conference semifinals in 1986, and then—just to make sure his memory wasn’t playing tricks on him—got the tape and rewatched it three times on some random Tuesday morning last spring. You and I cannot do that because we have no cap room. That’s why we have Simmons.

3.

You will have noticed, by now, that The Book of Basketball is very large. I can safely say that it is the longest book that I have read since I was in college. Please do not be put off by this fact. If this were a novel, you would be under some obligation to read it all at once or otherwise you’d lose track of the plot. (Wait. Was Celeste married to Ambrose, or were they the ones who had the affair at the Holiday Inn?) But it isn’t a novel. It is, rather, a series of loosely connected arguments and riffs and lists and stories that you can pick up and put down at any time. This is the basketball version of the old Baseball Abstracts that Bill James used to put out in the 1980s. It’s long because it needs to be long—because the goal of this book is to help us understand the connection between things like, say, Elgin Baylor and Michael Jordan, and to do that you have to understand exactly who Baylor was. And because Bill didn’t want to just rank the top ten players of all time, or the top twenty-five, since those are the ones that we know about. He wanted to rank the top ninety-six, and then also mention the ones who almost made the cut, and he wanted to make the case for every one of his positions—with wit and evidence and reason. And as you read it you’ll realize not only that you now understand basketball in a way that you never have before but also that there’s never been a book about basketball quite like this. So take your time. Set aside a few weeks. You won’t lose track of the characters. You know the characters. What you may not know is just how good Bernard King was, or why Pippen belongs on the all-time team. (By the way, make sure to read the footnotes. God knows why, but Simmons is the master of the footnote.)

One last point. This book is supposed to start arguments. I’m still flabbergasted at how high he ranks Allen Iverson, for example, or why Kevin Johnson barely cracks the pyramid. I seem to remember that in his day K.J. was unstoppable. But then again, I’m relying on my memory. Simmons went back and looked at the tape some random Tuesday afternoon when the rest of us were at work. Lucky bastard.

CONTENTS

Foreword

PROLOGUE: A Four-Dollar Ticket

ONE: The Secret

TWO: Russell, Then Wilt

THREE: How the Hell Did We Get Here?

FOUR: The What-If Game

FIVE: Most Valuable Chapter

SIX: The Hall of Fame Pyramid

SEVEN: The Pyramid: Level 1

EIGHT: The Pyramid: Level 2

NINE: The Pyramid: Level 3

TEN: The Pyramid: Level 4

ELEVEN: The Pyramid: Pantheon

TWELVE: The Legend of Keyser Söze

THIRTEEN: The Wine Cellar

EPILOGUE: Life After The Secret

Acknowledgments

Bibliography

PROLOGUE
A FOUR-DOLLAR TICKET

DURING THE SUMMER of 1973, with Watergate unfolding and Willie Mays redefining the phrase “stick a fork in him,” my father was wavering between a new motorcyle and a single season ticket for the Celtics. The IRS had just given him a significant income tax refund of either $200 (the figure Dad remembers) or $600 (the figure my mother remembers). They both agree on one thing: Mom threatened to leave him if he bought the motorcycle.

We were renting a modest apartment in Marlborough, Massachusetts, just twenty-five minutes from Boston, with my father putting himself through Suffolk Law School, teaching at an all-girls boarding school, and bartending at night. Although the tax refund would have paid some bills, for the first time my father wanted something for himself. His life sucked. He wanted the motorcycle. When Mom shot that idea down, he called the Celtics and learned that, for four dollars per game, he could purchase a ticket right behind the visitors’ bench. Nowadays, you can’t purchase four boxing pay-per-views or a new iPod for less than $150. Back then, that money secured a seat five rows behind the visitors’ bench at the Boston Garden, close enough to see the growing bald splotch on Kareem’s head.¹

My father pulled the trigger and broke the news to my mother that night. The conversation probably went something like this:

DAD: Good news, honey. I bought a season ticket for the Celtics. I’ll be spending thirty-five nights a year inside the Garden by myself,² not including playoff games, so you’ll have to stay home with Billy alone on those nights because we don’t have enough money to get a babysitter. Also, I used up nearly the entire income tax refund. But I couldn’t resist—I think they can win the title this year!

MOM (after a long silence): Are you serious?

DAD: Um … I guess I could take Billy to some of the games. He could sit on my lap. What do you think?

MOM: I think we got married too young.

If she did say that, she was right; my parents separated five years later. In retrospect, maybe the motorcycle would have sped things up. But that’s how close I came to missing out on a childhood spent inside the Garden.³ If Mom had agreed to the motorcycle, maybe Dad would have wiped out and become the next Gary Busey. Maybe we would have missed five championship seasons. Maybe I wouldn’t have cared about basketball as much. Maybe you wouldn’t be kicking yourself for spending $30 on this book right now. Life is strange.

We bought into Celtic Pride at the perfect time: they were coming off 68 wins and an unlucky break late in the ’73 playoffs, when John Havlicek separated his shooting shoulder running through a screen and Boston fell to an inferior Knicks team. Despite the lost championship and a wildly popular Bruins squad that shared the Garden, the Celts had gained local momentum because of Havlicek and reigning MVP Dave Cowens, a fiery redhead who clicked with fans in a way Bill Russell never did. After struggling to fill the building during Russell’s astonishing run (eleven titles in thirteen years from 1957 to 1969), the Celtics were suddenly flourishing in a notoriously racist city. Was it happening because their best two players were white? Was it happening because of the burgeoning number of baby boomers like my father, the ones who fell in love with hoops because of the unselfishness of Auerbach’s Celtics and Holzman’s Knicks, who grew up watching Chamberlain and Russell battle like two gigantic dinosaurs on Sundays, who were enthralled by UCLA’s win streak and Maravich’s wizardry at LSU? Or was Cowens simply more likable and fan-friendly than the enigmatic Russell?

The answer? All of the above.⁴ Maybe the city would have accepted an African American sports hero in the fifties and sixties—eventually it accepted many of them—but never someone as complex and stubborn as Russell. The man was moody and sullen to reporters, distant and unfriendly to fans, shockingly outspoken about racial issues, defiant about his color and plight. Russell cared only about being a superior teammate and a proud black man, never considering himself an entertainer or an ambassador of the game. If anything, he shunned both of those roles: He wanted to play basketball, to win, to be respected as a player and person … and to be left alone. Even when Auerbach named him the first black professional coach in 1966, Russell didn’t care about the significance of the promotion, just that there was no better person for the job. Only years later would fans appreciate a courageous sports figure who advanced the cause of African Americans more than any athlete other than Muhammad Ali. Only years later would we fully empathize with the anguish and confusion of such a transcendent player, someone who was cheered as a basketball star and discriminated against as a human being. Only years later would Russell’s wary, hardened demeanor fully make sense.

Unlike Russell, Cowens didn’t have any baggage. There was nothing to figure out, no enigma to be solved. The big redhead dove for every loose ball, sprinted down the court on fast breaks, crashed the offensive boards and milked every possible inch of his talents. He hollered at officials with a booming voice that bellowed to the top rows of the Garden. He punctuated rebounds by grunting loudly and kicking his feet in different directions, which would have been fine except this was the Tight Shorts Era, so everyone constantly worried about his nuts careening out of his shorts like two superballs. When he stomped to midcourt to jump center with the towering Abdul-Jabbar, his nemesis and the league’s best player at the time, Cowens always looked like a welterweight preparing to trade punches with a heavyweight. There was something fundamentally unfair about the matchup, like our real center had called in sick. Then the game started and we remembered that it wasn’t a mismatch. Cowens lured Kareem away from the basket by draining 18-footers, robbing Milwaukee of its best shot blocker and rebounder. Defensively, Cowens made up for an eight-inch height difference by wearing Kareem down and making him work for every field goal attempt. Over and over again, we’d watch the same bumpy dance between them: Jabbar slinking toward his preferred spot on the low post, a wild-eyed Cowens slamming his chest against Kareem’s back and dramatically refusing to yield another inch, finally digging in like a Battle of the Network Stars competitor in the last stages of a tug-of-war. Maybe they didn’t make sense as rivals on paper, but they brought out the best in each other like Frazier and Ali—Cowens relishing the chance to battle the game’s dominant center, Kareem unable to coast because Cowens simply wouldn’t allow it—and the ’74 Finals ended up being their Thrilla in Manila. The Celtics prevailed in seven games, with the big redhead notching 28 points and 14 rebounds in the clincher. So much for the mismatch.⁵

The ultimate Cowens moment happened when Mike Newlin flopped for a charge call against him. You didn’t do these things to Cowens; nobody valued the sanctity of the game more than he did.⁶ He berated the referee under the basket, didn’t like the guy’s response, screamed some more, then whirled around and spotted Newlin dribbling upcourt. Sufficiently enraged, he charged Newlin from behind at a 45-degree angle, lowered his shoulder like a football safety and sent poor Newlin sprawling into the press table at midcourt. Watching it live (and I happened to be there), it was a relatively terrifying experience, like being ten feet away in Pamplona as a pissed-off bull targets an unsuspecting pedestrian. And that wasn’t even the best part. While pieces of Newlin were still rolling around the parquet floor like a shattered piggy bank, Cowens turned to the same referee and screamed, “Now that’s a fucking foul!” So yeah, Cowens was white and Russell was black. But Cowens would have been worth four bucks a game if he were purple. Same for Havlicek. Because of them, my father stumbled into a Celtics season ticket and never looked back.

Our first season coincided with the Celtics winning their first title of the post-Russell era and the suddenly promising Simmons era. My memories don’t kick in until the following year, when we moved to Chestnut Hill (fifteen minutes from the Garden) and Dad started bringing me more regularly. The people in our section knew me as a miniature sports encyclopedia, the floppy-haired kid who chewed his nails and whose life revolved around the Boston teams. Before games, the Garden’s ushers allowed me to stand behind our basket on the edge of the court, where I’d chase down air balls and toss them back to my heroes. I can still remember standing there, chewing my nails and praying for an air ball or deflected jump shot to come bouncing toward me, just so I could grab it and toss the ball back to a Celtic. When I say this was thrilling for a little kid … I mean, you have no idea. This was like going to Disneyland forty times a year and cutting the line for every ride. I eventually built up enough courage to wander over to Boston’s bench⁷ and make small talk with the amused coaches, Tommy Heinsohn and John Killilea, leading to a moment before a Buffalo playoff game when a Herald American photographer snapped a picture of me peering up at an injured John Havlicek (wearing a baby blue leisure suit and leaning on crutches), then splashed the photo across the front page of its sports section the following day.⁸ By the time I turned six, you can guess what happened: I considered myself a member of the Boston Celtics. That spawned my racial identity crisis in the first grade (fully described in my Red Sox book) when I gave myself the Muslim name “Jabaal Abdul-Simmons.” I didn’t know any better. I wanted to play for the Celtics and most NBA players were black. Besides, I had more in common with them—my favorite sport was black, my favorite player (Charlie Scott) was black, my favorite comedians (Flip Wilson, Jimmie Walker, and Redd Foxx) were black, most of my favorite TV shows (Sanford and Son, The Jefferson, Good Times, The Mod Squad) starred blacks, and I even made my mother take me to Roxbury in 1975 to see Keith Wilkes’ one and only movie, Cornbread, Earl and Me.⁹ It pissed me off that I was white. So I made my first-grade teacher call me “Jabaal,” wrote “Jabaal” on my homework and tests, colored my own face in drawings, and that was that.

Meanwhile, the ’76 Celts were hanging on for one last championship run. Silas and Havlicek had seen better days. A washed-up Don Nelson—that’s right, the same guy who later coached Milwaukee and Dallas—was playing with a protruding potbelly that made him look like the beleagured dad in about ten different seventies sitcoms. Every key player (including Cowens and Jo Jo White, the best guys on the team) had already peaked statistically, only we didn’t have young legs off the bench because Auerbach had uncharacteristically butchered a few draft picks. Golden State looked like the prohibitive favorite until the defending champs self-destructed in Game 7 of the Western Finals under bizarre circumstances: in the first few minutes, Phoenix’s Ricky Sobers jumped Warriors star Rick Barry and landed a few punches before teammates pulled him off.¹⁰ At halftime, Barry (a notorious prick) watched the tape and realized his own teammates hadn’t leaped in to save him. Fuming, he spitefully refused to shoot for most of the second half—no lie, he refused to shoot—playing hot potato anytime someone passed him the ball. And that’s how a 42–40 Suns team advanced to the Finals, upsetting the defending champs on their home floor as their best player played an elaborate game of “eff you” with his teammates.

So that was one break for the Celtics. The other one happened organically: this was the final year before the ABA/NBA merger, the league’s weakest season for talent since the Mikan era. For most of the decade, the ABA had been overpaying talented prospects from high school and college, including Julius Erving, Maurice Lucas, Moses Malone, David Thompson, and George Gervin, all breathtaking athletes who would have pushed the rigid NBA in a more stimulating direction. Each league offered what the other was lacking: a regimented, physical style highlighted by the selflessness of its players (the NBA) versus a freewheeling, unpredictable style that celebrated individual expression (the ABA). When the leagues finally merged, three years of disjointed basketball followed—team-first guys awkwardly blending their talents with me-first guys—until everyone worked out the kinks,¹¹ the league added a three-point line, Bird and Magic arrived, and the game landed in a better place. The ’76 Celtics were too old and slow to make it after the merger, but we didn’t realize that yet. We also didn’t realize that white guys like Nelson had a better chance of eating the shot clock, digesting it, and crapping it out than guarding the likes of Erving and Thompson. The game was changing, only nobody could see it yet.

After Boston and Phoenix split the first four games of the Finals, Game 5 started at nine o’clock to accommodate the wishes of CBS, a network that didn’t totally care about the league and had no problem tape-delaying playoff games or moving them to wacky times. Know what happens when you start that late for a crowd of loony Boston fans during a time when anyone could afford a ticket to the NBA Finals? You end up with the rowdiest, craziest, drunkest Boston crowd of all time. With four full hours to get plastered before the game and another three during the game itself, not only will the collective blood alcohol level of the crowd never be topped, neither will the game. I’d tell you more, but I snoozed through the fourth quarter, Phoenix’s remarkable comeback, and the first two overtimes, sprawled across my father and the gracious people on either side of him.¹² With seven seconds remaining in double OT, I awakened with the Celts trailing by one and everyone standing for the final play. (In fact, that’s why I woke up, because everyone in our section was standing.) Almost on cue, I watched Havlicek haul in the inbounds pass, careen toward the basket (dribbling with his left hand on a bad wheel, no less), then somehow brick home a running banker off the wrong foot just before time expired, leading to the scariest moment of my young life: thousands of delirious fans charging the court, with many of them leapfrogging people in my section to get there. It was like a prison riot, only a benevolent one. And I was half asleep when it happened.

You know the rest: the officials ruled that one second remained, referee Richie Powers got attacked by a drunken fan, the Suns called an illegal time-out to get the ball at midcourt, Jo Jo drained the technical free throw, Gar Heard made the improbable turnaround to force a third OT (I remember thinking it was a 50-footer at the time), then the Celtics narrowly escaped because of the late-game heroics of Jo Jo and an unassuming bench player named Glenn McDonald. Even though I slept through some of the best parts, Jabaal Abdul-Simmons became the coolest kid in school the following day—not just because I attended the most famous basketball game ever played, but because my parents allowed me to stay awake until one-thirty to see it.¹³

We clinched the franchise’s thirteenth championship in Phoenix two days later. Within two years we devolved into one of the league’s most hapless teams, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for the Simmons family: not only could Dad (barely) afford a second ticket by then, but thanks to a fleeing base of paying customers, they upgraded our seat location to midcourt, right alongside the Nancy Parish Memorial Tunnel (I’ll explain later), where players, coaches, and referees entered and exited the arena.¹⁴ My seat happened to be two rows in front of Dad’s seat—we couldn’t get two together unless we moved away from the tunnel, which we didn’t want to do—but I could hop under the railing, stand in the tunnel, and chat with him during time-outs. Even better, a bizarre collection of injured players, old-timers, and media personalities gathered in the tunnel and watched a quarter or two, leading to one of my favorite childhood memories: a washed-up Marvin “Bad News” Barnes standing eighteen inches away from me, milking some bogus injury, wearing a full-length mink coat and leaning against my railing. Every few minutes, after a good Celtics play, he’d nod at me with one of those “What it is, Tiny White Dude!” smiles on his face. And since I wasn’t over my racial identity issues yet, I spent the entire time marveling at his coat and hoping he’d legally adopt me. Didn’t happen. Although we did have this exchange:

ME (finally mustering up the courage after three quarters): Mr. Barnes, when are you coming back?

BAD NEWS (gregarious): Wrgrghjsdhshs nmdmakalkm nbbd jsjajajp ldksaksjhj, lil’ man!¹⁵

    The News only played thirty-eight games for us, but that exchange personified everything. Celtic Pride had been tossed out the window in less than twenty-four months. Nelson and Hondo retired. Silas and Jo Jo were dumped under bitter circumstances. A miserable Cowens lost some of the fire that made him special. Heinsohn was canned so that he could realize his potential as the biggest homer in the history of sports announcing.¹⁶ Worst of all, Auerbach nearly jumped to the Knicks after owner John Y. Brown recklessly traded three first-rounders for Bob McAdoo without telling Red first. In the old days, head cases like Barnes and McAdoo never would have sniffed the Celtics. We had become just another struggling team in a struggling league, a desperate franchise making desperate moves and searching for an identity. Then, just as quickly, everything changed. Auerbach won the power struggle with John Y.,¹⁷ drafted Larry Bird as a junior eligible in 1978, and had the foresight to wait a year for Bird to graduate from Indiana State.¹⁸ Even as the franchise was going to hell, we had a potential savior on the horizon. Following an acrimonious contract dispute, Bird signed for a then-record five-year $3.25 million deal, strolled into camp, and transformed a 29-win laughingstock into a 60-win juggernaut within a few weeks. As far as reclamation projects go, it happened even more quickly than Swayze cleaning up the Double Deuce (and we didn’t even have to hire Sam Elliott). We mattered again. Larry Legend would capture three championships and three MVP awards, help save the NBA and become the most popular Boston athlete ever. During that same time, I hit puberty, graduated from high school and college, and started living in Boston on my own. By the time Bird’s career ended in 1992, my life was just beginning.

Now …

Consider the odds. From the time I could walk, my love for playing and following sports dwarfed everything else. I developed a special connection with basketball because my father bought a single season ticket only after my mother vetoed his motorcycle career. After catching two titles in our first three years, a calamitous chain of events crippled the franchise and frightened off so many fans that my dad and I leapfrogged into the best possible seats in the best basketball arena in the world, and as if that weren’t enough, our seats got upgraded right before one of the five greatest players ever joined the team. This wasn’t just a lucky chain of events; this was like winning the lottery three different times, or better yet, like Justin Timberlake banging Britney Spears, Jessica Biel, Scarlett Johansson, and Cameron Diaz in their primes, only if he had added Lindsay Lohan, Angelina Jolie, and Katie Holmes¹⁹ for good measure. I spent my formative years studying the game of basketball with Professor Bird and relishing every subtle nuance that went with it. There was something contagious about watching someone constantly look for the extra pass; by osmosis, his teammates became just as unselfish, even potential black holes like McHale and Parish. It was like watching a group of relatively humorless guys spend time with an inordinately funny guy; invariably the inordinately funny guy raises everyone else’s comedy IQ.²⁰ When you watched Bird long enough, you started to see the angles he was seeing; instead of reacting to what had just happened, you reacted to the play as it was happening. There’s McHale cutting to the basket, I see him, get him the ball, there it is … Layup! Bird gave us a collective sixth sense, a more sophisticated way of appreciating the sport. It was a gift. That’s what it was.

And that’s why you’re reading this book. I grew up watching basketball played the right way. Guys looking for the open man. Guys making the extra pass. Guys giving their best and coming through in big moments. By the time Bird retired, I had earned my Ph.D. in hoops. When your favorite team lands a transcendent player in your formative years—Magic on the Lakers, M.J. on the Bulls, Elway on the Broncos, Gretzky on the Oilers, or whomever—it really is like winning the lottery. Even twenty years later, I can rattle off classic Bird moments like I’m rattling off moments from my own life. Like the time he sprang for 60 as Atlanta’s scrubs exchanged high fives on their bench,²¹ or the time he dropped 42 on Dr. J in less than three quarters, frustrating Doc to the point that they started strangling each other at midcourt.²² I have a hundred of them. Bird’s greatest moments also became some of mine. Funny how sports work that way. I find myself missing those buzzworthy Bird moments more and more, the ones where everyone in the Garden collectively realized at the same time, “Uh-oh, something magical could happen here.” Suddenly there would be a steady murmur in the arena that resembled the electricity right before a rock concert or a championship fight.²³ As soon as you felt the buzz, you knew something special was in the works. You probably think I’m a raving lunatic, but I’m telling you, anyone who attended those games knows exactly what I’m trying to describe. You could feel it in the air: Larry’s taking over.

For nearly all of his first two seasons (’80 and ’81), there was a barely perceptible distance between Bird and Boston fans, a wall erected from his end that we couldn’t break through. Painfully shy with the press, noticeably unsettled by prolonged ovations, Bird carried himself like a savant of sorts, someone blessed with prodigious gifts for basketball and little else. This was a man who didn’t mind that one of his nicknames was “the Hick from French Lick.” We assumed that he was dumb, that he couldn’t express himself, that he didn’t really care about the fans, that he just wanted to be left alone. This changed near the end of Game 7 of the Eastern Finals, the final act of a remarkable comeback trilogy against Philly. Unequivocally and unquestionably, it’s the greatest playoff series ever played: two 60-win teams and heated rivals, loaded rosters on both sides,²⁴ two of the greatest forwards ever in starring roles, four games decided on the final play, the Celtics winning three straight elimination games by a total of four points. Everything peaked in Game 7, a fiercely contested battle in which the referees tucked away their whistles and allowed things to morph into an improbable cross between basketball and rugby. You know the old saying “There’s no love lost between these two teams”? That was Game 7. If you drove to the basket for a layup or dunk, you were getting decked like a wide receiver going over the middle. If you snuck behind a big guy to potentially swipe his rebound, you were taking an elbow in the chops. If you recklessly dribbled into traffic hoping for a bailout call, better luck next time. If you crossed the line and went too far, the other players took care of you. This was a man’s game. You’d never see something like it today. Ever.

Meanwhile, the fans weren’t even fans anymore, more like Romans cheering for gladiators in the Colosseum. Leading by one in the final minute, Philly’s Dawkins plowed toward the basket, got leveled by Parish and McHale, and whipped an ugly shot off the backboard as he crashed to the floor. Bird hauled down the rebound in traffic, dribbled out of an abyss of bodies (including three strewn on the floor, almost like the final scene of Rollerball), and pushed the ball down the court, ultimately stopping on a dime and banking a 15-footer that pretty much collapsed the roof. Philly called time as Larry pranced down the floor—arms still raised, soaking in the cheers—before finally unleashing an exaggerated, sweeping fist pump. Bird never acknowledged the crowd; this was the first hint of emotion from him. He finally threw us a bone. We went absolutely ballistic and roared through the entire time-out, drowning out the organ music and cheering ourselves when the horn signaled the players to return to the floor.²⁵ When the Celtics prevailed on a botched alley-oop and everyone charged the floor, Bird remained there for a few seconds at mid-court, jumping up and down like a schoolgirl, holding his head in disbelief as fans swarmed him. Of all the great victories from the Bird era, that’s the only nontitle time where Boston fans loitered outside the Garden for hours afterward, honking horns, exchanging high fives and hugs, chanting “Phil-lee sucks!” and turning Causeway into Bourbon Street. We wanted Bird to be the next Russell, the next Orr, the next Havlicek. For the first time, it looked like he might get there.

Nothing that followed was a surprise: Bird’s first championship in ’81; his first MVP award in ’84; his memorable butt-kicking of Bernard and the Knicks in Game 7 of the Eastern Semifinals; and then a grueling victory over the despicable Lakers in the ’84 Finals that featured the definitive Larry performance, Game 5, when it was 96 degrees outside and 296 degrees inside a Garden that didn’t have air-conditioning. Fans were passing out in the stands. Well-dressed housewives were wiping sweaty makeup off their brows.²⁶ Fat Irish guys had armpit stains swelling on their green Celtics T-shirts. Even the dehydrated Lakers team couldn’t wait to get back to California; Kareem and Worthy were sucking from oxygen masks during time-outs. Of course, Bird absolutely loved the ruthless conditions, ending up with 34 points and 17 rebounds as his overheated minions rooted him on. As Bird was finishing them off in the fourth, the Lakers called time and M. L. Carr started fanning Bird with a towel … and Larry just shoved him away, insulted. Like M.L. was ruining the moment for him. Imagine breaking down in Death Valley on a 110-degree day, only if you were trapped inside your car with seventeen other people. That’s how hot the Garden was that night, only we didn’t care. All we knew was that Bird was God, the Lakers were wilting like pussies, and we were part of the whole thing. We were sweating, too.

Those were the games when Bird and the Garden worked like Lennon and McCartney together. Can you imagine him playing in the TD Bank-north Garden and looking mildly appalled during a time-out as dance music blared and overcaffeinated flunkies fired T-shirts into the crowd with cannons? Me neither. When the Bird era crested in 1986, it was the ultimate marriage of the right crowd and the right team: a 67-win machine that finished 50–1 at home (including playoffs). Remember the scene in Hoosiers right after Jimmy Chitwood made the “I play, Coach stays” speech and joined the team, when they had that inspiring “this team’s coming together” montage? That’s what every home game felt like. The season ended with Bird walking off the floor in Game 6 of the Finals, fresh off demolishing the Rockets with a triple double, his jersey drenched with sweat and the crowd screaming in delight. It was perfect. Everything about that season was perfect. And to think my dad could have bought that stupid motorcycle.

Only one question remained: how many more memorable years did Bird have in him? During his apex in ’86 and ’87, he increased his trash-talking (nobody was better)²⁷ and started fooling around during games (including one time in Portland when he decided to shoot everything left-handed), like he was bored and kept upping the stakes to challenge himself. There was the famous story of the first three-point shootout, when he walked into the locker room and told everyone they were playing for second. Or the time he told Seattle’s Xavier McDaniel exactly where he was shooting a game-winning shot, then lived up to the promise by nailing a jumper right in X-Man’s mug. You could fill an entire documentary with those anecdotes; that’s what NBA Entertainment eventually did by producing Larry Bird: A Basketball Legend.²⁸ As the game-winners and stories kept piling up, number 33 moved onto Boston’s Mount Rushmore with Orr, Williams, and Russell. We thought he could do anything. We thought he was a superhero. When they announced the starting lineups before games, Bird came last and his introduction was always drowned out by an unwritten rule that all Celtics fans screamed at the top of their lungs as soon as we heard the words, “And at the other forward, from Indiana Sta …” We didn’t cheer him as much as we revered him.

When Lenny Bias overdosed two days after the 1986 draft, Bird lost the young teammate who would have extended his career, assumed some of the scoring load and reduced his minutes. The man’s body betrayed him in his waning years, worn down by too many charges taken, too many hard fouls, and too many reckless dives for loose balls. Hobbled by faulty heels and a ravaged back, stymied by a wave of athletic black forwards that were slowly making the Kelly Tripuckas and Kiki Vandeweghes obsolete²⁹—guys Bird always feasted on in the past, by the way—poor Bird could barely drag his crippled body up and down the court. He was doing it all on memory and adrenaline. During his final two seasons (’91 and ’92), he’d miss three or four weeks of the schedule, spend nights in the hospital in traction to rest his back, then return with a cumbersome back brace like nothing happened.³⁰ Invariably, he’d add another game to his ESPN Classic resume. Like the famous Game 5 against Indiana in ’91, when he banged his head against the floor, returned Willis Reed-style, then carried the Celts past the Pacers. Or the 49-point outburst against the Blazers on national TV, when the crowd chanted, “Lar-ree! Lar-ree!” before he obliged with a game-tying three in regulation. This was like watching Bird karaoke. Everything crested during a home playoff game against the ’91 Pistons, when a struggling Bird couldn’t get anything going, then an actual bird flew out of the rafters and halted play by parking itself defiantly at midcourt. The crowd recognized the irony and immediately starting chanting, “Lar-ree! Lar-ree! Lar-ree!” For the only time in the entire series, our crippled hero came alive. He started hitting jumpers, a bunch of them, and the Celtics pulled away for a crucial victory. As we joyously filed out of the Garden, my father asked me, “Did that really just happen?”

It did. I think.

When Bird finally retired in ’92, it happened for the right reasons: his body couldn’t handle an NBA schedule anymore. Unlike Magic, he never came back or lowered himself to an Old-Timers Game.³¹ Unlike Jordan, he never would have toiled away on a mediocre team past his prime. He walked away and stayed away. The Celtics never recovered. Actually, that’s an understatement. Bias had gotten the ball rolling, but when Bird retired, the Celtics passed away and became something else. Then Reggie Lewis dropped dead, and McHale retired, and the Garden got knocked down, and M. L. Carr screwed things up, and we lost the Duncan lottery, and Rick Pitino screwed things up, and Chris Wallace screwed things up, and Danny Ainge screwed things up, and somewhere during that torturous stretch the Celtics stopped being the Celtics. Three different times after Bird hung up his Converse Weapons, my father nearly gave up his suddenly expensive seats and couldn’t do it. After the 2007 Celtics shamefully tanked their way to 61 losses and still couldn’t land Kevin Durant or Greg Oden, the team sent him a 2007–8 bill for midcourt seats priced at $175 per ticket. Yup, the same price for a single season ticket in 1974 couldn’t cover half of one game in 2008. Nobody would have blamed Pops for cutting ties after such a miserable season; there was one week where he nearly pulled the trigger. In the end, he couldn’t walk away. Had he given up those tickets and watched the Celtics turn things around from afar, he never would have forgiven himself. So Dad renewed and hoped for the fifteenth straight spring that one lucky break would launch us back to prominence, whether it was a trade, a draft pick or Brian Scalabrine developing superhuman powers after being exposed to a nuclear reactor. He hoped for another game like the famous Bird-Dominique duel,³² when Larry had come through enough times that you could literally feel it coming before it happened. After that masterpiece of a sporting event—really, it was a life experience—we were too wired to head right home, so we found an ice cream shop called Bailey’s in Wellesley and ordered a couple of hot fudge sundaes. I don’t think we said anything for twenty solid minutes. We just kept eating ice cream and shaking our heads. What could you say? How could you put something like that into words? We were speechless. We were drained. We were lucky.

You can’t walk away from the potential of more Bailey’s moments, even if the NBA stacks heavy odds against such bliss happening for more than three or four franchises at the same time. Once the league expanded to thirty teams, luck became a greater factor than ever before. You need luck in the lottery, luck with young players, luck with trades, luck with everything. Phoenix landed Amar’e Stoudemire only because eight other teams passed on him. Portland landed Greg Oden when they had 5.3 percent odds of getting the first pick. Dallas landed Dirk Nowitzki because Milwaukee thought it would be a good idea to trade his rights for Robert Traylor. New Orleans landed Chris Paul only because three teams stupidly passed on him. Shit, even Auerbach landed Bird because of luck. Five teams could have drafted him before Boston and all five passed. That’s the NBA. You need to be smart and lucky. When Lewis passed away seven summers after Bias’ tragic death, the Celtics stopped being lucky and definitely stopped being smart. That didn’t stop my father from steadfastly renewing those tickets every summer with his fingers crossed, hoping things would somehow revert to the way they were.

As strange as this sounds, it’s more painful to live the high life as a basketball fan and lose it than to never live that high life at all. Imagine a basketball team as an airplane—if you never flew first class, you wouldn’t know what you were missing every time you crammed yourself into coach. But what if you spent a few years traveling first class, reclining your seat all the way, relishing the leg room, sipping complimentary high-end drinks, eating steak and warm chocolate chip cookies, sitting near celebrities and trophy wives and feeling like a prince? Head back to coach after that and you’re thinking, “Wow, this sucks!” the entire time. Well, that’s what an income tax refund bought my father in 1973: two remarkable decades of basketball, a boatload of happy memories, forty or fifty potentially splendid nights a year, and just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, a chance to follow the entire career of one of the greatest players ever … and after everything slowed down and the Celtics downgraded from first to coach, the hope against hope that it was a temporary setback and we might get upgraded again. Even if it meant paying first-class prices for coach seats every year, my father didn’t care. He was ready to get invited to the front of the plane again. He would always be ready.

The decision was made: Every spring, he would keep paying that bill.

No matter what.

For anyone who didn’t see Bird in his prime—or Magic, or Jordan, or the ’70 Knicks, or the ’01 Lakers, or any other magical player or team that resonated with fans—it’s difficult to comprehend the meaning of those previous three paragraphs unless you lived through them. Bird’s impact eroded over time, something that inevitably happens to every great athlete once he or she retires.³³ Stories and anecdotes endure, as do YouTube clips and ESPN Classic cameos, but collectively, it’s never enough. In the spring of 2007, I stumbled across NBA TV’s replay of Havlicek’s farewell game, which was showing on a Sunday morning when the only people watching were probably me and the Havliceks. Two things stood out about that game. First, the opening tip-off was delayed for eight and a half minutes because Celtics fans wouldn’t stop cheering after Hondo was introduced. Let’s see that happen in 2009 with … anyone.³⁴ And second, according to CBS’ ancient-looking halftime graphics, Havlicek’s statistical resume on April 9, 1978, looked like this:

Most games played (1,269)
Most playoff games played (172)
Only player to score 1,000 points in sixteen straight seasons
Third in career scoring (26,895 points)
Second in career minutes played (46,407)

Seeing those numbers three decades later, my gast was flabbered. Yeah, I remembered Hondo carrying us to the ’76 championship, and I remembered that he was one of the best players of his time, a physical freak of nature, someone who routinely played 42 to 44 minutes a night without tiring. Throughout his final season, I recall opposing teams showering him with gifts at every stop.³⁵ But third in scoring, second in minutes, and first in games played? John Havlicek? I did some digging and found that Hondo made thirteen straight All-Star teams, four All-NBA first teams, and seven All-NBA second teams; he played for eight title teams and won the 1974 Finals MVP; and he earned one of 11 spots on the NBA’s thirty-fifth-anniversary team in 1980. To this day, he ranks tenth in points, eighth in minutes and seventh in playoff points. By any measurement, he remains one of the twenty best players ever. But if you asked a hundred die-hard NBA fans under thirty to name their top twenty, how many would name Havlicek? Three? Five? Shit, how many of them could even spell “Havlicek”?

Which begs the question: does greatness have a shelf life?

A few weeks after that Havlicek telecast, young LeBron James dropped 48 points on Detroit to singlehandedly save the Cavs-Pistons series (as well as the ’07 playoffs, which were on life support). Clearly, something monumental had happened: not only did Marv Albert bless the performance as one of the greatest in playoff history, but it felt like a tipping point for LeBron’s career, the night he tapped into his considerable gifts and lifted himself to another level. When talking heads, columnists, bloggers, and fans raced to put the night into perspective, for once the hyperbole seemed justified. More than a few people played the “MJ was great, but he never had a game like that” card, as if Jordan’s remarkable career had to be demeaned for everyone to fully respect what LeBron had accomplished. In my ESPN.com column the following day, I wrote that Jordan never physically overpowered an opponent the way LeBron ram-shackled the Pistons, comparing it to Bo Jackson wreaking havoc in his prime.

By the weekend, after everyone had calmed down about the “48 Special,” I found myself recalling some of Jordan’s killer moments—how he coldly destroyed Drexler in the ’92 Finals, how he prevailed against the rugby tactics of Riley’s Knicks, how he stole Game 7 against the ’98 Pacers by repeatedly getting to the line, how he ended his Chicago career with the incredible layup-steal-jumper sequence in Utah—and regretting that, like nearly everyone else, I had fallen into the “let’s degrade the old guy to coronate the new guy” trap. I had always sworn never to do that. One of my favorite books is Wait Till Next Year, in which a sports columnist (Mike Lupica) and a Hollywood screenwriter (William Goldman) trade chapters about a particularly crazy year in New York sports. Writing from the fan’s perspective, Goldman submitted an impassioned defense of Wilt Chamberlain’s legacy called “To the Death,” one of my favorite pieces and a major influence on this book. According to Goldman, great athletes fade from memory not because they’re surpassed by better ones but because we forget about them or our memories are tainted by things that have nothing to do with their career (like Bill Russell being a lousy announcer or O.J. being a lousy ex-husband). Here’s the killer excerpt: “The greatest struggle an athlete undergoes is the battle for our memories. It’s gradual. It begins before you’re aware that it’s begun, and it ends with a terrible fall from grace. It really is a battle to the death.”

This piece was published in 1988, back when Bird and Magic were at the height of their superpowers and Jordan was nearing the same breakthrough that LeBron eventually enjoyed in Detroit. Already saddened that we would be poking holes in them someday, Goldman predicted, “Bird and Magic’s time is coming. It’s easy being fans of theirs now. Just wait. Give it a decade.” Then he wrote an entire mock paragraph of fans picking apart their games in the year 2000, complaining that Magic couldn’t guard anyone and Bird was too slow. He ended with this mock quote: “Sure [Bird] was good, and so was Magic—but they couldn’t play today.” Maybe it hasn’t happened yet because of the uniqueness of their games, the symmetry of their careers, and the whole “Bird and Magic saved the NBA” myth (we’ll get there). But with Jordan? It’s already happening. As recently as 1998, we collectively agreed Jordan was the greatest player we would ever see. That didn’t stop us from quickly trying to replace him with Grant Hill (didn’t take), Kobe Bryant (didn’t take), LeBron James (taking), and Kobe again (took for a little while until the ’08 Finals, then stopped taking). Everyone’s willingness to dump Jordan for LeBron in 2007 was genuinely perplexing. Yeah, the “48 Special” was a magnificent sporting event, but it paled in comparison with a twenty-year-old Magic jumping center in Philly in place of an injured Kareem, playing five positions, slapping up a 42–15–7, and willing the Lakers to the 1980 title. If that happened today, pieces of Skip Bayless’ head would be scattered across the entire town of Bristol.³⁶

So what makes us continually pump up the present at the expense of the past? Goldman believed that every era is “so arrogant [and] so dismissive,” and again he was right, although that arrogance/dismissiveness isn’t entirely intentional. We’d like to believe that our current stars are better than the guys we once watched. Why? Because the single best thing about sports is the unknown. It’s more fun to think about what could happen than what already happened. We know we won’t see another Bird or Magic; we already stopped looking. They were too unique. But Jordan … that one is conceivable. We might see another hypercompetitive, unfathomably gifted shooting guard reach his potential in our lifetime. We might. So it’s not that we want LeBron to be just as good as MJ; we need him to be better than MJ. We already did the MJ thing. Who wants to rent the same movie twice? We want LeBron to take us to a place we haven’t been. It’s the same reason we convinced ourselves that Shaq was better than Wilt and Nash was better than Cousy. We didn’t know these things for sure. We just wanted them to be true.

There’s a simpler reason why we’re incapable of appreciating the past. As the Havlicek broadcast proved to me, it’s easy to forget anything if you stop thinking about it long enough, even something as fundamentally ingrained in your brain as “My favorite basketball team employed one of the best twenty players ever when I was a little kid and I watched him throughout my childhood.” Once upon a time, the Boston Garden fans cheered Hondo for 510 seconds. And I was there. I was in the building. I cheered for every one of those 510 seconds and it was the only happy memory of that entire crummy season. But that’s the funny thing about noise: eventually it stops.

So that’s what this book is about: capturing that noise, sorting through all the bullshit and figuring out which players and teams and stories should live on. It’s also about the NBA, how we got here, and where we’re going. It’s way too ambitious and I probably should have stuck to an outline, but screw it—by the end of the book, it will all make sense. I swear. Just know that I’m getting older and the depreciation of sports memories bothers me more than I ever thought it would … especially in basketball, a sport that cannot be grasped through statistics alone. I wanted to write down my memories, thoughts and opinions before I forget them. Or before I get killed by a T-shirt cannon during a Clippers game. Whatever comes first.

Take Bird, for instance. In the big scheme of things, number 33 was an extremely tall and well-coordinated guy who did his job exceptionally well. That’s it. You can’t call him a superhero because he wasn’t saving lives or making the world a better place. At the same time, he possessed heroic qualities because everyone in New England bought into his invincibility. He came through too many times for us. After a while, we started expecting him to come through, and when he still came through, that’s when we were hooked for good. I know this was the case because I lived through his prime—whether I have developed enough credibility in your eyes as a basketball thinker is up to you³⁷—but I’m telling you, that’s how Boston fans felt in the spring of 1987. Unfortunately, you can’t glance through Bird’s career statistics in the Official NBA Register and find the statistic for “most times the fans expected their best player to come through and he actually did.” So here’s a story about his most memorable game-winning shot, a shot that didn’t actually go in.

After winning three MVP awards, the Legend was rattling off the greatest run of his career in the spring of ’87, single-handedly dragging an aging roster through three punishing rounds despite a broken foot for McHale (gamely kept playing), injuries to Bill Walton and Scott Wedman (both out), as well as sprained ankles for Parish and Ainge (playing hurt). Um, those were only five of the best seven guys on the team. When we were finished in the waning seconds of Game 5 of the Eastern Finals, Bird saved the season with his famous steal from Isiah, which remains the loudest I ever heard the Garden in my life, the only time I remember the upper balcony actually swaying because everyone was jumping up and down in sheer delight. That’s the great thing about sports: when you hope for something improbable to happen, 4,999 times out of 5,000 it never happens, but then there’s the 5,000th time, and for God’s sake, it happens. That was the Bird steal. Two games later, he finished Detroit with a variety of backbreaking shots down the stretch, including a ludicrous 15-foot lefty banker that had to be seen to be believed.³⁸ At this point, we were convinced that Bird couldn’t be stopped. He just kept raising his game to another level; how high could he go? Down by one in the final 30 seconds of a must-win Game 4, the Celtics tried to run a play for Bird, but James Worthy smothered him and held his jersey to keep him close.³⁹ Somehow the ball rotated around and back to Bird’s side. Worthy stupidly left him to jump out on Dennis Johnson, leaving the Legend open in the corner for a split second.

(Insert sound of fifteen thousand people gasping out loud.)

DJ swung the ball to Bird, who planted his feet and launched a three right in front of the Lakers’ bench.

(Insert sound of fifteen thousand people pleading, “Threeeeeeeeeee …”) Swish.

(Insert sound of fifteen thousand people screaming, “Hrrrrrrrrrrr-aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!”)

If they stopped the game right there and announced that Bird would walk across the Charles River, not only would I have been the first kid there, I would have brought my camera. We stood and cheered and screamed and stomped our feet through the entire time-out, never thinking we would blow the game after what we had just witnessed. The Lakers ran their patented “let’s get the ball to Kareem and the refs will bail him out” play and got him to the free throw line. He made the first and missed the second, leading to an egregious no-call from Earl Strom where Mychal Thompson slammed into McHale and Parish and caused them to knock the rebound out of bounds. Lakers ball. That opened the door for Magic’s spine-crushing baby sky hook that McHale would have blocked if he wasn’t playing on a freaking broken foot. (Sorry, I’m still bitter. Really, really bitter.) Now there were just two ticks left on the clock and the Lakers were jumping around and blowing each other … but we still had Thirty-three. Everyone in the building knew Larry was getting the ball. Everyone in the building knew we were still alive.

So what happens? The Lakers stick two guys on Bird. Somehow, he breaks free at midcourt (seriously, how the hell does this happen), slides down the sideline, grabs the inbounds pass, controls his momentum long enough to set his feet for a split second right in front of Riley, steadies his upper body for a nanosecond, and launches a wide-open three in front of the Lakers bench. At that precise moment, standing in front of my seat at midcourt with pee probably dripping down my leg, I would have bet any-thing that the shot was ripping through the net. I would have bet my baseball card collection. I would have bet my Intellivision. I would have bet my virginity.⁴⁰ I would have bet my life. Even the Lakers probably thought it was going in. Watch the tape and you will notice Lakers backup Wes Matthews crouched on the floor and screaming behind Bird in sheer, unadulterated terror like he’s about to watch someone get murdered in a horror movie. You will hear the fans emit some sort of strange, one-of-a-kind shrieking noise, a gasping sound loosely translated as, “Holy shit, we are about to witness the greatest basketball shot ever!” Hell, you can freeze the tape on the frame before the ball strikes the rim. It looks like it’s going in. It should have gone in.

It didn’t go in.

When Bird released the shot, his body was moving directly between me and the basket; you could have drawn a straight line over the arc of the ball and extended it over Bird’s head right to me. Two decades later, I can still see that moon shot soaring through the air on a direct line—it was dead-on—knowing immediately that it had a chance, then feeling like Mike Tyson had floored me with a body punch when the ball caught the back of the rim. Bird missed it by a fraction, maybe the length of a fingernail. It couldn’t have been closer. You cannot come closer to making a basketball shot without actually making the shot.⁴¹

Here’s what I remember most. Not the sound in the Garden (a gasp of anticipation giving way to a prolonged groan, followed by the most deafening silence imaginable),⁴² or the jubilant Lakers skipping off the court like they were splitting a winning Powerball ticket twelve ways (they knew how fortunate they were), or even the shocked faces of the people around me (everyone standing in place, mouths agape, staring at the basket in disbelief). Nope. It was Larry. As the shot bounced away, he froze for a split second and stared at the basket in disbelief even as the Lakers celebrated behind him. Just like us, he couldn’t believe it.

The ball was supposed to go in.

The split second passed and Bird joined the cluttered group of players and coaches leaving the floor. When he walked through the tunnel by me and my father, he seemed just as confused as anyone.⁴³ The rest of us remained in our seats, shell-shocked, trying to regroup for the walk outside, unable to come to grips with the fact that the Celtics had lost. If you saw Saving Private Ryan in the theater, do you remember how every paying customer was paralyzed and couldn’t budge as the final credits started to roll? That’s what the Garden was like. People couldn’t move. People were stuck to their seats like flypaper. We went through the seven stages of grief in two minutes, including my father, who was slumped in his seat like he had just been assassinated. He wasn’t showing any inkling of getting up. Even when I said to him, “Hey, Pops, let’s get out of here,” he didn’t budge.

A few more seconds passed. Finally, my father looked at me.

“That was supposed to go in,” he groaned. “How did that not go in?”

More than twenty-two years have passed since that night … and I still don’t have an answer for him. For everything else, I have answers.

I think.

1. That’s the first of about 300 unprovoked shots at Kareem in this book. Just warning you now. Kareem was a ninny.

2. The C’s played six home games in Hartford each year in a misguided effort to expand their New England fan base. The experiment ended in the late ’80s when they realized three things: the players hated traveling for 47 games a year, they could make more money playing at home, and most important, it was fucking Hartford.

3. We’ll be referring to the Boston Garden as “the Garden” and Madison Square Garden as “MSG” for this book. Why? Because it’s my book.

4. Boston’s deep-seated racial issues bubbled to the surface one year later, thanks to a divisive decision to proactively integrate Boston’s public schools and all the ugliness that followed. Although, looking back, it was probably a red flag that Reggie Smith and Jim Rice were the only black guys on the Red Sox for like 40 years and everybody was fine with this.

5. Both guys had a defining moment in Game 6: Kareem drained a clutch sky hook to save Milwaukee’s season in double OT, and Cowens stripped Oscar Robertson and skidded 20 feet along the floor going for the ball. No clip defined a player more than that one, with the possible exception of the 340 times (and counting) that Vince Carter went down in a heap like he’d been shot. By the way, if you think Kareem is going to take a beating in this book, wait until we get to Vince.

6. After the ’76 season, Cowens took a leave of absence and found a job at a local raceway, where he had an office and everything. Then he came back at the 32-game mark like nothing ever happened. Later, it came out during the ’77 playoffs that Cowens had been spending nights driving a cab around Boston and collecting fares. The funny thing is, you’re reading this right now convinced that I’m joking. Nope. We need to redo Cowens’ career in the Internet era—imagine message board threads with titles like “Dave Cowens picked me up in a cab last night!”

7. Yes, once upon a time, a little kid could wander onto the court before games, stand next to the home team’s bench, and talk to the coaches and players. Sigh.

8. My dad bought something like 30 papers and did everything but hit our neighbors over the head with the picture. He would have been a great stage dad.

9. Wilkes played Cornbread, a high school star gunned down in the movie. When the murder scene left me bawling, my mom was relieved because she had been worried we might not make it out of the theater alive. She claims that everyone was pissed we were there. I was too young to remember what happened; the only part I don’t believe is Mom’s claim that I played dice in the men’s room afterward.

10. Great subplot: Barry wore a wig that season (these were the days when you could do such a thing without getting mocked on the Internet) and after the fight, Barry seemed more concerned with readjusting his wig than with wondering why Sobers jumped him. If you ever get hold of the Warriors media guide, check out how Barry’s hair recedes each season until the ’76 team picture, when he suddenly has a full head of hair, and then he’s back to being bald in the ’77 team picture again. Now he has plugs. Don’t ask why I love this stuff.

11. Two new wrinkles/problems that we’ll cover in detail later: First, some players stopped giving a crap because they had guaranteed big-money contracts. Second, cocaine became fashionable for a few years before everyone realized, “Hey, wait, this drug is addictive and destructive and expensive. There’s really no upside here!” Back in the late ’70s, nobody knew and the league suffered because of it. We never knew there was a problem until a Nuggets game in 1979 when David Thompson tried to snort the foul line.

12. My father still makes fun of me about this. In my defense, I was six. In his defense, it was the most famous NBA game ever played.

13. When we came home, Dad and I were so wired that we made food and watched TV. A Charlie’s Angels rerun was on—the show that had just taken off a few weeks before—and I remember thinking, “So this is what happens when you’re up late? You can watch TV shows with half-naked female detectives running around?” A future night owl was born that night, my friends.

14. Not only did I spend my formative years sticking my right hand out hoping for famous high fives, but you can see me on TV during half of the great games of the Bird era. I spend more time on ESPN Classic than the Sklar brothers.

15. This was one of my two favorite moments of 1978, along with the time my buddy Reese and I realized that if one of us was holding the feet of the other, we could steal all the change from the bottom of the fountain at the Chestnut Hill Mall and buy hockey cards with the money. Good times!

16. I had a reader joke once, “Tommy is as objective during Celtics games as Fred Goldman when the topic is O.J.”

17. John Y. owned the Braves and “traded” them for the Celtics in a complicated deal that involved seven players, two picks (one turned out to be Danny Ainge), and cash. Boston’s previous owner, Irv Levin, moved the Braves to San Diego and renamed them the Clippers. So if John Y. had forced out Red, he would have been directly responsible for Clippers East and Clippers West. We also probably would have traded Bird’s rights to New York for Toby Knight and Joe C. Meriweather.

18. We had 12 months to sign Bird before he reentered the draft, so everyone in New England jumped on the ISU bandwagon as Bird carried the undefeated Sycamores to the ’79 NCAA Finals. They were more popular in New England than BC and Holy Cross that year.

19. I threw Katie in here for old times’ sake. It’s not her fault that Tom Cruise turned her into a mannequin.

20. When I worked on Jimmy Kimmel’s show, we called this the Adam Carolla Corollary. Carolla always found a humorous angle on anything; eventually, everyone else became funnier just trying to keep up with him.

21. I did not make this up. There were four times in the second half of that game (March 12, 1985) when the Hawks subs either jumped up in delight with their arms raised, fell on top of each other in disbelief or slapped palms.

22. This was the most shocking and improbable sports fight that ever happened. Happened 20 feet in front of me. I will never forget it. Like seeing Santa throw down with the Easter Bunny.

23. I thought about throwing in “the last two minutes right before a girl-on-girl show starts at a bachelor party” here and decided against it.

24. Bird and Erving (four MVPs), Robert Parish (NBA top fifty), Kevin McHale (ditto), Tiny Archibald (ditto), Maurice Cheeks (one of the top point guards that decade), Andrew Toney (most underrated player of that decade), Bobby Jones (best sixth man of his generation), Cedric Maxwell (’81 Finals MVP), Darryl Dawkins, Caldwell Jones, M. L. Carr, Gerald Henderson, Rick Robey … now that’s a playoff series! The lesson, as always: expansion ruins everything.

25. One of the many great subplots of the pre-Jumbotron era: the Garden fans rewarding the team with a standing ovation through the entire time-out. That was our ultimate stamp of approval. Like a “you did that for us, we’ll do this for you” thing. Now we’re too busy watching the kiss cam or gawking at cheerleader nipples.

26. My seat was next to one of those classy Wellesley/Weston housewives who wore great jewelry and looked like she got groomed four times a week. Even she was sweating. I don’t think her sweat glands had ever been triggered before.

27. My personal favorite: Bird once told Indiana’s Chuck Person before a game that he had a Christmas present for him. During the game, he made a three in front of the Pacers bench, turned to Person, and said, “Merry fucking Christmas.”

28. On IMDb.com, this is also listed as The Passion of the Christ.

29. It’s too bad that Bird’s prime just missed Scottie Pippen, the greatest defensive forward ever and someone who would have been a fantastic foil for Bird. By the time Pippen matured, Bird was on his way out. Our loss.

30. Bird’s back brace made him look fat and misshapen, kinda like Ralph Macchio in Karate Kid 3. He couldn’t move by the second round and still dominated a do-or-die Game 6 against the ’92 Cavs with his perimeter passing (16 points and 14 assists). Then the Cavs realized before Game 7, “Wait, he can’t dribble, all we have to do is hound him when he has the ball and attack him defensively!” They won by 18 and shot 59%. Sad ending for the Legend.

31. Or even worse, in Magic’s case, a Legend/Celebrity 3-on-3 or 3-Ball on All-Star Weekend.

32. Game 7 of the ’88 Eastern Semis: ’Nique drops 47 but Bird explodes for 20 in the final quarter, including one sequence where they swapped five baskets in a row, saving the game and earning a gushing “You are watching what greatness is all about” line from Brent Musberger.

33. Bird’s prophetic quote in 1986: “All I know is that people tend to forget how great the older great players were. It’ll happen that way with me, too.”

34. Eight minutes 30 seconds. That’s longer than “Stairway to Heaven;” Hulk Hogan pinning the Iron Sheik for the WWF title at MSG; the total amount of time it took the Pats to finish their final drive of Super Bowl XXXVI (including stoppages); all of the sex scenes from Basic Instinct combined; Stevie Wonder’s longest Grammy acceptance speech; the amount of time that passed before we stopped believing that Ricky Martin was straight; Act One of the first Chevy Chase Show; the climactic fight scene from Rocky; the amount of time that David Beckham made soccer relevant in America again; and any of Jeff Ross’ roasts on YouTube.

35. The farewell tour for retiring stars was a goofy tradition in the ’70s and ’80s that peaked with Julius Erving in ’86 and stopped after Kareem retired in ’89. There was a ton of emotion both times—with Doc because we were going to miss him, and with Kareem because we were so happy to see him go.

36. Note to anyone reading in 2075: Bayless was a TV personality who took extreme positions until he was fired in the summer of 2010 after LeBron dumped Cleveland to sign with the Knicks and a frothing-at-the-mouth Bayless, in his rush to excoriate LeBron for stabbing Cavaliers fans in the back, briefly morphed into a fire-breathing, eight-foot dragon and killed all 17 people in the studio. You can find the clip on YouTube—just search for “Bayless + dragon.”

37. This is a completely unbiased book except for the ongoing digs at Kareem and Vince. Even someone like Kobe, who could be called a conniving, contrived, unlikable, philandering, socially awkward fraud of a human being in the wrong hands, will be handled with the utmost respect. I promise you.

38. I missed this one because my high school prom was scheduled the night before in Connecticut and I knew I’d be up all night. My uncle Bob sat in my seat and ended up getting shown numerous times on CBS. Also, I didn’t hook up on prom night or even come close. Number of times I’ve regretted not getting up early that Sunday morning and making the 150-minute drive: 280,975.

39. Where were the refs? You got me. I watched this game recently and screamed at the refs after one of their 20 awful calls down the stretch, prompting my confused wife (listening from the kitchen) to ask, “Don’t you already know what happens in this game?” Yeah, but still.

40. Again, no luck on prom night.

41. In one of the kajillion NBA documentaries made this decade, Worthy admits that he still has nightmares about that shot going in. And he won the series.

42. I would put this shot against any moment in NBA history where a crowd makes two of the loudest noises possible that are completely opposite in the span of two seconds: hrrraaaaaaaaaaaa-ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh. There was never a louder hrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-ohhhhhhhhhhhhh moment.

43. You can see me at end of this one, right before James Brown interviews Magic—I’m wearing a blue polo short and kinda look like Kirk Cameron during the second season of Growing Pains. Also, I look like a doctor just told me that I have VD.

ONE
THE SECRET

I LEARNED THE secret of basketball while lounging at a topless pool in Las Vegas. As I learned the secret, someone’s bare breasts were staring at me from just eight feet away. The person explaining the secret was a Hall of Famer who once vowed to beat me up and changed his mind only because Gus Johnson vouched for me.

(Do I tell this story? Yes. I tell this story.)

Come back with me to July 2007. My buddy Hopper was pushing me to accompany him for an impromptu Vegas trip, knowing that I wouldn’t turn him down because of my Donaghy-level gambling problem. I needed permission from my pregnant wife, who was perpetually ornery from (a) carrying our second child during the hot weather months in California and (b) being knocked up because I pulled the goalie on her back in February.¹ But here’s why I’m an evil genius: with the NBA Summer League happening at the same time, I somehow convinced her that ESPN The Magazine wanted a column about Friday’s quadruple-header featuring my favorite team (the Celtics), my favorite rookie (Kevin Durant), and the two Los Angeles teams (Clippers and Lakers). “I’ll be in and out in thirty-six hours,” I told her.

She signed off and directed her anger at the magazine for making me work on a weekend. (I told you, I’m shrewd.) I quickly called my editor and had the following exchange.

ME: I don’t have a column idea this week. I’m panicking.

NEIL (my editor): Crap. I don’t know what to tell you, it’s a dead month.

    (A few seconds of silence ensues.)

ME: Hey, wait … isn’t the NBA Summer League in Vegas right now?

NEIL: Yeah, I think it is. What would you write about, though?

ME: Lemme see what the schedule is for Friday. [I spend the next 20 seconds pretending to log onto NBA.com and look this up.] Oh my God—Clippers at 3, Celtics at 5, Lakers at 6, Durant and the Sonics at 7! You have to let me go! I can get 1,250 words out of that! [Neil doesn’t respond.] Come on—Vegas? The Celtics and Durant? This column will write itself!

NEIL (after a long sigh): “Okay, fine, fine.”

Did I care that he sounded like I had just convinced him to donate me a kidney? Of course not! I flew down on Friday, devoured those four games and joined Hopper for drunken blackjack until the wee hours.² The following morning, we woke up in time for a Vegas Breakfast (16-ounce coffee, bagel, large water), then headed down to the Wynn’s lavish outdoor blackjack setup, which includes:

1. Eight blackjack tables surrounding one of those square outdoor bars like the one where Brian Flanagan worked after he fled to Jamaica in Cocktail. Once you’ve gambled outdoors, your life is never quite the same. It’s like riding in a convertible for the first time.

2. Overhead mist machines blowing cool spray so nobody overheats, a crucial wrinkle during the scorching Vegas summer, when it’s frequently over 110 degrees outside and 170 degrees in every guy’s crotch.

3. A beautiful European pool tucked right behind the tables. Just so you know, “European” is a fancy way of saying, “It’s okay to go topless there.”³

If there’s a better male bonding experience, I can’t think of one. For our yearly guys’ trip one month earlier, we arrived right before the outdoor area opened (11:00 a.m.) and played through dinner. For the first three hours, none of the sunbathers was willing to pull a Jackie Robinson and break the topless barrier, so we decided the Wynn should hire six strippers to go topless every day at noon (just to break the ice) and have their DJ play techno songs with titles like “Take Your Tops Off,” “Come On, Nobody’s Looking,” “We’re All Friends Here,” “Unleash the Hounds,” and “What Do You Have to Lose? You’re Already Divorced.” By midafternoon, as soon as everyone had a few drinks in them, the ladies started flinging their tops off like Frisbees. Okay, not really. But two dozen women made the plunge over the next few hours, including one heavyset woman who nearly caused a riot by wading into the pool with her 75DDDDDDDDDDs. It was like being there when the Baby Ruth bar landed in the Bushwood pool; people were scurrying for their lives in every direction.⁴

So between seedy guys making runs at topless girls in the pool, horny blackjack dealers getting constantly distracted, aforementioned moments like the Baby Ruth /multi-D episode, the tropical feel of outdoors and the Mardi Gras/beads element of a Euro pool, ten weeks of entertainment and comedy were jam-packed into eight hours. Things peaked around 6:00 p.m. when an attractive blonde wearing a bikini joined our table, complained to the dealer, “I haven’t had a blackjack in three days,” then told us confidently, “If I get a blackjack, I’m going topless.” The pit boss declared that she couldn’t go topless, so they negotiated for a little bit, ultimately deciding that she could flash everyone instead. Yes, this conversation actually happened. Suddenly we were embroiled in the most exciting blackjack shoe of all time. Every time she got an ace or a 10 as her first card, the tension was more unbearable than the last five minutes of the final Sopranos episode. When she finally nailed her blackjack, our side of the blackjack section erupted like Fenway after the Roberts steal.⁵ She followed through with her vow, departed a few minutes later, and left us spending the rest of the night wondering how I could write about that entire sequence for ESPN The Magazine without coming off like a pig. Well, you know what? These are the things that happen in Vegas. I’m not condoning them, defending them, or judging them. Just understand that we don’t keep going because some bimbo might flash everyone at her blackjack table, we keep going for the twenty minutes afterward, when we’re rehashing the story and making every possible joke.⁶

Needless to say, wild horses couldn’t have dragged Hopper and me from the outdoor blackjack section during summer league. We treaded water for a few hours when I ran into an old acquaintance who handled PR from the Knicks, as well as Gus Johnson, the much-adored March Madness and Knicks announcer who loves me mainly because I love him. Gus and I successfully executed a bear hug and a five-step handshake, and just as I was ready to make Gus announce a few of my blackjack hands (“Here’s the double-down card … Ohhhhhhhh! it’s a ten!”), he implored me to come over and meet his buddy Isiah Thomas.

Gulp.

Of any sports figure that I could have possibly met at any time in my life, getting introduced to Isiah that summer would have been my number one draft pick for the Holy Shit, Is This Gonna Be Awkward draft. Isiah doubled as the beleaguered GM of the Knicks and a frequent column target, someone who once threatened “trouble” if we ever crossed paths.⁷ This particular moment seemed to qualify. After the PR guy and I explained to Gus why a Simmons-Isiah introduction would be a stupifyingly horrific idea, Gus confidently countered, “Hold on, I got this, I got this, I’ll fix this.” And he wandered off as our terrified PR buddy said, “I’m getting out of here—good luck!”⁸

I played a few hands of rattled blackjack while wondering how to defend myself if Isiah came charging at me with a piña colada. After all, I killed this guy in my column over the years. I killed him for some of the cheap shots he took as a player, for freezing out MJ in the ’85 All-Star Game, for leading the classless walkout at the tail end of the Bulls-Pistons sweep in ’91. I killed him for pushing Bird under the bus by backing up Rodman’s foolish “he’d be just another good player if he weren’t white” comments after the ’87 playoffs, then pretending like he was kidding afterward. (He wasn’t.) I killed him for bombing as a TV announcer, for sucking as Toronto’s GM, for running the CBA into the ground, and most of all, for his incomprehensibly ineffective performance running the Knicks. As I kept lobbing (totally justified) grenades at him, Isiah went on Stephen A. Smith’s radio show and threatened “trouble” if we ever met on the street. Like this was all my fault. Somewhere along the line, Isiah probably decided that I had a personal grudge against him, which simply wasn’t true—I had written many times that he was the best pure point guard I’d ever seen, as well as the most underappreciated star of his era. I even defended his draft record and praised him for standing up for his players right before the ugly Nuggets-Knicks brawl that featured Carmelo Anthony’s infamous bitch-slap/backpedal. It’s not like I was obsessed with ripping the guy. He just happened to be an easy target, a floundering NBA GM who didn’t understand the luxury tax, cap space, or how to plan ahead. For what I did for a living, Isiah jokes were easier than making fun of Flavor Flav at a celebrity roast. The degree of difficulty was a 0.0.

With that said, I would have rather been playing blackjack and drinking vodka lemonades then figuring out how to cajole a pissed-off NBA legend. When a somber Gus finally waved me over, I was relieved to get it over with. (By the way, there should be no scenario that includes the words “Gus Johnson” and “somber.” I feel like I failed America regardless of how this turned out.) Gus threw an arm around me and said something like, “Look, I straightened everything out, he’s willing to talk to you, just understand, he’s a sensitive guy, he takes this shit personally.”⁹ Understood. I followed him to a section of chairs near the topless pool, where Isiah was sipping a water and wearing a white Panama hat to shield himself from the blazing sun. As we approached, Gus slapped me on the back and gestured to a female friend who quickly fled the premises, like we were Mafia heads sitting down in the back of an Italian restaurant and Gus was shedding every waiter and busboy. Get out of here. You don’t want to be here for this. Meanwhile, Isiah rose from the chair with a big smile on his face—he’d make a helluva politician—saying simply, “Hi, I’m Isiah.”¹⁰

We shook hands and sat down. I explained the purpose of my column, how I write from the fan’s perspective and play up certain gimmicks—I like the Boston teams and dislike anyone who battles them, I pretend to be smarter than every GM, I think Christmas should be changed to Larry Bird’s birthday—which made Isiah a natural foil for me. He understood that. He thought we were both entertainers, for lack of a better word. We were both there to make basketball more fun to follow. He didn’t appreciate two things I had written: that he destroyed the CBA (which he claimed wasn’t true) and how I lumped him with other inept GMs in a widely read parody column called “The Atrocious GM Summit.”¹¹ That led to us discussing each move and why he made them. He admitted two mistakes—the Jalen Rose trade (his fault) and the Steve Francis trade (not his fault because Larry Brown insisted on it, or so he claimed) and defended everything else. Strangely, inconceivably, each explanation made sense. For instance, he explained the recent Randolph trade by telling me (I’m paraphrasing), “Everyone’s trying to get smaller and faster. I want to go the other way. I want to get bigger. I want to pound people down low.” I found myself nodding like Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé in SNL’s “Sinatra Group” sketch. Great idea, Chairman! I love it! You’re a genius! Only later, after we parted ways and I thought about it more, did it dawn on me how doomed his strategy was—not the “getting bigger” part as much as the “getting bigger with two head-case fat asses who can’t defend anyone or protect the rim and are prohibitively expensive” part. You get bigger with McHale and Parish or Sampson and Olajuwon. You don’t get bigger with Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph.¹²

But that’s not why I’m telling you this story. After settling on an uneasy truce about his job performance, we started remembering those unforgettable Celtics-Pistons clashes from the eighties: how their mutual hatred was palpable, how that competitiveness has slowly eroded from the league because of rule changes, money, AAU camps and everything else. Today’s rivals hug each other after games and pull the “I love you, boy!” routine. They act like former summer camp chums who became successful CEOs, then ran into each other at Nobu for the first time in years. Great to see you! I’ll talk to you soon—let’s have lunch! When Isiah’s Pistons played Bird’s Celtics, the words “great to see you” were not on the agenda. They wanted to destroy each other. They did. There was an edge to those battles that the current ones don’t have. I missed that edge and so did Isiah. We both felt passionate about it, passionate enough that—gasp—we were legitimately enjoying the conversation.¹³

I was getting comfortable with him. Comfortable enough that I had to ask about The Secret.

And here’s where I won Isiah over—not just that I asked about The Secret, but that I remembered it in the first place. Detroit won the 1989 title after collapsing in consecutive springs against the ’87 Celtics and ’88 Lakers, two of the toughest exits in playoff history because of the nature of those defeats: a pair of “why did that have to happen?” moments in the Boston series (Bird’s famous steal in Game 5, then Vinnie Johnson and Adrian Dantley banging heads in Game 7), followed by another in the ’88 Finals (Isiah’s ankle sprain in Game 6). The ’89 Pistons regrouped for 62 wins and swept the Lakers for their first championship, vindicating a controversial in-season trade that shipped Dantley and a draft pick to Dallas for Mark Aguirre. That season lives on in Cameron Stauth’s superb book The Franchise, which details how GM Jack McCloskey built those particular Pistons teams. The crucial section happens during the ’89 Finals, with Isiah holding court with reporters and improbably offering up “the secret” of winning basketball. Here’s an edited-for-space version of what he tells them. The part that matters most is in boldface.

It’s not about physical skills. Goes far beyond that. When I first came here, McCloskey took a lot of heat for drafting a small guy. But he knew that the only way our team would rise to the top would be by mental skills, not size or talent. He knew the only way we could acquire those skills was by watching the Celtics and Lakers, because those were the teams winning year in and year out. I also looked at Seattle, who won one year, and Houston, who got to the Finals one year. They both self-destructed the next year. So how come? I read Pat Riley’s book Show Time and he talks about “the disease of more.”¹⁴ A team wins it one year and the next year every player wants more minutes, more money, more shots. And it kills them. Our team has been up at the Championship level four years now. We could have easily self-destructed. So I read what Riley was saying, and I learned. I didn’t want what happened to Seattle and Houston to happen to us. But it’s hard not to be selfish. The art of winning is complicated by statistics, which for us becomes money. Well, you gotta fight that, find a way around it. And I think we have. If we win this, we’ll be the first team in history to win it without a single player averaging 20 points. First team. Ever. We got 12 guys who are totally committed to winning. Every night we found a different person to win it for us. Talked to Larry Bird about this once. Couple years back, at the All-Star Game. We were sitting signing basketballs and I’m talking to him about Red Auerbach and the Boston franchise and just picking his brain. I don’t know if he knew I was picking his brain, but I think he knew. Because I asked one question and he just looked at me. Smiled. Didn’t answer.

Whoa.

A few pages later, with the Pistons on the cusp of sweeping the Lakers, Isiah rants about Detroit’s perceived lack of respect from the outside world:

Look at our team statistically. We’re one of the worst teams in the league. So now you have to find a new formula to judge basketball. There were a lot of times I had my doubts about this approach, because all of you kept telling me it could never be done this way. Statistically, it made me look horrible. But I kept looking at the won-loss record and how we kept improving and I kept saying to myself, Isiah, you’re doin’ the right thing, so be stubborn, and one day people will find a different way to judge a player. They won’t just pick up the newspaper and say, oh, this guy was 9 for 12 with 8 rebounds so he was the best player in the game. Lots of times, on our team, you can’t tell who the best player in the game was ’Cause everybody did something good. That’s what makes us so good. The other team has to worry about stopping eight or nine people instead of two or three. It’s the only way to win. The only way to win. That’s the way the game was invented. But there’s more to that. You also got to create an environment that won’t accept losing.

Forget for a second that, in two paragraphs of quotes, Isiah just described everything you would ever need to know about winning an NBA championship. I always wanted to know what The Secret was. If you noticed, he never fucking said it. Even more frustrating, nobody ever asked him again.¹⁵ And I had been wondering about it since I was in college. Now we were sitting by a topless pool in Vegas and he seemed to be enjoying my company, so screw it. When was this scenario ever happening again? I set up the question and asked him about The Secret.

Isiah smiled. I could tell he was impressed. He took a dramatic pause. You could say he even milked the moment.

“The secret of basketball,” he told me, “is that it’s not about basketball.”

The secret of basketball is that it’s not about basketball.

That makes no sense, right? How can that possibly make sense?

For the next few minutes, Isiah explained it to me. After coming soooooooooo close for two straight postseasons, the chemistry for the ’89 team was off for reasons that had nothing to do with talent. Chuck Daly needed to give Dennis Rodman more playing time, only the Teacher (Dantley’s nickname, in an ironic twist) wasn’t willing to accommodate him. And that was a problem. Rodman could play any style and defend every type of player; he gave the Pistons a uniquely special flexibility, much like Havlicek’s ability to play guard or forward drove Russell’s last few Celtics teams. There was also a precedent in place from when John Salley and Joe Dumars came into their own in previous seasons; Isiah and Vinnie Johnson gave up minutes for Dumars, and Rick Mahorn gave up minutes for Salley. But when Rodman started stealing crunch-time minutes from Dantley, the Teacher started sulking and even complained to a local writer. You couldn’t call it a betrayal, but Dantley had undermined an altruistic dynamic—constructed carefully over the past four seasons, almost like a stack of Jenga blocks—that hinged on players forfeiting numbers for the overall good of the team. The Pistons couldn’t risk having Dantley knock that Jenga stack down. They quickly swapped him for the enigmatic Aguirre, an unconventional low-post scorer who caused similar mismatch problems but wouldn’t start trouble because Isiah (a childhood chum from Chicago) would never allow it. Maybe Dantley was a better player than Aguirre, but Aguirre was a better fit for the 1989 Pistons. If they didn’t make that deal, they wouldn’t have won the championship. It was a people trade, not a basketball trade.¹⁶

And that’s what Isiah learned while following those Lakers and Celtics teams around: it wasn’t about basketball.

Those teams were loaded with talented players, yes, but that’s not the only reason they won. They won because they liked each other, knew their roles, ignored statistics, and valued winning over everything else. They won because their best players sacrificed to make everyone else happy. They won as long as everyone remained on the same page. By that same token, they lost if any of those three factors weren’t in place. The ’75 Warriors self-combusted a year later because of Barry’s grating personality and two young stars (Wilkes and Gus Williams) needing better numbers to boost their free agent stock. The ’77 Blazers fell apart because of Bill Walton’s feet, but also because Lionel Hollins and Maurice Lucas brooded about being underpaid. The ’79 Sonics fell apart when their talented backcourt (Dennis Johnson and Gus Williams) became embroiled in a petty battle over salaries and crunch-time shots. The ’81 Lakers were bounced because Magic Johnson’s teammates believed he was getting too much attention, most notably fellow point guard Norm Nixon, who resented having to share the basketball with him. The ’83 Celtics got swept by Milwaukee for a peculiar reason: they had too many good players and everyone wanted to play. The ’86 Lakers lost to Houston because Kareem wasn’t an alpha dog anymore, only Magic wasn’t confident enough to supplant him yet. The ’87 Rockets imploded because of drug suspensions and contract bitterness. Year after year, at least one contender fell short for reasons that had little or nothing to do with basketball. And year after year, the championship team prevailed because it got along and everyone committed themselves to their roles. That’s what Detroit needed to do, and that’s why Dantley had to go.¹⁷

“So that’s the secret,” Isiah said. “It’s not about basketball.”

The secret of basketball is that it’s not about basketball.

These are the things you learn in Vegas.

When I was talking to Isiah that day, his affection for those Pistons teams stood out almost as vividly as the pair of exposed nipples eight feet away. This didn’t surprise me. I remembered his appearance on NBA’s Greatest Games,¹⁸ when he watched Game 6 of the ’88 Finals with ESPN’s Dan Patrick. The ’88 Lakers couldn’t handle point guards who created shots off the dribble, as we witnessed during Sleepy Floyd’s legendary thirty-three points in one quarter in the first round.¹⁹ If someone like Sleepy gave them fits, you can only imagine how they struggled against Isiah Lord Thomas III when he needed one more victory for his first title. Smelling blood in the third quarter at the Forum, he dropped fourteen straight points with a ridiculous array of shots, doing his best impression of Robby Benson at the end of One on One… right until he stepped on Michael Cooper’s foot and crumbled to a heap. Poor Isiah kept trying to stand, only his leg wouldn’t support him and he kept falling to the ground. At the time, it was like watching those uncomfortable few seconds after a racehorse suffers a leg injury, when it can’t stop moving but can’t support itself, either. Anyone who ever played basketball knows how an ankle sprain feels at the moment of impact: like Leatherface churning his chain saw against the bottom of your leg. You don’t come back from a badly sprained ankle. Hell, you can’t even walk off the court most times. Isiah didn’t stand for ninety seconds before getting helped to his bench. You could practically see Detroit’s title hopes vanishing into thin air.

Except Isiah wouldn’t let the injury derail him. He chewed on his bottom lip like a wad of tobacco and transferred the pain. When the Lakers extended their lead to eight, Isiah hobbled back into the game, fueled on adrenaline, desperately trying to save Detroit’s title before his ankle swelled. He made a one-legged floater. He made an off-balance banker over Cooper, drawing the foul and nearly careening into the first row of fans. He drained a long three. He filled the lane for a fast-break layup. With the final seconds of the quarter ticking away, he buried a turnaround 22-footer from the corner—an absolutely outrageous shot—giving him a Finals record 25 for the quarter and reclaiming the lead for Detroit. This was Pantheon-level stuff, win or lose. CBS headed to commercial and showed a slow-motion replay of that aforementioned layup: Isiah unable to stop his momentum on that ravaged ankle, crashing into the photographers under the basket, then gamely speed-hopping back downcourt as his teammates cheered from the bench. On the Goosebump Scale, it’s about a 9.8. We always hear about Willis Reed’s Game 7 cameo against the Lakers, or Gibson taking Eckersley deep in the ’88 World Series. Somehow, Isiah’s 25-point quarter gets lost in the shuffle because the Pistons ended up losing the game (and the series).²⁰ Seems a little unfair. Nobody was more of a warrior than Isiah Thomas. In retrospect, that was his biggest problem: maybe he cared a little too much. If that’s possible. Actually, that’s definitely possible. Because when ESPN finished rerunning that third quarter, they returned to the studio and Isiah Thomas was crying. He had never seen the tape before. He couldn’t handle it.

What followed was breathtaking. Just know that I watch all these shows. I watch every SportsCentury, every Beyond the Glory, every HBO documentary, everything. I eat this stuff up. And with the possible exception of the Cooz breaking down during Bill Russell’s SportsCentury, no moment ever matched what transpires after Patrick asks a simple question about Game 6: “Why does it bother you?”

The words hang in the air. Isiah can’t speak. He dabs his eyes, finally breaking into a self-conscious smile. The memories come flooding back, some good, some bad. He’s overwhelmed. Finally, he describes how it feels to play for a championship team. To a tee. And he does it off the top of his head.

“I just … I … I never watched this,” Isiah mumbles, dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief. “You just … you wouldn’t understand.”

Patrick doesn’t say anything. Wisely.

Isiah takes a second to collect himself, then he keeps going: “That type of emotion, that type of feeling, when you’re playing like that, and you know, you’re really going for it … you’re going for it. You put your heart, your soul, you put everything into it, and …”

He chokes up again. Takes another moment to compose himself.

“It’s like, to look back on that, to know that all we went through as a team, and the people, and the friendships and everything … you just wouldn’t understand.”

He smiles again. It’s a weird moment. In any other setting, he would come off as condescending. But he’s right: somebody like Patrick, or me, or you … none of us could understand. Not totally, anyway.

Isiah keeps going. Now he wants Patrick to understand.

“You know, like you said, to see Dennis, the way Dennis was, to see Vinnie, to see Joe, to see Bill, to see Chuck, and to know what we all went through and what we were fighting for … I mean, we weren’t the Lakers, we weren’t the Celtics, we were just, we were nobody. We were the Detroit Pistons, trying to make our way through the league, trying to fight and earn some turf, you know, and make people realize that we were a good team. We just weren’t the thing that they had made us.”

Patrick steps in: “You weren’t Show Time, you weren’t the Celts, you were the team that nobody gave credit to.”

“Yeah,” Isiah says, nodding. Now he knows. He knows what to say. “And seeing that, and feeling that, and going through all that emotion, I mean, as a player, that’s what you play for. That’s the feeling you want to have. When twelve men come together like that, you know, it’s … it’s …”

He struggles for the right words. He can’t find them. And then, finally:

“You wouldn’t understand.”

He’s right. We wouldn’t understand. And as it turned out, even Isiah didn’t totally understand. He took over the Knicks in 2003, failed to heed the lessons of those Pistons teams, and got replaced five years later.²¹ Of all the unbelievable things that transpired during the “Thomas error”—no playoff wins, a sexual harassment suit, two lost lottery picks, four straight years with a payroll over $90 million, fans protesting inside and outside MSG in his final season—what couldn’t be explained was Thomas’ willingness to overlook precisely what worked for his Detroit teams. How could such a savvy player become such a futile executive? How could someone win twice because of chemistry and unselfishness, then disregard those same traits while rebuilding the Knicks? Once upon a time, Detroit couldn’t find a prototypical back-to-the-basket big man to help Thomas offensively, so GM Jack McCloskey smartly surrounded him with unconventional low-post threats, effective role players and streak shooters. When McCloskey realized they still couldn’t outscore the Celtics or Lakers, he shifted the other way and built the toughest, most athletic, most flexible roster possible. By the ’87 Playoffs, the Pistons went nine deep and had an answer for everyone. On paper, it’s the weakest of the superb teams in that 1983–93 stretch. But that’s the thing about basketball: you don’t play games on paper. Detroit captured two titles and came agonizingly close to winning two more.

Again, Isiah was there. He watched McCloskey build that unique team. He knew there was more to basketball than stats and money, that you couldn’t win and keep winning unless your players sacrificed numbers for the greater good. So why place his franchise’s fate in the hands of Stephon Marbury, one of the most selfish stars in the league? Why give away two potential lottery picks for Curry (an immature player and a liability as a rebounder and shot blocker) and compound the mistake by overpaying him? Why keep adding big contracts like he was running a high-priced fantasy team? What made him believe that Randolph and Curry could play together, or Steve Francis and Marbury, or even Marbury and Jamal Crawford? Why ignore the salary cap ramifications of every move? It made no sense. He had become Bizarro McCloskey. Every time I watched Isiah sitting glumly on the Knicks bench for that final season with a steely “There’s no way I’m qutting, I’m not walking away from that money, they’re gonna have to fire me” mask on his face, I remembered him sitting at the Wynn’s outdoor pool utterly convinced that a Curry-Randolph tandem would work. How could someone learn The Secret for that long and still screw up?

I have been obsessed with that question ever since. Year after year, 90 percent of NBA decision makers ignore The Secret or talk themselves into it not mattering that much. Fans overlook The Secret completely, as evidenced by the fact that, you know, it’s a secret. (That’s why we live in a world where nine out of ten basketball fans probably think Shaquille O’Neal had a better career than Tim Duncan.) Nobody writes about The Secret because of a general lack of sophistication about basketball; even the latest “revolution” of basketball statistics centers more around evaluating players against one another over capturing their effect on a team. When, in February 2009, Michael Lewis wrote a Moneyball-like feature for the New York Times Magazine about Shane Battier’s undeniable value, he listed a bunch of different anecdotes and subtle ploys, as well as decent statistical evidence that explained Battier’s effect defensively and on the Rockets as a whole, but again, it was nothing tangible. (Although Lewis unknowingly came up with two corollaries to The Secret: one, that your teammates are people you shouldn’t automatically trust because it’s in each player’s selfish interest to screw his teammates out of shots or rebounds; and two, that basketball is the sport where this is most true.) You couldn’t quantify Battier’s impact except with victories, opponent’s field goal positions, plus-minus variables, statistics that hadn’t been created yet,²² and his high ranking on the unofficial list of Role Players That Every Peer Would Want on Their Team. And that’s what I love about basketball most. You don’t need to watch a single baseball game to have an opinion on baseball; you could be stuck on a desert island like Chuck Noland,²³ have the 2010 Baseball Prospectus randomly wash up on the shore, devour every page of that thing, and eventually have an accurate feel for which players matter. In basketball? Numbers help, but only to a certain degree. You still have to watch the games. Check out Amar’e Stoudemire, who scores 22 to 25 points a night for Phoenix, grabs two rebounds a quarter, screws up defensively over and over again, botches every defensive switch, doesn’t make anyone else better, doesn’t create shots for anyone else and doesn’t feel any responsibility to carry his franchise even as Phoenix pays him as its franchise player. Did Amar’e get voted by fans into the West’s starting lineup for the 2009 All-Star Game with the Nash era imploding and the Suns shopping him more vigorously than Spencer and Heidi shopped their fake wedding pictures?²⁴ Of course he did.

The fans don’t get it. Actually, it goes deeper than that—I’m not sure who gets it. We measure players by numbers, only the playoffs roll around and teams that play together, kill themselves defensively, sacrifice personal success and ignore statistics invariably win the title. The 2008 Lakers were 3-to-1 favorites over Boston and lost the Finals; to this day, Lakers fans treat the defeat like it was some sort of aberration, like a mistake was made and never corrected. We have trouble processing the “teamwork over talent” thing. San Antonio was the most successful post-Jordan franchise and nobody understands why. Duncan was the best post-Jordan superstar and nobody understands why. But here’s the thing: We have the answers! We know why! Look at how McCloskey built those Pistons teams. Look at how Gregg Popovich and R. C. Buford handled the Duncan era. Look at how Red Auerbach handled the Russell era. Look at why so many fans (myself included) still remember the ’70 Knicks²⁵ and ’77 Blazers. Here’s what we know for sure:

1. You build potential champions around one great player. He doesn’t have to be a super-duper star or someone who can score at will, just someone who leads by example, kills himself on a daily basis, raises the competitive nature of his teammates, and lifts them to a better place. The list of Best Players on an NBA Champ Since Bird and Magic Joined the League looks like this: Kareem (younger version), Bird, Moses, Magic, Isiah, Jordan, Hakeem, Duncan, Shaq (younger version), Billups, Wade, Garnett. It’s a list that looks exactly how you’d think it should look with the exception of Billups.²⁶

2. You surround that superstar with one or two elite sidekicks who understand their place in the team’s hierarchy, don’t obsess over stats, and fill in every blank they can. The list of Best Championship Sidekicks Since 1980: Magic, Parish/McHale, Kareem (older version), Worthy, Doc/Toney, DJ, Dumars, Pippen/Grant, Drexler, Pippen/Rodman, Robinson, Kobe (younger version), Parker/Ginobili, Shaq (older version), Pierce/Allen. You would have wanted to play with everyone on that list … even Younger Kobe. Most of the time.

3. From that framework, you complete your nucleus with top-notch role players and/or character guys (too many to count, but think Robert Horry/Derek Fisher types) who know their place, don’t make mistakes, and won’t threaten that unselfish culture, as well as a coaching staff dedicated to keeping those team-ahead-of-individual values in place.

4. You need to stay healthy in the playoffs and maybe catch one or two breaks.²⁷

That’s how you win an NBA championship. Duncan’s Spurs push the formula one step further, pursuing only high-character guys as role players and winning just once with a squeaky wheel (Stephen Jackson in 2003, and he was jettisoned that summer). Popovich explained their philosophy to Sports Illustrated in 2009: “We get guys who want to do their job and go home and aren’t impressed with the hoopla. One of the keys is to bring in guys who have gotten over themselves. They either want to prove that they can play in this league—or they want to prove nothing. They fill their role and have a pecking order. We have three guys who are the best players, and everyone else fits around them.” In a related story, Duncan’s teams have won 70 percent of their games for his entire career. This can’t be an accident. But how do you keep stats for “best chemistry” and “most unselfishness” or even “most tangible and consistent effect on a group of teammates”? It’s impossible. That’s why we struggle to comprehend professional basketball. You can only play five players at a time. Those players can only play a total of 240 minutes. How those players coexist, how they make each other better, how they accept their portion of that 240-minute pie, how they trust and believe in one another, how they create shots for one another, how that talent/salary/alpha-dog hierarchy falls into place … that’s basketball. It’s like falling in love. When it’s working, you know it. When it’s failing, you know it. Bill Russell (in Second Wind) and Bill Bradley (in Life on the Run) played for famously magnanimous teams and described their inner workings better than anyone:

Russell: “By design and by talent the Celtics were a team of specialists, and like a team of specialists in any field, our performance depended on individual excellence and how well we worked together. None of us had to strain to understand that we had to complement each other’s specialties it was simply a fact, and we all tried to figure out ways to make our combination more effective … the Celtics played together because we knew it was the best way to win.”

    Bradley: “A team championship exposes the limits of self-reliance, selfishness and irresponsibility. One man alone can’t make it happen; in fact, the contrary is true: a single man can prevent it from happening. The success of the group assures the success of the individual, but not the other way around. Yet this team is an inept model, for even as people marvel at its unselfishness and skill involved, they disagree on how it is achieved and who is the most instrumental. The human closeness of a basketball team cannot be reconstructed on a larger scale.”²⁸

    Russell: “Star players have an enormous responsibility beyond their statistics—the responsibility to pick their team up and carry it. You have to do this to win championships—and to be ready to do it when you’d rather be a thousand other places. You have to say and do the things that make your opponents play worse and your teammates play better. I always thought that the most important measure of how good a game I’d played was how much better I’d made my teammates play.”

Bradley: “I believe that basketball, when a certain level of unselfish team play is realized, can serve as a kind of metaphor for ultimate cooperation. It is a sport where success, as symbolized by the championship, requires that the dictates of the community prevail over selfish personal impulses. An exceptional player is simply one point on a five-pointed star. Statistics—such as points, rebounds, or assists per game—can never explain the remarkable interaction that takes place on a successful pro team.”

In different ways, Russell and Bradley argued the same point: that players should be measured by their ability to connect with other players (and not by statistics). Anyone can connect with their teammates for one season. Find that connection, cultivate it, win the title, maintain that connection, survive the inevitable land mines, fight off hungrier foes and keep coming back for more success … that’s being a champion. As Russell explained, “It’s much harder to keep a championship than to win one. After you’ve won once, some of the key figures are likely to grow dissatisfied with the role they play, so it’s harder to keep the team focused on doing what it takes to win. Also, you’ve already done it, so you can’t rely on the same drive that makes people climb mountains for the first time; winning isn’t new anymore. Also, there’s a temptation to believe that the last championship will somehow win the next one automatically. You have to keep going out there game after game. Besides, you’re getting older, and less willing to put up with aggravation and pain … When you find someone who at age 30 or 35 has the motivation to overrule that increasing pain and aggravation, you have a champion.”²⁹

I didn’t see the words “stats” or “numbers” in there. It’s all about winning. You can tell which current teams may have discovered The Secret well before the playoffs. The Celtics finished the 2007–8 preseason as a noticeably tighter group; already rejuvenated by the Garnett/Allen trades, traveling together in Italy without cell phones had bonded them in an unconventionally effective way.³⁰ They hatched their own catch-phrase, “Ubuntu,” a Bantu-derived word that roughly means “togetherness.” They hung out even after returning to the States; instead of three players heading out for a movie or postgame dinner, the number invariably shaded closer to nine or ten. Before every tip-off, Eddie House and James Posey stood near the scorer’s table and greeted the starters one by one,³¹ with Eddie performing elaborate handshakes and Posey wrapping them in bear hugs and whispering motivational thoughts. Bench guys pulled for starters like they were the whitest, dorkiest tenth-graders on a prep school team. When the starters came out for breathers, the roles reversed. And that’s how the season went. The player most responsible for that collective unselfishness (Garnett) placed third in the MVP balloting because of subpar-for-him numbers; meanwhile, the Celtics jumped from the worst record in 2007 to the best record in 2008. Where’s the statistic for that? (Shit, I forgot: it’s called wins.) But that’s what makes basketball so great. You have to watch the games. You have to pay attention. You cannot get seduced by numbers and stats. Even as I was frantically finishing this book, I couldn’t help noticing LeBron’s ’09 Cavaliers developing Ubuntu-like chemistry and raving about it constantly—how much they loved each other, how (pick a player) hadn’t enjoyed himself this much playing basketball before, and so on. Talking about it, they had that same look in their collective eye that a buddy gets when he’s raving about killer sex with his new girlfriend: This is amazing. I’ve never had anything like this before. And I was thinking, “Where did I just read something like this?” Then I remembered. It was a quote from a December 1974 Sports Illustrated feature about the Warriors:

There are a super group of guys on this team. Players who put the team ahead of self. I think basketball is the epitome of team sport anyhow, and we’ve got players now who complement one another for the sake of the team. Team success is what everyone here is after. I’ve never seen a guy down on himself after he had a bad performance, as long as we won. In the past he might have been more concerned about his poor shooting, and even if we had happened to win the game he wouldn’t have been any happier.

You know who said that? Rick Barry. That’s right, the single biggest prick of that era. Something clicked for him on that particular Warriors team: he was feeling it, he felt comfortable discussing it … and yes, he earned a Finals MVP trophy six months later. Any time a star player raves about his team like Barry did, you know that team is headed for good things. You just do. Of course, any team can channel a collective unselfishness for one season. How do you keep it going after winning a title and the riches that go with it? Former Montreal goalie Ken Dryden explained that winning

becomes a state of mind, an obligation, an expectation; in the end, an attitude. Excellence. It’s a rare chance to play with the best, to be the best. When you have it, you don’t want to give it up. It’s not easy and it’s not always fun … when you win as often as we do, you earn a right to lose. It’s losing to remember what winning feels like. But it’s a game of chicken. If you let it go, you might never get it back. You may find it’s a high-paid, pressureless comfort to your liking. I can feel it happening this year. If we win, next year will be worse.³²

Russell lived for that pressure, defining himself and everyone else by how they responded to it:

Even with all the talent, the mental sharpness, the fun, the confidence and your focus honed down to winning, there’ll be a level of competition where all that evens out. Then the pressure builds, and for the champion it’s a test of heart…. Heart in champions has to do with the depth of your motivation, and how well your mind and body react to pressure. It’s concentration—that is, being able to do what you do under maximum pain and stress.³³

So really, repeating as champions (or winning a third time, or a fourth) hinges on how a team deals with constant panic (not wanting to lose what it has) and pressure (not only coming through again and again, but trusting it will come through). You can handle those phenomenas only if you’ve got a certain framework in place, and as long as the superstar and his sidekicks remain committed to that framework. Wilt captured one title (’67) and was traded within fourteen months. He only cared about winning one title; defending it wasn’t as interesting, so he gravitated toward another challenge (leading the league in assists). Meanwhile, Russell still ritually puked before big games in his thirteenth season. He had enough rings to fill both hands and it didn’t matter. He knew nothing else. Winning consumed him. Merely by being around Russell and feeding off his immense competitiveness, his teammates ended up caring just as much. You can’t stumble into that collective feeling, but when it happens—and it doesn’t happen often—you do anything to protect it. That’s what makes great teams great.

And that’s why we remember the Jordan-Pippen teams so fondly. What cemented their legacy wasn’t the first five titles but the last one, when they were running on fumes and surviving solely on pride and Jordan’s indomitable will. My favorite stretch happened in the Eastern Finals—Game 7, trailing by three, six minutes to play—when the exhausted Bulls wouldn’t roll over for a really good Pacers team that seemed ready to knock them off. Remember Jordan beating seven-foot-four Rik Smits on a jump ball, or Pippen outhustling Reggie Miller for a crucial loose ball in the last few minutes? Remember how the Bulls crashed the offensive boards³⁴ that night and did whatever it took to prevail? Remember how Jordan struggled with dead legs and a flat jump shot, so he started driving to the basket again and again, willing himself to the foul line like a running back moving the chains? Remember Jordan and Pippen standing with their hands on their knees at midcourt in the final seconds, completely spent, unable to summon enough energy to celebrate? They would not allow the Bulls to lose that game. You don’t learn about a great team or great players when they’re winning; you learn about them when they’re struggling and clawing to remain on top. By contrast, the Shaq/Kobe Lakers only won three titles when the number should have been closer to eight. Since it was mildly astonishing to watch them implode at the time, I can’t imagine how it might look for fans of subsequent generations.

Wait, they had two of the top three players in basketball at the same time and only won three titles in a diluted league? How is that possible?

For the same reason that downgrading to Aguirre made the ’89 Pistons better. For the same reason that everyone in the eighties would have committed a crime to play with Bird or Magic. For the same reason that players from Russell’s era defend him so vehemently now. For the same reason that every player from the last dozen years would have rather played with Duncan than anyone else. It’s not about statistics and talent as much as making teammates better and putting your team ahead of yourself. That’s really it.³⁵ When a team of talented players can do it, they become unstoppable for one season. When they want to keep doing it and they can sublimate their egos for the greater good, that’s when they become fascinating in a historical context.

For the purposes of this book—loosely described as “evaluating why certain players and teams mattered more than others”³⁶—I couldn’t find that answer just through statistics. I needed to immerse myself in the history of the game, read as much as I could and watch as much tape as I could. Five distinct types of players kept emerging: elite players who made themselves and everyone else better; elite players who were out for themselves; elite players who vacillated back and forth between those two mind-sets depending on how it suited their own interests;³⁷ role players whose importance doubled or tripled on the right team; and guys who ultimately didn’t matter. We don’t care about the last group. We definitely care about the middle three groups and we really, really, really care about the first group. I care about guys who ralphed before crucial games and cried on television shows because a simple replay brought back pain from years ago. I care that someone walked away from a guaranteed title (or more) because he selfishly wanted to win on his terms, and I care that someone gave away 20 percent of his minutes or numbers because that sacrifice made his team better. I care about glowing quotes from yellowed magazines and passionate testimonials from dying teammates. I care about the things I witnessed and how they resonated with me. And what I ultimately decided was this: when we measure teams and players against one another in a historical context, The Secret matters more than anything else.

One final anecdote explains everything. Right after Russell’s Celtics won the last of their championships in 1969, a crew of friends, employees, owners and media members poured into Boston’s locker room expecting the typical routine of champagne spraying and jubilant hugs. Russell asked every outsider to leave the locker room for a few minutes. The players wanted to savor the moment with each other, he explained, adding to nobody in particular, “We are each other’s friends.” The room cleared and they spent that precious piece of time celebrating with one another. Lord knows what was said or what that moment meant for them. As Isiah told Dan Patrick, we wouldn’t understand. And we wouldn’t. After they reopened the doors, Russell agreed to a quick interview with ABC’s Jack Twyman, who started things out with the typically shitty nonquestion that we’ve come to expect in these situations: “Bill, this must have been a great win for you.”

Russell happily started to answer: “Jack …”

The rest of the words didn’t come. He searched for a way to describe the feeling. He couldn’t speak. He rubbed his right hand across his face. Still no words. He finally broke down for a few seconds—no crying, just a man overwhelmed by the moment. You know what he looked like? Ellis “Red” Boyd during the climactic cornfield scene in The Shawshank Redemption. Remember when Red finished Andy’s emotional “hope is a good thing” letter, fought off the lump in his throat, stared ahead with glassy eyes and couldn’t even process what just happened? The moment transcended him. You could say the same for Russell. The man had reached the highest level anyone can achieve in sports: the perfect blend of sweat and pain and champagne, a weathered appreciation of everything that happened, a unique connection with teammates that he’d treasure forever. Russell knew his ’69 team was running on fumes, that they were overmatched, that they probably shouldn’t have prevailed. But they did. And it happened for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with basketball.³⁸

Bill Russell would never play another professional basketball game. He had milked The Secret for everything it was worth, capturing eleven rings and retiring as the greatest winner in sports history. He clung to that secret until the bitter end. When his journey was complete, he rubbed his eyes, fought off tears and searched for words that never came. By saying nothing, he said everything.

Nearly three decades later, a crew from NBA Entertainment interviewed Wilt Chamberlain about his career. The subject of the 1969 Finals came up.

“No way we should we have lost to Boston,” the Big Dipper muttered in disbelief. “Just no way. I mean … I still don’t know how we lost to Boston.”

He laughed self-consciously, finally adding, “It’s a mystery to me.”

Of course it was.

1. The term “pulling the goalie” means “eschewing birth control and letting the chips fall where they may.” Usually couples discuss pulling the goalie before it happens … unless it’s Bridget Moynahan. In my case, I made the executive decision to speed up plans for kid number two. This did not go over well. I think I’m the first person who ever had a positive home pregnancy test whipped at them at 95 mph. In my defense, I’m getting old and wanted to have a second kid before I wouldn’t be able to have a catch with them anymore. I have no regrets. Plus, we had a son. In the words of Joel Goodson, sometimes you gotta say, “What the fuck?”

2. This is a bold-faced lie—we both got crushed at $50 tables at the Wynn and were in bed by 1:00 a.m. I didn’t want to ruin the story.

3. It’s never a bad thing when “European” is involved—that word always seems to involve nudity or debauchery. Even in porn (which is centered around those two things, anyway), you throw in the word “European” in the title and the movie suddenly seems ten times more appealing. Um, not that I buy porn or anything.

4. The thing about European-style pools is that most of the uninhibited women who go topless are usually people you’d never want to see topless … like this lady, who looked like one of the Wild Samoans from the WWWF, only with 75DDDDDDDDDDs. Those breasts are burned in my brain forever. And not by my choice.

5. This was such a great moment that I had to go with back-to-back Hall of Fame pop culture and sports analogies. I mean, those were two of the biggies. I’m talking about the analogies.

6. And also because some bimbo might flash everyone at our blackjack table.

7. This encounter took place about six weeks before the kooky trial for Anucha Browne Sanders’ sexual harassment lawsuit against Isiah and Madison Square Garden became a national story, effectively murdering Isiah’s tenure with the Knicks and leading to a sad episode in October ’08 when Isiah apparently overdosed on prescription meds. It’s never been clear if the overdose was intentional or not. Can you tell my editors told me, “Write this footnote carefully”?

8. Maybe my favorite part of this story: you know things were bad with me and Isiah when the Knicks PR guy decided, “Instead of sticking around to help thwart a PR holocaust, I’m going to flee the premises like O.J. and A.C. taking off for Mexico.” I don’t blame him.

9. After seeing him in action, I’m totally convinced that Gus Johnson can resolve any feud, controversy, or territorial matter within 25 minutes: Bloods-Crips, Richards-Locklear, Shiites-Sunnis, TO-McNabb, the Gaza Strip, Vick-PETA, you name it. He’s like a cross between Obama, Jay-Z, and Cyrus from The Warriors.

10. Totally underrated part of the story: “Hi, I’m Isiah.” As if there potentially could have been some confusion.

11. I gathered all the inept 2006 GMs for a fake conference panel where they gave tips on how to completely suck at their job. Isiah ended up stealing the fake show.

12. His funniest-in-retrospect explanation was for the hideous Jerome James signing. As Isiah spun it, he signed James to be his center, then had a chance to land Curry a few weeks later and went for it. A bummed-out James felt betrayed and never dedicated himself, but hey, Isiah had a chance to get a young low-post stud like Curry and it was worth the risk. I swear, this made sense as he was saying it. He swayed me enough that I never had the urge to sarcastically quip, “Hey, anytime you can lock up Eddy Curry and Jerome James for $90 million and lose two lottery picks, you have to do it.”

13. Proving yet again that I can get along with anyone on the planet as long as they like basketball. You could dress me in red, drop me into a Crips neighborhood, tell me that I have 12 minutes to start a high-caliber NBA conversation before somebody puts a cap in my ass … and I would live.

14. The “Disease of More” ranks right up there with The Tipping Point and the Ewing Theory as one of the three greatest theories of the last 35 years. No sports theory gets vindicated more on a yearly basis. The complete list of “Disease of More” NBA champs: ’67 Sixers, ’71 Bucks, ’75 Warriors, ’77 Blazers, ’79 Sonics, ’80 Lakers, ’92 Bulls, ’00 Lakers, ’04 Pistons. And let’s throw in the following NBA Finalists: ’67 Warriors, ’81 Rockets, ’86 Rockets, ’93 Suns, ’95 Magic, ’96 Sonics, ’99 Knicks, ’03 Nets.

15. Although this wasn’t surprising. The lack of ingenuity with questions from sports reporters has never been anything less than appalling. None of these dolts followed up on The Secret, but I bet they asked questions like “Isiah, how excited would you be to win a title?” in 40 different forms. Then they went back to the press room and fought over the last four bags of Cheetos.

16. In the ’88 Playoffs, Dantley played 33.9 MPG and Rodman 20.6 MPG. When the Pistons cruised to the ’89 title, Aguirre averaged 27.1 MPG and Rodman 24.1 MPG. Dantley/Rodman averaged a combined 26.5 PPG and 11.6 RPG in ’88, followed by 18.4 PPG plus 14.4 RPG from Aguirre/Rodman the following spring. So they sacrificed eight points per game for better defense, rebounding and chemistry. And it worked.

17. The Teacher was blindsided by the trade. When he finally played Detroit later that season, he sought out Isiah before the opening tip, leaned into him and said something that rattled Isiah. To this day, nobody knows what he said: it was the NBA’s version of “I know it was you, Fredo.” He would never win an NBA ring. But Teacher, you have to understand—it wasn’t about basketball!

18. This show ran on ESPN2 in the mid-’90s: Patrick watching classic games with one of its participants. The show’s biggest mistake was being only 30 minutes, which made it feel like a 10-minute version of Inside the Actors Studio.

19. Their other weakness: Kareem stopped rebounding somewhere during the ’84 season. Plus, he was starting to look like a bona fide alien with goggles, a shaved head and that gangly body. All Lakers games in ’88 and ’89 should have kicked off with Kareem climbing out of a UFO. But that’s irrelevant here.

20. That Game 6 defeat ranks among the most brutal ever. Even with Isiah barely able to move by game’s end, Detroit led by three with 60 seconds to play. Time-out, L.A. Byron Scott hit a jumper in traffic (102–101, 52 secs left). Isiah ran the shot clock down and missed a one-legged fall-away (27 secs left, time-out L.A.). Kareem got bailed out by a dubious call (Laimbeer’s “bump” on a sky hook), then drained two clutch FT’s with 14 secs left. Then Dumars badly missed a runner coming out of the time-out. Ballgame. If healthy, Isiah swings that final minute of Game 6. I am positive. But that’s basketball—you need to be good and lucky.

21. After getting waxed by Boston in the ’85 Playoffs, McCloskey realized he had three keepers (Isiah, Vinnie, and Laimbeer) and nobody else with the right mix of athleticism and toughness to hang with Boston. He selected Dumars with the 17th pick, traded Kelly Tripucka and Kent Benson for Dantley, and turned Dan Roundfield into Mahorn (a physical forward who could protect Laimbeer). In the ’86 draft, he picked Salley 11th and Rodman 32nd, hoping Detroit could wear down Bird with young legs off the bench. That same summer, he stole backup center James Edwards from Phoenix. It’s the most creative 12-month stretch ever submitted by an NBA GM. McCloskey built a future champion around Isiah without making a single top-10 pick or trading anything of real consequence.

22. We created one just for him: nitty-gritties. Someone like Battier transcends stats. I thought it was fascinating that, in the same week that Lewis’ complimentary piece was released, (a) John Hollinger’s “player efficiency rating” on ESPN.com ranked Battier as the 53rd best small forward and 272nd overall out of 322 players, and (b) Houston was shopping Battier.

23. Cast Away is on my Mount Rushmore for Most Rewatchable Cable Movie of the 2000s along with Anchorman, Almost Famous and The Departed. They should make Cast Away 2 as a thriller where Chuck Noland loses his mind and makes hookers wear volley-balls over their heads when he has sex with them, eventually starts killing them, then escapes police by living outdoors and using his survival skills from the first movie. Like a combination of First Blood and Silence of the Lambs. You would have paid to see this in the theater. Don’t lie.

24. For everyone after 2025: Spencer and Heidi were a reality TV couple who disappeared shortly after this book was published when Satan decided, “Even I can’t take it anymore,” and dragged them into the bowels of hell.

25. My editor (known as Grumpy Old Editor from now on) adds, “I was watching an MSG special on Clyde and he mentioned being pissed about Willis winning ’70 Finals MVP because Frazier thought he deserved it, which was certainly true if you based it on the numbers. But then he said that as he thought about it he realized he would have never done what he did in Game 7 if Willis hadn’t inspired him. The Secret, again.”

26. Billups led the ’04 Pistons during a discombobulated season when the rules swung too far in favor of elite defensive teams who made threes and limited possessions. Plus, the Shaq/Kobe era completely imploded that season, with half the team embroiled in “I’m not talking to that mothafucka anymore” fights … and yet they still could have won the title if Karl Malone hadn’t gotten hurt.

27. Every fan of the Suns from 2004 to 2007 just rammed this book against their heads.

28. That same dynamic doubles for any military unit or dorm hall of college freshmen: the human closeness cannot be reconstructed on a larger scale.

29. That section finished like this: “Rarely will you see an athlete who hasn’t put on 10 or 15 pounds over a full career, but even rarer are the ones who don’t put on the same amount of mental fat. That’s the biggest killer of aging champions, because it works on your concentration and your mental toughness, which are the margin of victory; it prevents you from using your mind to compensate for your diminished physical skills.” I like the concept of “mental fat.” Does this mean a thirty-five-year-old Eddy Curry would have real fat and mental fat? What’s that gonna look like?

30. Kudos to Doc Rivers for smartly banning all mobile devices on the trip. Although I think the players were still allowed to order porn in their hotel rooms.

31. Even if you could describe Posey’s man hugs as corny, homoerotic or genuinely uncomfortable (especially if you were sitting in the first few rows), they symbolized the closeness of that team. After the Hornets imported Posey for $25 million that summer, I watched Posey dole out man hugs for Chris Paul and David West; for the first time, I can say that I watched other men hug and felt wistful about it. It was like getting three fantastic dances from a stripper, feeling like you had a connection with her, then seeing her 45 minutes later grinding on the lap of some seedy 300- pound dude. The NBA: where questioning your sexuality happens!

32. This is from The Game, Dryden’s excellent account of his final season with the Montreal Canadiens, a team that played in something called the National Hockey League.

33. I felt the same way as I was frantically trying to finish this book with a deadline hanging over my head. Do you think Russell used cigarettes, booze, coffee, Pilates, and a $2,000 Relax the Back chair to repeatedly come through under stress en route to 11 titles? Or was that just me? It took me so long to finish this book that I actually started smoking again (just two or three per day when I was writing, for the nicotine rush) and quit smoking again, and the two events seemed like they happened 10 years apart.

34. Weird stats from that game: MJ/Pippen shot 15 for 43; Chicago missed 17 of 41 FTs; Rodman did nothing (22 minutes, 6 boards); and Indy shot 48% (Bulls: 38%). So how did the Bulls do it? They had 22 offensive rebounds, and 26 second-chance points, and they controlled the ball like a hockey team down the stretch—from the 7:13 mark to the 0:31 mark (when they clinched the game), they held the ball for 270 of a possible 402 seconds. And that includes 20–25 seconds of dead time when the clock kept running after they made baskets. Incredible game to rewatch.

35. Weird parallel: The best wrestlers are also held to this standard within their ranks. For instance, Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels are considered to be the best of their respective generations. Why? Because they sold the shit of their opponents. They could have a great match against anybody, even if it was someone with four moves like Hulk Hogan or Undertaker. Only three sports work this way: basketball, hockey and wrestling. That’s right, I just called pro wrestling a sport. You have a problem with that? Huh?

36. This should be a riveting sell on the talk-show and talk-radio circuit. I think I’m going to lie and pretend that there’s a chapter in here that definitively answers the questions “Did Jordan get suspended for gambling?” “Was the 1985 lottery fixed?” “Was Tim Donaghy acting alone?” “Did Kobe really do it?” and “Was Wilt Chamberlain’s 20,000 figure an elaborate way of covering up the fact that he was gay?” When they ask for more info, I’ll just say, “Look, you’ll have to read the book.” Then I’ll kill the rest of the time talking about how Barry wore a wig during the 1976 Playoffs. There’s no way in hell that Stephen Colbert won’t be riveted by that.

37. Kobe alert! Kobe alert!

38. Just like Isiah, he tried to pass The Secret on after his playing days and failed in Seattle and Sacramento. It’s never been explained why the same legends who embraced The Secret or at least understood it (Russell, MJ, Bird, Magic, Cousy, Baylor and McHale, to name seven) couldn’t apply that same secret to teams they were running. It’s like the opposite of VD—you can’t pass it along.

TWO
RUSSELL, THEN WILT

THE GREATEST DEBATE in NBA history wasn’t really a debate. I think this is strange. For instance, you might believe that the greatest television drama of all time was The Sopranos. I believe it’s The Wire. If we knew each other and this came up after a few drinks one night, I would refuse to talk about anything else until you conceded one of three things:

1. “You’re right, I am an idiot, the greatest television drama of all-time was The Wire.”

2. “I don’t know if you’re right, but I promise to plow through all sixty-five episodes of The Wire as fast as possible and then we can continue this debate.”

3. “You’re bothering me. I need to get away from you.”

Those would be the only three acceptable outcomes for me. Still, it’s a subjective opinion—I might believe The Wire can’t be approached, but ultimately I can’t prove it and can only argue my side. That’s it. But if we were arguing about the greatest debate in NBA history—Bill Russell or Wilt Chamberlain?—I can prove Russell was better. There’s a definitive answer that involves common sense, firsthand accounts, relevant statistics and the valuable opinions of teammates, fellow players, coaches, and educated writers who watched them battle for ten straight seasons.¹

You know what it’s like, actually? Writing about O. J. Simpson’s murder trial. A few days after the Goldman-Brown killings, when the Juice made his aborted attempt to flee to Mexico, an overwhelming majority of Americans assumed he was guilty. His criminal trial started and we learned about a pattern of corruption and racism within the L.A. Police Department. We discovered that much of the blood evidence was mishandled. We watched the overwhelmed prosecution team unforgivably botch its case. But none of it mattered because this guy had to be guilty. After all, his blood dripped all over the crime scene, he didn’t have an alibi during the time of the murders, he had a mysterious cut on his left middle finger that matched the drips of blood from someone who fled the crime scene, he had a history of threatening and beating his wife, there were no other suspects, and it seemed proposterous that so many inept policemen and forensic scientists could collaboratively conspire to frame someone on such short notice.²

Smartly, if not reprehensibly, the defense team battered the race card home—that was their only chance to get a guilty person acquitted, even if it meant splintering the country and damaging the relationship between blacks and whites in the process—and lucked out because many of the dense jurors couldn’t understood the damaging DNA evidence in the pre-CSI era. To everyone’s disbelief, O. J. Simpson walked. Facing more competent attorneys and a lesser level of proof one year later, the Juice was pulped in a civil trial and ordered to pay the Goldman/Brown families $30 million in punitive damages. Fifteen years later, even though we haven’t convicted anyone for the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman—shit, we haven’t even found a potential suspect—more and more Americans believe Simpson was innocent or not conclusively guilty. Give it another fifteen years and even more will believe he was framed. By the year 2035, nobody under forty will remember the details, just that O.J. walked and that maybe, just maybe, that meant he was innocent. None of this changes the fact that O.J. either killed two people himself or was “involved” with the dirty deed in some other way. It’s impossible to come up with any other reasonable conclusion. Unless you’re insane.

Same goes for the Russell-Chamberlain debate. Wilt was more talented; Russ gave his teams a better chance to win. Wilt had a greater statistical impact; Russ had a greater impact on his teammates. Wilt peaked in the regular season; Russ peaked in the playoffs. Wilt shrank from the clutch; Russ thrived in the clutch. Wilt lost nearly every big game; Russ won nearly every big game. Wilt averaged 50 points for one season; Russell was voted Most Valuable Player by his peers that same season. Wilt was traded twice in his career; Russ never would have been traded in a million years. Wilt was obsessed with statistics; Russ was obsessed with winning. Wilt cared about what fans, writers, and critics thought; Russ only cared what his teammates thought. Wilt never won a title in high school or college and won only two as a pro; Russ won two in college and eleven in the NBA. Wilt ignored The Secret; Russell embraced it. I shouldn’t have to waste an entire chapter on them for two indisputable reasons: Russell’s teams always beat Chamberlain’s teams, and Wilt was traded twice. Right there, it’s over. And really, it was over when Russell retired in 1969 as the greatest basketball player ever.

But a few years passed, and then a few more, and then a few more. Chamberlain’s numbers started to look more and more implausible. The “debate” heated up again. Now I have to waste a whole chapter debunking the six most common myths of the Chamberlain-Russell debate. So here we go.

MYTH NO. 1:
RUSSELL HAD A BETTER SUPPORTING
CAST THAN WILT

There isn’t a simpler team sport to understand than basketball: if two quality opponents play a seven-game series, the dominant player should prevail as long as the talent level on both sides is relatively equal. We have sixty years of hard-core evidence to back this up. The ’84 Celtics were dead even with the ’84 Lakers, but Bird played better than Magic in the Finals. The ’93 Suns were better than the ’93 Bulls, but Jordan played out of his mind. Moses Malone was the dominant player in the ’81 Finals, but Houston’s collective talent couldn’t handle Boston’s collective talent. This isn’t rocket science. Since the 1976 merger, only one Finals result still doesn’t make sense on paper: when the ’04 Pistons soundly defeated a more talented (but quietly imploding) Lakers team,³ a wake-up call for a league that had been slowly gravitating toward lower-scoring games, fewer possessions, swarming, physical defenses and a much slower pace. As long as the talent level between two teams is relatively equal, the team with the best player should win. So the supporting-cast card works with Russell and Wilt only if we prove that the talent disparity was not relatively equal. Right off the bat, it’s almost impossible because the NBA didn’t expand to ten teams until 1967, giving everyone a good supporting cast (even the crummy teams). People seem to think Russell played with only Hall of Famers and poor Wilt was stuck carrying a bunch of beer-bellied bums; not only is that erroneous, but it would have been impossible given the numbers. Imagine the current NBA if you removed every foreign player, chopped the number of black players in half, then cut the number of teams from thirty to eight. Would every team end up with three All-Stars and four or five solid role players at worst? Of course. Welcome to the NBA from 1956 to 1966.

(Warning: If I just wrote, “Wilt’s teammates were better than you think and Russell’s teammates weren’t as great as you think,” you wouldn’t believe me, so we’re covering each season in painstaking detail the way Barry Scheck clinically took apart the DNA evidence in the O.J. trial, and if we kill a few thousand trees in the process, so be it. To keep you entertained, I loaded the bottom of the pages with dumb footnotes.)

Here’s how the seasons shook out after Russell entered the league:

1957. Russell joins Boston mid-January after banging out military duty,⁴ then the Celts squeak by Philly (featuring Hall of Famers Paul Arizin and Neil Johnston) in the Playoffs and meet St. Louis in the Finals. Boston has two stud guards in their prime (Bill Sharman and ’57 MVP Bob Cousy) and three terrific rookies (Russell, Heinsohn, and Frank Ramsey), while St. Louis has Bob Pettit (two-time MVP), Macauley (Hall of Famer) and Slater Martin⁵ (Hall of Famer, second-team All-NBA that season), as well as Charlie Share, Jack Coleman and Jack McMahon (three highly regarded role players). Since Boston won Game 7 in double OT,⁶ it’s safe to say these two teams were equally talented.

1958. The Hawks exact revenge thanks to up-and-comer Cliff Hagan (second-team All-NBA, Hall of Famer) and Russell’s badly sprained ankle.⁷ Again, even talent on both sides.

1959. Boston starts to pull away: three All-NBA first-teamers (Russell, Cousy, and Sharman), two promising guards (Sam and KC Jones), the best sixth man (Ramsey) and one of the best scoring forwards (Heinsohn). Even then, they needed seven games to get past Syracuse (led by NBA Top 50 members Dolph Schayes and Hal Greer) before easily sweeping Elgin and the Lakers. Through three years and two titles, Russell and the Celtics had the most talent exactly once.

1960. Boston handles Philly in six and needs seven to defeat a Hawks team with four Hall of Famers (including newcomer Lenny Wilkens). Meanwhile, Wilt wins the MVP as a rookie playing with Arizin (ten straight All-Stars), Tom Gola (five straight All-Stars, Hall of Famer), Guy Rodgers⁸ (four All-Stars) and Woody Sauldsberry (’58 Rookie of the Year, ’59 All-Star). Boston had more firepower, but not by much. Wilt wasn’t exactly stuck playing with Eric Snow, Drew Gooden, Sasha Pavlovic, Larry Hughes, and Turdo Sandowich like 2007 LeBron.

1961. We’re kicking off a two-year stretch for the most loaded NBA team ever: Boston easily handles Syracuse and St. Louis for title number four. Meanwhile, Philly gets swept by a weaker Nats team in the first round, leading to Wilt throwing his first coach under the bus after the season (a recurring theme).⁹

1962. Still loaded to the gills, Boston needs seven games to defeat Wilt’s Sixers and an OT Game 7 in the Finals to defeat Baylor, Jerry West and the Lakers. I’m telling you, everyone had a good team back then.¹⁰

1963. The first sign of trouble: Sharman retires, Cousy and Ramsey are slipping, and rookie John Havlicek isn’t Hondo yet. Boston needs seven games to hold off Cincy (led by Hall of Famers Oscar Robertson, Jack Twyman, and Wayne Embry) and another six to beat the Lakers.¹¹ Meanwhile, Philly moves to San Fran, finishes 31–49 and misses the playoffs with Wilt, Rodgers, Tom Meschery (an All-Star), Al Attles (KC Jones’ equal as a defensive stopper) and Willie Naulls (four-time All-Star). But hey, if they’d won more games, maybe Wilt wouldn’t have averaged 44.8 points that season.¹²

1964. Cousy retires and no Celtic makes first-team All-NBA, but that doesn’t stop Boston from beating a stacked Cincy team (led by Oscar and rookie of the year Jerry Lucas) and easily handling Wilt’s Warriors in the Finals (the same group as the ’63 Sixers, only with future Hall of Famer Nate Thurmond aboard). Boston won without a point guard or power forward this season—other than Russell, they didn’t have a top-twenty rebounder or anyone average more than 5 assists—but we’ll give them a check mark in the “most talent” department for the last time in the Russell era.¹³

1965. Ramsey retires and Heinsohn fades noticeably in his final season. Undaunted, the Celts finish with their best record of the Russell era (62–18) and smoke L.A. in the Finals thanks to their Big Three (Russell, Havlicek, and Sam Jones) and a bunch of role players (including a monster year from Satch Sanders). As for the Warriors, they self-destruct and lose seventeen in a row, eventually trading Wilt for 30 cents on the dollar to Philly midway through the season.¹⁴ For the first time, Wilt’s team matches Boston’s talent with shooting guard Hal Greer (ten straight All-Star games), Lucious Jackson (an All-Star power forward who finished eighth in rebounding that season), swingman Chet Walker (seven-time All-Star), point guard Larry Costello (six-time All-Star) and two quality role players (Dave Gambee and Johnny Kerr). That’s why the Sixers-Celtics series comes down to the final play of Game 7 at the Garden, with Havlicek stealing the inbounds pass as Johnny Most screams, “Havlicek stole the ball! Havlicek stole the ball!”

1966. Heinsohn coughs up a fifteen-pound oyster and retires, KC Jones is fading fast, and the Celts are forced to rely on aging veterans (Naulls and Mel Counts)¹⁵ and castoffs from other teams (Don Nelson and Larry Siegfried) to help the Big Three in Auerbach’s final season. For the first time with Russell, they don’t finish with the league’s best record as Philly edges them (55 wins to 54). As usual, it doesn’t matter—Boston beats Philly in five and wins Game 7 of the Finals against L.A. by two points. Philly had more talent this season. On paper, anyway.

1967. KC retires, another veteran castoff comes aboard (future Hall of Famer Bailey Howell), and Russell struggles mightily to handle the first year of his player-coach duties.¹⁶ From day one, it’s Philly’s year: given an extra boost by rookie Billy Cunningham and Wilt’s sudden revelation that he doesn’t need to score to help his team win (more on this in a second), the Sixers roll to their famous 68-win season, topple the Celtics in five, and beat the Warriors in six for Wilt’s first title. This was the perfect storm for Wilt—his strongest possible team against Boston’s weakest possible team.

1968. Wilt leads the league in assists. And Philly finishes eight games better than the Celtics. The aging Celts rally from a 3–1 deficit in the Eastern Finals to advance, then beat a really good Lakers team for Russell’s tenth title. After the season, Philly trades Wilt to L.A. for 40 cents on the dollar.¹⁷

1969. With Russell and Jones running on fumes, everyone writes the Celtics off after they finish fourth in the East. In the first round, they beat a favored Sixers team in five. In the second round, they beat a favored Knicks team in six—the same group that wins the 1970 title and gets blown for the next twenty-five years by the New York media as the Greatest Team Ever. In the Finals, as 9-to-5 underdogs to Baylor, West, Wilt, and the Lakers, they rally back from a 3–1 deficit and win Game 7 in Los Angeles.

    So here’s the final tally: Over a ten-year span, Russell’s teams clearly had more talent than Wilt’s teams for four seasons (’61, ’62, ’63, and ’64) and a slight edge in Wilt’s first season (1960). In ’65, Philly and Boston were a wash. From ’66 through ’69, Wilt played for stronger teams, making the final record 5–4–1, Russell. For six of those ten seasons, you could have described the talent disparity as “equal” or “relatively equal.” After Russell retired that summer, the ’70 Lakers lost the famous Willis Reed game in Game 7 of the Finals; the ’71 Lakers suffered a season-ending injury to Jerry West and lost to the eventual champions, the Bucks; the ’72 Lakers won 69 games and cruised to Wilt’s second title; and the ’73 Lakers lost a Finals rematch to the Knicks. Wilt retired after a ten-year stretch in which he played in the 1964 Finals and lost, then played for teams talented enough to win a championship every single year for the next nine. So much for Russell being blessed with a better supporting cast than Chamberlain. If there’s a legitimate gripe on Wilt’s behalf, it’s that Russell was lucky enough to have Auerbach coaching him for ten years. Then again, Red is on record saying he never could have coached a prima donna like Wilt. Also, if you’re scoring at home: Russell played with four members of the NBA’s Top 50 at 50 (Havlicek, Cousy, Sharman and Sam Jones); Wilt played with six members (Baylor, West, Greer, Cunningham, Arizin, and Thurmond). And Russell’s teammates from 1957 to 1969 were selected to twenty-six All-Star games, while Wilt’s teammates from 1960 to 1973 were selected to twenty-four. Let’s never mention the supporting-cast card again with Russell and Chamberlain. Thank you.

MYTH NO. 2:
RUSSELL WASN’T A VERY GOOD OFFENSIVE PLAYER

Here’s where history treated Russell unfairly. We glorify the unselfish passing of the ’70 Knicks, Wes Unseld’s one-of-a-kind outlets and Walton’s altruistic play on the ’77 Blazers, yet Johnny Kerr was the league’s first great passing center and Russell came next. Remember how Portland’s offense revolved around Walton’s passing in ’77?¹⁸ The Celtics ran every half-court play through Russell after Cousy retired because they lacked a true point guard or a Jordan-like scorer. When you watch Russ on tape, his passing jumps out nearly as much as his defense—not just his knack for finding cutters for lay-ups, but how easily he found streaking guards for easy fast breaks directly off blocks or rebounds. Here’s what Havlicek wrote in his imaginatively titled 1977 autobiography, Hondo, about the first post-Russell season: “You couldn’t begin to count the ways we missed [him]. People think about him in terms of defense and rebounding, but he had been the key to our offense. He made the best pass more than anyone I have ever played with. That mattered to people like Nelson, Howell, Siegfried, Sanders and myself. None of us were one on one players…. Russell made us better offensive players. His ability as a passer, pick-setter, and general surmiser of offense has always been overlooked.”

So why doesn’t Russell get credit for his passing? BECAUSE WALTON WAS WHITE AND RUSSELL WAS BLACK! Just kidding; I was doing a Stephen A. Smith impersonation.¹⁹ Actually, Russell doesn’t get credit for the same reason that everyone thinks he played with eight Hall of Famers every year for thirteen seasons, or that his teams were always more talented than Wilt’s teams: because people don’t know any better, and because it’s easier to regurgitate something you heard than to look it up. Four things stand out when watching Russell on tape: his passing (superb), his shot blocking (unparalleled), his speed getting down the court (breathtaking), and his unexpected talent for grabbing a rebound, taking off with it, and running the fast break like a point guard (has to be seen to be believed). Russell was like a left-handed, infinitely more cerebral Dennis Rodman, only if Rodman had Walton’s passing talent, David Robinson’s athletic ability and Michael Jordan’s maniacal drive, and if Rodman could block shots like Josh Smith unleashed on the WNBA for an entire season.

(Would you have enjoyed playing with such a player? I thought so.)

MYTH NO. 3: STATISTICALLY, WILT CRUSHED RUSSELL

Wilt’s first nine offensive seasons were unlike anything that’s happened before or since. He averaged 37.6 points and 27.6 rebounds as a rookie, then 38.4 and 27.2; 50.4 and 25.7; 44.8 and 24.3; 36.9 and 22.3; 34.7 and 22.9; 33.5, 24.6 and 5.3 assists in ’66; 24.1, 24.2 and 7.8 with a record 68.3% FG shooting in ’67; and 24.3, 23.8 and a league-leading 8.6 assists in ’68. For his career, he averaged 30.1 points, 22.9 rebounds and 4.4 assists in the regular season. On paper, it’s staggering.²⁰ Russell’s career offensive numbers can’t compare except for rebounds—he averaged 15.1 points, 22.5 boards and 4.3 assists per game, peaking in 1960 (18.2 points, 24.0 rebounds) and 1964 (15.0 points, 24.7 rebounds and 4.7 assists). In their head-to-head matchups, Wilt handed it to Russ statistically, although Auerbach and the old Celtics swear that Russ played possum for three quarters, allowed Wilt to accumulate stats and then smothered him in the fourth; he’d also relax during blowouts and allow meaningless numbers that didn’t matter (knowing that Wilt was obsessed with stats). Russell played 911 games in the last ten years of his career, with an astounding 142 of them coming against Wilt (15.6 percent) in a tiny league. By all accounts, Russ pulled a perpetual rope-a-dope against Wilt along the lines of Ali in Zaire, when Ali allowed Foreman to punch himself out, then finished him off later in the fight. Russ saved most of his anti-Wilt tricks for big games and big moments.

Here are their head-to-head stats in 142 games (including playoffs):

Wilt: 28.7 points, 28.7 rebounds
Russ: 14.5 points, 23.7 rebounds

At this point, you’re thinking, “Come on, Simmons, this is crazy. You have no case.” Well, here are some more stats for you:

Wilt’s record against Russell: 58–84
Russ’s record against Wilt: 84–58

Hold on, we’re just getting started. Check out their playoff numbers.

Wilt: 160 games, 22.5 points, 24.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 47% FT, 52% FG
Russ: 165 games, 16.2 points, 24.9 rebounds, 4.7 assists, 60% FT, 43% FG

Hmmmmmmm. Russell’s numbers jumped and Wilt’s numbers dipped dramatically when there was money on the line, even though Wilt was routinely his team’s number one scoring option and Russ was number four or five. Sure, Wilt averaged three more baskets a game, but everything else was even and Russell happened to be a superior defensive player, teammate, basketball thinker and crunch-time guy. Which is how we end up with the following statistics:

Wilt’s record for the Conference Finals and NBA Finals: 48–44
Russ’s record for the Conference Finals and NBA Finals: 90–53

And these:

Wilt’s record in Game 7’s: 4–5
Russ’s record in Game 7’s: 10–0

And these:

Wilt’s record in elimination games for his team: 10–11
Russ’s record in elimination games for his team: 16–2

And these:

Wilt: 2 championships
Russ: 11 championships²¹

So yeah, by any statistical calculation, Wilt Chamberlain was the greatest regular season player in NBA history. I concede this fact. For the playoffs? Not so great.

And then there’s this: since the Celtics didn’t need his scoring, Russell spent his energies protecting the rim, helping out defensively, controlling the boards, getting good shots for teammates and filling the lanes on fast breaks. In the process, he became the most dominant defensive player ever—nobody comes close, actually—and it’s statistically impossible to calculate his effect on that end.²² Russell routinely swallowed up the extended area near the rim, handling all penetrators and displaying a remarkable knack for keeping blocks in play. Whereas Wilt famously swatted shots like volleyball spikes for dramatic effect, Russell deflected blocks to teammates for instant fast breaks; not only did those blocks result in four-point swings, but Auerbach’s Celtics were built on those four-point swings. That’s how they went on scoring spurts, that’s what stands out every time you watch those teams, and that’s why they kept winning and winning—they had the perfect center to launch fast breaks and the perfect supporting cast to execute them. Opponents eventually gave up challenging Russell and settled for outside shots, which doesn’t sound like a big deal except this was a notoriously poor era for outside shooting.²³ So Russell affected every possession even without swatting shots, almost like a bouncer at a rowdy bar who kicks ass for a few weeks and eventually lowers the fight rate to zero just by showing up. If that weren’t enough, Boston’s scorers famously saved their energies on defense because they had Russell lurking behind them to cover every mistake, so offense-first guys like Cousy, Sharman, Heinsohn and Sam Jones found themselves in the dream situation of worrying about scoring and that’s it.

Can you capture that impact statistically? Of course not. It’s impossible. They didn’t start keeping track of blocks until 1973, so there’s no quantitative way to prove Russell’s dominance on the defensive end; it’s like trying to measure Chamberlain’s offense dominance if nobody kept track of individual points, so we were forced to rely on stories from writers, teammates, and opponents, like, “There was this one game in Hershey, Pennsylvania, when Wilt really had it going against the Knicks. I swear, he musta had 100 points!”²⁴ Wilt matched Russell’s rebounding numbers and probably blocked more shots than any non-Russell center, but his defense couldn’t compare for two reasons. First, he wasn’t a natural jumper like Russell, someone who sprang up at a moment’s notice and jumped multiple times on the same play. (Since Wilt was carrying more weight, he was forced to set his feet, bend his knees and then jump, almost like someone leaping over a moving car. Many opponents learned to time those jumps and float shots over his considerable reach.²⁵ You didn’t have the luxury of timing anything with Russell.) Second, Wilt was continually obsessed with a bizarre streak—for whatever reason, he wanted to make it through his entire basketball career without fouling out, so he’d stop challenging shots with four or five fouls even if he was hurting his team in the process. I’m not making this up.

(Seriously, I’m not making this up.)

(Wait, you don’t believe me? Here’s what John Havlicek wrote in Hondo: “Wilt’s greatest idiosyncrasy was not fouling out. He had never fouled out of a high school, college or professional game and that was the one record he was determined to protect. When he got that fourth foul, his game would change. I don’t know how many potential victories he may have cheated his team out of by not really playing after he got into foul trouble.”)²⁶

Translation: Wilt cared about statistics more than winning. If they kept track of blocks in the sixties, the Dipper would have become obsessed with those numbers (especially as they compared to Russell), dumped the never-fouled-out streak and inadvertently turned into a dominant defensive player, almost by accident, possibly someone who won five or six titles instead of two. But there was no statistical rush from defense. So Wilt settled on raking up offensive numbers, spiking blocked shots like volley-balls and pursuing his inane streak of never fouling out. It wasn’t until the ’66–’67 season that Wilt realized his teams were better off if he concentrated on rebounding, passing and defense. Here’s how he described that epiphany in his autobiography, Wilt: Just Like Any Other 7-Foot Black Millionaire Who Lives Next Door (now that’s a title!):²⁷

I was 30 years old when the ’66–’67 season began, and I was maturing as a man, and learning that it was essential to keep my teammates happy if I wanted my team to win.

[As far as epiphanies go, that ranks somewhere between Pete Rose admitting that he had a gambling problem and John Holmes glancing down at his fourteen-inch schlong and realizing he needed to try porn. Better late than never, I guess.]

I not only began passing off more and scoring less, I also made a point of singling my teammates out for praise—publicly and privately.

[Wow! What a sacrifice! What a guy! So wait … if you’re trying to win basketball games, it’s a good idea to be unselfish and to act like a good teammate instead of hogging the ball and blaming everyone else when you lose? Are we sure? Do we have confirmation on this?]

I realize now that this is the kind of thing that helped make O. J. Simpson’s teams at USC and Bill Walton’s teams at UCLA so successful. The same is true of Joe Namath and the Jets.

[Um … Wilt? The same was true for Bill Russell—you know, number 6 on the Celtics, the team that knocked you out of the playoffs every spring?]

O.J. and Bill and Joe always praise their teammates. They remember the name of every key guy who throws a key block or makes a good assist or a good defensive play, and they tell the player—and the press—all about it. That can’t help but make the player try even harder the next time, instead of maybe letting down, subconsciously, because he’s tired of being ignored and hearing how great you are all the time.²⁸

[I don’t know, Wilt—this sounds too crazy. I thought basketball was an individual sport. They don’t keep stats for praising your teammates. I think you’re wrong.]

I was just learning this lesson in 1966, and it was reflected in my statistics.

[“Granted, I threw away the first seven years of my career and everyone hated playing with me, but you have to hand it to me—I did learn the lesson.”]

Instead of me averaging 40 points a game, we had a great scoring balance. Hal Greer averaged 22.1, Chet averaged 19.3, and Billy averaged 18.5. Luke Jackson and Wali Jones also averaged in double figures. That’s the kind of balance Boston always had.

[The Celtics won the title every year for Wilt’s first seven years in the league. Only in 1967 did it occur to him that his teams should start emulating what worked for the best teams? Yeesh. Nobody ever said Wilt was a brain surgeon.]²⁹

After he embraced “unselfishness” and won his first title, in classic Wilt fashion, he lost interest in winning and became obsessed with his assist numbers. Suddenly Wilt was passing up easy shots to set up teammates, checking the scorer’s table multiple times per game, complaining if he felt like he hadn’t been credited for a specific assist, lambasting teammates for blowing his passes and taking an inordinate amount of delight in leading the league in ’68 (a record he bragged about more than any other).³⁰ As with anything else he did, Wilt failed to strike the right balance and settled into a bad habit of being too unselfish, taking only two shots in the second half of Game 7 against Boston while his teammates floundered around him. The heavily favored ’68 Sixers blew a 3–1 lead and choked in Game 7 at home, but as Wilt pointed out in his book, “Hal hit only eight of 25 shots. Wali hit eight of 22. Matty hit two of ten, Chet hit eight of 22. Those four guys took most of our shots and hit less than a third of them. But I got the blame.”

So much for the lessons of Walton, Namath and Simpson. What did we learn about Russell, Chamberlain, and statistics? Well, Wilt’s teams revolved around his offense and Russell’s teams revolved around his defense. Wilt coexisted with his teammates; Russell made his teammates better. Wilt had to make a concerted effort to play unselfishly and act like a decent teammate; Russell’s very existence was predicated on unselfishness and team play. In the end, Russell’s teams won championships and Wilt’s teams lost them.

Russell 11, Chamberlain 2. Those are the only two numbers that matter.³¹

MYTH NO. 4:
WILT WAS A GREAT GUY

Was Wilt a great guy to approach in the airport? Absolutely. Was he great to interview for a magazine or a talk show? You betcha. Did the people who knew him have great stories about him? No question. Was he generous with his money? Of course. If you were a stewardess, was this someone you would have wanted to blow under an airplane blanket? Apparently, yes. For such a good guy, it’s bizarre that Wilt sucked so much as a teammate. He just didn’t grasp the concept. For the first six years of his career, he hogged the ball, became infatuated with scoring records and demanded to be treated differently than his teammates. When things finally fell apart on the ’65 Warriors, legendary L.A. Times columnist Jim Murray wrote, “[Wilt] can do one thing well—score. He turns his own team into a congress of butlers whose principal function is to get him the ball under a basket. Their skills atrophy, their desires wane. Crack players like Willie Naulls get on the Warriors and they start dropping notes out of the window or in bottles which they cast adrift. They contain one word: ‘help.’”³² Even when Wilt played more unselfishly and copied Russell’s game, he couldn’t maintain it for more than a year and became smitten with assists. He openly clashed with every coach except two—Frank McGuire (who let him shoot as much as he wanted, leading to the 100-point game) and Alex Hannum (and only because Hannum challenged him to a fight to get him to listen).³³ He blamed teammates and coaches after losses, feuded with teammates who could have helped him (most famously, Elgin during the ’69 season) and demeaned opposing players to the press to make himself look better. He had a nasty habit of distracting his own team at the worst possible times—like the ’66 Eastern Finals against Boston, when Sports Illustrated released a controversial Chamberlain feature before Game 5 in which he ripped coach Dolph Schayes and destroyed the morale of his team.³⁴

Some believe that Wilt achieved too much too soon, that he never understood the concept of teamwork because he’d been the center of attention (literally) since he was in high school. In his Chamberlain-Russell book The Rivalry, John Taylor writes that Auerbach believed Warriors owner Eddie Gottlieb “spoiled Wilt something fierce. A lot of times, Wilt didn’t even travel with his teammates. He was out of control. Auerbach doubted that he himself would have been able to coach Wilt…. Wilt spent that year with the Globetrotters, tasted the big money and stardom, and he began thinking that he was more important than his coach or teammates. Goty, afraid of losing the big draw, let him get away with it. Chamberlain had become convinced that people came to games in order to see him and that, therefore, the point of every game was to give him an opportunity to play the star. There was a certain box office logic to this thinking, but it made Chamberlain uncoachable, in Auerbach’s view, and as long as he was uncoachable, any team he played on would never become a real winner.”³⁵

If you’re wondering how Wilt was regarded around the league, here’s the ultimate story: When San Fran shopped him in ’65, the Lakers were intrigued enough that owner Bob Short asked his players to vote on whether or not he should purchase Chamberlain’s contract. The results of the vote? Nine to two … against.

Nine to two against!

How could anyone still think this was the greatest basketball player ever? In the absolute prime of his career, a playoff contender that had lost consecutive Finals and didn’t have an answer for Russell had the chance to acquire Wilt for nothing … and the players voted against it!³⁶ Would they have voted against a Russell trade? Seriously, would they have voted against a Russell trade in a million years?

(Note: if this were the O.J. trial, that last paragraph would be the equivalent of O.J. trying on the bloody glove.)

MYTH NO. 5:
A COUPLE PLAYS HERE AND THERE
AND WILT COULD HAVE WON JUST AS MANY
TITLES AS RUSSELL

Nearly every NBA champ had a pivotal playoff moment where they needed a big play and got it, but that doesn’t stop Wilt’s defenders from ignoring this reality and making excuses for every one of his near-misses: the ’60 Eastern Finals (Wilt injured his right hand throwing a punch in Game 4); Game 7 of the ’62 Eastern Finals (a controversial goaltending call proved the difference); Game 7 of the ’65 Eastern Finals (Russell nearly wore goat horns³⁷ before Havlicek saved him); Game 1 of the ’68 Eastern Finals (right after Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, when Sixers coach Alex Hannum never had his team vote on whether or not they should play, allegedly killing the morale of the team, even though they won Games 2, 3, and 4); Game 7 in ’68 (when Wilt’s supporting cast went cold); Game 7 of the ’69 Finals (when Wilt “injured” his knee in crunch time); and Game 7 of the ’70 Finals (when Willis Reed’s reappearance ignited the MSG crowd and Walt Frazier destroyed West). That’s all fine. Just know that Wilt’s teams sucked in the clutch because Wilt sucked in the clutch. The fear of losing overwhelmed him in big games. Terrified of getting fouled because of his dreadful free throw shooting, he played hot potato or settled for his patented fall-away (the one that landed him fifteen feet from the basket and away from rebounds), and he didn’t want to foul anyone if he had four or five fouls because, you know, it would have interfered with his laughable no-fouling-out streak. That made him nearly useless in close games, like a more tortured version of Shaq from 2002 to 2007, only if Shaq was afraid to foul anyone and had a persecution complex.³⁸

Here’s what NBA great Rick Barry wrote about Wilt in his autobiography, Confessions of a Basketball Gypsy, which has the worst cover in the history of sports books:³⁹

I’ll say what most players feel, which is that Wilt is a loser…. He is terrible in big games. He knows he is going to lose and be blamed for the loss, so he dreads it, and you can see it in his eyes; and anyone who has ever played with him will agree with me, regardless of whether they would admit it publicly. When it comes down to the closing minutes of a tough game, an important game, he doesn’t want the ball, he doesn’t want any part of the pressure. It is at these times that greatness is determined, and Wilt doesn’t have it. There is no way you can compare him to a pro like a Bill Russell or a Jerry West … these are clutch competitors.

Holy smokes! Some harsh words from a guy who wore a wig for an entire NBA season four years later. But let’s examine those Game 7’s in ’68, ’69, and ’70 again. In the first one, Wilt took two shots after halftime and steadfastly kept passing to his ice-cold teammates, then blamed them afterward because they couldn’t make a shot. In the second one, Wilt banged his knee and asked out of the game with five minutes to play, enraging coach Butch van Breda Kolff (who refused to put him back in, even if it meant costing the Lakers the title) and Russell (who uncharacteristically slammed Wilt that summer, launching a feud that lasted nearly twenty-five years). In the third one, Willis famously limped out and drained those first two jumpers, only it never occurred to Chamberlain, “Wait, I have a one-legged guy guarding me, maybe I should destroy him offensively!”⁴⁰ He just didn’t get it. Wilt never understood how to win; if anything, losing fit his personality better. Here’s how Bill Bradley described Wilt in Life on the Run:

Wilt played the game as if he had to prove his worth to someone who had never seen basketball. He pointed to his statistical achievements as specific measurements of his ability, and they were; but to someone who knows basketball they are, if not irrelevant, certainly nonessential. The point of the game is not how well the individual does but whether the team wins. That is the beautiful heart of the game, the blending of personalities, the mutual sacrifices for group success…. I have the impression that Wilt might have been more secure with losing. In defeat, after carefully covering himself with allusions to his accomplishments, he could be magnanimous…. Wilt’s emphasis on individual accomplishments failed to gain him public affection and made him the favorite to win the game. And, simultaneously, it assured him of losing.⁴¹

Here’s another way to look at it: nobody has any clutch stories about Wilt Chamberlain. If they existed, I’d pass some of them along. His three finest moments were probably Game 7 against the ’65 Celts, when Wilt was magnificent in defeat with 30 points and 32 rebounds; the clinching game of the ’67 Boston-Philly series, when he ripped Boston apart with a ridiculous triple double (29 points, 36 rebounds, 13 assists); and the clinching Game 5 of the ’72 Finals, when he destroyed an undersized Knicks team with a near-quadruple double (24–29–9 and 8 blocks). He’s the same man who once explained to Sport magazine, “In a way, I like it better when we lose. It’s over and I can look forward to the next game. If we win, it builds up the tension and I start worrying about the next game.” Would Russell have ever said something like that? What do you think? Here were some of the famous clutch Russell games:⁴²

Game 7, 1957 Finals. As a rookie, Russell notches a 19–32 and makes what everyone agrees was the most phenomenal play of his career—scoring a game-tying basket near the end of regulation that carried him into the stands, regrouping and somehow chasing down Jack Coleman from behind and blocking Coleman’s game-clinching layup. This whole sequence ranks incredibly high on the I Wish We Always Had TV Coverage for Sports scale.

Game 7, 1960 Finals. Russell scores 22 points and grabs 35 rebounds in a blowout of the Hawks. Ho-hum.

Game 7, 1962 Eastern Finals. In the year Wilt averaged 50 a game, Russell holds him to 22 in Game 7 (and scores 19 himself).

Game 7, 1962 Finals. Russell scores 30 points, makes 14 of 17 free throws and grabs an NBA Playoffs record 44 rebounds in an overtime win over the Lakers (the Frank Selvy game). Everyone agrees this was the definitive Russell game—near the end of regulation, every forward on Boston’s roster fouled out (Heinsohn, Sanders and Loscutoff), so Russell had to protect the basket and handle the boards by himself. Unbelievable: 30 points and 44 rebounds?

Game 7, 1965 Eastern Finals. Although Havlicek saved him from goat horns, Russell submitted a near triple double (15 points, 29 rebounds and 9 assists) that nearly would have been a quadruple double if they’d kept track of blocks back then.⁴³

Game 7, 1966 Finals. Celts beat L.A. by two, Russell notches 25 points, 32 rebounds and God knows how many blocks.

Game 7, 1968 Eastern Finals. Russell scores 12 but holds Wilt to 14 … and for good measure, he coached the winning team.

Looking back, Wilt had five chances to knock Russell out of the playoffs in ’68 and ’69 with a superior team—including two Game 7’s at home—and only needed to submit one monster performance to pull it off. Each time, he couldn’t do it. Each time, Russell’s inferior team prevailed. Each time, Wilt whined about it afterward. If Jerry West was Mr. Clutch, then Wilt was Mr. Crutch.

MYTH NO. 6:
PLAYERS AND COACHES FROM THE ERA ARE
SPLIT OVER WHO WAS A GREATER PLAYER

You have to believe me: I read every NBA book possible to prepare to write this one. No stone was left unturned—during the summers of ’07 and ’08 I spent more time on www.abebooks.com than Abe did. While poring over these books, I searched for insight on the Russell-Chamberlain debate and kept a tally of every player, coach and media member willing to go on the record. (You can see a complete list of those books at the end of this one.) And I’m not sure what was more amazing—how many of them praised Russell, or how many of them crushed Wilt (including people who played with him and coached him). Since we could fill this entire book with quotes from people praising Russell’s unselfishness, competitiveness and clutchness, let’s narrow it down to six Wilt-related quotes that explain everything:

Butch van Breda Kolff (in Tall Tales): “The difference between Russell and Wilt was this: Russell would ask, ‘What do I need to do to make my teammates better?’ Then he’d do it. Wilt honestly thought the best way for his team to win was for him to be in the best possible setting. He’d ask, ‘What’s the best situation for me?’”⁴⁴

    Jerry West (in Goliath): “I don’t want to rap Wilt because I believe only Russell was better, and I really respect what Wilt did. But I have to say he wouldn’t adjust to you, you had to adjust to him.”

    Jerry Lucas (in Tall Tales): “Wilt was too consumed with records: being the first to lead the league in assists, or to set a record for field goal percentage. He’d accomplish one goal, then go on to another. Russell only asked one question: ‘What can I do to make us win?’”⁴⁵

    Jack Kiser (in Goliath): “Russell pulled the con job of the century on Chamberlain. He welcomed Wilt to the league. He played father-figure. He told him, man, you’re going to better all my records, but you have things to learn and I’m going to teach you because I admire you.⁴⁶ He made friends with him. He got Wilt to the point where Wilt worried about making him look bad…. Wilt hated to lose, but he liked Bill so much that he didn’t like losing to him. Wilt could destroy Russell when he was inspired. But he held back just enough to get beat. He tried to win over Russell, but he wasn’t driven like he was against guys he disliked. I might point out Russell never said a bad word about Wilt until the night he retired and he hasn’t stopped rapping him since.”

    Bill Russell (in Second Wind): “It did seem to me that [Wilt] was often ambivalent about what he wanted to get out of basketball. Anyone who changes the character and style of his play several times over a career is bound to be uncertain about which of the many potential accomplishments he wants to pursue. It’s perfectly possible for a player not to make victory his first priority against all the others—money, records, personal fame, and an undivided claim to his achievements—and I often felt Wilt made some deliberate choices in his ambitions.”

    Wilt Chamberlain (in Wilt): “To Bill [Russell], every game—every championship game—was a challenge, a test to his manhood. He took the game so seriously that he threw up in the locker room before almost every game. But I tend to look at basketball as a game, not a life or death struggle. I don’t need scoring titles or NBA championships to prove that I’m a man. There are too many other beautiful things in life—food, cars, girls, friends, the beach, freedom—to get that emotionally wrapped up in basketball.⁴⁷I think Bill knew I felt that way, and I think he both envied and resented my attitude. On the one hand, I think he wished he could learn to take things easier, too; on the other hand, I think he may have felt that with my natural ability and willingness to work hard, my teams could have won an NBA championship every year if I was as totally committed to victory as he was…. I wish I had won all those championships, but I really think I grew more as a man in defeat that Russell did in victory.”

That might be true. But I’d rather have the bathroom puker on my team, the most beloved teammate of his era, the guy who didn’t care about statistics, the guy who always seemed to end up on victorious teams in close games, the guy who finished his career as the greatest winner in sports, the guy who was singularly obsessed with making his teammates better and doing whatever it took to prevail. I’d rather have Bill Russell. And so would anyone else in their right mind.

The defense rests.

1. FYI, you can use this same set of factors to prove that nobody was more whipped than Lionel Richie on the day he wrote “Truly.”

2. O.J. intersected with NBA lore in 1994, when we watched helicopter footage of his white Bronco driving through southern California (in a botched attempt to evade police) split-screened with a crucial Game 5 of the Rockets-Knicks Finals. Here’s how bad that Finals was: even Knicks and Rockets fans were more interested in the car chase.

3. Rule changes in place by 2005: no hand checking (making it easier for quick guards to penetrate); 8 seconds to advance the ball over midcourt (not 10); resetting the shot clock to 14 seconds instead of 24 in certain situations; whistles for offensive isolation plays (no overloading players on one side); a relaxing of illegal zones; and an implicit understanding that moving high screens were now okay (as long as you didn’t stick your knee or foot out on the pick).

4. Imagine if this happened now and we had to wait three months to see ballyhooed rookies like Blake Griffin or Derrick Rose because they were going through basic training in East Bumfart, Texas. I think Nike would raise a stink.

5. One of my favorite NBA names: Slater Martin. Just reeks of the ’50s, doesn’t it? He played with Whitey Skoog, Dick Schnittker, Dick Garmaker, Vern Mikkelsen, Lew Hitch, George Mikan and Ed Kalafat on the ’56 Lakers. Now those were some white guys! As far as I can tell, that’s the only two-Dick team in NBA history.

6. My vote for the most underrated NBA game: double OT, Game 7. It ended with Boston scoring with 1 second left, followed by St. Louis player-coach Alex Hannum calling time out to set up a play from underneath his own basket, where he’d whip a full-court football pass off the other backboard, then it would ricochet to Pettit at the foul line and he’d quickly shoot. What happened? Hannum threw the ball 90 feet, it bounced off the backboard right to Pettit and he missed the game-tying shot. This actually happened. Can’t we put Gus Johnson in a time machine and have him announce this one?

7. The Hawks won their four games by six points total. I’m guessing a healthy Russell would have made a difference in two of those.

8. Another great ’50s sports name: Guy Rodgers. I actually tried to convince my wife to name our son Guy, but she couldn’t get past making cutesy talk with a baby named Guy. I thought it would be cool because we could have said things like “Look at the little Guy” or “He’s been a good Guy.” Regardless, we need more Guys. Some other classic NBA names from the ’50s that would work for dogs at the very least: Woody, Archie, Bo, McCoy, Harry, Clyde, Forest, Nat, Arnie and Elmer.

9. Coaches Wilt threw under the bus: Neil Johnston, Dolph Schayes, Alex Hannum, Frank McGuire, Butch van Breda Kolff.

10. Weirdest fact from this season: Russell won MVP but didn’t make first-team All-NBA.

11. One of Boston’s greatest achievements of the Russell era: never losing to a team that featured West and Baylor in their prime (two of the best seven players of the NBA’s first thirty-five years). Everyone just casually overlooks this one.

12. In The Last Loud Roar, Bob Cousy writes that Cincy gave Boston everything they could handle; he headed into the ’63 Finals expecting the Lakers would beat them. The X-factor was Tommy, who quit smoking a few weeks before the playoffs, dropped 14 pounds, and destroyed Rudy LaRusso in the Finals. You have to love it when NBA Finals were decided by things like “somebody quit smoking.”

13. Hidden fact from the Russell era: KC Jones was abominable offensively. Playing 30 to 32 minutes a game post-Cousy, KC averaged 7.8 points and 5.3 assists, shot 39 percent from the field, and didn’t have to be guarded from 15 feet. How can a defensive specialist make the Hall of Fame by playing 9 years, starting for 4, and never making an All-Star team? Was he better than Al Attles? Was he even half as good as Dennis Johnson? Of the post-shot-clockers who’ve made the Hall of Fame, he’s the single strangest selection, just ahead of Calvin Murphy.

14. At one point they were 10–34. Would a healthy MJ have ever played for a 10–34 team? What about a healthy Bird or a healthy Magic?

15. Underrated aspect of the Russell era: Five aging vets signed with Boston hoping for a free ring (Naulls, Carl Braun, Wayne Embry, Clyde Lovellette and Woody Sauldsberry). Nowadays, these guys would just sign with Phoenix or Miami because of the weather.

16. Russell’s inadequacies as a player-coach emerged as a dominant theme that season: he’d forget to rest guys or bring them back in and basically sucked. The next year, Russell delegated to teammates and named Havlicek and Jones as his de facto assistants, turning it into a professional intramural team where players subbed themselves and suggested plays during time-outs. This worked for two straight titles. Naturally, no NBA team since 1979 has tried it.

17. Wilt was traded twice in his prime: once for Paul Neumann, Connie Dierking, Lee Shaffer, and cash, once for Archie Clark, Darrall Imhoff, Jerry Chambers, and cash. Wilt defenders stammer whenever this gets mentioned.

18. Walton averaged 5.5 assists per game in the ’77 Playoffs. Russell averaged five assists or more in seven different playoffs, including 6.3 a game in the ’65 Playoffs (when it was much tougher to get credited for an assist). For his career, Russell averaged more playoff assists (4.7) than any center who ever played more than 30 playoff games.

19. For anyone reading this after 2030: Stephen A. Smith was an ESPN personality whose gimmick answered the question “What it would be like if somebody argued about sports with their CAPS LOCK on?”

20. Bob Cousy wasn’t as staggered. Here’s what he wrote in 1964’s The Last Loud Roar: “Basketball is a team game. When it becomes a one-man operation, as it did after Chamberlain came to Philadelphia, it just doesn’t work. You cannot expect nine other guys to submerge themselves and their abilities to one man. It particularly doesn’t work when the man everybody else is feeding isn’t helping the others whenever and wherever he can … the argument can be made that Chamberlain only suffers from a poor supporting cast. If you have a man who makes better than 50 percent of his shots, the argument goes, why shouldn’t you concentrate on getting the ball to him whenever possible? Carrying that to its logical conclusion, I would have to ask why you should ever let any other player on the team shoot at all. No, statistics mean nothing in basketball.” Amen, Cooz! I love when a Hall of Famer proves my point.

21. And if you’re looking for a degree of difficulty, Russell coached himself for the last two titles. Why doesn’t that ever get factored in? Imagine MJ winning those final two titles in Utah as a player-coach.

22. In Terry Pluto’s Tall Tales, Heinsohn claims that Russell’s defense was worth 60 to 70 points per game. Take that one with a grain of salt because he’s the same guy who compared Leon Powe to Moses Malone. It was only a matter of time before Tommy was interviewed for a book called Tall Tales.

23. This was before the three-point line, basketball camps, and picture-perfect jump shots, when teams took a ton of shots and threw up a ton of bricks. Of the great guards who peaked in the ’50s, Cousy was a 37.5% shooter; Sharman, 42.6%; Slater Martin, 36%; Bob Davies, 37%; Guy Rodgers, 38%; Richie Guerin, 42% and Dick McGuire, 39%. Only when Sam Jones, Jerry West, and Hal Greer emerged did the prototypical two-guard take shape; long-range shooting specialists didn’t start making a mark until the mid-’70s. So someone who protected the basket had an even greater effect back then.

24. It’s exceedingly possible that Russell was good for 8 to 15 blocks per game in the playoffs. Just researching this chapter, there were three different playoff games in the ’60s when an author or narrator casually mentioned in their summary that Russell had 12 blocks.

25. Sam Jones made an art form of this, adding little insults with each shot like “Too late” or “Sorry, Wilt” every time he sank a jumper. One time Wilt flipped out and chased him around the Garden, so Sam grabbed a photographer’s stool to fend him off. If this happened in 2009, I’m almost positive it would lead Around the Horn.

26. Hondo’s take on Russ: “There was never a player who could control a game defensively like him. You could see the shooters just cringing every time they got within his range. Sometimes he would start out very strong, in order to discourage his man completely. Other times he would allow a man to score some early baskets, then later on, when the guy wanted to attempt the same move in a crucial situation, he would find that Russell would prevent him from doing it…. The end of the game was really Russell’s time. In a close game, he was incredibly alive.”

27. This is an entertaining book that includes stories about Wilt getting blown by stewardesses on airplanes and stuff. Here’s one case where Wilt really didn’t get enough credit for something. Wilt should have won a Pulitzer, or at least a National Book Award.

28. Later in life, Wilt executed this unselfish mind-set to perfection on the set of Conan the Destroyer, which went on to become the most unintentionally funny action movie of the ’80s other than Gymkata. Even as an actor, Wilt was breaking records.

29. In A Few Good Men, this would be the trial scene when Cruise grabs the rule book from Kevin Bacon and asks Noah Wyle to find the part about going to the mess hall for dinner. In other words, I just scored major points with my case by digging up these Wilt quotes. Even better, I got to read the story about Wilt getting blown by the stewardess again.

30. From Bill Libby’s enjoyable 1977 biography of Wilt (Goliath): “A couple of times he went to a teammate with a hot hand and told him he was going to give him the ball exclusively because the other guys were wasting his passes and he wouldn’t win the assists title this way.” What a team player, that Wilt. In that book, Libby mentions that, for all the hullabaloo about Wilt being such a ladies’ man, “a surprising number of players and reporters say they’ve never seen Wilt with a woman.” Come on, Wilt couldn’t have been gay! He was a lifelong bachelor, he loved clothes and he loved cats! Where is this coming from?

31. Although, again, Conan the Destroyer was a great freaking movie.

32. That’s the same Willie Naulls who landed on the Celts one year later and won two straight titles with Russell. Hmmmmmm.

33. Wilt played for 9 coaches in 14 years. I love that stat.

34. Even Wilt admitted this in his book, writing, “The stories created quite a furor, and I’m not sure the 76ers ever got back in stride during the playoffs.” Although, in classic Wilt fashion, he blamed the magazine for not waiting to run the piece.

35. One thing Wilt can’t be blamed for: during a 1965 game in Boston, 76ers owner Ike Richman died of a heart attack while sitting at the press table next to Philly’s bench. If you had to pick a superstar whose owner might drop dead during a big game, you’d have to pick Wilt, right? Strangest part of the story: they carried Richman out and the game kept going. How heartless was that? Nowadays, I’d like to think we’d postpone a game even if one of the Maloofs dropped dead. Although nobody would be able to tell for about a quarter.

36. The best part of this story? I found out about it from Wilt’s autobiography. He didn’t even seem that bitter, explaining, “I guess guys like Elgin Baylor and Jerry West were afraid I’d come to L.A. and take some of their glory away.” Yeah, Wilt, I’m sure that was it.

37. With five seconds left, Wilt cut Boston’s lead to one. Russell’s ensuing inbounds pass hit one of the wires that held the basket up, a fluke play that doubled as an automatic turnover and nearly cost Boston the season. Wilt loved to bring this up afterward, pointing out again and again that Russell was as capable of choking as anyone. This is like Lindsay Lohan hearing that Dakota Fanning sipped champagne at a wedding one night, then screaming, “See, see, I’m not the only messed-up one!”

38. One of the hidden subplots of Game 7: Hondo said later that he jumped the inbounds pass for Hal Greer partly because he was waiting for it; he knew Wilt wasn’t getting the ball because Wilt never wanted to get fouled in big moments (so there was no way they were running the play for him).

39. It’s a photo of Barry standing in an airport and holding a bag and a basketball. He’s not even really looking at the camera. He looks put out, like he’s posing for a picture for an Asian tourist who didn’t know who he was and just wanted a picture of a tall white guy. It’s spectacular.

40. When Reed limped off early in Game 5, Wilt somehow got shut down by a woefully undersized Dave DeBusschere and New York’s pressure defense during their rousing 16-point comeback. Wilt finished with 22 points but took only three shots in the second half. Three shots? The fact that he threw up a 45–27 in Game 6 only made it worse.

41. Bradley’s book double as a psychological profile of Wilt’s loserdom. No joke.

42. Thanks to Elliott Kalb’s informative book Who’s Better, Who’s Best in Basketball for the stats you’re about to read. If you’re an NBA fan, buy this book. It’s great. Even if I disagreed with almost all of it and he painfully overrated Shaq.

43. Which raises a question: why the heck didn’t they keep track of blocks back then? How hard would that have been? This is the first of 79 times I will complain about this.

44. Butch benched Wilt for the last five minutes of Game 7 of the ’69 Finals knowing that if the Lakers lost the game, he’d get fired. And he did. That’s how strongly he disliked Wilt.

45. I couldn’t fight off Grumpy Old Editor from chiming in any longer. His take on Lucas: “Lucas should talk—he never met a stat he didn’t squeeze until it was dead.”

46. According to SI’s Frank Deford, Russell once told Wilt, “I’m probably the only person on the planet who knows how good you really are.” I’m almost positive that Mario Lopez never said this to Mark-Paul Gosselaar.

47. That sentence easily could have been Vince Carter’s high school yearbook quote.

THREE
HOW THE HELL DID WE GET HERE?

WHILE TRYING TO absorb six-plus decades of NBA history, one question keeps popping up: How do we put everything in perspective? If Wilt averaged 50 points a game for an entire season, what does that really mean? Would he average 40 a game now? Thirty? Twenty? Could the ’72 Lakers win 33 games total if they were playing in 2009? Were the ’96 Bulls the greatest team of all time or just the most successful? I can’t answer these questions without putting some sort of elaborate context in place. When I tell you that Oscar Robertson’s season-long triple double wasn’t as impressive as it seemed, you’d have to take my word unless you saw every relevant rule change, innovation, talent glut/dearth, statistical whim, big-picture mistake and trouble patch laid out from 1946 to 1984. Why stop there? Because that’s when the NBA, for better and worse, became the league it is now. Stylistically, creatively, fundamentally and talent-wise, you could transport any good player or team from 1984 to 2009 and they would be fine (and in some cases better than fine).

Think of the NBA like America’s comedy scene and everything will fall into place. Ever watch tape of Milton Berle, Bob Hope or Sid Caesar performing on their top-rated shows in the 1950s? Lots of mugging, lots of easy jokes, some cross-dressing, more mugging, tons of self-flagellation, even more mugging. It’s bewildering that they were considered geniuses at the time. But they were. Nobody was bigger. (Kinda like George Mikan and Dolph Schayes, right?) When Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Bob Newhart and the Smothers Brothers pushed comedy in a different direction in the sixties—astute observations, hyperintelligent premises—they were considered geniuses of the highest order. (Kinda like Oscar, Elgin, Wilt and Russell, right?) But you know what? If you YouTubed any of those guys in their primes, you wouldn’t laugh that much. Only during the Ford presidency did comedy start to look like it does now: Richard Pryor’s acerbic take on the African American experience, George Carlin’s pointed riffs, Saturday Night Lives ballsy redefinition of televised sketch comedy, Steve Martin’s intentionally absurd stand-up act, even young observational comics like Jay Leno and David Letterman who had been influenced by Carlin and Bruce. (Kinda like Julius Erving, Bob McAdoo and Tiny Archibald redefining the limits of speed and athleticism with the NBA.) The 1977–1982 stretch saw iconic movies capture similar strides, like Caddyshack, Animal House, Stripes and The Blues Brothers, all funny movies fueled by drugs, recklessness, and individualism. (Kinda like the NBA when it was being led by the likes of Pete Maravich, George Gervin, David Thompson and Micheal Ray Richardson.) Then the eighties rolled around and comedy settled into the era of over-the-top humor, sarcastic irony, and “Did you ever notice … ?” jokes that, for better and worse, still make us laugh now. Letterman’s groundbreaking NBC show. Howard Stern’s equally groundbreaking radio show. Eddie Murphy’s SNL impressions and standup acts. A little cable show called Mystery Science Theater 3000.¹ Stand-ups like Jerry Seinfeld and Sam Kinison. Consistently funny movies like Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop, Night Shift, Fletch and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. All of that stuff holds up even today.

By the mid-eighties, the comedy world had figured it out and reached the place it needed to be. But it didn’t just happen. The civil rights struggle, three assassinations (JFK, RFK and MLK), and a growing discontent about Vietnam altered the comedy scene in the sixties; people became more serious, less trusting, more prone to discuss serious issues and argue about them. That’s how we ended up with Woody and Lenny. The seventies were marred by a polarizing war and the Watergate scandal, pushing disillusioned Americans into cynical, outspoken and carefree directions (drugs, free sex, etc.), a spirit that quickly manifested itself in comedy. The comedians of the late seventies and early eighties learned from everyone who had pushed the envelope—what worked, and more importantly, what didn’t work—and developed a more somber, reflective, sophisticated attitude stemming from how the previous generation’s pain shaped their perspective. A perspective that, for better and worse, hasn’t really changed since. And now we’re here. Were Bird and Magic better in ’84 than LeBron and Wade are right now? It’s a nice debate. Was Eddie Murphy funnier in ’84 than Chris Rock is right now? It’s a nice debate. But if you’re asking me whether a Get Smart episode from 1967 is funnier than a South Park episode in 2009, no. It’s not a debate.

So it’s all about context. The ebbs and flows of the years (and with the NBA, the seasons) affect our memories and how we evaluate them. If we’re figuring out the best players and teams of all time—don’t worry, we’re getting there—we need to examine every season from 1946 (year one) through 1984 (year thirty-nine) and the crucial developments that helped us get here. Consider it a brief and only intermittently biased history of how the NBA became the NBA.²

1946–1954: GROWING PAINS

Heading into the summer of ’54, everyone thought the NBA was going down in flames. And they believed it for five reasons.

Reason no. 1. Without rules to prevent intentional fouling, stalling, and roughhouse play, league scoring dropped to an appalling 79.5 points per game. Every game played out like a Heat-Knicks playoff slugfest in the mid-nineties, only with clumsy white players planting themselves near the basket, catching lob passes, getting clubbed in the back and shooting free throws over and over again. If you were protecting a lead, your point guard dribbled around and waited to get fouled. If you were intentionally fouling someone, you popped him to send a statement. Players fought like hockey thugs, fans frequently threw things on the court and nobody could figure out how to stop what was happening. You can’t really overstate the fan-unfriendliness (I just created that word) of the stalling/fouling tactics. There was the time Fort Wayne famously beat the Lakers, 19–18. There was the five-OT playoff game between Rochester and Indy in which the winner of each overtime tap held the ball for the rest of the period to attempt a winning shot, leading to a bizarre situation in which Rochester’s home fans booed and booed and ultimately started leaving in droves even with the game still going. The ’53 Playoffs averaged an unbelievable eighty free throws per game. The anti-electrifying ’54 Finals featured scores of 79–68, 62–60, 81–67, 80–69, 84–73, 65–63 and 87–80. You get the idea.

Reason no. 2. The league suffered its first betting scandal when Fort Wayne rookie Jack Molinas was nabbed for wagering on his own team.³ Even after Molinas had been banned and commissioner Maurice Podoloff prohibited gambling on any NBA games, the damage was done and the league took an inordinate amount of abuse on sports blogs and radio shows.⁴

Reason no. 3. The ’54 playoffs were screwed up by an ill-fated “What if we slapped together a six-game round robin with the top three teams in each conference?” proposal, which led to the Knicks getting knocked out in a nationally televised quagmire that lasted longer than any NFL game. According to Leonard Koppett, “The game encompassed all the repulsive features of the grab-and-hold philosophy. It lasted three hours, and the final seconds of a one-point game were abandoned by the network. The arguments with the referees were interminable and degrading. What had been happening, as a matter of course, in dozens of games for the last couple of years, was shown to a nationwide audience in unadulterated impurity.”⁵

Reason no. 4. Since everyone traveled by train and bus back then, the league stretched only from Boston to Minnesota, with just three “major” television markets in place (Boston, Philly and New York) and seven smaller markets (Minneapolis, Syracuse, Baltimore, Rochester, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis and Milwaukee). Let’s just say that the Minneapolis-Syracuse Finals in ’54 didn’t knock I Love Lucy out of the number one Nielsen spot.⁶

Reason no. 5. The lily-white league desperately needed some, um … how do we put this … um … I want to be politically correct … you know, especially after the whole Imus/Rutgers thing … so let’s just say this as discreetly as possible … um … well … the league needed more black guys!

1954–1955: THE LIFESAVER

When Syracuse owner Danny Biasone⁷ created the 24-second shot clock, his brainstorm didn’t do much except for speeding up possessions, eliminating stalling, hiking league scoring by 13.6 points per team and basically saving the league. How did he arrive at 24? Biasone studied games he remembered enjoying and realized that, in each of those games, both teams took around 60 shots. Well, 60 + 60 = 120. So Biasone settled on 120 shots as the minimum combined total that would be acceptable from a “I’d rather kill myself than watch another NBA game like this” standpoint. And if you shoot every 24 seconds over the course of a 48-minute game, that comes out to … wait for it … 120 shots! Biasone came up with the idea in 1951 and spent three years selling the other owners on it, even staging an exhibition game for them in August 1954, using a shot clock, to prove the idea worked. That’s how we ended up with a 24-second clock. Of course, the nitwits in Springfield didn’t induct him until 2000, which would have been touching if poor Biasone hadn’t been dead for eight years. Really, inventing the shot clock and saving professional basketball wasn’t enough of an accomplishment to make the Basketball Hall of Fame for forty-one years? And you wonder why I’m blowing it up later in the book. Personally, I think we should create a $24 bill and put Biasone’s picture on it.

The karma gods rewarded Biasone when Syracuse beat Fort Wayne in seven for the ’55 title⁸ (the second-lowest-rated sporting event of all time behind Fox’s Celebrity Boxing 2). Coincidence? I say no. Scoring cracked 100 per game by the ’58 season. One year later, Boston beat Minnesota by a record score of 173–139, with Cousy finishing with 31 points and a record 29 assists. And the NBA never looked back.

One other essential change: the fouling rules were revamped. A limit was placed on team fouls (six per quarter, followed by a two-shot penalty); an offensive foul counted as a team foul but not free throws unless the offending team was over the limit; and any backcourt foul counted as a team foul. The first change prevented teams from fouling throughout games without repercussions; the second change sped up games; and the third change made teams pay a price for fouling anywhere on the court. Sounds like three simple, logical, “why the hell didn’t they always do that” tweaks, right? It took the league eight years to figure it out. I’d compare the NBA’s first eight years to the first eight years of porn (1972–80)—yeah, some good things happened and everyone who was there remembers those years fondly, but ultimately we moved in a much better, more logical, and more lucrative direction. The porn industry didn’t take off until it transferred everything to videotape; the NBA didn’t take off until it created a shot clock.⁹

1955–56: MIKAN II: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

After his ’56 Lakers floundered to a 5–15 start and attendance petered, Big George stepped down as general manager, made an ill-fated return¹⁰ and couldn’t handle the game’s increased speed. As Koppett described it, the plodding Mikan “simply wasn’t equipped for the 24-second game. The widened foul lane he could handle; the constant running he could not.” And I’m supposed to rank Mikan as one of the top thirty players of all time? Bob Pettit filled Mikan’s void by winning the league’s first MVP trophy, leading the league in scoring and rebounding for a Hawks team that fled Milwaukee for St. Louis before the season—in retrospect, a bad career move given the success of Happy Days two decades later.¹¹

1956–1957: RUSSELL

Boston’s Red Auerbach traded future Hall of Famers Ed Macauley and Cliff Hagan for Russell’s rights before the 1956 draft. Why? Because he needed a “modern” center who could handle the boards, protect the rim, and kick-start fast breaks for his speedy guards. Red anticipating in 1956 exactly where the sport was heading—to a T—remains his single greatest accomplishment. Well, that and living into his mid-eighties even though he lived on Chinese food and went through cigars like breath mints. For the Celtics, Russell carried them to the ’57 title. For the NBA, Russell imported previously foreign concepts like “jumping,” “dunking,” “shot blocking” and “blackness.” The ultimate win-win.

1957–1958: BASKETBALL CARDS

After Bowman’s 1948 set bombed with fans, Topps waited a full decade before trotting out its first NBA set. Eighty players (including veterans like Cousy and Schayes) suddenly had their own “rookie card.” Six decades later, it’s practically impossible to find those cards in mint or near-mint condition for obvious reasons (the set sold poorly) and less obvious reasons (most of the cards were miscut, off-center, and either overprinted or underprinted).¹² Russell’s short-printed rookie trails only Mikan’s ’48 Bowman rookie (worth $9K-plus in near-mint condition) in the Most Valuable Basketball Card Ever race. Another four years passed before Fleer made an ill-fated, one-year jump into the card business with a now-valuable, hard-to-find 1961–62 set that featured rookies for Wilt, West and Oscar (and might be the least exciting cards ever made). Three sets, three failures. No more basketball cards were produced until the 1969–70 season, when Topps released a “tall boy” set of ninety-nine cards that doubled as rookies for Kareem, Hondo, Willis, Pearl, Frazier and Wilkens.

Why is this important? Every relevant rookie card from 1946 to 1970 can be found in the ’48 Bowman, ’58 Topps, ’62 Fleer and ’70 Topps sets. If this book becomes the Da Vinci Code of NBA books, I’m using part of my financial windfall to buy these four sets in mint condition. The rest of the money will be spent on a Manhattan Beach house on the water, a minority stake in the Clippers that includes courtside seats, a BMW M6 convertible, hookers, divorce lawyers, a Hollywood production company that takes a ton of meetings and lunches but never actually produces anything, and expensive Zegna shirts that show off my chest hair. Move over, Donald Sterling—there’s a new sheriff in town.

1958–60: COLORIZATION

Not only did Lakers rookie Elgin Baylor follow Russell’s lead by bringing hang time, explosiveness, and midair creativity into the league, but Wilt Chamberlain was finishing a one-year Globetrotters stint¹³ and planned on joining Philadelphia the following year. (The Warriors had drafted Wilt as a territorial pick in 1955 when he was a senior in high school. Don’t ask.) Anticipating his arrival, the league created an offensive goal-tending rule, nicknamed the Wilt Chamberlain Rule, that prohibited offensive players from tipping shots on the rim. The rule evolved over the years because, in the tape of Wilt’s 73-point game in ’62, he redirected a number of jump shots from teammates into the basket before they hit the rim, something that wouldn’t be legal now. They had to have tweaked the rule in the mid-sixties. By the way, you know you’ve arrived in life when you get a rule named after you.¹⁴

The Dipper exceeded all expectations in his rookie season, averaging a record 37.6 points, capturing the Rookie of the Year, MVP, and MLBHC (Most Likely to Bang Hot Chicks) awards and even inspiring NBC to expand its telecasts to Saturday and Sunday afternoons.¹⁵ On the other hand, Wilt became so frustrated by constant pounding from smaller opponents that he briefly retired in the spring of 1960. With other stars like Cousy complaining about the interminable length of the season¹⁶ (as well as constant traveling, low salaries, the physical toll from a brutal schedule and the league’s refusal to protect them from doubleheaders and back-to-back-to-back games), the NBA suddenly faced its second crisis: a public breach with its stars. This wouldn’t fully manifest itself for another four years. And then? It manifested itself. Like a bitch.

1960–61: THE SCORING BOOM

Not necessarily a good thing. Why? Nobody played defense, and every game looked like a disjointed All-Star contest or even worse a college pickup game where nobody runs back on D because they’re sweating out the previous night’s keg party. The ’61 Celtics led the league in scoring (124.5 per game) and averaged 119.5 field goal attempts and 33.5 free throw attempts. To put those numbers in perspective, the 2008 Celtics averaged 76 field goal attempts and 26 free throw attempts per game. That’s insane. Play suffered so badly that NBC dropped the NBA one year later despite a memorable ’62 Finals.¹⁷ The following season (’63), commissioner Maurice Podoloff slapped together a production team to “broadcast” the All-Star Game and the NBA Finals, then sold a syndication package to local affiliates around the country like it was American Gladiators or The Steve Wilkos Show. Unbelievable.

Because of the inordinately high number of possessions, the statistics from 1958 to 1962 need to be taken with an entire shaker of salt and possibly a saltwater taffy factory.

Within five seasons, scoring increased by 18.6 points, field goal attempts increased by more than 4 per quarter, there were nearly 18 more rebounds available for each team, and shooting percentages improved as teams played less and less defense.

Then the ’62 season rolled around and the following things happened:

1. Wilt averaged 50 points

2. Oscar averaged a triple double

3. Walt Bellamy averaged a 32–19

4. Russell averaged 23.6 boards and fell two behind Wilt for the rebound title

Hard to take those numbers at face value, right? And that’s before factoring in offensive goaltending (legal at the time), the lack of athletic big men (significant) and poor conditioning (which meant nobody played defense). I watched a DVD of Wilt’s 73-point game in New York and two things stood out: First, he looked like a McDonald’s All-American center playing junior high kids; nobody had the size or strength to consider dealing with him. Second, because of the balls-to-the-wall speed of the games, the number of touches Wilt received per quarter was almost unfathomable. Wilt averaged nearly 40 field goal attempts and another 17 free throw attempts per game during his 50-point season. Exactly forty years later, Shaq and Kobe averaged a combined 52 points a game on nearly the same amount of combined field-goal/free-throw attempts.¹⁸ Things leveled off once teams started taking defense a little more seriously, although it took a full decade to slow down and resemble what we’re seeing now statistically (at least a little). Here’s a snapshot every four years from 1962 on. Notice how possessions, rebound totals and point totals began to drop; how shooting percentages kept climbing; and beyond that, how the numbers jumped around from ’62 to ’74 to ’86 to ’94 to ’04 to ’08.²⁰

Compare the numbers from ’62 and ’08 again. Still impressed by Oscar’s triple double or Wilt slapping up a 50–25 for the season? Sure … but not as much.

1961–62: THE FIRST RIVAL

Abe Saperstein’s American Basketball League died quickly, but not before planting the seed for two future NBA ideas: a wider foul lane (16 feet) and a three-point line. The ABL also gambled on “blackballed” NBA players, including Connie Hawkins, who averaged a 28–13 for Pittsburgh and won the league’s only MVP award. In the one and only ABL Finals, the Cleveland Pipers defeated the Kansas City Steers, three games to two, with future Knicks star Dick Barnett leading the way. The ABL disbanded midway through its second season, with the league-leading Steers declared league “champs.” Good rule of thumb: if you have a franchise named the Kansas City Steers in your professional sports league, you probably aren’t making it. If you have a team called the Hawaii Chiefs, you almost definitely aren’t making it. And if you name a team (in this case, the Pittsburgh Rens) after the abbreviation for “Renaissance,” you definitely aren’t making it.²¹

1962–63: THE VOID

When Bob Cousy retired after getting his fifth ring, the Association lost its most popular player and someone who ranked alongside Mickey Mantle and Johnny Unitas from a cultural standpoint. Cooz got treated to an ongoing farewell tour throughout the season, as well as the first-ever super-emotional retirement ceremony that featured Cooz breaking down and some leather-lunged fan screaming, “We love ya, Cooz!” Who would step into the Cooz’s void as the league’s most beloved white guy? Did West have it in him? What about Lucas? Yup, the league was becoming blacker and blacker … and if you were a TV network thinking about buying its rights in a bigoted country, this was not a good thing.

(On the flip side, with Lenny Wilkens thriving on the Hawks and Oscar running the show in Cincy, the old “blacks aren’t smart enough to run a football or basketball team” stereotype started to look stupid … although it never really disappeared and even resurfaced as a key plot line during season one of Friday Night Lights in 2007.)²²

1963–64: THE SIT-DOWN STRIKE

January 14, 1964, Boston, Massachusetts.

(We’re going with a paragraph break and parentheses to build the dramatic tension. Sorry, I was feeling it.)

Frustrated by low wages, excessive traveling and the lack of a pension plan, the ’64 All-Stars make one of the ballsiest and shrewdest decisions in the history of professional sports, telling commissioner Walter Kennedy two hours before the All-Star Game that they won’t play without a pension agreement in place. With ABC televising the game and threatening Kennedy that a potential TV contract will disappear if the players leave them hanging in prime time, Kennedy agrees fifteen minutes before tip-off to facilitate a pension deal with the owners. Attica! Attica! Attica!

How this night never became an Emmy Award-winning documentary for HBO Sports remains one of the great mysteries in life. You had Boston battling a major blizzard that night. You had every relevant Celtic (current or retired) in the building, including the entire 1946–47 team, as well as a good chunk of the league’s retired stars playing an Old-Timers Game before the main event. You had an All-Star contest featuring five of the greatest players ever (Wilt, Russell, West, Oscar and Baylor) in their primes, as well as a number of other relevant names (Lucas, Havlicek, Heinsohn, Lenny Wilkens, Sam Jon, Hal Greer) and the greatest coach ever (Auerbach) coaching the East. You had Larry Fleisher advising the players in the locker room, a powerful lawyer who brandished significant influence with the players down the road. You had the first instance in American sports history of professional stars risking their careers and paychecks for a greater good. And ultimately, you had what turned out to be the first pension plan of the modern sports era, the first real victory for a player’s union in sports history.²³ Other than that, it was a pretty boring night.

Halberstam unearthed two classic tidbits while reporting Breaks of the Game. First, the leaders of the “let’s strike” movement were Heinsohn, Russell and Wilkens. The votes were split (Halberstam’s estimation: 11–9 in favor) and a few influential stars wanted to play and negotiate later … including Wilt Chamberlain. Even during far-reaching labor disputes, Wilt did whatever was best for him. Classic. And second, just when it seemed like the dissenting players might convince everyone else to play, Lakers owner Bob Short sent a message down to the locker room ordering West and Baylor to get dressed and get their asses out on the court, sending the entire locker room into “Screw these guys, we’re not playing!” mode. And they didn’t. The seeds for free agency and big-money contracts were planted on this night. Again, you’re telling me this wouldn’t be a good HBO documentary? Where’s Liev Schreiber? Somebody pour him a coffee and drive him to a recording studio!

In general, the NBA was veering in a healthier direction. Walter Kennedy replaced Podoloff as the league’s second (and, everyone hoped, more competent) commish.²⁴ The Celtics became the first to routinely play five blacks at the same time as opponents emulated their aggressive style—chasing the ball defensively, keeping a center underneath to protect the rim, and using the other defenders to swarm and double-team. With the degree of difficulty rising on the offensive end, the athleticism of certain players started to flourish. You know something was happening since attendance rose to nearly 2.5 million and ABC forked over $4 million for a five-year rights deal despite a dearth of white stars.

The network handed its package to Roone Arledge, an innovative young executive who eventually helped revolutionize television with his work on Monday Night Football, Wide World of Sports, the Olympics, college football, and even Nightline (the first show of its kind).²⁵ According to Halberstam, “What ABC has to prove to a disbelieving national public, [Arledge] believed, was that this was not simply a bunch of tall awkward goons throwing a ball through a hoop, but a game of grace and power played at a fever of intensity. He was artist enough to understand and catch the artistry of the game. He used replays endlessly to show the ballet, and to catch the intensity of the matchups … he intended to exploit as best he could the traditional rivalries, for that was one of the best things the league had going for it, genuine rivalries in which the players themselves participated. Those rivalries, Boston-Philly, New York-Baltimore, needed no ballyhoo; the athletes themselves were self-evidently proud and they liked nothing better than to beat their opponents, particularly on national television. They were, in those days, obviously motivated more by pride than money, and the cameras readily caught their pride.” For the first time, the NBA was in the right hands with a TV network.²⁶

1964–65: THE BIG TRADE

When the struggling Warriors sent Wilt (and his gigantic contract) back to Philly for Connie Dierking, Lee Shaffer, $150,000, Baltic Avenue, two railroads, and three immunities, the trade rejuvenated Philly and San Francisco as NBA cities—both would make the Finals within the next three years—and was covered like an actual news event. In fact, “Chamberlain Traded!” may have been the NBA’s first unorchestrated mainstream moment. Put it this way: Walter Cronkite wasn’t mentioning the NBA on the CBS Evening News unless it was something like “Celtics legend Bob Cousy retired today.” I’ve always called this the Mom Test. My mother was never a sports fan, so if she ever said something like, “Hey, how ’bout that Mike Tyson, can you believe he bit that guy’s ear off?” then you knew it was a huge sports moment because the people who weren’t sports fans were paying attention. Anyway, Wilt getting traded definitely passed the Mom Test. Also, I think Wilt slept with the Mom Test.

(One other biggie that year: with Tommy Heinsohn retiring after the season, Oscar Robertson replaced him as the head of the players union. I just love the fact that we live in a world where Tommy once led a labor movement. Elgin, I gotta tell ya, I absolutely love your idea for a dental plan! Bing, bang, boom! That’s a Tommy Point for you, Mr. B!)

1965–66: RED’S LAST STAND

I always loved Red Auerbach for announcing his retirement before the ’66 season started, hoping to motivate his players and drum up national interest in an “Okay, here’s your last chance to beat me!” season. Like always, he succeeded: Boston defeated the Lakers for an eighth straight title in Red’s much-hyped farewell,²⁷ given an extra jolt after Game 1 of the Finals when Auerbach announced that Russell would replace him as the first black coach in professional sports history.²⁸ Like everything Red did, the move worked on both fronts: Boston rallied to win the ’66 title, and Russell turned out to be the perfect coach for Russell (although not right away).

Red’s retirement marked the departure of old-school coaches who didn’t need assistants, bitched out officials like they were meter maids, punched out opposing owners and hostile fans, never used clipboards to diagram plays and manned the sidelines holding only a rolled-up program. He controlled every single aspect of Boston’s franchise, coaching the team by himself, signing free agents, trading and waiving players, making draft picks, scouting college players, driving the team bus on road trips, handling the team’s business affairs and travel plans, performing illegal abortions on his players’ mistresses and everything else.²⁹ That’s just the way the league worked from 1946 to 1966. Red was also something of a showman, putting on foot-stomping shows when things didn’t go Boston’s way, antagonizing referees and opponents, and lighting victory cigars before games had ended. Until Wilt usurped his title, Red served as the league’s premier supervillain, the guy everyone loved to hate even as they were admitting he made the league more fun.

With players finally earning real money and achieving fame on a mainstream level, the player-coach dynamic was shifting—it was becoming more difficult to scream at players Lombardi-style or make them run wind sprints until they keeled over, that’s for sure—and salary hikes made it harder to keep great teams together.³⁰ Auerbach lowballed his players by convincing them they’d make the money back in the playoffs; he knew that if they bought into that bullshit, then he’d never have to worry about motivating them. Once salaries started climbing past a certain point, you couldn’t play the playoff-money card. Like always, Auerbach read the league’s tea leaves perfectly and left at the perfect time. From the moment Biasone created the shot clock, Red determined where the sport was heading, embraced the influx of black players and capably handled the enigmatic Russell, a ferocious competitor, lazy practice player and overly sensitive soul who was affected by everything he couldn’t control: the plight of African American athletes, his lack of acceptance in Boston, the lack of a labor agreement, Wilt’s reported salary, even the civil rights movement and his place in it. Other than Muhammad Ali, Russell was the single most important athlete of the sixties and it’s impossible to imagine him playing for anyone else, as evidenced by the fact that Red never gave us the chance. They were a perfect match, a little Jewish guy from Brooklyn and a tall black guy from Louisiana bringing out the best in each other, dominating the league for a solid decade and changing the way basketball was played. Will a professional basketball coach ever matter that much again? No. No way.

1966–67: THE SECOND RIVAL

The American Basketball Association formed in February of 1967 and announced plans for its first season in October. The intentions of the league’s founders were unclear: did they want to compete with the NBA or force a potentially lucrative merger? Within a few months, they named George Mikan commissioner, announced franchises for eleven cities (New York,³¹ Pittsburgh, Indy, Minny, Oakland, Anaheim, Dallas, New Orleans, Houston and Denver) and promised to (a) sign current NBA players and incoming rookies (happened); (b) get themselves a TV contract (didn’t happen), (c) play with a multicolored ball and a three-point line (happened), and (d) encourage their players to grow gravity-defying afros, dunk as much as possible and try all kinds of drugs (happened).³² Instead of accepting that a rival was inevitable, NBA owners panicked and moved up their expansion plans, adding five more teams (Chicago, San Diego, Seattle, Milwaukee and Phoenix) over the next three years and then three more (Portland, Cleveland and Buffalo) for the 1970–71 season. As an ABC executive joked in Breaks, when they put in a clause in the 1965 TV contract allowing ABC to cancel if any NBA team folded, they should have gone the other way and placed a limit on the number of expansion teams. After all, nothing ruins a sports league faster than overexpansion, diluted teams and the death of rivalries, right?³³ Throw in competition for players, a potential antitrust lawsuit and the new Players Association potentially challenging the reserve clause, and suddenly things weren’t looking so rosy for the National Basketball Association. Although nobody knew it yet.

1967–71: THE BROKEN MIRROR

That would be Spencer Haywood. He was bad luck. For everyone. Sure, you make your own bad luck to some degree, and in this case the NBA allowed salaries to escalate too rapidly during the latter part of the sixties. In 1966, Knicks rookie Cazzie Russell (the number one overall pick) signed a three-year, $250,000 contract, pushing the Association into the “okay, guys, you don’t have to have a second job during the summers anymore” era. The following year, college star Elvin Hayes passed up ABA money (and the chance to play for Houston) for a $350,000 deal with the Rockets. Jimmy Walker (Jalen Rose’s dad) parlayed the ABA’s interest into a lucrative $250,000 package with Detroit, becoming the first of dozens of talented young NBA players who didn’t reach their potential partly because somebody paid them too much too soon. Warriors star Rick Barry jumped leagues, signed with Oakland and became the first professional athlete to dispute the reserve clause in contracts (a clause that allowed teams to keep a player’s rights for one year after his contract ended). The legal challenge went poorly and Barry spent the season as Oakland’s TV announcer. As far as career moves go, this ranked right up there with David Caruso ditching NYPD Blue and Andy Richter leaving Conan O’Brien’s show. On the bright side, somebody had to challenge the reserve clause, right?³⁴

Here’s the irony: Even as money was poisoning professional basketball for the first time, the NBA couldn’t have been in better shape as a whole. During the 1968–69 season, the Lakers opened up the league’s first state-of-the-art arena (the 17,000-seat L.A. Forum), attendance topped 4.4 million, ratings rose from 6.0 (1965) to 8.9 in 1969, and ABC even televised a few prime-time playoff games (including Game 7 of the 1969 Finals during May sweeps). But everyone was getting greedy: players, owners, agents, you name it. And you know how that plays out.

Enter the Broken Mirror. Haywood started his professional career when Lew Alcindor did, so we can blame his bad karma for swaying the NBA’s number one pick that year: Phoenix would have been a better market for Big Lew, but Milwaukee won the coin toss and the Suns took Neil Walk second.³⁵ Haywood became the first nonsenior to play professionally, signing with the ABA’s Denver Rockets as a “hardship” case and unwittingly giving the ABA an enormous advantage: Now the ABA had first crack at nonseniors and high schoolers because the NBA stuck by its antiquated four-year draft eligibility rule. So you could blame Haywood for the eventual influx of underclassmen and teenagers who nearly submarined the NBA in the 1990s, as well as the NBA preventing more dangerous Haywood signings by arranging a merger in May 1971. The NBA accepted ten ABA teams (everyone but Virginia). In return, the ABA dropped its antitrust suit, each ABA team agreed to pay $1.25 million over ten years, and ABA teams were deprived of TV money until 1973. The NBA Players Association quickly sued to block it, arguing that the merger created a monopoly and preserved the unconstitutional reserve clause. The ensuing legal dispute (nicknamed the Oscar Robertson suit) would drag on for another five miserable years. In retrospect, it’s hard to fathom how the NBA could have handled twenty-eight teams in 1972, so the timing of that lawsuit looks like divine intervention. Regardless, I blame the Broken Mirror (Haywood) for putting it in motion.

After winning three ABA awards as a rookie (MVP, Rookie of the Year and All-Star MVP),³⁶ Haywood left tread marks fleeing for the 1970–71 Sonics after realizing his quote-unquote three-year, $450,000 Denver contract only paid him $50,000 per year, then another $15,000 annually for twenty years starting when he turned forty. He had been victimized by a brilliant ABA trick called the Dolgoff plan, in which they offered contracts with deceivingly high dollar figures but backloaded most of the deals. How did they pull off such chicanery? According to Loose Balls, by routinely bribing agents to talk their clients into those deals.³⁷ (The bigger problem arose when NBA stars used those artificially high numbers to negotiate legitimately high deals, leading to the salary explosion that transformed the NBA as we knew it. And not in a good way. Well, unless you enjoy watching wealthy, coked-out, passionless basketball. Then you were pumped.) Haywood signed with Seattle and successfully contested the NBA’s hardship rule, leading to a slew of prospects filing early and claiming financial “hardship” even though nearly all of them were getting paid under the table in college.³⁸

Haywood symbolized an increasingly erratic sport: wealthy and empowered just a little too soon, looking out for himself only, thriving during an era with too many teams and younger stars being given too much money and responsibility waaaaaaaaay too soon. That’s how the seventies became the Too Many, Too Much, Too Soon era. The Broken Mirror became its defining figure, peaking too early, earning a ton of money and spending it just as fast, switching teams every few years (always after letting the previous one down), helping to destroy the post-Bradley Knicks, souring Sonics coach/GM Bill Russell on professional basketball, marrying a celebrity (the model Iman), developing a massive cocaine problem and even being involved in the single greatest known coke story in NBA history (we’ll get there). It can’t be a coincidence that Spencer Haywood retired after the 1982–83 season and the league immediately took off. It just can’t.

1971–72: THE STREAK

Why hasn’t anyone made a documentary about the ’72 Lakers? You had the league’s most beloved star and tragic figure, Jerry West, winning his first title on a 69-win team. You had Elgin retiring two weeks into the season and becoming the first superstar to retire without winning a ring,³⁹ paving the way for Dan Marino, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone and every other star who took heat for falling short. You had Wilt playing the way we always wanted him to play. You had an increasing number of Hollywood celebs hitting home games at the “hip” L.A. Forum, a trend that Doris Day had pioneered in the early sixties. Best of all, you had L.A.’s 33-game winning streak, which happened in a diluted league but remains remarkable when you remember the previous record was 20 (the ’71 Bucks).⁴⁰ I’ll save my thoughts on the ’72 Lakers for the “Keyzer Söze” chapter, but let’s rank that streak against the unbreakable records in NBA history. Here’s my top ten:

1. Wilt’s 50 per game. Perfect storm of the right era, the right guy, the right rules and the right ball hog. We might not see 40 a game again, much less 50.

2. Wilt’s 55-rebound game. Since nobody has come within 20 boards of this mark in the past two decades, and since it’s difficult for an entire team to snare 55 rebounds these days, I’m declaring this one safe. The guy who came within 20? (Wait for it … wait for it …) Charles Oakley in 1988.

3. Russell’s eleven rings. Too many teams, too much movement, too tough to keep a great team together for more than a few years. I just can’t imagine someone getting twelve. Even if someone had a Horry-like career as a role player and played contender roulette for fifteen years, landing in the right situation over and over again, could they get twelve? Nobody had better timing/luck than Horry and he only has seven. Could someone be 55 percent luckier than Big Shot? I don’t see it.

4. L.A.’s 33-game win streak. Like Bob Beamon’s long jump in Mexico, only if he jumped 39 feet instead of 29 feet. Here’s how it happened: you had a veteran, experienced, talented nucleus that had been together for years dismantling a diluted league that, except for Milwaukee and Baltimore, had seen too much player movement because of expansion and the ABA. In a three-season span from 1969 to 1972, we witnessed four of the thirteen longest streaks ever: 33 games, 20 games, 18 games and 16 games (the ’71 Bucks again). Coincidence? No way.

   I have a goofy theory on the 33-gamer: Bill Sharman took over the Lakers that year and may have been the first “real” NBA coach ever. Back then, NBA game days consisted of players showing up an hour before the game, farting around, then getting advice from coaches like “Keep Willis off the boards” and “Don’t let Monroe kill us” while everyone smoked Marlboro Reds. Sharman was a stickler for detail, conditioning and repetition—things today’s generation takes for granted but everyone ignored in the fifties and sixties—forcing his players to stretch every day, pushing them to eat healthy and quit smoking, scheduling game-day shoot-arounds so players could get accustomed to rims and shooting backgrounds at different arenas, requiring them to watch game films and basically doing everything that modern coaches do. For a veteran team like the Lakers, those little things pushed them to another level. He also handled Chamberlain better than any other coach, becoming the first to convince Wilt to buy into Russell’s rebounding/shot-blocking routine, even pulling a Jedi mind trick by soliciting Wilt’s opinions and ideas all season so Wilt felt part of everything that was happening.⁴¹ The Dipper sacrificed a ton of shots but fully embraced the whole unselfishness/teamwork thing,⁴² and over everything else, that’s what made his team so great. So yeah, on paper, it doesn’t make sense that the ’72 Lakers were better than the ’69 Lakers … but when you factor in a diluted league, Sharman’s influence and Wilt’s reinvention, it makes sense.

5. George McGinnis’ 422 turnovers. Disclaimer: This happened in the ABA. McGinnis holds the first (422), second (401), and third (398) all-time turnover spots, making him the Chamberlain of turnovers.⁴³ The NBA didn’t start keeping track of turnovers until the ’78 season, robbing us of two landmark George years before he notched 312 in 1978 and a whopping 346 in 1979. Who made more turnovers over the years, George McGinnis or Rachael Ray? Will we ever see someone else average more than five turnovers a game without getting benched or killed by his own fans? If I’d had my column back in the mid-seventies, I would have been ragging on George constantly: between his ball-stopping habits, ugly one-handed jumper, moody attitude and disinterest in defense, George took more off the table than any “superstar” ever. You can’t believe how much McGinnis secretly sucked until you watch his stink bomb in the ’77 Finals. I know he peaked two or three years earlier (most famously with a 52-point, 37-rebound game in 1974) and had a miserable series, but still, you can’t tell me someone that sloppy and simple to defend belonged on a championship team.⁴⁴ Regardless, I can’t imagine anyone breaking George’s hallowed 422 or averaging a quadruple nickel like he did in ’75 (29.9 points, 9.2 boards, 6.3 assists and 5.3 turnovers). Kevin Porter and Artis Gilmore set the current NBA record with 360 turnovers apiece in ’78. Allen Iverson approached that mark with 344 in 2005; nobody else in the 2000s topped 320. George, your record is safe. Future generations will remember you as the one and only member of the Quadruple Nickel Club.

6. Wilt’s 100-point game.⁴⁵ Kobe’s 81-point game made this one seem slightly breakable. The right perimeter player at the right point in his career with the right touch of officiating could definitely challenge it with help from the three-point line. In his 81-point explosion, Kobe played 42 minutes and made 21 of 33 two-pointers, 7 of 13 threes and 18 of 20 free throws against a mess of a Toronto team. (The key for Kobe that night: Toronto’s perimeter defenders were Jalen Rose, Mike James, Morris Peterson, Joey Graham and a washed-up Eric Williams. Those guys couldn’t have stopped a David Thompson nosebleed.) So let’s tweak those numbers slightly, have him hog the ball a little more and make him slightly more accurate. Had he played 46 minutes and made 24 of 37 two-pointers, 10 of 15 threes and 22 of 24 free throws, that’s exactly 100 points. Look at the two sets of numbers again; is the second set that big a stretch from the first?

7. Chicago’s 72-win season. The perfect storm of the right era (the league at its most diluted), right team (a pissed-off Bulls team hell-bent on reclaiming its throne) and right alpha dog (a possessed Jordan coming off his “baseball sabbatical” and a humiliating playoff defeat). I can’t imagine anyone finishing a season with fewer than 10 losses. It’s too improbable.

8. Scott Skiles’ 30-assist game. Some perfect storm potential because the record happened against Paul Westhead’s nonsensical ’91 Nuggets team that attempted Loyola Marymount’s run-and-gun style and failed so memorably. Whether it’s broken or not, let’s agree that we’ll never see another balding white dude shell out 30 assists again.⁴⁶

9. Rasheed Wallace’s 41 technicals. In just 77 games! In other words, Sheed averaged an astonishing 0.53 technicals per game for the 2000–1 season; it’s like Teddy Ballgame’s .406 but for semi-homicidal sports marks.

10. Jose Calderon’s 98.1 free throw percentage. This just happened—Calderon made 151 of 154 free throws in ’09 and shattered Calvin Murphy’s seemingly insurmountable 95.8 from ’81 (right before they changed the 3-to-make-2 rule). Murphy made 206 of 215 FTs and still holds the 200-plus record. Larry Bird holds the 300-plus (93%, 319 for 343) and 400-plus (91%, 414 for 455) records. And Magic Johnson (91%, 511 for 563) holds the 500-plus record. Regardless, don’t feel bad for Murphy, because he still owns one of the great records in sports history: fourteen kids by nine different women, the unofficial siring record for athletes as far as I’m concerned. Put that thing away, Calvin! And you wondered why they called him the “Pocket Rocket.”

1972–73: THE DOUBLE CROSS

During the final year of its latest four-year contract with ABC—the network that helped nurture professional basketball into a mainstream force—the NBA negotiated a deal with CBS mandating that the winning network had to show NBA games starting between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. on Saturday afternoons. Since ABC couldn’t dump crucial college football games in October and November, a bitter Roone Arledge dropped his right of first refusal and decided to destroy the NBA on CBS. Which he did. Easily. Arledge promoted the living hell out of his Saturday college football games and crushed the Association in the ratings, quickly turning it back into a Sundays-only TV entity. Then he expanded Wide World of Sports to Sundays, where it did an eye-opening 12.0 rating and thrashed the NBA every week like a redheaded stepchild. If that weren’t enough, he rolled the dice with trash sports like Superstars and World’s Strongest Man, and even those programs beat the NBA. Within a year, the NBA’s ratings had dropped 25 percent, from 10.0 to 8.1, and when college hoops took off on NBC, suddenly the NBA was cranking out third-place finishes every Sunday. As Halberstam wrote in Breaks of the Game, “Along Madison Avenue it became known as Roone’s Revenge.”

Why would the owners screw over a network that saved its league? Apparently the newer owners were jealous of the NFL’s lucrative contract with ABC, as well as the attention lavished on Monday Night Football, feeling they’d never be better than number three on ABC’s depth chart behind pro football and college football. I’d throw in this theory: for thirty solid years, this was the dumbest league going. These guys couldn’t figure out how to align divisions or eliminate jump balls at the beginning of every quarter, so of course they’d be dumb enough to sabotage their ABC alliance and start a feud with the most powerful TV executive alive. According to Halberstam, only one relevant NBA voice argued against the double cross: Auerbach, who appreciated ABC’s efforts and asked the salient question, “You don’t really think a man like Roone Arledge is going to take this lying down, do you?” Everyone ignored Red and pushed for the switcheroo to CBS, paving the way for everything that would happen over the next ten years: free-falling ratings, nontelevised Game 7’s, tape-delayed Finals games and sweeping public apathy⁴⁷

1973–74: THE WAR THAT COULDN’T BE WON

When two sides battle, normally there’s a winner and a loser. When the ABA and NBA battled, everyone lost. The ABA was hemorraghing money and going through commissioners like they were Starbucks baristas,⁴⁸ while the NBA was suffering in five distinct ways. In order:

1. Bidding wars and swollen contracts damaged the new generation of NBA up-and-comers. Sidney Wicks, Haywood, Hayes, Jimmy Walker, Sam Lacey and Austin Carr suffered right away; McAdoo, McGinnis (after crossing over in ’75), Maravich and Archibald suffered eventually. When those players should have been enjoying their primes in the late-’70s, only Hayes was contributing to a contender. We also had sketchy players making significantly more money than their coaches, creating its own legion of problems that Tommy Heinsohn explained beautifully in his award-winning autobiography, Give ’Em the Hook:

   Darryl Dawkins is the perfect example. The guy could have been a monster, should have been a monster, but nobody had the controls. Armed with a long-term contract, Darryl had the security of dollars coming in. I’ve seen this happen so many times …. It’s not just the length of the contract that hurts, it’s the length of the guaranteed lifestyle. Unless you’re talking about athletes who are truly dedicated to the game, the only time these guys bear down is when their security is threatened. I used to talk about this with Cousy, who began coaching the Kings in Cincinnati the same year I took the job in Boston. One night he started telling me about Sam Lacey, his rookie center—how he was pessimistic about him because Sam wouldn’t do this, Sam wouldn’t do that, and just didn’t take very well to coaching. “Cooz,” I said. “I don’t know what you expected. You guys just signed Sam for some serious dough, didn’t you? So obviously he must assume management thinks quite highly of him. And his wife certainly thinks he’s great. His mother thinks he’s great. His agent thinks he’s great. You’re the only guy telling him he’s not great. So, Cooz, who do you think he’s going to listen to?” Cooz agreed, then he watched me polish off seven glasses of Scotch and a pack of Marlboro Reds in less than two hours before letting me drive home. I vaguely remember driving into a stop sign and hitting a homeless guy. The cops let me go because I was Tommy Heinsohn. Those guys got a round of Tommy Points that night! Bing, bang, boom!⁴⁹

2. The ABA kept bowling over the NBA’s top referees with Godfather offers, stealing four of the top six (John Vanak, Joe Gushue, Earl Strom and Norm Drucker), improving the quality of ABA games and leaving the NBA in a legitimate bind.⁵⁰ By the ’76 season, as Hubie Brown told Terry Pluto, “The officiating at the end of the ABA was like the players—it was just an incredible amount of talent, just staggering. And nobody knew it. The officials were a bigger secret than the players.” Only Hubie could lapse into hyperbole while discussing ABA officials.

3. 3. NBA scoring dropped from 116.7 in 1970 to 102.6 in 1974. You could attribute some of the decline to better defense and better coaching; older guards like Frazier, Jo Jo, Bing, Goodrich and Norm Van Lier setting a deliberately slower pace; a famine of overall offensive talent; and waaaaaaaay too many guys named Don and Dick. The ’70 teams averaged 116.7 points on 99.9 attempts and shot 46.0 percent from the field. The ’75 teams averaged 102.6 points on 91.2 attempts and shot 45.7 percent from the field. Free throw attempts were roughly the same (24.5 per team in ’70, 25.0 in ’75), so every ’75 game had about seventeen fewer total possessions than a ’70 game. Why, you ask?

   (You really want me to say it?)

   (Fine, I’ll say it.)

   Too many white guys! Okay? All right? I said it! The league needed more black guys! The ABA stole too many of them! It was a freaking problem! Okay?

   To be fair, it wasn’t “blacks” as much as “young athletes.” Here’s how the clash played out for relevant rookies from ’71 through ’75:

   1971: Austin Carr, Sidney Wicks, Elmore Smith, Fred Brown, Curtis Rowe, Clifford Ray, Mike Newlin, Randy Smith (NBA); Julius Erving, Artis Gilmore, George McGinnis, Ralph Simpson, Tom Owens, Johnny Neumann, Jim McDaniels, John Roche (ABA)

   1972: Bob McAdoo, Paul Westphal, Jim Price, Kevin Porter, Lloyd Neal (NBA);⁵¹ George Gervin, James Silas, Jim Chones, Brian Taylor, Don Buse, Dave Twardzik (ABA)

   1973: Doug Collins, Ernie DeGregorio, Mike Bantom, Kermit Washington, Kevin Kunnert (NBA); Larry Kenon, Swen Nater, John Williamson, Caldwell Jones (ABA)

   1974: Bill Walton, Jamaal Wilkes, Tom Burleson, Scott Wedman, Tom Henderson, Campy Russell, Brian Winters, Truck Robinson, John Drew, Phil Smith, Mickey Johnson (NBA); Moses Malone, Marvin Barnes, Maurice Lucas, Billy Knight, Bobby Jones, Len Elmore (ABA)

   1975: Gus Williams, Alvin Adams, Darryl Dawkins, Lionel Hollins, Junior Bridgeman, Bill Robinzine, Joe Bryant, Ricky Sobers, Kevin Grevey, Lloyd Free, Bobby Gross (NBA); David Thompson, Marvin Webster, M. L. Carr, Dan Roundfield, Mark Olberding (ABA)

   Scoring those five years like rounds in a prizefight: 10–8, ABA; 10–9, ABA; 10–9, ABA; 10–9, NBA; 10–10, even. From a quality-of-play standpoint, the ABA grabbed nearly every athletic rebounder and exciting perimeter scorer, forcing the NBA to keep trotting out the likes of Dick Gibbs and Don Ford every night.⁵² If HBO’s Harold Lederman was judging, he’d probably say, “ OHHHHHH-kay, Jim—I have to give this one to the ABA. Maybe the NBA landed more role players and fringe starters, but Jim, out of the twenty best incoming rookies from 1971 to 1975 (Erving, Gervin, Wicks, McAdoo, Kenon, Westphal, Moses, Nater, Barnes, Gilmore, McGinnis, Walton, Silas, Wilkes, Lucas, Thompson, Collins, Knight, Buse and Bobby Jones) the ABA landed fourteen of them, including five guys who could potentially put asses in seats: Erving, Gervin, Thompson, Gilmore and Moses! They landed the biggest punches, pushed the envelope with high schoolers and robbed the NBA of nearly every exciting athlete! I have the ABA winning, 49–46!”

   Considering the NBA had eighteen teams at the time, that was a pretty significant shortage of incoming talent, no? That’s why I have trouble taking the numbers from ’72 to ’76 seriously—particularly some of the gaudy scoring/rebounding numbers that don’t jibe with the drop in scoring—because such a relatively small talent pool spread was stretched over twenty-eight teams and two leagues. Imagine if you removed all the European players from the 2009 NBA, forbade the Eastern and Western Conferences from playing each other, then directed 75 percent of the most talented rookies to one conference for five solid years. Wouldn’t the stats be skewed? Wouldn’t you take the respective conference championships a little less seriously?

4. Julius Erving blossomed as basketball’s most exciting player and a legitimate box office draw, winning 1974 MVP and Playoffs MVP awards, getting an endorsement deal with Dr. Pepper and gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated’s March 15 issue: a picture of Julius dunking as his head broke up the comically unsophisticated headline “What’s Up? Doc J.” Even if fans couldn’t see him on TV, the buzz surrounding Doc had made him cooler than any NBA player. With the Lakers and Knicks fading and the NBA’s younger stars failing to resonate with the public, for the first time the ABA finally had something the NBA needed, and a merger seemed more likely than ever. Alas, the Oscar Robertson suit was still holding it up. The NBA was like a separated rich guy who falls for a mistress from the wrong side of the tracks (the ABA), develops a relationship with her kid (Doc) and wants to marry her even though it’s probably the wrong idea … only he has to wait another five years for the divorce to clear and keeps wondering if he’s doing the right thing getting married again. I think that analogy made sense. I’m almost positive.

5. In the spring of ’74, Utah drafted high schooler Moses Malone and stole him away from the University of Maryland with a four-year, $565,000 deal. That’s right, the ban on high schoolers had been lifted for professional basketball. Poor Moses ended up making an unprecedented life adjustment, moving from Virginia to Utah at the tender age of nineteen and living on his own without the ability to put a decent sentence together. Like Josh Baskin in Big, only with more Mormons and more mumbling.⁵³ For the NBA, it was one more body blow: instead of Moses becoming a household name at Maryland and progressing at his own pace, the best center prospect since Kareem would be learning bad habits in a floundering league. Within a year, Utah went under and Moses was stuck playing with Marvin Barnes on the Spirits of St. Louis. Not exactly the ideal mentor.⁵⁴

(Only one bright spot this season: San Diego lured Wilt to the ABA, but the NBA blocked the deal and Wilt was stuck coaching the Q’s all season. Wilt took it seriously for about a month, then less seriously, and by the midway point of the season, he was no-showing games. S.D. finished last in league attendance with less than 1,900 per game. In Wilt’s defense, they didn’t keep coaching stats at the time so he couldn’t come up with any individual goals.)

1974–75: RACIAL PROGRESS … OR NOT

The 1975 Finals made sports history: for the first time, a championship game featured two black coaches—Al Attles for Golden State, KC Jones for Washington—and if that weren’t enough, they were wearing superhip seventies leisure suits! (Somebody needs to start a website called My Favorite 100 Al Attles Disco Suits. Every time they cut to him on the bench, it looks like he’s waiting on line for Luis Guzman’s club in Boogie Nights.) Jones took heat because CBS’ inside-the-huddle cameras kept catching him crouching submissively during timeouts as assistant Bernie Bicker-staff furiously diagrammed plays and seemed to be the one coaching the team. So what if Bickerstaff happened to be black as well? This just proved that blacks shouldn’t be coaching NBA teams. Or something. Poor KC got fired a year later and didn’t get another crack at a head coaching job until 1983.⁵⁵

You know what? We can do better for 1974–75. My favorite subplot was Oscar shattering the Great Player Turned Incomprehensibly Bad TV Analyst barrier. It’s unclear why CBS believed Oscar would have clicked with TV audiences when he had a (deserved) reputation for being humorless and cantankerous. Maybe they just wanted a big name. But Oscar tanked so badly that they dumped him for former referee Mendy Rudolph. Mendy Rudolph? Now that’s insulting. Here’s what fascinates me after the fact: a whopping eight of the twenty-five all-time greatest players were legitimately horrendous on television, but that didn’t stop the networks from repeatedly hiring the latest available legend under the whole “Hey, he’s a huge name, he’ll be fine!” theory before eventually weaning themselves off the hare-brained idea (although we still see it with the NFL). Here’s the official NBA Legends Turned Horrible TV Personalities chronology.

Elgin Baylor (’74). CBS teamed him with Brent Musburger and Hot Rod Hundley for its inaugural NBA season, only Elgin struggled so famously that the network replaced him during the ’74 playoffs. As soon as the Warriors were eliminated, they dumped him for Rick Barry for the Conference Finals.⁵⁶ Can we get Elgin’s CBS work on YouTube? Can someone make that happen for me?

Oscar Robertson (’75). Stood out for a couple of reasons. First, he never looked at the camera. Ever. It was like the camera was the sun and he didn’t want to get blinded. Second, he had absolutely nothing to say, so he made up for it by making a variety of unprofessional sounds as the game was happening: You know, like “Ohhhhhhhhhhh!” and “Yes!” Oscar always sounded like he was getting a lap dance in the CBS Champagne Room. The network couldn’t get rid of him fast enough after the season, sparing us from seeing an inevitable “The Big O No!” headline if the Oscar era lasted too long.⁵⁷

Rick Barry (’75–’81). Moonlighted as a Playoffs color guy if the Warriors were done playing, coming off like the annoying guy at your Super Bowl party who played a year of college football and thinks that gives him the right to criticize and nitpick everything that’s happening. When he retired and joined CBS full-time for the ’80–’81 season, Barry’s TV career fell apart following an incredible moment during Game 5 of the Finals, when CBS showed a picture of a few members of the ’56 Olympic basketball team (including a young Russell with a big grin on his face), leading to this exchange:

GARY BENDER: Rick, who do you think that guy is over there?

BARRY (attempting his first joke ever): I don’t know, it looks like some fool over there with that, um, that big watermelon grin there on the left.⁵⁸

(CBS cuts from the picture to a dumbfounded Russell with the words “watermelon grin” still hanging in the air. He glances back and forth between Gary Bender and Barry with a “Did he just say what I think he just said?” look on his face. Three excruciating seconds pass.)

BENDER (still smiling, although he may have been shitting himself): Who is that guy? (Pause) That’s you, Bill. Don’t you recognize that picture?

RUSSELL (not smiling): Nope.

Did it end there? Nooooooooo! Only fifteen seconds later, with Russell still steaming, Barry tried to loosen things up by handing the pictures to Russell on camera. As Barry kept asking over and over again, “You sure you don’t want these?” a seething Russell turned his entire body away from Barry toward Bender, who tried to defuse things by telling Rick, “You might want to leave this one alone.” And Barry still kept going until Russell finally said coldly, “No, I don’t want ’em.” Unequivocally the most awkward sports-TV moment that didn’t include Joe Namath and Suzy Kolber. You couldn’t even believe it as it was happening. Needless to say, Barry’s contract was not renewed. And that’s an understatement. (Of course, if this incident happened in today’s overly PC era, Barry would quickly disappear from planet Earth like Michael Richards did.) Barry eventually found a second life on TBS, providing play-by-play for the ’85 Eastern Finals with—you’re not gonna believe this—Bill Russell! Who’s the genius who came up with that idea? That was like Mike Tyson getting freed from jail and immediately hosting the 1996 Miss Black Teen USA pageant.

John Havlicek (’78). A late addition to the Musburger-Barry team for the ’78 Finals,⁵⁹ Hondo said absolutely nothing and flatlined for seven games. Was this really a surprise? I loved Hondo, every Boston fan loved Hondo, but he’s not exactly someone you’d want giving the best man’s speech at a wedding.⁶⁰ I remember watching one of those Finals games on NBA TV at like three in the morning, seeing Hondo introduced in the beginning, getting excited, then thinking he had gotten sick or something because we didn’t hear him speak for the next forty-five minutes. Nope. He was just sitting there. You can’t even give him a grade other than “incomplete” or “possibly in a coma.”

Bill Russell (’80–’83). Well received during his first run in the early seventies, Russell was unprepared/uninterested/un-(fill in any other adjective that suggests life) the second time around and couldn’t carry the load himself after Barry was fired. Actually, he sounded like my dad every time he falls asleep during a Red Sox game, wakes up in the late innings and mumbles, “Wait, what happened to Beckett? Did we take him out?” That was Russell for three solid years. Although you can’t blame him because he worked with Barry for one of them. Maybe he was heavily medicated.

Moses Malone (’86). Okay, we’re cheating here—CBS used Moses as a pregame/halftime/postgame studio guy for Game 4 of the ’86 Finals, an awesome game overshadowed by CBS’ decision that it would be a good idea for Moses to speak extemporaneously on live TV. Teamed with Musburger and Julius Erving (no slouch himself in the Horrible TV Guy department), Doc came off like a cross between Eddie Murphy and abolitionist Frederick Douglass compared to Moses. It’s hard to figure out what CBS was thinking here. I mean, it’s not like Moses was getting more articulate as the years passed—we were only three years removed from his “Fo fo fo” prediction for the ’83 Playoffs and his nickname within the league was “Mumbles” Malone. The more I’m thinking about it, I wonder if someone at CBS lost a bet—as in “okay, if you win, I’ll pay for our golf trip to Scotland, but if I win, you have to use Moses Malone as a TV guy for a Finals game.” That had to be what happened, right? Whatever the reason, this was the only NBA telecast ever that needed closed captioning.⁶¹

Magic Johnson (’92–’97). NBC signed Magic right after he retired and it seemed like a layup. Nobody was more personable or likable than Magic, right? Then the telecasts started. Magic giggled during plays without provocation, kept interrupting Marv Albert and Mike Fratello, and tied every play or storyline into something that had happened while he was playing for the Lakers. You also couldn’t really understand him because, for whatever reason, it always sounded like he was eating a ham sandwich. Of course, I loved having Magic around because he was like a never-ending SNL skit. The Knicks would take the lead on a Ewing shot, then the Bulls and Jordan would answer with a basket, and suddenly Magic would start screaming, “Patrick was down on his end sayin’, ‘I’m gonna win this game’ and Michael came back down and said, ‘Uh-uh, big fella, you ain’t winnin’ on my court!’”⁶² There was something undeniably entertaining about listening to Magic provide color for games, the same way it’s entertaining when you see a pedestrian trip on the sidewalk or a buddy puke all over himself at a bachelor party. When NBC mercifully moved Magic to the studio, it wasn’t the same; he was just annoying and had nothing to say. What’s strange is that Magic went away for a while, returned on TNT and developed into a decent sidekick for Kenny and Charles. I have no rational explanation for this. None.

Julius Erving (’97). Hands down, the worst studio analyst of all time. And that’s a strong statement. Only two years before, Joe Montana appeared on NBC’s NFL show and may have been dead for all we knew. I remember waiting for Jonathan Silverman and Andrew McCarthy to jump in right before every commercial and wheel Montana’s corpse out of the TV frame. Still, it wasn’t surprising that Montana stank—we didn’t like him for his personality, just for banging hot blondes and winning Super Bowls. It’s not like our expectations were high. But Doc was one of the few NBA stars to successfully strike that delicate balance between “articulate spokesman and ambassador” and “slick dude who lives for dunking on heads.” It was incomprehensible that Doc would suck on TV. Seeing him stammer awkwardly on the air, say nonsensical things like “Great players make great plays” and perform the deer-in-the-headlights routine was a little disarming. Every time the camera homed in on him, you could actually feel the tension in the studio. It was tangible. Before one Houston-Utah playoff game, Doc made history by predicting, “I think the key for Houston will be when Hakeem gets the ball, how fast he decides to either shoot, dribble, or pass.” That’s an actual quote. I remember my old roommate Geoff and I spending the next fifteen minutes trying to determine what other options Hakeem could possibly have had on a basketball court, ultimately deciding on these: (a) turn the ball over, (b) call time out, (c) pass out, (d) shit on himself, or (e) drop dead. It was an unforgettable moment, as evidenced by the fact that I can remember where we were watching the game when it happened. Poor Dr. J. Some people just aren’t meant to be on television.⁶³

Isiah Thomas (’98-’00). NBC made a big deal about this hiring because, you know, Isiah was a great player, which means he’ll be a great TV guy, right? (Whoops, I forgot—there’s no correlation whatsoever.) Well, he didn’t have much to say—which didn’t matter much because partner Bob Costas was rusty from a twenty-two-year play-by-play layoff and treated every game like it was a radio telecast⁶⁴—and you could barely hear Isiah because his meek, high-pitched voice was drowned out by any semiex-cited crowd. When Detroit canned Doug Collins midway through the season, NBC signed him for a three-man booth (Costas, Collins and Isiah), a problem because Collins was roughly ten thousand times more competent than Isiah (even if he suffered from Rick Barry–itis). Now Isiah couldn’t get a word in edgewise, and even if he did, we couldn’t hear him. By the time the Finals rolled around, you could practically hear the voice of NBC’s producer imploring Collins to keep including Isiah in the broadcast. YouTube⁶⁵ the ’98 Finals some time and watch how many times Collins starts a sentence with something like, “And Isiah, you know better than anyone that you can’t pick up your dribble” or “I don’t think the Jazz can hold Chicago off with Jordan playing like this …” Pause while NBC’s producer screams in Collins’ ear. “… Right, Isiah?” Holy shit, was it awkward. All things considered, that may have been the worst three-man booth ever. NBC moved Isiah to the studio for the next two years, where he had nothing to say and spent most of the time grinning crazily like Gene Hackman’s right-hand man in No Way Out just before he shoots himself. But everything paid off during the postgame celebration for the 2000 Finals: Peter Vecsey capped a classic two-month, I-don’t-give-a-shit-if-you-fire-me run where he took more cheap shots than Claude Lemieux by totally blindsiding poor Isiah, randomly telling him on live TV as they were recapping everything, “And I just found out that you’re the next Pacers coach!” Poor Isiah didn’t know what to do; he hadn’t even looked as flustered after Bird stole the ball from him in the ’87 Playoffs. The best part was Vecsey standing there with a defiant smirk while Isiah stuttered and stammered in front of a national TV audience. Phenomenal stuff. It made the entire lousy Isiah-on-TV era worth it.⁶⁶ (Unfortunately, it wised up the network executives for good. Not only did we never see Vecsey on network TV again, we’ve never seen another NBA Legend Turned Horrible TV Personality—although there’s always a chance ABC will be dumb enough to hire Shaq when he finally retires. I have my fingers crossed.)

1975–76: THE DUNK CONTEST

Two unforgettable moments stood out during a chaotic season that featured Kareem’s trade to Los Angeles, two commissioner hirings, two NBA high schooler signings, three ABA teams folding, a bitter legal fight between Philly and New York over George McGinnis, and the threat of a merger hanging over everything: the world-renowned triple-OT game (Phoenix-Boston), and a now-legendary ABA Slam Dunk Contest that put David Thompson on the map, turned Doc into a demigod and laid the groundwork for the creation of NBA All-Star Weekend. If you could pick one image that defined each league from 1970 to 1976, you’d pick Cowens skidding across the floor in the ’74 Finals and Doc dunking from the foul line in the Dunk Contest. One league played with passion and did all the little things, while the other league embraced the schoolyard elements of the game, but in either clip you’ll see fans jumping out of their seats. Still, basketball purists discounted the ABA because nobody played defense and everyone went for their own stats, so the fact that the league’s signature moment happened in a Dunk Contest wasn’t helping matters.

Doc’s foul-line dunk had to be the most exhilarating basketball moment that didn’t happen in an actual game. For one thing, nobody had seen one of these contests before, so they didn’t know what to expect; once the dunks started coming, the fans were like thirteen-year-old boys looking at porn for the first time, almost overwhelmed by the sight of everything. You had the decade’s most memorable player facing off against a precocious upstart, with Thompson going right before Doc, firing up the crowd with a superb double pump, and finishing with an incomprehensible-at-the-time 360, playing the role of the talented young band that’s too good to be a warm-up band. (Think Springsteen opening for the Stones in ’75.) You had Doc dramatically measuring his steps from one basket to another as the crowd shuffled in anticipation and wondered what the heck he was doing, finally realizing, “Wait a second, is he going to dunk from the foul line?” Then you had the dunk itself: Erving loping toward the basket and exploding from the foul line, his oversized hand making the basketball look like a golf ball, carrying and carrying and finally tomahawking the ball through the basket as everyone lost their collective shit. Doc’s dunk stands alone for originality pent-up drama, sheer significance and lasting impact, even if he screwed up by not saving that dunk for last. Right guy, right place, right time, right moment. Basketball was starting to go up—literally—and it wasn’t a bad thing.⁶⁷

SUMMER OF 1976: THE MERGER

This gets my Greatest Summer Ever vote: our two hundredth Independence Day, the release of Jaws, the Montreal Olympics, the fictional graduation of Randy “Pink” Floyd’s class at Lee High School and the ABA-NBA merger in the span of three months? Come on. The merger process was given a jolt when the ABA hired a dick-swinging antitrust attorney named Fred Fruth, who had some world-class negotiating sessions with the NBA’s bright assistant commissioner—wait for it … wait for it—Mr. David Stern!⁶⁸ Here’s what they settled, with my comments in parentheses:

1. Denver, New York, San Antonio and Indiana joined for a cost of $3.2 million per team. Those teams would not receive TV money for three years, could not take part in the ’76 college draft and would be called “expansion teams,” but they were allowed to keep their players. The Nets also had to pay the Knicks $4.8 million over ten years for violating their territory rights.

   (My thoughts: A bit of a raping so far, although it’s nice that the Knicks got even more money to throw away at bad players. My biggest issue was the NBA excluding ABA teams from a deep ’76 rookie draft in which Johnny Davis (number twenty-two), Alex English (number twenty-three), Lonnie Shelton (number twenty-five) and Dennis Johnson (number twenty-nine) dropped to Round 2. Shows how little leverage the ABA had at the time.)

2. Kentucky owner John Y. Brown received $3 million for folding his franchise, then spent half that money to buy Buffalo. So the four ABA teams that joined the NBA got crushed financially, but Brown bought in and pocketed $1.5 million? Huh? Meanwhile, the St. Louis owners struck the greatest mother lode in professional sports history, folding their shitty franchise for $2.2 million and one-seventh of the TV money from the four remaining ABA teams—money they were guaranteed in perpetuity. In other words, they received four-sevenths of a cut of the TV contract every year forever. Through 2009, that cut was worth about $150 million. Just free money falling out of the sky, year after year after year after year.⁶⁹

   (My thoughts: The Nets won two titles with Doc, only the league’s signature player and a big reason for the merger, then got shafted to the degree that they sold Doc before the ’77 season just to keep their franchise afloat. The Spirits had a terrible team that would have folded anyway—no fan support, no assets that remotely compared to Doc, no appeal as an NBA market whatsoever—and they somehow finagled a deal that was a hundred times better than New Jersey’s deal. Go figure.)

3. Players from folded ABA franchises would be auctioned off in a dispersal draft, with price tags assigned to each player and Chicago guaranteed the first pick (so they could take Artis Gilmore). The remaining picks were made in reverse order of finish during the ’76 season, with Atlanta trading the number two pick to Portland for Geoff Petrie, then Portland landing the two biggest prizes (Maurice Lucas at number two and Moses at number five).⁷⁰ Also, Detroit paid a whopping $500,000 for Marvin Barnes in an apparent attempt to get Bob Lanier to hang himself.

   (My thoughts: In the Things That Would Have Been Much More Fun if They Happened Now department, can’t you see ESPN televising the ABA dispersal draft at like 2:00 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon as Ric Bucher breaks the Portland/Atlanta trade, Chad Ford laments the lack of European players and Jay Bilas spends ten minutes raving about Malone’s rebounding skills and “second jump-ability”? Alas.)

4. The NBA agreed to abolish the reserve clause and allow free agency for any veteran player with an expiring contract. This was the single biggest sticking point—the owners wanted compensation, the players did not—and it could have dragged on for another few years if not for a brainstorm by NBA Players Association head Jeff Mullins: give the owners compensation for four years because that’s how long it would have taken for the case to reach the Supreme Court, anyway. Everyone agreed and that was that. Compensation would be awarded by O’Brien’s office as long as the two teams involved didn’t agree first.

   (My thoughts: This was the single biggest NBA moment since the shot clock. Everything about the way players were paid and contenders were built was about to change. For good and bad. And for the first few years, it was mostly bad.)

What ensued was the single zaniest summer of player movement in NBA history. Chicago and Houston reinvented themselves with franchise centers (Gilmore and Malone). Portland landed a rebounding sidekick for Walton. The Nets sold Doc to Philly for $3 million and traded Brian Taylor with two number one picks for Tiny Archibald.⁷¹ Philly suddenly had the ’75 ABA co-MVPs (Doc and McGinnis) on the same team. Moses bounced around twice before landing in Houston. Portland stupidly traded Moses to Buffalo for a number one pick; Buffalo rerouted him to Houston for two first-rounders just six days later. The Knicks bought McAdoo from Buffalo and lavished him with a five-year, $2.5 million deal, killing his incentive to give a shit until 1982. Gail Goodrich became the Jackie Robinson of free agency, inadvertently murdering professional basketball in New Orleans for two solid decades (hold that thought). Red Auerbach refused to pay Paul Silas market value, shipped him to Denver for Curtis Rowe, then bought Sidney Wicks from Portland (and murdered Celtic Pride in the process). None of the top five teams from ’76 (Golden State, Phoenix, Boston, L.A., Cleveland) improved itself in any conceivable way. Throw in the rise of cocaine, free agency, and escalating salaries and you need to get emotionally prepared for the weirdest three-year stretch in NBA history.

1976–77: THE CANNONBALL

Brace yourself: this might be the only time in sports history that a professional sports league didn’t expand enough. The NBA jumped from eighteen franchises to twenty-two but added twenty-eight quality players to its talent pool, including four franchise guys (Erving, Gervin, Gilmore and Thompson) and a potential franchise guy (Moses).⁷² Throw in a loaded draft class (John Lucas, Dantley, English, DJ, Parish, Mitch Kupchak, Walter Davis…) and there were two quality newcomers for every franchise. Suddenly we had teams struggling with alpha dog battles (McAdoo-Haywood, Erving-McGinnis, Barnes-Lanier) and contrasting styles (old-school versus playground), certain teams quickly gelling into contenders (Portland, Denver) or falling off (Boston, Phoenix, Cleveland, G-State), and fans alternately delighted by the ABA’s infusion of athleticism and appalled by high-priced guys playing so selfishly. And if that’s not enough, cocaine and freebasing were taking the league by storm. Again, silliest year ever—like mixing up everyone’s Madden rosters, restarting a franchise season and randomly giving drug problems to 25 percent of the players. Even the records bore out the chaos: no team won more than 52 games and only one lost more than 28 (the Nets). Meanwhile, the “ABA was a quality league” argument gained steam when nine alumni became ’77 All-Stars and five played prominent roles in the ’77 Finals. The infusion of ABA blood made the league faster, deeper, and infinitely more athletic; other than Bill Walton, the league’s most thrilling players were ABA guys (Doc, Ice, Thompson and Moses). The days of a potbellied Nelson logging big minutes in the Finals were long gone, personified by Phoenix returning every key player and finishing 34–48. Still, it was an upheaval of sorts. Like watching the water in a pool thrashing around after a cannonball.

The water kept splashing the following summer, when eleven of the top eighteen draft picks switched by trade and two were repackaged a second time. Trading picks was a relatively recent trend; as late as 1971, everyone picked in their spots and that was that. All hell broke loose in 1977, with two trades netting Milwaukee the first, third and twelfth picks in a superb draft—and, of course, they botched two of them (Kent Benson and Ernie Grunfeld, back in the halycon days when teams could waste two top-twelve picks on slow white guys without getting creamed on the Internet and talk radio). Still, they were the first team to say, “We’re going to rebuild with multiple picks,” a relatively bold move in a league where nearly every franchise was losing money and worrying about its precarious relationship with fans.⁷³ We also had our first full-fledged free agency summer in 1977, with Jamaal Wilkes (Lakers), Gus Williams (Seattle), Truck Robinson (New Orleans), Bobby Dandridge (Washington), Jim Cleamons (New York) and E. C. Coleman (G-State) switching teams.⁷⁴ Usually teams banged out compensation themselves, with the most famous example happening in ’79, when Boston signed Detroit’s M. L. Carr and it ballooned into a larger deal: Carr and two future number one picks for McAdoo (used to land Parish and McHale a year later). When San Diego signed Walton that same summer, the teams couldn’t agree and left it up to the league. The wackiest free agent transaction will always be the ’79 Clippers signing Brian Taylor from Denver, then giving up two second-round picks, four kilos of cocaine and their best drug connection as compensation.⁷⁵

Despite unprecedented upheaval, our first postcannonball Finals (Portland-Philly) made everyone happy: CBS (highest-rated Finals ever), the NBA (Bill Walton, backing up the “great white hope” hype), Brent Musburger (who nicknamed Walton “Mountain Man” and tried to become the Cosell to his Ali), basketball purists (delighted that Portland “saved” the league), and virulent racists (who enjoyed the way this series was “analyzed” by mainstream media). The Sixers were painted as a disorganized schoolyard team, a product of the ABA and its “look at me” culture, just a bunch of high-priced blacks who didn’t care about making each other better. They had players with nicknames like “Jellybean”⁷⁶ and “World,” their layup lines were more famous than any of their wins, and because everyone was out for themselves, Doc was unfairly considered to be more sizzle than steak. By contrast, Portland played like Russell’s old Celtics teams and thrived on fast breaks and ball movement, with everything hinging on Walton’s once-in-a-generation skills. They started three white guys, their best player had red hair and their point guard had a crew cut. Their deliriously happy fans filled a 12,666-seat bandbox and made every game sound like a mid-sixties Beatles concert. Even their rough but lovable bald coach barked out orders and looked like he should have been running one of those Dead Poets Society--type boarding schools. So when the Blazers swept the Lakers, then rallied back from a two-games-to-none lead by winning the next four from Philly, they defeated the NBA’s two biggest quote-unquote problems in one felt swoop: Kareem (the surliest of superstars, someone who had just worn everyone out) and the overtly prejudiced belief that undisciplined, overpaid black guys really were ruining the game. That’s why Portland’s “quest” to save basketball made for ratings magic. As long as Walton and the Blazers were kicking some selfish black ass, the average white sports fan would pay attention to the NBA. (And if the Blazers didn’t keep kicking some selfish black ass? Then the NBA was in trouble.)⁷⁷

1977–78: THE BLOWN TIRE

If ’77 was the NBA’s craziest season, then the ’78 season had to be its most damaging. Let’s rank the problems in order of least harmful to most harmful.

Crisis no. 1: the drive-by shooting of the Blazers. Walton went down with Portland sporting a 50–10 record and generating buzz that they might be the greatest team ever. In one felt swoop, the NBA lost its signature team, most visible white star, most compelling story line and most entertaining team not just for ’78 but ’79 and ’80, too. Imagine Jordan breaking his foot during Chicago’s 72-win season and disappearing for the next three years. How does that Heat-Sonics Finals in ’96 grab you? Or consecutive Indiana-Utah Finals in ’97 and ’98? Get the idea? Walton’s injury was practically a death blow until Larry and Magic showed up.⁷⁸

Crisis no. 2: cocaine. Everywhere at this point … and nobody knew it was bad yet. I don’t need to spell it out for you. Just watch Boogie Nights. You should, anyway. I made ten references to it already and could easily go for thirty more. Just rent it. It’s a real film, Jack.

Crisis no. 3: consecutive Bullets-Sonics concussions. Do you realize the ’78 and ’79 Finals were the only NBA Finals of the past half century that didn’t have a recognizable superstar or big-market team? The ’78 Finals stretched over eighteen agonizing days to accommodate CBS; Unseld won Finals MVP and a brand-new car, although the ceremony was marred when the distraught head of CBS asked if he could borrow Unseld’s car to kill himself in it. The bad luck extended beyond Walton going down: the league barely missed out on a Sixers-Nuggets Finals in ’78 (“Thompson versus the Doctor!”) and a thoroughly entertaining Spurs-Suns Finals in ’79 (“Davis and Westphal take on the Iceman!”). If Stern had been running the league in ’78 and ’79, you might have seen that decade’s equivalent of Dick Bavetta or Bennett Salvatore reffing a few of those pivotal Spurs-Bullets, Sixers-Bullets and Nuggets-Sonics games. And you know it’s true.⁷⁹

Crisis no. 4: the CBS problem. A heated contract negotiation that spring resulted in a four-year, $74 million deal that the network tried to back out of even as it was signing it. As part of the deal (and we’re using that word loosely), CBS was given carte blanche to run playoff games on tape delay, tinker with playoff dates/times and scale back on the number of Sunday telecasts. And cable TV hadn’t been invented yet. Yikes.

Crisis no. 5: fighting. Fighting had always been considered part of basketball, an inevitable outcome of a physical sport (much like hockey). Willis Reed put himself on the map by cleaning out the ’67 Lakers. Maurice Lucas made his reputation by dropping Gilmore. Dennis Awtrey lasted ten years because he was the Guy Who Once Decked Kareem. Ricky Sobers turned around the ’76 Warriors-Suns series by socking Barry. Calvin Murphy had the league’s most famous Napoleon complex, frequently beating up bigger guys and scoring a knockout over six-foot-nine Sidney Wicks. So when the Blazers and Sixers had their ugly brawl in Game 2 of the ’77 Finals, nobody was really that appalled. It started when Darryl Dawkins tried to sucker-punch Bobby Gross (hitting teammate Doug Collins instead), then backpedaled right into a flying elbow from Lucas,⁸⁰ followed by the two of them squaring off like 1920s bare-knuckle boxers before everyone jumped in. After getting ejected, Dawkins couldn’t calm down and ended up destroying a few toilets in the Philly locker room. Was anyone suspended? Of course not! Not to sound like Grumpy Old Editor, but that’s the way it worked in the seventies and we loved it! Portland swept the last four games and everyone agreed afterward that Lucas’ flying elbow was the turning point of the series. It was the perfect NBA fight for the times—no injuries, tremendous TV and a valuable lesson learned about sticking up for your teammates.⁸¹

Fast-forward to October: Sports Illustrated revolves its NBA preview issue around “the Enforcers,” sticking Lucas’ menacing mug on the cover and glorifying physical players in a pictorial ominously titled “Nobody, but Nobody, Is Gonna Hurt My Teammates.” In retrospect, it’s an incredible piece to read; the magazine took intimidating-looking pictures of each enforcer like they were WWF wrestlers, with Kermit Washington (gulp) posing shirtless like a boxer. Each picture was accompanied with text to make these bruisers sound like a combination of Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson. An example: “Kermit Washington, the 6’8”, 230-pound Laker strong man, is a nice quiet person who lifts weights and sometimes separates people’s heads from their shoulders. In one memorable game last November in Buffalo, Washington ended an elbow skirmish with John Shumate by dropping the 6’9” forward with a flurry of hooks and haymakers. ‘Shumate came apart in sections,’ an eyewitness said.”

Wow, punching people never sounded so cool! Since SI was the influential sports voice at the time—remember, we didn’t have ESPN, USA Today, cable or the Internet yet—the tone of that issue coupled with kudos given to Murphy and Lucas the previous season may have inspired the violent incidents that followed. Lucas was a valuable player who wasn’t good enough to command an SI cover unless it was for something else … you know, like beating the shit out of someone. Was it okay to punch other players in the face? According to Sports Illustrated, actually, it was. As long as you had a good reason.

Fast-forward to opening night: Kent Benson sneaks a cheap elbow into Kareem’s stomach, doubling Kareem over and sending him wobbling away from the play in obvious pain. An enraged Kareem regroups and charges Benson from behind, sucker-punching him and breaking his jaw.⁸² Unlike other ugly NBA events from the past, this one had a black-guy-decking-a-white-guy clip playing on every local newscast around the country, with the black guy doubling as the league’s signature player of the seventies. Uh-oh. The league decides against suspending Kareem, deeming it punishment enough that he’s missing two months with a broken hand from the punch.

Fast-forward to December: Kermit gets belted by Houston’s Kevin Kunnert after a free throw and they start fighting. Kareem jumps in to hold Kunnert back, Kermit nails Kunnert (who slumps over holding his face),⁸³ then Kermit whirls around, sees Rudy Tomjanovich running toward him and throws what Lakers assistant Jack McKinney later called “the greatest punch in the history of mankind,” breaking Rudy’s face on impact and his skull after it slammed off the floor. Kareem later described the punch as sounding like somebody had dropped a melon onto a concrete floor. Rudy rolled over, grabbed his face, kicked his legs and bled all over the court as everyone watched in horror. The final damage: two weeks in intensive care, a broken jaw, a broken nose, a fractured face and a skull cracked so badly that Rudy could taste spinal fluid dripping into his mouth.

Four forces were working against Kermit other than, you know, the fact he nearly killed another player. With Kareem’s haymaker happening two months earlier, the combination of those punches spawned dueling epidemics of “NBA Violence Is Out of Control!” headlines and editorials (with everyone forgetting that SI had glorified that same violence ten weeks earlier) and “Why do I want to follow a league that allows black guys to keep kicking the crap out of white guys when I’m a white guy?” doubts (the underlying concern that nobody mentioned out loud unless you were sitting in the clubhouse of a country club, as well as the subplot that scared the living shit out of CBS and the owners). Second, the only existing replay made Kermit seem like an unprovoked madman out for white blood, but the cameras missed Kunnert’s initial elbow and the rest of their fight, catching the action only after Kunnert was sinking into Kareem’s arms and Rudy was running at Kermit. Third, Saturday Night Live made light of the incident on “Weekend Update,” showing the punch over and over again for a gag and giving it new life.⁸⁴ And fourth, with TV ratings faltering, attendance dropping and the league battling the “too many white fans, too many black players” issue, really, you couldn’t have asked for worse timing. It was a best/worst extreme—the most destructive punch ever thrown on a basketball court, the perfect specimen to throw such a punch,⁸⁵ the worst result possible, the worst possible timing (CBS’ contract was up after the season) and the worst possible color combination (a black guy decking a white guy). Kermit was suspended for sixty days without pay—no hearing, no appeal, nothing—losing nearly $54,000 in salary and becoming Public Enemy No. 1. (This went well beyond a few death threats. After Kermit returned from the suspension, police advised him against ordering hotel room service because they worried someone would poison him.) And Rudy eventually sued the league for $3 million, with his laywers portraying Kermit as a vicious Rottweiler who had been allowed off his leash by neglectful owners. Nothing good came from this incident. Nothing.

The Lakers coldly traded Kermit during his suspension, shipping him to Boston for my favorite Celtic at the time, Charlie Scott. Dark day in the Abdul-Simmons house. I remember attending my first Kermit/Celtics game, seeking him out in warm-ups, finding him, and thinking, “That’s him, that’s the guy,” then watching him fearfully like he was like Michael Myers or something. He may have been the league’s first pariah. But Kermit won Boston fans over immediately. Here was this tragic, forlorn figure carrying himself with undeniable dignity, attacking the boards with relentless fury, injecting life into Cowens like nobody had since Silas, throwing every repressed emotion into these games. Sometimes when the Garden was quiet—and that happened a lot, since we only won 32 games and fans were fleeing in droves—you could even hear Kermit grunt when he grabbed a ballboard: uhhhhhhhhh. Kermit averaged 11.8 points, 10.5 rebounds and 52 percent shooting in just twenty-seven minutes per game. By the end of the season, Kermit had become my favorite Celtic and I was convinced that Rudy’s face had attacked Kermit’s fist.

Of course, we traded him that summer. Go figure.⁸⁶ He moved to San Diego and then Portland, where Blazer fans embraced him the way the Boston fans had. When Halberstam wrote beautifully about him a few years later—really, one of the great character profiles ever written of an athlete—Kermit evolved into something of a victim, culminating in John Feinstein writing an entire book about the punch in 2002.⁸⁷ Maybe Rudy was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but so was Kermit. Like hundreds of NBA players before him, Kermit threw an angry punch with mean-spirited intentions … only this one connected. He became the league’s Hannibal Lecter, the guy who threw The Punch and nearly killed someone. The NBA took violence more seriously after that, making fighting ejections mandatory and handing out longer suspensions, although it’s turned into somewhat of an urban legend that Kermit’s punch changed everything. The league didn’t make a concerted effort to shed fighting completely until an ugly Knicks-Bulls brawl in the ’94 Playoffs spilled into the stands with a horrified David Stern in attendance. That was the tipping point, not Kermit’s punch.

1978–79: LIFE SUPPORT

Here’s where the perception that the NBA was in trouble took hold, thanks to tape-delayed playoff games, declining attendance, star players mailing in games, Walton’s continued absence, Buffalo’s move to San Diego, Erving’s disappointing play in Philly, a 75:25 black-to-white ratio and something of a smear campaign from various newspaper columnists and even Sports Illustrated. Since sports fans in 1978 and 1979 took their cue from SI, everyone was thinking the same thing: “The NBA is in trouble.” Even if it wasn’t necessarily true. With Boston already owning Bird’s draft rights, Indiana State’s undefeated ’79 season assumed greater significance for NBA fans as it unfolded. Bird loomed as the potential savior of a floundering Celtics franchise, and when Bird battled Magic’s Michigan State squad in the 1979 NCAA Finals, that boosted Magic’s profile to savior status as well. By sheer coincidence, two of the league’s three biggest markets (L.A. and Chicago) controlled the first two picks in the ’79 draft. The Lakers won the coin toss and Magic, while Chicago’s ensuing tailspin ended with Jordan saving them five years later. Throw in Boston signing Bird and everyone wins!⁸⁸ Within a year, Bird saved the Celtics, Magic gave Kareem a pulse for the first time in five years, Philly finally built the right cast of role players around Doc, all three teams won 60-plus games and made the Conference Finals and Magic put himself on the map with the clinching game of the Finals.

A bigger savior was coming that summer: cable. Just weeks after the NBA signed a three-year, $1.5 million deal with the USA Network for Thursday night doubleheaders and early round playoff games, ESPN launched the first-ever twenty-four-hour sports network on September 7, 1979, paving the way for SportsCenter, fun-to-watch highlights, and an eventual competitor for the league’s cable rights. You couldn’t find better advertising than slickly packaged game summaries that featured every exciting dunk, pass, and big shot and left out all the unseemly stuff. (You know, like fistfights, empty seats, utter indifference, and players jogging around and looking spent for the wrong reasons.) For the record, David Stern believes the arrival of ESPN and cable TV had more to do with saving the NBA than Bird and Magic, although he feels like the whole “saving” part has been totally overblown.⁸⁹ Which it probably was. Remember, the Dallas Mavericks joined in 1980–81 for a cool expansion fee of $12 million, finishing 15–67 that season and spawning countless “Yeesh, maybe they should have had J. R. Ewing coach the team” jokes that were hysterically funny twenty-eight years ago. How bad could things have been if rich guys were throwing out $12 million checks to join the NBA?

Still, here’s how much the NBA/CBS relationship had deteriorated: Despite being given two appealing Conference Finals in 1980 (Boston-Philly and L. A.-Phoenix), CBS showed only three games live, broadcast another three on tape delay and completely ignored the other four (including a pivotal Game 4 in Phoenix).⁹⁰ When they landed Kareem, Magic and Doc in the Finals, they made the Lakers and Sixers play Games 3 and 4 back-to-back on a Saturday/Sunday, then gave affiliates the option of airing Game 6 (a potential clincher) either live or on tape delay at eleven-thirty at night. Since it was a Friday during May sweeps, nearly every affiliate opted for reruns of The Incredible Hulk, The Dukes of Hazzard and Dallas, with only the Philly, L.A., Portland and Seattle markets carrying the game live. That meant one of the most famous basketball games ever played (Magic starting at center in place of an injured Kareem, then carrying the Lakers to the title) happened well after midnight on tape delay in nearly every American city. Think how many young fans could have been sucked in for life. On the other hand, can you really blame the CBS affiliates there? I mean, both The Incredible Hulk and Dukes of Hazzard plus Dallas to boot? That was a murderer’s row! After a three-minute Googling frenzy, I can report that Dallas and Dukes were the top two shows in 1980; Dukes had about 21 million viewers and Dallas had a jaw-dropping 27 million. Obviously they weren’t dumping those shows for an episode of The League with Overpaid Black Guys Who Do Drugs.⁹¹ That’s just a bad business decision. So yeah, it stinks that nobody watched Magic’s famous 42-point game live. But it stinks more that the NBA screwed up by not scheduling that game for Saturday afternoon so everyone could see it.⁹²

One year later, the unthinkable happened: even though a star-studded affair between Philly and Boston doubled as the greatest Conference Final ever played, CBS aired only nine of a possible fourteen Final Four games (six of those nine were tape-delayed) and showed four of the six ’81 Finals games on tape delay (including the clincher). In a related story, the broadcast of the ’81 Finals was the lowest-rated in history (6.7)⁹³ and an improbable ’81 Western Finals matchup between the 40–42 Rockets and 40–42 Kings probably made CBS consider the first-ever tape delay of a tape-delayed telecast.⁹⁴ So yes, the NBA needed cable. Badly.

1979–80: THREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Do you realize that it took the three-point line eight solid years to fully establish itself? A quick timeline:

1980. The old “dipping the toes in the water” mentality takes hold. Only Brian Taylor (239) and Rick Barry (221) attempt more than 200 threes, only twelve players attempt more than 100 for the season, only five players finish at better than 38 percent, and the average NBA game features fewer than six attempted threes. For the Celtics, I remember Chris Ford emerging as our “three-point threat” (nailing 43 percent of them) and feeling like this run-of-the-mill shooting guard suddenly had real value for us. Every time he made one, the crowd went crazy. So something was happening. We just weren’t sure yet.

1981. A slight backlash. Mike Bratz leads the league with just 169 attempts; only Brian Taylor shoots better than 34 percent (38.3 percent to be exact); the league average drops from 28 percent to 24.5 percent; and attempted threes drop to four per game. Bizarre. Although we do have our first signature three: in Game 6 of the Finals, Bird nails a back-breaking three to clinch the title, then cements it with a joyous fist pump that was exciting even on tape delay when I was half asleep at one-thirty in the morning.

1982. Still nobody biting. Only four players attempt more than 100 threes. We did have another signature moment in Game 5 of the Celtics-Bullets series: Frankie Johnson and Gerald Henderson got into a fourth-quarter fight, then a pissed-off Johnson drained three treys (including a 30-foot bomb) to push the game into overtime before Boston prevailed in double OT. That game was televised live by USA, so it’s the first documented time anyone went into eff-you mode with threes.⁹⁵

1983. Crickets. Only four guys attempted more than 100 threes and the league’s average was a paltry 24 percent. Of the leaders who qualified, Mike Dunleavy finished first (34 percent) and Isiah Thomas was second (28 percent), ironic since he’s the worst long-range shooter of any modern point guard.

1984. There’s a little traction when Utah’s Darrell Griffith leads the league in attempts (252), makes (91) and percentage (36.1 percent). How’s that for irony? A guy nicknamed Dr. Dunkenstein was keeping the three alive?

1985. Threes climb to 6.2 per game; the league’s average climbs to 28.2 percent; fifteen players attempt 100-plus threes; four players break the 40 percent mark; and the three gains “cool” status when Bird adds it to his arsenal (making 42.7 percent and draining two memorable ones in his 60-point game).

1986. Our long-awaited breakthrough includes:

1. The first three-point contest at All-Star Weekend, which Bird wins handily after guaranteeing victory beforehand.⁹⁶

2. The Legend getting inspired by his title and adopting the three as a weapon, ripping off a ten-game stretch later that month in which he made 25 of 34 threes. By season’s end, he led the league in attempts (194) and makes (82) but finished fourth in percentage (42.3 percent). Beyond that, the Legend becomes the first to use threes as a psychological weapon, draining four in the fourth quarter of Boston’s sweep over Milwaukee in the Conference Finals, then making the ludicrous “dribble out of the paint, dribble around three guys, find a spot in front of Houston’s bench, and launch an Eff You Three” that nearly caused the Garden’s roof to cave in during the clinching game of the ’86 Finals.

3. Three-point specialists were emerging like Craig Hodges (45%), Trent Tucker (44%), Kyle Macy (41%), Michael Cooper (39%) and Dale Ellis (36%), guys who spread the floor and opened things up down low.

4. Three legitimately memorable threes: Doc banking a buzzer-beater to beat the Celtics on national TV; Dudley Bradley winning a playoff game over Philly with an improbable buzzer-beater; and Jeff Malone making the crazy “chase down the loose ball and falling out of bounds” three that they showed in “The NBA … It’s FANNNNNtas-tic!” commercial for a solid year.⁹⁷

1987. Bingo! Threes climb to nearly 10 per game, the league’s percentage climbs over 30 percent, eight players attempt 200-plus threes and twenty attempt at least 1,215 threes. And if Bird made that three to win Game 4 of the ’87 Finals, we would have had ourselves the most famous three ever. Anyway, that’s how the three became the threeeeeeeeeeeeeel It was an eight-year process.

One other trend opened up offenses: a point guard boon. Of the twenty-two NBA teams in 1981, half employed true PGs: Magic Johnson/Norm Nixon, Tiny Archibald, Mo Cheeks, Gus Williams,⁹⁸ Kevin Porter, Rickey Green, Johnny Davis, Eddie Johnson, Micheal Ray Richardson, John Lucas and Phil Ford. With Isiah Thomas and Johnny Moore joining the mix the following season, that’s an inordinately high number of true points, isn’t it? No wonder scoring and field goal percentages kept going up. The ’78 teams averaged 108.5 points and 46.9 percent shooting; by ’84, those numbers had risen to 110.1 and 49.1 percent (and those numbers would have been higher if everyone wasn’t jacking up bad threes). The days of the ’77 Lakers nearly making the Finals without a single ball handler were over, and if you ever see any of those Philly-Boston games from 1981, watch Tiny and Cheeks put on an absolute clinic—just two guys who knew how to run fast breaks, handle the ball, bang home 15-footers and penetrate whenever they needed to penetrate. What a pleasure.

1980–81: NOSE CANDY

Cocaine use went from recreational to potentially league-altering in 1980. Why do I know this? Because the following things happened:

• During a practice before the 1980 Finals, the Lakers were stretching on the floor when a coked-out Spencer Haywood simply passed out. He was excused for the rest of the postseason. Quickly. The Broken Mirror strikes again! It’s amazing he wasn’t on the floor for the Kermit-Rudy punch.

• Utah’s Terry Furlow was killed in a car accident just one week after the ’80 Finals ended. Furlow was driving and his blood had traces of cocaine and Valium. Hmmmmmm.⁹⁹

• In August 1980, spurred on by Richard Pryor setting himself on fire in a freebasing accident, the L.A. Times released an investigative feature about drug abuse within the celebrity culture and reported that cocaine and freebasing had become a borderline epidemic in the NBA, with then-Atlanta GM Stan Kasten estimating the number of players dabbling in drugs at 75 percent. Seventy-five percent!

• When SI wrote about David Thompson being his “old soaring self” in November of 1980, the piece included repeated references to cocaine rumors the previous season, with Thompson not really denying them by telling an acquaintance, “I’m not doing anything worse than what everybody else in the NBA is doing.”¹⁰⁰

Should we have been surprised? Look at what was happening in the late seventies and early eighties: Widespread coke use had taken off within the music/movie/television industries, prep schools, discos, nightclubs and every professional sports league,¹⁰¹ but everyone remembers the NBA struggling most because we could see the effects (bleary eyes, skinny bodies, inconsistent and lethargic play). There isn’t a more naked sport than basketball. Nobody can deny that from 1977 to 1983, certain stars struggled as they should have been peaking; certain young stars openly battled personal issues; and certain veteran stars acted erratically, missed scores of practices, burned the candle at both ends and/or had their careers end abruptly. We learned the identity of some of them thanks to drug rehab stints and public admissions—Thompson, Walter Davis, John Drew, Richardson, John Lucas, Barnes, Bernard King, Eddie Johnson—and we’ll always wonder about some of the others (including one of the era’s biggest stars, someone who became infamous in NBA circles for his surreal ability to thrive even after he had used cocaine). Regardless, there were an inordinate number of “What the hell happened to him?” and “Why did his career inexplicably end?” guys for such a brief time frame; after Furlow’s death and the L.A. Times report, it’s hard to figure how two more years passed before the powers that be did anything.¹⁰²

Some teams traded troubled players instead of helping them. The Knicks dumped Richardson, the Nets dumped Bernard, the Hawks dumped Drew; it’s like they wanted to get anything of value before those guys snorted themselves out of the league. The ’81 Warriors suspended Lucas for their last eight games while fighting for a playoff spot; then again, he didn’t leave them much choice after no-showing six games and missing three team flights and over a dozen practices.¹⁰³ When Drew finally sought help in 1983, he admitted to the New York Times that he’d been freebasing for three years and snorting cocaine since 1978. You’re telling me his teams didn’t notice? Or that the Lakers didn’t notice Haywood sniffling his way through the ’80 season? (That same piece revealed that Buck Williams, speaking at an awards dinner that year, had estimated the percentage of NBA players using drugs as “maybe 20 or 30 percent,” adding that the figure was much lower than he thought it would be. Much lower? Really?) It turned out to be a fairly wasted era for basketball; maybe it’s good thing everything was tape-delayed.

What’s the greatest NBA coke-era story that I can print? A 1982 SI feature about troubled Hawks guard Eddie Johnson casually included revelations that Atlanta had placed him in a psychiatric facility against his will, that Eddie had stolen a Porsche from a car dealer, that he’d been arrested for gun possession and cocaine possession in separate incidents, and that he’d jumped out of a second-story apartment building to evade drug dealers who were shooting at him.¹⁰⁴ (I vote for Don Cheadle to play Eddie in the movie.) And you know what? That’s honorable mention. We have to give first prize to the Broken Mirror himself, Spencer Haywood. After Paul Westhead suspended him for the ’80 Finals, Haywood wrote in his 1988 autobiography that he hired a Mafia hit man to kill his coach before changing his mind. I’m almost positive this would have marred the Finals. Also, that revelation led to my favorite quote from the coke era: Haywood remembering in the book, “I left the Forum and drove off in my Rolls that night thinking one thought—that Westhead must die.” I wish this had been my high school yearbook quote.

(One positive this season: free agent compensation was replaced by right of first refusal, so we didn’t really have free agency, but we kind of did. Example: L.A. signs Mitch Kupchak, the Bullets agree not to match and Washington ends up with Jim Chones, Brad Holland and a 1983 number one pick for “not refusing.” I like the right of first refusal; it’s really too bad it can’t extend to ex-girlfriends. “Yeah, you can date her, but only if you give me your iPod.”)

1981–82: THE PERILS OF OVERCOACHING

After everyone made a fuss about Bill Fitch (NBA title) and Cotton Fitzsimmons (Western Finals) doing terrific jobs in the ’81 Playoffs, the era of overcoaching kicked off when SI’s subsequent NBA preview centered on the success of former college coaches in the NBA.¹⁰⁵ Suddenly coaches were frantically diagramming plays during time-outs, studying tape until the wee hours, hiring multiple assistants and pontificating about the sport like Henry David Thoreau, culminating in Hubie Brown getting hired by the Knicks (I love Hubie, but he’s the ultimate “hey, look at me” coach) and paving the way for Rick Pitino’s $50 million deal in Boston and Avery Johnson employing at least 375 assistants for the Mavericks during the 2007–8 season. The new wave of coaches made defenses sophisticated enough by 1981 that the league created an “illegal defense” rule to open the paint. Here’s how referee Ed Rush explained it to SI: “We were becoming a jump-shot league, so we went to the coaches and said, ‘You’ve screwed the game up with all your great defenses. Now fix it.’ And they did. The new rule will open up the middle and give the great players room to move. People like Julius Erving and David Thompson who used to beat their own defensive man and then still have to pull up for a jump shot because they were being double-teamed, should have an extra four or five feet to move around in. And that’s all those guys need.”

Nice! That explanation actually made sense. But as the egos of coaches swelled, so did the egos of players who didn’t feel like getting ordered around. One famous youngster battled injuries during his second season and threw up a series-losing air ball in a stunning Round 1 playoff upset. As the player headed into his third season, the team’s owner handed him the biggest contract in sports history: $25 million for 25 years. When the team struggled coming out of the gate, the player told reporters that he couldn’t play for his coach anymore and demanded to be traded. The coach got canned the following day. Now disgraced and considered a selfish jerk, the young player was booed at home and became the poster boy of the Too Young, Too Rich, and Too Immature NBA. One of his teammates wondered, “If he got mad at a player, would the player be gone the next day?” SI called him a “greedy, petulant and obnoxious 22-year-old” and decided he’s “clearly a great player. Just as clearly, he’s no longer a great guy.”

The player? That’s right … Earvin “Magic” Johnson. It’s all true.

Only after the ’81 Playoffs did people start believing that coaches could work wonders. I’ve purposely avoided them in this book for the following reason: there’s no concrete evidence that they make a genuine, consistent difference except for a small handful of gifted leaders (Pat Riley, Gregg Popovich, Phil Jackson, Chuck Daly, Larry Brown, Jerry Sloan) and forward thinkers (Mike D’Antoni, Don Nelson, Jack Ramsey). Plenty of coaches understand The Secret; only a few can pass it along to players; even fewer can keep The Secret thriving with any type of roster. Daly spearheaded those terrific Bad Boy Pistons teams, failed to find the same success with two knuckleheads (Derrick Coleman and Kenny Anderson) in New Jersey, then suffered through the unhappiest of seasons with a petulant Penny Hardaway on the ’97 Magic. Only a handful of coaches would have enjoyed the same success that Daly had with Detroit, just like the same handful would have failed to reach Coleman, Kenny, and Penny. Which brings me back to my point: unless you’re teaming an elite coach with a quality roster, coaches don’t really matter. You have your top guys—usually three or four per year—and everyone else ranges between functional, overrated, replaceable, incompetent, “my God, what a train wreck,” and Vinny Del Negro. Most of them tread water or inflict as much damage as good.

Look at the firing numbers over the past decade: eight to ten coaches get fired every year, none lasts more than three or four years, and there might be three or four quality coaches in any given season. Doc Rivers lost 18 straight games and won a title within a sixteen-month span. Hubie finished with a record of 424–495 and somehow became known as a memorably good coach in the process. Paul Westphal led the Suns to the ’93 Finals; within eight years, nobody would hire him. KC Jones made the Finals four of five years in Boston, took two years off, then lasted 118 games in Seattle. We have amassed overwhelming evidence that coaches are exceedingly dispensable—they’re only as good as their talent, with a limited number of exceptions. Occasionally they might stumble into the right situation, but ultimately, players win titles and coaches lose them. I am going to keep pining for the return of the player-coach if it’s the last thing I do. What’s the difference? So it doesn’t work and he gets fired? How is that different from what happens now? Maybe Red Auer-bach knew what he was doing with a seven-play playbook, no assistants and a rolled-up program.¹⁰⁶

One more thing: if you thought coaches were getting wacky, you should have seen the new slew of owners. Donald Sterling spent $13 million on the Clippers, watched the first home game from midcourt with his shirt unbuttoned to his navel, then jumped in coach Paul Silas’ arms and kissed him when they won; within a few months, he’d failed to make deferred payments to players, refused to pay operating expenses and owed over half a million to the NBA’s pension fund and various creditors. Cleveland’s Ted Stepien overpaid for free agents Scott Wedman and James Edwards, lost $5.1 million during the ’82 season and traded away so many number one picks that the Association awarded the franchise compensatory picks when Stepien sold the team. (They also passed the Stepien Rule—teams weren’t allowed to trade first-rounders in consecutive years. How many guys can say they owned an NBA team and had a rule named after them?) Philly’s Harold Katz nearly caused an owner revolt when he offered Moses a then-record six-year, $13 million deal and gave Houston a number one pick and Caldwell Jones so they wouldn’t match.¹⁰⁷ This launched a twenty-five-year pattern of franchises stupidly overpaying for players, then warning the players’ union it had to do something to keep the costs down. How could so many rich people be so dumb?

1982–83: THE CONNECTION

This was the year when everyone realized, “Hey, maybe we should do stuff to win the fans over!” That led to the following innovations and brainstorms:

1. Feeling frisky after inking a new four-year deal for $93 million, CBS unveiled an abnormally catchy intro that included computerized graphics of a basketball court, Brent Musburger’s orgasmic narration, recaps of previous games and a signature hum-along song that everyone from my generation immediately loved: “Dah-da-da-da do-do-do dooo do-do-do-doooo … (do-do-do-do) … dah-da-da … duhhh duhhhh duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh … DAH-DA-DOOO!”

2. The NBA created its NBA Entertainment division, which immediately launched an “NBA Action … It’s FANNNNNN-tastic!” commercial campaign that can only be described as a watershed. Wait, so you’re telling me it’s fun to attend an NBA game? Don Sperling and his NBAE crew kept the first effort relatively simple: just happy eighties music with various shots of cheerleaders, cheering fans and even someone holding an I LOVE IT sign, along with action shots of Kareem reaching for a jump ball, Bird’s reverse layup, Magic clapping and Doc’s tomahawk jam. The ads peaked within a few years and gave us three classics: the one with “I’m So Excited” by the Pointer Sisters that featured Isiah stomping his feet and doing a circle, Bernard winking on the bench and a smoking-hot Laker Girl blowing a kiss at the camera; the parade of buzzer-beaters that included Jeff Malone’s aforementioned three (the greatest for all of eternity unless someone makes one with their dick); and an Oscar-winning sixty-second classic that used Hall and Oates’ “One on One” and featured a number of pretty passes, Jerome Whitehead stuffing a Tom Chambers dunk and James Worthy’s gorgeous 360-degree layup in slow motion during the sax solo.¹⁰⁸ I can’t emphasize this strongly enough: those ads had a galvanizing effect on kids like myself in the eighties—they made the NBA seem cool, made us look forward to the next one, and made it seem like something was happening with this league.

   (A note that’s too important to be a footnote: “I’m So Excited” also appeared in an unforgettable Miami Vice two-parter called “Return of Calderon,” during the nightclub brawl in which Crockett and Tubbs thought they found the Argentinean assassin. The song played in Vacation during the gas station scene when Clark Griswold flirted with Christie Brinkley, as well as during a crucial scene in Beverly Hills Cop II. And it anchored the Saved by the Bell episode when Jessie became addicted to caffeine pills, leading to her famously ridiculous “I’m so excited … I’m so excited … I’m so … scared” meltdown. There’s a ton of hyperbole in this book, but the following statement does not qualify: No eighties song overachieved from a pop culture standpoint more than “I’m So Excited.” See? That was important.)

3. 3. Marvin Gaye’s All-Star Game anthem doubled as the best moment in All-Star history, hands down; nothing else came close. Coolest singer alive at the time. The celebrity capital of the world (L.A.). Stars like Bird, Isiah, Magic, Kareem, Dr. J, Moses, Jack Sikma and Sikma’s blondafroperm looking on. High expectations going in. And even though everyone had always sung the song in the most traditional way possible, Marvin sauntered out with dark, oversized “I might be coked up, I might not” sunglasses, gave the anthem his own little spin and absolutely crushed it. By the last fourth of the song, the entire Forum was clapping and swaying like it was the Apollo Theater. That performance will never be topped. Right year, right sport, right city. You could not have gotten that 150 seconds in any other sport, you have to admit.¹⁰⁹

1983–84: WE’RE HERE

For better and worse, the NBA of the twenty-first century was shaped in what has to be considered the single greatest season in the history of professional sports, or at least one of the top five hundred. A closer look at each milestone:

The salary cap. In March ’83, the league avoided a possible labor stoppage with a new CBA that guaranteed players 53 percent of the gross revenues in exchange for a cap that went into effect the following season ($3.6 million, climbing every year after), making players and owners revenue-sharing partners for better or worse.¹¹⁰ Why did the owners want it? Because it put a lid on escalating salaries and gave them (relatively) fixed costs. Why did the players want it? Because it forced every team to spend money; that season, Philly and New York were spending five times as much as the Pacers. As the years went along, the cap became more and more elaborate and confusing, a luxury tax component was added and Larry Coon became an Internet hero for writing a forty-thousand-word FAQ that explained every conceivable cap/tax rule and loophole.¹¹¹ Coupled with overexpansion (still a few years away), the days of contenders going nine-deep with quality players and two franchise guys was almost over. We just didn’t know it yet.

The drug policy. The new CBA agreement moved the league into “three strikes and you’re out” mode. The first offense was a suspension with pay and rehab (paid by the league) as long as the player voluntarily came forward. Same for the second offense, although teams were given the option of waiving the player and replacing him on their cap. The third strike was a lifetime ban (reviewable every two years) regardless of whether the player came forward voluntarily or not.¹¹² Richardson and Lucas were the odds-on favorites to be banned first, with Sugar winning the snort race (he got kicked out in 1986).¹¹³ The important thing to remember: not only was the NBA committed to cleaning things up, fans felt like the league had committed itself to cleaning things up. The days of bleary-eyed superstars drifting through games was almost over. At least until they switched to pot in the nineties.

The David Stern era. Fitting that he took over on February 1, 1984, one month into what would become the league’s most important year. We don’t need to waste words blowing Stern here. Just know that he’s either the first-or second-best sports commissioner ever (depending on how you feel about Pete Rozelle); he was overqualified for the job (and still is); he had a dramatic impact not just on the league itself but also on the NBA’s marketing/entertainment/legal/corporate staffs (having Larry O’Brien as a boss and then Stern was like jumping from single-A to the majors); he became the face of the Association almost immediately (and remember, it had never had one before); by December ’89, the league had inked four-year deals with NBC and Turner for a combined $875 million; and Stern succeeded to the degree that he was earning more money than only a handful of players by the end of the decade. If that’s not enough, he increased the entertainment level of every draft from 1984 to 2009 by approximately 24.7 percent. Maybe Stern didn’t make the league take off, but he was flying the plane masterfully when it happened.

All-Star Weekend. When an NBA marketing adviser named Rick Welts lobbied O’Brien to turn the All-Star Game into an entire weekend, the commissioner’s response was predictably grumpy and shortsighted. As Welts recalled three years later in the New York Times, “I wouldn’t say it got a ringing endorsement. Larry said that, number one, it couldn’t cost the league a nickel. We said we’d see what we could do.” (Note: if someone ever writes O’Brien’s autobiography, and really, the odds are 200 to 1, it would definitely not have a title like Thinking Ahead or The Visionary.) Welts and his marketing team quickly sold sponsorships for the Dunk Contest and Old-Timers Game, scheduled those events for Saturday in Denver and convinced TBS to televise it. And then something weird happened: fans became legitimately excited about the Dunk Contest, especially when Doc agreed to appear and re-create the magic from his revered ’76 performance (also in Denver).¹¹⁴ The Old-Timers Game was surprisingly fun and loaded with legends (Hondo, Pearl, Pistol Pete, Barry, Unseld, Cowens, Heinsohn, even Johnny “Red” Kerr), with Pistol exploding for 18 points in 18 minutes and East coach Red Auerbach fuming after a game-turning call in the final minute.¹¹⁵ Even better, Heinsohn never coughed up a lung despite Vegas posting even odds for “Tommy Heinsohn will cough up a lung during the game.”

The Dunk Contest contestants were Larry Nance, Edgar Jones, Dominique (the odds-on favorite), Ralph Sampson (as always, they had to have one “Why the supertall guy?” contestant), Clyde Drexler, Orlando Woolridge, Michael Cooper and two doctors (Dunkenstein and J). Wilkins, Nance and the Docs advanced to Round 2 (both Erving and ’Nique dunked two balls at once); Nance prevailed in the Finals because Erving blew his first dunk. Watching it twenty-five years later on tape, it’s shocking how rudimentary the dunks were—only Doc’s last dunk from the foul line (his entire foot was over) qualified as memorable, and Nance’s Plastic Man performance (a variety of long-armed dunks with his hand way over the rim) seems pretty mundane. But at the time? Riveting! If you watch the YouTube clips, the pivotal moment happens right before the finals, when Doc crouches on the sidelines and diagrams potential dunks with his two young sons and teammate Andrew Toney (replete with different phantom dunk gestures); this was one of those rare “Wow, maybe these black guys aren’t all on drugs; they actually seem like normal people” moments that the NBA needed so desperately in order to connect with secretly-still-a-little-racist America. Within two years, they added a Three-Point Contest (dramatically won by Larry Bird) and we were off and running.

One other note: the actual All-Star Game was fantastic. Doc had 34 points; Isiah won the MVP with 22 points and 15 assists; Magic had 22 assists in 37 minutes; the East won by a 154–145 score that doubled as the highest combined point total ever to that point;¹¹⁶ and the supercompetitive game featured an inordinate amount of quality players (including twelve Pyramid guys and five of the top twenty-five, a stat that will make sense in about 107 pages) actually giving a crap. Until the ’87 Classic, this was the best All-Star game ever played. Again, only good came out of the ’84 All-Star Weekend. Even Rick Barry’s latest rug was a huge hit.

The birth of tanking. With Hakeem and Jordan looming as draft prizes, both the Rockets (blew 14 of their last 17, including 9 of their last 10) and Bulls (lost 19 of their last 23, including 14 of their last 15) said, “Screw it, we’ll bastardize the sport,” and pulled some fishy crap: resting key guys, giving lousy guys big minutes and everything else. Things peaked in Game 81 when a washed-up Elvin Hayes played every minute of Houston’s overtime loss to the Spurs. Since none of the other crappy teams owned their picks, only Chicago and Houston controlled their destinies (hence the tanking). The worst teams in each conference flipped a coin for number one back then, so the 29-win Rockets “won” the toss and picked first; the 26-win Pacers “lost” and picked second (Portland by proxy); and the 27-win Bulls settled for third (winning the ultimate prize).¹¹⁷ The unseemly saga spurred the creation of a draft lottery the following season. And even that didn’t totally solve the tanking problem; Team Stern has changed the lottery system five times in twenty-four years, and we’re probably headed for a sixth soon. My solution: every lottery team gets the same odds. What’s wrong with keeping shitty teams shitty and improving mediocre ones? Why is this bad? You can’t have great teams unless you have lousy ones. If that makes me an NBA Republican, so be it.

The 1984 Finals. Or, as it’s more commonly known, the Single Biggest Break in NBA History. Two years after the NBA extended its season so CBS could show the Finals live (raising the very logical question that I pray you’re asking: “Wait, what the hell took the NBA so long?”), the network finally obliged … and, of course, they hit the ratings jackpot. Not only did you have the rebirth of the league’s most storied rivalry, you had Bird versus Magic II; East Coast versus West Coast; Jack Nicholson versus Busty Heart;¹¹⁸ Johnny Most versus Chick Hearn; the Garden versus the Forum; the two best passing teams of that decade; two loaded squads with eighteen quality guys (including eight future Hall of Famers); and a seven-game donnybrook that featured four ESPN Classic-caliber contests (including Gerald Henderson’s steal saving a potential sweep in Game 2). Game 4 (Boston 129, L.A. 125 in OT) was probably the most entertaining/dramatic/physical/hostile/loaded Finals game to that point, an exceptionally played, hypercompetitive slugfest that featured Kevin McHale’s series-turning clothesline on Kurt Rambis; Kareem nearly whistling an elbow off Larry’s noggin and the two of them exchanging face-to-face eff-yous; Magic improbably falling apart in crunch time and OT; Bird just missing a desperation three to win it and McHale missing the bunny follow; Bird’s backbreaking turnaround over Magic in OT; Maxwell walking across the lane and giving Worthy the choke sign after Big Game James clanged a huge free throw; and M. L. Carr’s improbable steal/dunk to clinch it.

Here’s why I know we will never see another basketball game like that: the rules don’t allow it. You won’t see that many great/good players on the same court in the salary cap era, and you won’t see that level of hostility and passion because of the rules now in place against taunting and flagrant fouls. The NBA, where diluted pussyball happens! If you listen to me on anything, I hope it’s this: just watch the damned game sometime. It’s that good. Even as the Celtics were euphorically prancing off the court with McHale flashing his armpits, it felt like the axis for professional sports had been shifted a little. And when Boston prevailed in a heated Game 7 in equally dramatic fashion, the days of anyone wondering if the league was too black (or whether the league would make it, drugs were ruining the sport, or they might lose their TV contract) were finally over. So, um … yeah.¹¹⁹

The 1984 draft. You will not find a bigger month for a sports league than June ’84 for the NBA. Not only did the Finals revive the sport, not only did the world embrace the power of Stern’s mustache, but Chicago stumbled into the future of professional basketball (Jordan) in a draft that included three other legends (Hakeem, Stockton and Barkley). When Nike signed Jordan to a then-mammoth $2.5 million deal during the same summer when Bird and Magic filmed their famous Converse commercial, the door opened for NBA players to cross over to mainstream advertisers and become their own mini-corporations. Jordan did it first with his posters, Air Jordan sneaker line and Mars Blackmon commercials; others like Magic and Bird quickly followed suit. The League That Was Too Black had become the League That Raked In Shitloads of Money, and it would never look back.

Anyway, that’s how the hell we got here. And yeah, maybe we never covered overexpansion, JumboTrons, luxury boxes, skyrocketing ticket prices, the growth of sports radio and fantasy hoops, the influx of foreign players, the addition of a third referee, video games taking off, the underclassmen boon, the HIV scare, the impact of the Dream Team (and the negative impact of Dream Team II), RileyBall, the lottery changes, rookie opt-out clauses, Latrell Sprewell’s choking habits, the ’99 strike, the rookie salary scale, the ban on high schoolers, advances in ACL surgeries, the art of finding cap space, tattoos and baggy shorts, the marijuana epidemic (that’s right, epidemic), the perils of overcoaching, KG’s $120 million contract, the ’99 lockout, Mark Cuban and the Maloofs, the Internet boom, Barkley’s TV career, Moochie Norris’ afro, the Artest Melee, the dress code, ESPN’s Trade Machine, the Donaghy scandal, All-Star Weekend in Vegas, the scary stretch from 1994 to 2004 when defenses became too effective and games slowed down too much, or even the economy’s recent collapse and its effects on a league that I nicknamed the “No Benjamins Association” in a February ’09 column. For our purposes—figuring out who mattered and why—we got to where we needed to go. Just trust me.¹²⁰

1. MST 3000 and Letterman created the unintentional comedy genre: mocking things that weren’t originally intended to be funny. Nearly 15 years later, I unveiled the Unintentional Comedy Scale on ESPN.com, with Dikembe Mutombo’s voice earning a perfect 100 out of 100 and at least 20 different professional golfers earning a zero (because of the little-known rule that you must endure six electroshock treatments upon getting your PGA Tour card).

2. That was nearly the title for this book: A Brief and Occasionally Biased History of the NBA. The titles I loved most (but ultimately was talked out of): Tuesdays with Horry … Love Child of the Basketball Jesus … Tell Me How My Book Tastes … Where a Pulitzer Happens … The Greatest NBA Book I’ve Ever Written … Majerle and Me … The Hoops Testament … Black Men Can Jump … The Second Best Basketball Book Ever … I Love This Game … I Should Have Been Black … The Basketball Bible … A White Man’s Thoughts on a Black Man’s Game … Secrets from a Topless Pool in Vegas … The Association … Weekend at Bernie Bickerstaff’s.

3. It’s hard to believe that Boston College didn’t give Molinas an honorary doctorate.

4. They didn’t have these things in 1954. Just wanted to make sure you were paying attention. Although it would have been fun to read blogs with mean-spirited names like “Bob Cousy’s Lisp.”

5. Koppett’s book 24 Seconds to Shoot: The Birth and Improbable Rise of the NBA proved to be an enormous help for this chapter. He’s dead, but I’d like to thank him anyway.

6. Our top five shows in 1954: I Love Lucy, Dragnet, Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, You Bet Your Life and The Chevy Show featuring Bob Hope. Isn’t it weird that someone 55 years from now will look at the 2009 top five and say, “I wonder what the hell happened on American Idol?” just like I wondered, “I wonder what the hell happened on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts?”

7. Four great Biasone facts: he was born in Italy and did the Ellis Island thing; he made his money owning a bowling alley; he wore long, double-breasted coats and Borsalino hats; and he smoked filtered cigarettes. I don’t know what Borsalino hats are and that still sounds fantastic.

8. Also noteworthy: Earl Lloyd and Jim Tucker became the first black players to play for a championship team.

9. Extending this analogy, Bob Cousy was Seka, Dolph Schayes was Marilyn Chambers, Joe Fulks was Harry Reems, Red Auerbach was Gerard Damiano and George Mikan was definitely John Holmes.

10. Keeping the Mikan-Holmes analogy going, this comeback went about as well as the last two years of Johnny Wadd’s career, when he became a junkie and dabbled in gay porn to support his habit.

11. We definitely would have seen Richie Cunningham wearing Hawks T-shirts and jerseys, and possibly a retro cameo with Pettit and Clyde Lovellette wearing bad wigs and pretending they were 20 years younger, then Clyde insulting the black chef at Arnold’s and Fonzie kicking his ass.

12. Pettit’s quadruple-printed card remains the easiest to find. Go figure, they quadruple-printed Pettit (white) and single-printed Russell (black). I’m sure this was a coincidence. Russ’ rookie fetches from $500 to $4,000 depending on its condition.

13. Once the NBA started stealing black stars away from the ’Trotters, it was only a matter of time before the ’Trotters morphed into something else—namely, a fan-friendly hoops team that did tricks, whupped the Generals, and had a sweet Wide World of Sports run. You know who loved them? Young Jabaal, that’s who.

14. Other rules or phrases named after NBA players or personalities: the Ted Stepien Rule, the Magic Johnson Rule, the Trent Tucker Rule, the Jordan Rules, Hack-a-Shaq, the Larry Bird Exception, the Allan Houston Rule and the Ewing Theory.

15. You know what’s really weird? The network’s number one announcing team in 1959 was Marv Albert and Hubie Brown.

16. Teams routinely played 25–30 preseason games as well as a 72-game regular season and any playoff games, and the guy who did the schedule back then was apparently suffering from a major head injury. Details to come.

17. The other factor: every new NBA star was black. Well, then! Down the road, NBC made up for this apparent burst of racism by greenlighting The Cosby Show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and even the unwatchable A Different World.

18. When M.J. scored 37.1 per game in the ’87 season, he averaged just 27.8 shots and 11.8 free throws. All right, maybe we didn’t need the word “just” in there.

20. The numbers from ’94 to ’04 dropped because of overcoaching, superior defense, far fewer possessions, overexpansion, more physical play and a noticeable dearth of elite talent (thanks to bad drafts, the influx of high schoolers and youngsters getting paid too soon).

21. Also, the number of black NBA players increased to 25 out of a possible 96 (26 percent). Actual quote from Al Attles in Tall Tales: “I came into the league in 1960 and the word was that there could be up to four blacks per team.” Nowadays, only New England prep schools think like this.

22. This was the astonishing two-parter in which an older assistant set off a racial powder keg by saying Smash Williams was better off as an RB than a QB. If FNL was MJ’s career, Lyla Garrity’s slam-page episode would be the 63-point game in Boston (the coming-out party), the two-parter with Smash would be the ’91 Finals (when the show’s considerable potential was realized), the story arc where Landry and Tyra killed her stalker was MJ’s baseball career (far-fetched and a complete waste of time), and Season 3 was like Jordan’s last three title seasons (cementing its reputation as the greatest sports-related drama ever). Glad I got that off my chest.

23. Cousy started the Players Association in 1954, although its initial goals were to curb the endless barnstorming tours and get players paid for personal appearances. Not until the mid-’60s did they begin to make headway on medical plans, pension plans, the reserve clause and everything else. Our first two presidents of the Players Association? Holy Cross grads! Who says the Cross couldn’t crack the Ivy?

24. And with that, we’d never have another white celebrity named Maurice.

25. I loved Arledge for coming up with Superstars and Battle of the Network Stars, two of my favorite shows as a kid. If not for him, I never would have seen Charlene Tilton’s hard nipples in the softball dunk tank or the watershed Gabe Kaplan-Robert Conrad 100-yard dash (the “USA 4, USSR 3” of reality-TV moments).

26. You have to admire me for running a Halberstam excerpt when he’s an infinitely better writer. I have no ego. I’m like Russell—I don’t care about stats.

27. Leading by 10 with 40 seconds left, Red lit up his victory cigar right before a furious comeback—the Lakers scored 8 straight before the C’s finally ran out the clock. Imagine the Auerbach era ending with the biggest choke in sports history and a jinxed final victory cigar.

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!

72. The others: 5 All-Stars (Ron Boone, Don Buse, Dan Issel, Bobby Jones, Billy Knight), 4 future All-Stars (Larry Kenon, Maurice Lucas, Dan Roundfield, James Silas), 14 valuable rotation guys (Mack Calvin, M. L. Carr, Don Chaney, Louie Dampier, Caldwell Jones, Swen Nater, Mark Olberding, Tom Owens, Billy Paultz, Ralph Simpson, Brian Taylor, Dave Twardzik, John Williamson, Willie Wise), and one high-priced head case (Marvin Barnes).

73. This spawned a three-year trading frenzy that led to this startling fact: Chicago (number two) was the only top-fifteen team to pick in its assigned spot in the 1979 draft.

74. E. C. Coleman made first-team All-Defense in 1977 and was out of the league within 18 months. As far as I can tell, this is the most random thing that ever happened.

75. Be honest: part of you wanted to believe this.

76. That would be Jellybean Joe Bryant, or as we know him now, Kobe’s dad. He was an unapologetic gunner who spent much of the ’77 season demanding to be traded. Let’s just say that the apple landed about 3 inches from the tree.

77. I’m stating the perception, not the reality. It’s sad that I have to clarify that. By the way, Jabaal Abdul-Simmons may have been the only white American outside Philly rooting for the Sixers in the ’77 Finals. Every Doc dunk made me “Gilligan’s Island is on!”–level happy. I was also fascinated by Lloyd Free and his jump shot; when he changed his name to World B. Free and averaged 30 a game in San Diego, I felt vindicated for jumping on the Free bandwagon so early. That was the perfect combo of talent and craziness that I was looking for in elementary school.

78. Let’s say Walton stays healthy and Portland wins three straight titles. Our ’80 Conference Final matchups: Philly-Boston and Portland-L.A. with Walton, Bird, Doc, Kareem and Magic. Wow.

79. Four perfect candidates: Seattle at Denver, ’78 (Game 5, series tied at 2); Philly at Washington, ’78 (Game 6, Bullets leading 3–2); Seattle at Phoenix, ’79 (Game 6, Phoenix leading 3–2); Washington at San Antonio, ’79 (Game 6, Spurs leading 3–2). The less sexy team won all 4 of those games. Um, this never happens anymore. Not sure if you’ve noticed.

80. That was an “I’m standing up for my teammate” moment that ranks alongside Flatch punching the guy who cheap-shotted Jimmy Chitwood in the ’54 North Sectional Regionals, then getting thrown into the trophy case and cutting his shoulder. That’s a gutless way to win! That’s a gutless way to win!

81. The NBA spruced up the fighting penalties after the ’77 Finals, doubling the maximum fine ($10,000) and eliminating limits for game suspensions.

82. In Giant Steps, a book that will make you hate Kareem between 25 and 30 percent more by the last page, Kareem bitches about Awtrey making his reputation for sucker-punching him from behind, then neglects to mention that he did the same thing to Benson … and later brags about the Benson punch. He also suckered Happy Hairston during the ’72 season (it’s on YouTube).

83. The cameras missed it, but Kunnert got clocked—even when they’re scraping Rudy off the floor, you can see Kunnert still wiping blood off his own face with a towel. Only 10 months later, Kunnert and Kermit were teammates on the Clippers, setting up one of the all-time awkward “Hey, good to see you again” moments in NBA history.

84. This was a much bigger deal in 1977 because we only had a few channels and SNL averaged 30–35 million viewers. In the segment, Garrett Morris “defends” Kermit and says, “We blacks get blamed for everything. Look at this film. Why, he just grazed the cat. Whoops! Let’s look at it from another angle …” One of his only funny moments ever.

85. In Breaks, Halberstam argues that it’s the most devastating punch ever thrown—a chiseled specimen planting his feet and throwing a perfect right cross into the face of someone sprinting toward him. Or as the Grumpy Old Editor calls it, a “cosmic accident.” Ten years earlier, Willis Reed easily could have been Kermit during that ’67 Lakers brawl.

86. That was the year the Celtics fell apart and Hondo retired. When Irv Levin switched franchises with John Y. Brown and moved the Braves to San Diego, he took Kermit with him. I was crushed. Two favorites gone in 4 months.

87. It’s really a long magazine profile, only Feinstein doubled the word count and repeated more than a few stories to stretch it into a book. Feinstein was a big influence on The Book of Basketball because he rushes his books to get to the next one. I want you to feel the opposite with mine. I want you to say, “Not only did I get my $30 worth, but honestly, I’m burned out on Simmons for like 9 months, that book could have been about 200 pages less.” Wait, you’re already saying that? What the hell? We’re not even at the halfway point yet! Get some coffee or something.

88. The Bulls passed up Sidney Moncrief for David Greenwood at number two. Ouch. In Magic’s book, he writes that Jerry West wanted to trade down and pick Moncrief—remember, they already had Norm Nixon playing point—only Dr. Jerry Buss overruled him because he was buying the team and Magic was a bigger name.

89. How do I know this? I called the commish and asked him. We talked for 35 minutes. Amazingly, he could still recall every detail and number off the top of his head 33 years later.

90. Incredibly, no tape exists of the four missing games, but you can buy the first two seasons of Simon and Simon on DVD. I don’t get the world sometimes.

91. Just stating the stigma, not the reality. By the way, our top-ten TV programs in 1980: Dallas, Dukes of Hazard, 60 Minutes, M*A*S*H, Love Boat, The Jeffersons, Alice, House Calls, Three’s Company, Little House on the Prairie. You know it was a competitive TV year when C.H.I.P.S. was twenty-fifth.

92. Had Game 6 moved to Saturday, Game 7 could have moved to Tuesday and bumped CBS’ worst night of the week: some rerun (extensive Googling couldn’t figure out which one) followed by a “Movie of the Week.” I did find that a show named California Dreaming held the 8:00–9:00 spot until December 10, 1979. IMDb.com’s synopsis: “Vince and Ross are suburban L.A. teenagers enjoying disco, surfing, cars and the rest of the Southern California lifestyle.” One of the show’s stars? Lorenzo Lamas! I loved the late-seventies.

93. CBS’ ratings for every Finals from ’76 to ’90: 11.5 (Boston-Phoenix), 12.7 (Philadelphia-Portland), 9.9 (Washington-Seattle), 7.2 (Washington-Seattle), 8.0 (L.A. Philadelphia), 6.7 (Boston-Houston), 13.0 (L.A.-Philadelphia), 12.3 (L.A. Philadelphia), 12.3 (Boston-L.A.), 13.7 (Boston-L.A.), 14.1 (Boston-Houston), 15.9 (Boston-L.A.), 15.4 (L.A.-Detroit), 15.1 (L.A.-Detroit), 12.3 (Portland-Detroit).

94. “Wedman! Dunleavy! It’s the Western Conference Finals on CBS!”

95. Remember the days when players could get in fights and remain in the game? Then the Kermit punch happened and everything changed … oh, wait, not true.

96. Even better, they used the Miami Vice theme for everyone’s turn. Two of my biggest heroes in the mid-’80s were Bird and Sonny Crockett—now they were basically teaming up? Throw in a girlfriend putting out right after the contest and that could have been the greatest night of my sixteen-year life. So close. I was one piece away.

97. My second-favorite 3 ever behind Bird’s 3 in the 60-point game that didn’t count and ended with him falling into the trainer’s lap as the Hawks celebrated.

98. Technically, Gus wasn’t running a team because his agent, Howard Slusher, foolishly advised him to hold out for the entire ’81 season in a misguided effort to get a new deal. I think Slusher secretly advised the dolts running the Writers Guild during their 2007–8 strike.

99. Former teammate Eddie Johnson later told SI that Furlow, his best friend, was a free-baser and “did a lot of things I didn’t want him to do. I tried to get him to change, but Terry felt like he could conquer anything.” You’ll understand the irony within two pages.

100. Denver made Thompson take responsibility for the team’s crappy ’80 season by making him return $200K to help its financial troubles (which Denver loaned back with interest by 1983). Can you imagine the Players Association going for that now? Also, how big a favor did they inadvertently do for Thompson? That absolutely would have been coke money.

101. During this same stretch, the NHL suspended New York’s Dave Murdoch for one year for coke possession; baseball suspended Steve Howe; the NFL’s “drug problem” appeared on the cover of SI in 1982; and Mackenzie Phillips tried to snort the entire cast of One Day at a Time.

102. The ’79 and ’80 Hawks had Drew, Furlow and Eddie Johnson. I spent 20 minutes looking for a freebase pipe in their ’80 team picture and couldn’t find it.

103. In a June ’81 SI piece, Lucas denied using coke and claimed he was suffering from depression, a diagnosis confirmed in the piece by his therapist, Dr. Robert Strange, or as he’d come to be known, “the worst therapist of all time.” Within a few years, Lucas admitted to snorting everything in sight for most of his career. I love the “SI Vault.”

104. Eddie’s explanation to SI: “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was at these chicks’ house, and these guys busted in the door. I didn’t know what was going on. I was just there. Then they started shooting at me.” Oh.

105. One of the coaches featured in the article? Westhead, fired a few weeks later for clashing with Magic. See? Coaches ultimately don’t matter except for a select few.

106. All you need to know about NBA coaches: during every time-out, they huddle with their staff about 15 feet from the bench, allow the players to “think,” then come back about a minute later with some miraculous play or piece of advice. “Hey guys, listen up—I think we just figured out how to stop LeBron!” I want to see an owner forgo a coach, put the players in charge of themselves and see if there’s any difference … and with the $4 million they saved on coaches, they could knock down season ticket prices. I pray that Donald Sterling reads this.

107. You gotta hand it to Harold here—I mean, they did win the ’83 title, right?

108. If I was putting together a cheesy-but-phenomenal ’80s time capsule and could only use 30 minutes of material, I’d include the “We Are the World” video; the “One on One” NBA ad; the final training scene in Rocky IV when he climbs the 25,000-foot mountain in Russia wearing ski boots and a normal parka; Madonna’s performance at the ’85 MTV Video Music Awards; Journey’s “Separate Ways” video; The Karate Kid’s “You’re the Best” fight montage; the Super Bowl Shuffle video; and the Beverly Hills Cop scene where Axel Foley drives through Bev Hills for the first time. That’s really all you need to know about the ’80s. It’s all in there.

109. Marvin’s father murdered him just 14 months later. Don’t forget to include Marvin Gaye Sr. on the Mount Rushmore of Worst Celebrity Dads along with Ryan O’Neal, the Great Santini, and Jim Pierce.

110. Two key provisions: teams could exceed their cap to match offer sheets and use 50 percent of a retired/waived/injured player’s cap figure to acquire another player. That kept the good teams good, if you catch my drift.

111. You can find that website at www.cbafaq.com. I’m convinced that Larry Coon is a stage name.

112. Any conviction or guilty plea involving a cocaine/heroin crime also resulted in an immediate ban. We never had a guinea pig for this one; just think, if someone like Richard Dumas had ever been caught selling 30 pounds of pot during his playing days, we’d be calling this the Richard Dumas Rule.

113. The complete list of players banned for at least one season: Richardson (’86), Lewis Lloyd (’87), Mitchell Wiggins (’87), Duane Washington (’87), Chris Washburn (’89), Roy Tarpley (’91), Dumas (’94, two-strike suspension), Stanley Roberts (’99) and Chris Andersen (’06). Nice nine-man rotation! The starters: Sugar, Lloyd, Dumas, Tarp and Roberts. The coach: Amy Winehouse.

114. I can’t speak for every other kid in the mid-’80s, but I remember counting down the days to two random events: the first dunk contest and WrestleMania I one year later. In a related story, there wasn’t a girlfriend to be seen during that stretch. Not a one.

115. Red went ballistic after Thurmond blocked Barry’s shot with 59 seconds left and got whistled for a cheap foul. Hissed Red afterward, “I don’t mind getting beat, but my guys were playing for pride and to win the game, and [ref Norm Drucker] tried to make a joke out of it.” Red was the best. The Old-Timers Game disappeared after someone (can’t remember who) got seriously hurt one or two years later. Nobody wanted to see someone drop dead during All-Star Weekend. Not even if it was Kareem.

116. The two sides took a staggering 241 shots and made 53 percent of them. As always, two great PGs make for a great ASG, and with Bird involved, it’s even better. Everyone played at least 11 minutes except for the immortal Kelly Tripucka (6 minutes, 1 point), whose hair, mustache and teeth made him look like a mutant John Oates.

117. Indiana’s pick went for Portland’s Tom Owens in ’81; Cleveland’s went for Dallas’ Mike Bratz in ’81; and the Clips traded theirs for Philly’s World B. Free in ’78. Maybe coke infected not just players but owners and GMs. By the way, the Cavs beat Washington in game 82 for their twenty-eighth win, dropping their pick to number four and costing Dallas a shot at MJ. Ouch.

118. Busty was a local stripper who became the Morganna of the Bird era. You know whose section she kept landing in? Mine! Busty, thanks to you and your mega-guns for helping me get through puberty. And to the guy who was sitting in front of me during Game 5—I’m sorry for standing up too quickly and knocking you unconscious with my boner. That was uncalled for.

119. In March ’85, SI ran a feature about the decline of TV sports ratings but passed on its usual NBA-bashing, even admitting, “A kind of dry rot [for ratings] has set in for all major sports except pro basketball.” My baby’s all growns up! My baby’s all growns up!

120. Also, I needed to save something extra for the paperback. Get ready for How the Hell Did We Get Here: The Sequel, seasons 1985–2010, available for the 2010 holidays! I am shameless.

FOUR
THE WHAT-IF GAME

WE SPEND AN inordinate amount of time playing the what-if game. What if I never got married? What if I had gone to Harvard instead of Yale? What if I hadn’t punched my boss in the face? What if I never invested my life savings with Bernie Madoff? What if I never walked in on my wife banging our gardener? You can’t go back, and you know you can’t go back, but you keep rehashing it anyway.

There are three great what-ifs in my life that don’t involve women. The first is, “What if I had gone west or south for college?” This haunts me and will continue to haunt me until the day I die. I could have chosen a warm-weather school with hundreds of gorgeous sorority girls, and instead I went to an Irish Catholic school on a Worcester hill with bone-chilling 20-degree winds, which allowed female students to hide behind heavy coats and butt-covering sweaters so thick it became impossible to guess their weight within a 35-pound range. That was a great idea.¹ The second: “What if I didn’t quit the Boston Herald, take a year off from writing, and tend bar in 1996?” You wouldn’t be reading this book if that hadn’t happened. I needed to recharge my batteries, stay up until 4:00 a.m., date the wrong women, smoke an obscene amount of pot and figure some shit out. That’s what I needed at the time, and nobody can tell me different. And of course, the third: “What if I had tried to write this monstrosity of a book without the help of copious amounts of hard alcohol, cocaine, amphetamines, ADD medication, Marlboro Lights, coffee and horse tranquilizers?” I’ll let you decide whether that decision worked out or not.

The what-if game extends to every part of life. For instance, I have three and only three favorite movie what-ifs. In reverse order …²

• 3. What if Robin Williams played the Duke in Midnight Run? He signed to play Jonathan “the Duke” Mardukas and backed out before shooting because of a scheduling conflict. The producers scrambled around for a replacement before settling on Charles Grodin, not exactly a scorching-hot name at the time. The rest is history. Maybe Williams would have taken things in a more frantic, slapstick direction—and that’s saying something, since this was the same movie that broke the record for most guys knocked briefly unconscious by a punch—but it wouldn’t have been a good thing. Grodin nailed the Duke. Understated, sarcastic, never flinched. Williams messes that movie up. I am convinced. And if you don’t agree with me, I have two words for you: shut the fuck up.

• 2. What if Leonardo DiCaprio did Boogie Nights instead of Titanic? Leo had the choice, mulled it over, opted for Titanic … and ended up carrying that movie and becoming a superduperstar. (By the way, that movie bombs with anyone else.)³ But imagine if he played Dirk Diggler. Look, I liked Mark Wahlberg’s performance in that movie. It’s a solid B-plus and he didn’t take anything off the table. But that could have been the defining part of Leo’s career. To rank the best new actors of the past fifteen years, Leo and Russell Crowe are either one-two or two-one, Philip Seymour Hoffman is third and Matt Damon is fourth.⁴ As much as I like Wahlberg, he’s not on that level. Leo could have taken Dirk Diggler to new heights, which seems significant since Boogie Nights is already one of my ten favorite movies ever. I even think he could have pulled off the “Feel the heat” and “It’s my dojo!” scenes.⁵

• 1. What if Robert De Niro was hired for Michael Corleone instead of Al Pacino? This almost happened. When Francis Ford Coppola screened them, he liked De Niro so much that he saved the part of young Vito for him in The Godfather: Part II. This will always be the number one movie what-if because it can never be answered: Pacino was tremendous in I and submitted a Pantheon performance in II. Could De Niro have topped that? Possibly, right? That character was in both of their wheelhouses. I guess it comes down to which guy was better, which is like the Bird-Magic debate in that there isn’t a definitive answer and there will never be a definitive answer.⁶ Now that, my friends, is a great what-if.

We should set some ground rules if we’re extending the concept to the NBA, like avoiding injury-related what-ifs because injuries are part of the game. (“What if Bill Walton’s feet never broke down?” sounds fine on paper, but if you’ve ever read anything about Walton, you know he never had a chance running around on those fragile clodhoppers. He was predisposed to breaking down, the same way someone like Kurt Cobain was predisposed to becoming a suicidal druggie maniac.) I also want to avoid fascinating-but-nonsensical what-ifs, like “What if Shaq and Kobe had been able to get along?” (those guys had mammoth egos and were destined to clash),⁷ as well as draft-related what-ifs unless the right decision was glaringly obvious even at the time and the team still screwed up. And I’m avoiding the “What if Jordan didn’t retire for eighteen months?” question because that decision affected too many subsequent scenarios—it’s like asking “What if Ali didn’t lose four years of his prime?” or “What if Shawn Kemp used condoms?” And besides, it’s not like he willingly retired, right? (Wink wink.) Everything else is fair game.

Here are the top thirty-three what-ifs in NBA history, in reverse order:

33. What if the ’63 Royals never
got switched into the Eastern Conference
when the Warriors moved to San Francisco?

The ’63 Royals dragged a Boston team with seven Hall of Famers to a seventh game, then peaked over the next three seasons (55, 48 and 45 wins), only they could never get past Russell’s Celtics (and later Wilt’s Sixers). Playing in the West, the Royals potentially could have made five straight Finals (’63 to ’67); at the very least, they would have made the ’65 Finals because Baylor missed the playoffs. And you know what? It’s impossible to measure the impact of such a seemingly minor decision on Oscar Robertson’s career. Here’s the greatest point guard of the NBA’s first thirty-five years and one of the ten best players ever, only he never reached the Finals in his prime simply because he switched conferences at the worst possible time. Would we remember Oscar differently had he been putting on a show every spring in the Finals on ABC? What if Oscar shocked the Celtics on the biggest stage and won a title? Would his career momentum have built the way Jordan’s did after his first title, like an invisible barrier had been broken down? Would we remember Oscar as the greatest or second-greatest player ever instead of a top-ten guy?

Now here’s what really drives me crazy. In 1962, there were four Eastern Conference teams (Boston, New York, Philly and Syracuse) and five Western Conference teams (Los Angeles, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit and Cincy). When Philly moved to San Fran,⁸ the conferences became imbalanced and one Western team had to move to the East. The Royals were a logical pick because they were located more east than anyone else. I get that. But one year later, Chicago moved to Baltimore and remained in the Western Conference.

Do me a favor and look at a map. Do it right now. I’ll wait.

(Twiddling my thumbs.)

(Humming.)

Good, you’re back. Now check out that map. I mean, What the hell? It’s no contest! How could they keep Cincy in the East and Baltimore in the West when Baltimore was nearly a thousand miles farther east? How does this make sense? How?⁹ From a commonsense standpoint, why weren’t the NBA powers that be more interested in making it easier for Oscar to reach the Finals? Those shortsighted dopes robbed us of some potentially bravura playoff moments, including three or four Oscar-West playoff showdowns in their primes and at least one guaranteed Celtics-Royals Finals. And all because nobody running the NBA knew how to read a map.

(Amazingly, this wasn’t the league’s biggest geographical screw-up ever. After the ABA and NBA merged, Denver and Indiana were sent to the Western Conference while San Antonio and the Nets joined the East. For the ’77 season, Houston and San Antonio played in the East while Milwaukee, Detroit, Kansas City and Indiana played in the West. Check out that map you just found, then explain to me how this made any sense whatsoever. I’ll give you a thousand dollars.)

32. What if the Knicks chose Rick Barry
over Bill Bradley in 1965?

A memorable college player and potential box office draw, Bradley graduated from Princeton and headed right to England, where he planned on spending two years on a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford. There’s a big difference between waiting for a franchise center for two years (like David Robinson) and waiting for a slow small forward, right? It’s unclear if Bradley was a better prospect than Barry (a scoring machine at the University of San Francisco); maybe he was a bigger name and the Knicks desperately needed some star power, but that two-year wait nullified every Bradley advantage, in my opinion.¹⁰ Had the Knicks taken Barry, maybe their feel-good ’70 title season never happens, but maybe Barry never gets lowballed and makes his stupid jump to the ABA (or loses three years of his prime because of injuries and lawsuits).

And if you want to get technical, Barry was the second-best passing forward of all time behind Larry Legend; if anyone could have fit in seamlessly with those Knicks teams, it’s him. One of two extremes would have played out: either Barry goes down as one of the twelve greatest players ever and a New York icon, or he goes down as a temperamental, annoying asshole whom everyone in New York despised before he finally got driven out of town for eyeballing Willis Reed after a dropped pass, then getting thrown into the fifteenth row at MSG by Willis. It’s one or the other.

31. What if Detroit Took Carmelo Anthony over Darko Milicic?

The Pistons landed the second pick in ’03 and targeted Darko right away; they already had a keeper at small forward (Tayshaun Prince) and needed size because they were still eight months away from Danny Ainge gift-wrapping Rasheed Wallace for them. Of course, many thought they were making a franchise-altering mistake (including me), which opens the door for what-if potential. If ’Melo goes to Detroit, you know what happens? Detroit loses the ’04 title. He screws up their chemistry and threatens Prince’s confidence just enough that we wouldn’t have seen the same Pistons team that fileted the ’04 Lakers. Also, Brown coached ’Melo in the 2004 Olympics and they loathed each other to the degree that a bitter ’Melo went into a yearlong tailspin. Do you really think these guys wouldn’t have clashed in Detroit? Come on. Can’t you see ’Melo pouting on the bench during an ’04 playoff game while a confused Ben Wallace stands near him, wonders whether to say something, then just walks away? The long-term effect: Brown quits; ’Melo or Prince gets traded; that Detroit nucleus of Hamilton-Billups-Wallace-Wallace never makes a Finals; Darko gets major minutes on a lottery team in his formative years and potentially turns into something other than a mopey dunk tank; the “Free Darko” blog is named something like “Free Darius”; and I never write jokes like “Does anyone else think NBA Entertainment should make a DVD called ‘Ultimate Darko,’ featuring every garbage time minute that Darko played this season, plus some of his best high-fives and shoulder slaps on the Pistons bench, along with director’s commentary from Darko, LaRue Martin, Sam Bowie and Steve Stipanovich?” In the irony of ironies, picking the wrong guy ended up winning Detroit that one championship. As for the “What if they had taken Bosh or Wade?” argument, there was a definitive top three at the time (LeBron, Darko and Carmelo), and Detroit would have been skewered for taking anyone else second. Those guys didn’t have the same value. When I found Chad Ford’s 2003 pick-by-pick analysis online recently,¹¹ I was reminded that (a) Miami stunned everyone by taking Wade at number five and (b) there was a real debate at the time whether Bosh would ever put on enough weight to be anything more than the next Keon Clark. So saying that they could have had Wade or Bosh with that pick is unfair unless you’re making the argument Detroit should have traded down. There’s no way Wade or Bosh was going second in that draft. None.¹²

30. What if the Mavs re-signed Steve Nash in 2004?

At the time, I defended Dallas for letting Nash leave because (a) he hadn’t looked good in the previous two playoffs and (b) $60 million seemed like an obscene amount of money for a thirty-one-year-old point guard with back problems. What I didn’t defend was Dallas subsequently using that found money (and more) to throw $73 million at Erick Dampier, who’s such a dog that PETA monitors all Dallas practices to make sure he isn’t mistreated. If you’re throwing money around, throw it at Nash over Dampier, right?¹³ Dallas also fatally underestimated the rule changes that transformed Nash into a two-time MVP. Had they kept Nash and Antawn Jamison (dealt for Jerry Stackhouse and Devin Harris) and still made the Antoine Walker/Jason Terry trade, that’s suddenly a monster roster (Nash, Nowitzki, Jamison, Terry, Josh Howard, DeSagana Diop, Veteran Free Agent X and February Buyout Guy X year after year after year) as well as the league’s single most entertaining team (and that’s before we get to what-if number 13). Looking back, it’s peculiar that Mark Cuban played the “fiscal responsibility” card with Nash right before spending recklessly on a thief like Dampier. I have a great deal of respect for Cuban as a businessman and a thinker, but other than passing on Nash, he spent the decade making it rain Pacman-style—only coming close to a title in 2006, when the Mavericks were robbed—and the window closed with a nine-figure payroll and no hope for turning things around unless Jason Kidd gets placed on an accelerated HGH program while we’re printing this book. Too bad. One of my “Bucket List” sports goals in life was to watch a pissed-off David Stern hand Cuban the Finals trophy while Cuban sobbed like Rocky at the end of Rocky II.

29. What if John Thompson never
screwed up the ’88 Olympics?

As the years passed, an urban legend was spawned about that defeat, something about “the team wasn’t talented enough,” which eventually led to the dawning of the original Dream Team in 1992. In the words of John McLaughlin, wrong! They had a franchise center (David Robinson), a franchise forward (Danny Manning, the number one pick that year), two reliable shooters (Mitch Richmond and Hersey Hawkins) and two athletic swingmen who were perfect for international play (Dan Majerle and Stacey Augmon). But Thompson killed their chances by picking point guards Charles Smith (his own guy from Georgetown)¹⁴ and Bimbo Coles over Tim Hardaway (my God), Mookie Blaylock, Dana Barros, Rod Strickland, Steve Kerr and even high schooler Kenny Anderson. He willingly sacrificed outside shooting and the slash-and-kick game (only two of the most crucial ingredients to international success) so he could play a pressure defense that fell right into the hands of the cagey Russians (who thrived on ball movement and open three-pointers). Savvy.

This was one of those rare miscalculations where everyone braced for a collapse well before it happened. I mean, we were all worried. And after Russia toppled us in the semis and we left Seoul with a bronze, everyone played the “Screw it, we need to send the pros!” card instead of blaming Thompson and saying, “Let’s never give a coach that kind of roster power again.”¹⁵ But you know what? Thompson’s incompetence spawned the first Dream Team—a transcendent summer for the NBA and a tipping point for international basketball—and everything that came afterward, including indefensible behavior by our boys in ’96 and ’02 and an embarrassing butt-whupping by Argentina that forced the powers that be to crack down on assholism and stop slapping together purposeless All-Star teams. Ultimately, it made our product better, and once foreign countries started catching up to us, how many fledgling careers were ignited in Germany, Spain, Argentina, Lithuania, and everywhere else? All because John Thompson blew the gold medal. Thank you, John. I think.

28. What if Minnesota didn’t piss off
Kevin Garnett by quietly shopping
him before the ’07 draft?

Here’s what happens: KG glumly returns to another crappy T-Wolves team for a few months (maybe more), opening the door for Boston to trump Los Angeles for Pau Gasol in February and team him with Paul Pierce, Rajon Rondo, Ray Allen and Al Jefferson. Not a Finals team … but not a bad team either, right?¹⁶ Maybe the Celtics could have just made the KG trade in February using the same players, but would it have been as effective? Remember, Boston signed James Posey and Eddie House at discounts once KG was aboard—that’s not happening without the trade—and would have had a near-impossible time pulling off a six-for-one deal midseason with both rosters already filled. Throw in KG’s trade kicker and that deal doesn’t happen until the summer. By that time the Celtics would have moved on Gasol or …

(Wait for it …)

(Wait for it …)

Kobe.

Remember Kobe’s hissy fit before the ’08 season that spurred the Lakers to shop him around, only nobody would meet their asking price (an All-Star plus cap space plus picks)? If the Celtics hadn’t traded for Garnett, they could have offered Paul Pierce, Theo Ratliff’s expiring contract, their number one and their rights to a future Minnesota number one for Kobe and two relatively unfriendly contracts (Brian Cook and Vlad Radmanovic). Boston would have kept a foundation of Kobe, Ray Allen, Jefferson, Kendrick Perkins and Rajon Rondo; the Lakers would have replaced Kobe with another All-Star and gotten three number ones (including Minnesota’s future pick, which could have been valuable) and $20 million of expiring contracts with Ratliff and Kwame Brown (already on their roster) to make a run at Garnett or Gasol. Since Pierce outplayed Kobe in the 2008 Finals, can you imagine if this happened with Pierce (and maybe even KG) on the Lakers and Kobe on the Celtics?

Obviously I enjoy the way it worked out: Garnett revived basketball in Boston and won a title; Pierce redefined his career; Kobe calmed down and won the MVP before gagging in the Finals; the Lakers hijacked Gasol and riled everyone up (I’m still riled, actually);¹⁷ both Phoenix and Dallas panicked and made controversial “I’m going all in with these eights” trades for Shaq and Kidd (then imploded in the playoffs); Miami dumped Shaq’s contract and kicked off Tankapalooza 2008; Shawn Marion became the first professional athlete to seem pleased going from a team with a .700 winning percentage to a team with a .200 winning percentage; and the Lakers and Celtics made ABC $325 billion by meeting in the Finals. And none of it happens if the T-Wolves don’t piss off Garnett in the summer of ’07.

27. What if Ron Artest never charged
into the stands in Detroit?

I can’t believe we made it this far in the book without paying homage to the most unfathomable NBA moment of the decade. Consider:

• It’s the only sporting event from 1997 to 2008 that prompted me to write two separate columns within 36 hours. If we built a Hall of Fame for Jaw-Dropping TV Nights in My Lifetime, my original induction would include O.J.’s Bronco Chase (the Babe Ruth of this idea), the first Tyson-Holyfield fight, Princess Diana’s limo accident, Buckwheat’s assassination by John David Stutts, the night Gordon Jump tried to molest Dudley and Arnold on Diff’rent Strokes, and the Artest melee. Those will always be the Big Six, at least for me.¹⁸

• The clip has been watched and rewatched almost as many times as the Zapruder film. It’s also been removed from YouTube for violating copyright restrictions more than any other NBA-related clip other than Game 6 of the Lakers-Kings series.¹⁹

• Along with the Tim Donaghy scandal and the time Darius Miles gave Stern a full-body, genitals-to-genitals hug during the 2000 draft, it’s the most traumatic event of David Stern’s reign as commissioner (he even admits as much) and changed the rules about player-fan interactions for the rest of NBA eternity.

• From a comedy standpoint, it catapulted both Artest and Stephen Jackson into the Tyson Zone, gave us the phrase “pulling an Artest” for eternity and even allowed us to imagine what life would be like if Jermaine O’Neal could punch out Turtle from Entourage. Jackson ended up winning the Comedy MVP for somehow coming off crazier than the guy who charged into the stands, challenging the entire Pistons team, throwing wild haymakers in the stands and basically turning into the Token Crazy Guy in a Basebrawl Fight multiplied by 100. When Jackson left the arena waving his arms like a pro wrestler as people dumped beer on him, I think he shattered the My God, That Guy Is Freaking Crazy! record in professional sports.

• From an I-knew-this-could-happen standpoint, put it this way: if you scrolled through the lineups of all thirty teams before the 2005 season, then asked yourself, “What pair of teammates would be the most likely candidates to start a fight in the stands, eventually leading to the ugliest sequence in NBA history?” the heavy favorites would have been Artest and Jackson in Indiana, with Zach Randolph and Ruben Patterson a distant second in Portland. Maybe it was a Hall of Fame TV night, but at no point did anyone who follows the NBA on a regular basis say to themselves, “I can’t believe Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson are taking on Row 3 in the Palace right now!”

• Another underrated and slightly silly side effect: it was one of the most memorable moments in fantasy sports history. Imagine taking Ron with one of your top picks, then watching him charge into the stands a few weeks later. Wait, Ron … Ron … noooooooooooooo-oooooooooooo!

• Adam Carolla had a funny take: imagine being the first guy who was mistakenly attacked by Artest. You’ve been watching these guys for two hours, you’re pretty buzzed, you’re loving the seats … and then this fight breaks out, it’s riveting as hell, it keeps going, and then suddenly Artest gets nailed by the cup and he’s coming right at you. As Carolla said, it would be like watching Captain Hook in the movies for two hours, then Captain Hook comes right out of the movie screen and attacks you. Would you have blamed that first guy for soiling himself?

So you have all those things already in play, followed by the what-if potential that emerged afterward. Right before the melee, the Pacers had just finished throttling the Pistons and staking their claim as “The Team to Beat in 2005.” In the span of five minutes, everything went down the drain … and if you remember, the shoddy ’05 Finals between San Antonio and Detroit ranks alongside the ’94 Finals and the ’76 Finals on the Wait, Are We Sure These Were the Best Two Teams? Scale. There’s no way to prove it, but I will always believe Indiana had the best 2005 team even if they were predisposed to self-combusting. Whatever. From that moment on, professional basketball was effectively murdered in Indiana. In retrospect, Larry Bird probably feels like Artest and Jackson charged into the stands and started beating the hell out of him. That’s basically what happened.²⁰

26. What if Jason Kidd accepted San Antonio’s
$87 million offer during the summer of ’03?

Even when you’re as savvy as Gregg Popovich and R. C. Buford, you still need some luck. The Spurs won titles in ’05 and ’07 without Kidd and were one miracle play (Fisher’s three-pointer in ’04) and one brainless play (Manu’s foul on Nowitzki in ’06) from winning four straight. Assuming they land Kidd in ’03, they definitely deal Tony Parker that summer or down the road (not a good thing) and don’t have enough money to pay Ginobili without triggering the luxury tax (definitely not a good thing since they’re a refuse-to-pay-the-tax team). Kidd’s personal life could have screwed up their chemistry to some degree because his then-wife was a legendary prima donna, and going from Parker (congenial) to Kidd (passive-aggressive moody) would have jeopardized the fragile balance of talent/personality/selflessness that made San Antonio so successful in the first place. Do the Spurs win more than two titles with Kidd? Fewer than two? None?²¹

Here’s what we know: From 2004 to 2006, the upgrade from Parker to Kidd wouldn’t have made up for the cap hit and loss of depth. From 2006 to 2009, you would much rather have spent $40 million on Tony Parker than twice as much on a declining Jason Kidd.²² So Popovich and Buford dodged a bazooka bullet on this one. And since we’re here …

25. What if Tim Duncan signed with Orlando in 2000 to play with Grant Hill?

And to think, it almost happened. If Duncan signs with Orlando, that swings the title in three seasons (’03, ’05 and ’07) … and with Hill missing games and killing Orlando’s cap, suddenly Duncan would have been emulating KG’s career and squandering his prime on a series of undermanned teams. Those two would have been mirror images of each other—Duncan wasting away in the East, Garnett wasting away in the West—as we spent those years wondering who got more screwed and who did more with less. Bad times all around.²³ Also, where would T-Mac have landed if Orlando chose Duncan and Hill? Maybe in San Antonio to replace Duncan? And what if they still drafted Ginobili and Parker? Could they have won a title with those three guys and Robinson in 2003? Could they have even made the Finals without a dominant big guy? Hmmmmmm.

(Note: I would have ranked this one higher, but it’s unclear if Duncan was ever that close to joining Orlando. Could you see him winning a title, then ditching his teammates for a bigger paycheck in Florida? Me neither.)²⁴

24. What if MJ never played with the Wizards?

In the big scheme of things, no biggie. But imagine how cool it would have been if Game 6 of the ’98 Finals—MJ winning the title by himself and ending his career with the layup-steal-jumper sequence—was our last basketball memory of Michael Jordan? That Washington comeback made him seem mortal, cluttered our brain with a few unpleasant memories, hurt his career historically (even if we didn’t realize it) and opened the door for a decade of ludicrous “Kobe/LeBron might even be better than MJ!” arguments. Which leads me to my world-renowned Kurt Cobain Theory: Part of the reason Nirvana gained steam historically was because Cobain killed himself at the perfect time, right after In Utero and the MTV Unplugged album, when he was hooked on drugs and slowly going insane. Had he hung around and survived, we would have been treated to a few rehab stints, some bizarre behavior, a messy/bloody/violent breakup with Courtney Love that would have landed one of them (or both) in jail, at least two incoherent albums that every annoying Cobain fanatic would have defended as “genius, man, pure genius,” followed by a six-year disappearance and an eventual booking on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, where he definitely would have hooked up with Mary Carey. He would have made Scott Weiland seem more bubbly than the dudes from Wham! After enduring his pathetic downfall for twelve or fourteen years, would we still be hailing Cobain as a musical genius and crediting him as the father of alternative music? No way! He would have been just another druggie musician who threw away his career.²⁵ If you don’t believe me, look how we regarded Michael Jackson before he died—the freak of freaks, a celebrity cautionary tale, a creepy (alleged) child molester—even though as recently as 1987 we agreed that Jackson was the most talented pop artist ever. Or consider how Eddie Murphy would have been remembered historically had he perished in a plane crash two months after the 1988 release of Coming to America. Memories affect perceptions for better and worse. They do. Our last Cobain memory was that MTV special, just an anguished, captivating, overwhelmingly talented dude delivering the best Unplugged of all time. That’s one of the things that helped him endure. And our last Jordan memory should have been the swipe of Malone and the jumper over Bryon Russell. Alas.

23. What if John Havlicek didn’t get injured during the ’73 Eastern Finals?

I know, I know … I promised that we would avoid injury-related what-ifs. The ’73 Celtics finished 68–14 (the fourth-best record ever) and had their most dominant team of the Cowens/Havlicek era. Hondo separated his shooting shoulder in Game 3 of the Knicks series, missed the rest of that game plus the next one (both Boston losses) and played left-handed for the last three, with the Celtics still stretching it to seven before the Knicks finally realized, “Wait, Hondo is playing with one hand—let’s hound him every time he has the ball!” So the Celtics suffered their first-ever Game 7 defeat at the Garden, with the Knicks beating an aging Lakers team in the Finals. That trophy belonged to Boston; considering Hondo played 1,442 of a possible 1,475 games (including playoffs), the fact that his only major injury in sixteen seasons happened at that specific point in time ranks among the biggest flukes in NBA history. When an over-the-hill Celtics team stumbled into the ’76 title, it was almost like the NBA gods were paying them back for robbing them in ’73.²⁶

Just know this was the only fluky post-shot-clock injury that almost definitely swung a title. Do the ’58 Celtics beat the Hawks if Russell didn’t sprain his ankle early in the series? Maybe … but we don’t know. Do the ’88 Pistons topple the Lakers if Isiah doesn’t sprain an ankle in the third quarter of Game 6? Maybe … but the Lakers still had home court in Games 6 and 7 (and Magic and Worthy in their primes). Do the ’87 Celtics beat the Lakers if McHale didn’t break his foot? Do the ’83 Lakers hang with Philly if Worthy didn’t break his leg? Could the ’04 Lakers have held off Detroit if Karl Malone didn’t hurt his knee? Do the ’85 Celtics beat the Lakers if Bird didn’t injure his shooting hand in a bar fight?²⁷ Would the ’03 Mavs have won a title if Nowitzki didn’t get hurt? What about the ’99 Knicks with Ewing? Could the ’96 Magic have hung with the Bulls if Horace Grant didn’t get hurt in the first half of Game 1? Could the ’62 Sixers have beaten Boston if Wilt didn’t injure his hand trying to punch Tommy Heinsohn (and hitting a teammate instead)? There are no definitive answers. We don’t know. With the ’73 Celtics, we know: they had the best team, the best player (Hondo) and the reigning MVP (Dave Cowens). Even getting half a series from Hondo (and 40 percent of Hondo when he played), that series still went seven. What does that tell you?

22. What if Wilt ended up on the Lakers instead of the Sixers in 1965?

We covered this story in the Wilt-Russell chapter. (And by “we,” I mean me.)²⁸ Yup, Wilt, Elgin, and Jerry could have become teammates four years sooner than it actually happened. And it didn’t happen for a remarkable reason. Forget about the potential playoff ramifications; can you imagine how much damage Wilt would have done in Hollywood in his sexual prime? He would have been throwing his cock around like it was a boomerang. I’m almost positive that Elizabeth Taylor and Raquel Welch would have been clunked in the face with it. That probably happened anyway. Let’s just move on.

21. What if Kobe signed with the Clippers in 2004?

The Clippers fervently believed Kobe was coming—remember, this was the same summer when Kobe was getting blamed by everyone for pushing out Shaq and Phil Jackson—until he broke their hearts by changing course at the last minute. Other than the Lakers offering an extra year and slightly more money, was anything else offered to help stop Kobe from joining a younger and more talented Clippers team? Are the rumors true that the Lakers illegally promised Kobe a postretirement piece of the Lakers?²⁹ Were the Lakers reluctant to pursue Kobe offers before the ’08 season because of something promised during those ’04 negotiations? It’s all hypothetical, and we’ll never know for sure until Kobe retires and we learn if he earned the Magic Johnson Memorial Ownership Discount from Dr. Buss. But everyone working for the Clippers feels like something happened to trump their offer beyond the dollar figures. They just don’t know what.³⁰

Regardless, this was the biggest moment in Clippers history, the time they came within a hair of stealing Kobe and completely changing the face of pro basketball in Los Angeles as we knew it. The second biggest moment was when they signed Bill Walton … who played 167 games in six years and topped 55 once. The third happened in the second round of the ’06 playoffs, needing one stop to secure the series, when Mike Dunleavy stuck an ice-cold rookie named Daniel Ewing on Raja Bell and blew their one chance at an extended playoff run. The fourth was when they lost a deciding Game 5 in 1990 and ESPN Classic showed the game fifteen years later. (That’s right, the Clips on ESPN Classic!) The fifth was a five-way tie between the times Marques Johnson, Derek Smith, Norm Nixon, Shaun Livingston, and Danny Manning blew out their knees. And the sixth was when I nearly made a half-court shot at a Clippers game for E:60. Not a fun three decades for the Clips in California.

20. What if the Lakers picked Dominique Wilkins over James Worthy in the 1982 draft?

The defending champs were picking first thanks to a head-scratching trade with Cleveland.³¹ Desperately needing young blood at the forward spot, the Lakers lucked into the perfect draft for that wish list—Worthy, Terry Cummings and ’Nique went one-two-three—ultimately opting for Worthy’s all-around excellence and experience over ’Nique’s upside and explosiveness.³² You know what’s surprising? This wasn’t a popular choice at the time. NBA fans were drooling at the thought of ’Nique (one of the most thrilling college players ever to that point) running the wing with Magic, Nixon and the Showtime Lakers. But an unhappy Wilkins could have imploded them and the Lakers didn’t want to take the chance; he didn’t help his cause by refusing to play for the Clips (picking second) or Jazz (picking third). Knowing what we know now, it’s just far-fetched to imagine ’Nique giving up shots, deferring to Kareem and breaking a sweat on defense. Then again, maybe Riley and Magic could have changed his ways (after all, they salvaged McAdoo’s career and he was infinitely more selfish than ’Nique), and had they done so, the ceiling of those Showtime Lakers teams climbs a level because ’Nique was such an electric player and unstoppable scorer. Beyond that, Magic would have made him better and they might have broken the record for Most Alley-Oops That Brought the House Down. Shit, we might have spent 1985 to 1993 having Jordan-Dominique arguments that centered around “Who’s better?” instead of “Who’s a better dunker?”

Had the Lakers taken Wilkins, his career would have been remembered differently: either better or worse, but definitely not the same. We can agree on that. We can also agree that Worthy would have been the big loser here: the Clippers would have taken him second, then Utah would have taken Cummings third because he could play both forward spots (in fact, they took Thurl Bailey the next year for the same reason). Instead, Worthy went first, Cummings went second and poor Utah had to trade number three to Atlanta for John Drew, Freeman Williams and $750,000 in a deal that seemed awful even before Drew entered rehab a few months later and admitted he’d been freebasing for three solid years. (Way to do your homework, Utah!) Has there ever been a best-case/worst-case draft scenario that rivals James Worthy landing on the ’83 Lakers instead of the ’83 Clippers? Instead of winning three rings, a Finals MVP and NBA’s 50 at 50 honors, he would have joined a woeful Clippers team, fallen prey to the Clippers jinx, blown out his knee in twenty-nine places within three years and missed every one of Magic Johnson’s postgame Laker orgies. We never would have uttered the words “Big Game James.” Ever.³³

19. What if Atlanta took Chris Paul with the number two pick of the 2005 draft?

We knew this was an Aretha Franklin-sized mistake at the time because Paul was the best player in the ’05 draft and, more importantly, Atlanta desperately needed a point guard!³⁴ But with Paul turning into a franchise guy and Evolutionary Isiah, it’s slowly becoming the poor man’s version of Bowie-over-MJ for this generation of hoop fans, a relatively inexplicable decision that became between ten and twenty times more inexplicable as the years passed. With the supporting talent the Hawks already had in place (Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, etc.), you couldn’t pick a better team for him. You really couldn’t.³⁵ It’s safe to say CP3 will be haunting Atlanta fans for years to come. All 527 of them.

But here’s what we haven’t made enough of …

18. What if Portland took Chris Paul with the number three pick?

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh … you forgot about this one, huh? Portland sent that pick to Utah for the number six pick (Martell Webster), the number twenty-seven pick (Linus Kleiza) and a 2006 number one (the number thirty pick, Joel Freeland). So let’s say the Blazers had just kept number three and picked Paul, which would have made sense because, you know, he was the best player in the draft and all. They’re still a lottery team the following season, although probably not quite as bad; maybe they end up with Rudy Gay at number eight instead of Aldridge at number four. They’re definitely better in ’07, maybe a fringe playoff team, so let’s take Oden away from them and give them the number twelve pick (Thaddeus Young) that year. So which foundation would you rather have if you’re a Portland fan?

Scenario A: Oden, Aldridge, Webster, Roy, Travis Outlaw, Jarrett Jack, Joel Przybilla, the rights to Rudy Fernandez and Paul Allen’s billions

Scenario B: Paul, Roy, Gay, Outlaw, Przybilla, Jack, Young, the rights to Rudy Fernandez and Paul Allen’s billions

Hmmmmmm. Paul and Roy as your backcourt for the next six to eight years?³⁶ Could that have worked when both guys need the ball in their hands? (Possibly.) Would they have had enough size? (From the looks of it, no.) Would they have played a more wide-open style and would it have worked? (With the talent on hand, I say yes.) Anyway, if Portland takes Paul, that sets off a crazy chain reaction: New Orleans ending up with Deron Williams instead of Paul; Utah never getting a franchise point guard; Oden and Aldridge landing in other cities; maybe Roy not turning into a franchise guard playing second fiddle to Paul; and maybe Paul not being quite as driven because he’s not as ticked off for the next few years after three teams passed on him.³⁷ I like the way it worked out.

17. What if the Knicks bought Julius Erving’s contract from the Nets in 1976?

After the ABA merger happened, the Nets made an intriguing offer to the Knickerbockers: He’s yours if you waive our territorial penalty ($480,000 per year for ten years). Already saddled with the expensive Haywood contract, the Knicks turned them down and set their franchise back seven solid years.³⁸ Philly bought Doc for $3 million and poor Doc coexisted with overhyped guys, ball hogs, head cases and underachievers for the next three years, too dignified and too unselfish to fight them for shots. So really, this couldn’t have turned out worse unless Doc also knocked up a white female sportswriter covering the Sixers and didn’t publicly acknowledge their daughter until she became a tennis star sixteen years later.

(Hey, wait a second…)

One more wrinkle: the Nets settled that territorial fee two years later by swapping the fourth pick in the ’78 draft (Micheal Ray Richardson)³⁹ and their number one pick in 1979 (eventually Larry Demic at number nine) for the thirteenth pick in 1978 (Winford Boynes), Phil Jackson, all of Phil Jackson’s weed and a settlement for the remaining money. If you want to get technical, this had a double impact because, before the ’83 season, the Knicks signed Bernard King to a $4.5 million, five-year offer sheet that Golden State matched, finally agreeing to send King to the Knicks for … (drumroll, please) … Micheal Ray Richardson!⁴⁰ So maybe the Knicks screwed up by not getting Doc, but it led to two wildly entertaining Micheal Ray years, one “What the hell is wrong with Micheal Ray?” season, one extremely good Bernard season, then one and a half life-altering Bernard years. That’s not so bad, right?

16. What if Kobe was convicted of sexual assault
instead of settling with his accuser
out of court for big bucks?

Whoops, I forgot: four years ago, everyone in the Los Angeles area agreed to pretend this never happened. Now they act perturbed if anyone else brings it up (or broaches it). I live in L.A. right now, so unfortunately, I have to follow the code. When I move back East someday, we’ll update this section in the next printing. Stay tuned.

15. What if the Suns didn’t screw up a potential Nash dynasty with some of the cheapest and most perplexing moves ever made?

I wanted to avoid playing the “What if the front office did this instead of this?” game because it’s so subjective, but Phoenix’s bipolar game plan from 2004 to 2008 had to be commemorated in some way. Here’s a detailed look.

1. During the same summer they signed Nash, Phoenix traded the seventh pick in the ’04 Draft (and a chance to take either Luol Deng or Andre Iguodala) to Chicago for $3 million and a 2006 number one. One week later, they signed Quentin Richardson to a six-year, $42.6 million deal, even though they could have drafted Deng or Iguodala and paid either of them one-third what Richardson was getting. They kept Richardson for one year before swapping Q and their twenty-first pick (Nate Robinson) in the ’05 draft to the Knicks for Kurt Thomas. Two summers later, they dumped Thomas on Seattle along with two number ones just to shed him off their cap for tax purposes. As astounding as this sounds, Bryan Colangelo’s decision to sign Richardson instead of just drafting Deng or Iguodala—which was dumb at the time, by the way—ended up costing them four first-round picks! Would you rather have Richardson, or would you rather have the number seven pick in 2004, the number twenty-one pick in 2005, and first-rounders in 2008 and 2010? I thought so.⁴¹

2. Phoenix lowballed Joe Johnson so insultingly that he asked them not to match Atlanta’s $70 million free agent offer, leading to Phoenix accepting Boris Diaw and two future first-rounders for him. So the Suns had just come within two wins of the ’05 Finals and built a run-and-gun identity; suddenly they were dealing a twenty-four-year-old potential All-Star, the perfect swingman for their system and a deadly shooter who could even play backup point guard, and they were only getting back a bench player and two future picks? Also, how could they botch the Johnson situation so badly that he asked to leave? With Nash, Amar’e, Marion and Johnson, you’re set for the rest of the decade. That’s it. That’s your core. That’s your guarantee for 57-plus wins a year and a specific style that can work. Surround them with role players and veteran buyout guys and you’re contending until Nash breaks down, and even then, you can just shift the offense over to Johnson as the main creator. How can you give that guy up? So what if he’s insulted and doesn’t want to come back? He’ll get over it! You’re paying him $14 million a year and he gets to play with Steve Nash! Arrrrrrrrgh.⁴²

3. Instead of picking Rajon Rondo with the twenty-first pick in ’06 (the pick acquired from Chicago), they shipped his rights to Boston for Cleveland’s 2007 number one and $1.9 million. A few weeks later, they gave Marcus Banks $24 million. Would you rather have a potential up-and-comer like Rondo for cheap money or a proven turd like Banks for five times as much? Tough call. If you just had a head injury.

4. They gave Diaw a five-year, $45 million extension that summer, which meant the Diaw/Banks combo now earned as much money every year as Joe Johnson. Awesome.

5. So the Iguodala/Deng/Rondo pick became number twenty-four in the ’07 draft … and naturally, the Suns sold it to Portland for $3 million. Why didn’t they just take Spanish star Rudy Fernandez (Portland’s pick)? You can’t play the luxury tax card because Fernandez wasn’t planning on joining the NBA for at least a year; it would have been savvy if Phoenix had stashed him in Europe as an asset down the road. Instead, owner Sarver announced to his fans, “Screw you, I’d rather have the $3 million, I’m taking the cash.” One year later, Fernandez would have been a top-ten pick after lighting it up in Spain; he even gave the Redeem Team everything it could handle in the 2008 Olympics. Can you quantify the damage there?⁴³

I hate delving into the Marty McFly Zone when many of the aforementioned screwups were interrelated, but let’s figure out how the Suns could have turned out if cheapskate owner Robert Sarver didn’t sign off on the aforementioned bipolar game plan in 2004. We know for sure that they could have had a six-man nucleus of Nash, Marion, Stoudemire, Johnson, Leandro Barbosa and Deng/Iguodala from 2004 to the present that shouldn’t have been touched, and we know they dumped first-rounders in ’05, ’06 and ’08 for tax purposes. Even if they surrounded that nucleus with draft picks, minimum-wage veterans and February buyout guys and did nothing else, wouldn’t they have been positioned for the short term and long term better than any franchise in the latter half of this decade? The bigger question: why own an NBA team if you’re going to cut costs? What’s the point? Why would that be fun? So people could stare at you during dinner and whisper, “Hey, that’s the cheap-ass who owns the Suns”? This pisses me off. What a wasted chance, and what a waste of Nash’s prime.

(Note to the Phoenix fans: You can now light yourselves on fire.)

14. What if Orlando had kept Chris Webber’s draft rights instead of trading him?

Remember when the Magic defied 1-in-66 odds to win the ’93 lottery, giving them the number one pick for the second straight year in maybe the biggest stroke of luck in NBA history? Since Webber was the ideal complement to Shaq (a great passer who could play the high post, crash the boards, run the floor and defend the rim), we spent the next few weeks wondering how anyone could match up with Shaq, Webber, Nick Anderson, Dennis Scott and Lord knows who else over the next ten to twelve years. Magic GM Pat Williams had other ideas: he was swayed by Penny Hardaway’s workout right before the draft, which Williams described afterward by saying, “I’ve never seen someone come in and do the things that Penny Hardaway did in that workout.”⁴⁴ On draft day, Williams shocked everyone by swapping the first pick to Golden State for the third pick overall and first-rounders in ’96, ’98 and ’00, a move that was widely panned at the time and nearly caused a riot in Orlando. No NBA trade received more attention, went in more directions over a ten-year span and spawned more what-ifs. Webber battled with Warriors coach Don Nelson constantly as a rookie (Webber wanted to play forward, Nellie wanted him to play center) during a 50-win season in which Tim Hardaway was recovering from a torn ACL. The following year, Hardaway returned with C-Webb, Latrell Sprewell (first-team All-NBA in ’94), Chris Mullin (just past his prime), Rony Seikaly, Avery Johnson and Chris Gatling … I mean, that’s a pretty nice top seven, right? Webber didn’t care; he had an opt-out clause and wanted out. Stuck between a rock and Shawn Kemp’s boxers, the Warriors swapped him to Washington for Tom Gugliotta and three number ones and inadvertently damaged his career (see the grisly details). Meanwhile, Hardaway exceeded everyone’s expectations, led Orlando to the ’95 Finals and made an All-NBA first team—and then he clashed with Shaq (Shaq bolted for L.A.), devolved from an unselfish playmaker to a me-first scorer and blew out his knee in Phoenix. Bad times all around.

So what if Orlando just kept Webber? Does Shaq still leave after the ’96 season? (Impossible to say.) Would Webber have thrived as the Robin to Shaq’s Batman? (I say yes.) Who would the Magic have targeted with their ’94 cap space instead of Horace Grant?⁴⁵ (My guesses: Detlef Schrempf and Steve Kerr.) Would they have made the ’95 Finals with Shaq, C-Webb, Scott, Anderson, Brian Shaw and my two free agent guesses? (I say yes.) Would they have had a better chance against the ’95 Rockets with that team? (Actually, yes.) As for Penny Hardaway, he takes Tim Hardaway’s minutes on that aforementioned 50-win Warriors team, thrives in Nellie’s offense with Spree, Mullin and Owens flanking him, and potentially becomes a Hall of Famer for all we know. Just remember, C-Webb and Penny were both top-forty talents who never reached their potential for reasons that aren’t entirely satisfying. Had the trade never happened, maybe one of them (or both of them) would have reached that potential. Let’s give them starting spots on the What-If All-Stars.

13. What if Anthony Carter’s agent never messed up?

A forgotten footnote in NBA history: when Anthony Carter’s agent (Bill Duffy) never faxed Miami a letter exercising Carter’s $4.1 million player option for the 2003–4 season.⁴⁶ After the deadline passed, Carter became a free agent (whoops!) and Miami suddenly had enough cap space to throw a $60 million, six-year offer at Lamar Odom. One summer later, they packaged Odom, Caron Butler, Brian Grant’s cadaver and a 2006 first-rounder to L.A. for Shaq. Two obvious repercussions here: First, Miami never wins the 2006 title if Duffy doesn’t screw up. Second, since Miami couldn’t have gotten Shaq without Duffy, where else could Shaq have landed when the Lakers had to trade him?⁴⁷ Could Dallas have stolen him for something like Michael Finley, Devin Harris, Alan Henderson’s expiring contract and a number one pick? Would Denver have offered Marcus Camby, Nene Hilario and Voshon Lenard? Could the Bulls have hijacked him for Eddy Curry (a free agent after the season), Antonio Davis (expiring) and a first-round pick? I say Dallas had the best chance, which means they would have avoided that crippling Dampier move, gotten Shaq, and kept their best four guys (Nowitzki, Howard, Stackhouse and Terry). How many titles are we thinking there? Two? Three? When I emailed him about this last summer (subject line: “Insanely Random Question”), Cuban responded, “[I have] no idea if we would have gotten him, but I know Shaq wanted to come.”

You know what that means? If we’re making the list of Guys Who Prevented Us from Seeing a Pissed-Off Stern Hand a Sobbing Cuban the Lawrence O’Brien Trophy, here’s the top five in no particular order: Dwyane Wade, Bill Duffy, Bennett Salvatore, Don Nelson and Isiah Thomas (for stupidly taking Penny’s contract in the Marbury deal and giving Phoenix enough cap space to woo Nash the following summer).

Hey, speaking of Isiah …

12. What if the Knicks never hired Isiah Thomas?

This could have been its own bizarro “Where Amazing Happens” NBA commercial called “Where Isiah Happens.”

(Cue up the annoying piano music that haunted me every time I tried to fall asleep after hearing it for six straight months during the ’08 season.)⁴⁸

Picture: The ’05 Suns celebrating after a playoff win.

Caption: Where Phoenix dumps the Stephon Marbury and Penny Hardaway contracts on some unsuspecting sucker and remakes its team into a contender happens.

Picture: The ’07 Bulls celebrating after a playoff win.

Caption: Where Chicago dumps Eddy Curry and his gigantic ass for two lottery picks and copious amounts of cap space happens.

Picture: The ’07 Raptors celebrating after a playoff win.

Caption: Where Toronto finds some dummy to take Jalen Rose’s contract off their hands and aid its rebuilding process happens.

Picture: San Antonio’s 2005 trophy celebration.

Caption: Where San Antonio dumps Malik Rose’s contract for a cap-friendly center who helps them win the title happens.

Picture: Steve Francis sitting glumly on the Knicks bench.

Caption: Where Orlando finds someone to take Steve Francis’ horrendous contract so they can free up $15 million in cap space happens.

Picture: The ’08 Blazers celebrating after a last-second win.

Caption: Where the 2008 Blazers become the NBA’s most likable young team because they found a taker for Zach Randolph happens.

Picture: Anucha Browne Sanders celebrating on the courthouse steps.⁴⁹

Caption: Where a humiliating $11 million sexual harassment settlement happens.

Picture: A white SUV.

Caption: Where a Truck Party happens.⁵⁰

Picture: Curry and Randolph looking overweight, like they just barbecued Nate Robinson on a grill and ate him.

Caption: Where an NBA frontcourt that includes two C-cups happens.

Picture: A mostly empty Madison Square Garden.

Caption: Where a sixty-year tradition of professional basketball going down the tubes happens.

Picture: Isiah sitting on the bench with that frozen, blank look on his face like he’s either flatlining or planning to kill everyone in the locker room after the game.

Caption: Where Isiah happens.

(Follow-up note: Has any GM in NBA history ever directly altered the fortunes of seven franchises for the better? Portland, San Antonio, Phoenix, Toronto, Orlando, Chicago, New York … that’s nearly 25 percent of the league! He is missed. By the other GMs.)

11. What if Maurice Stokes never went down?

Not an injury what-if because the Royals star technically didn’t get injured playing basketball; he contracted encephalitis, a fluke of an illness that happens only if an undiagnosed bacterial infection or undiagnosed brain trauma is left untreated, worsens and eventually causes brain damage. Poor Stokes banged his head in the final game of the ’58 season against Minneapolis, flew back to Cincinnati that night, never got treated over the next three days, flew to Detroit for a playoff game and played sluggishly, then finally collapsed on the plane home. So a fluky combination of factors—poor medical treatment, multiple flights (the last thing you want to do with brain trauma) and poor Stokes gutting out a playoff game when he felt terrible—led to brain damage and Stokes spending the rest of his shortened life in a wheelchair.

How good was Stokes? He averaged a 17–16, 16–17 and 17–18 in his only three seasons as the NBA’s first ahead-of-his-time power forward, like a taller Charles Barkley, a six-foot-seven, 275-pounder who pounded the boards, handled the ball full-court, and had a variety of Baylor-like moves around the basket (scoop shots, finger rolls and the like). Had he avoided gaining weight in his late twenties (you never know with this stuff), Stokes would have been a mortal lock for the NBA’s 50 at 50. Given that Oscar was a future territorial pick for the Royals, we can safely assume that an Oscar-Stokes combo would have altered the course of a Finals or two in the sixties. From a big-picture standpoint, the NBA lost its most charismatic black star of the fifties and sixties. What a shame. There wasn’t a single silver lining except for an improbable, feel-good human interest story that we’ll continue in the Jack Twyman section of the Pyramid.⁵¹

10. What if Memphis instead of Cleveland landed Lebron?

Take a trip back to the 2003 lottery with me. We’re down to Cleveland and Memphis in the final two. If the Grizzlies draw number two, they turn the pick over to Detroit because they stupidly traded a conditional number one for Otis Thorpe five years earlier (a pick that only had top-one protection in 2003).⁵² If the Grizz draw number one, then they keep the pick and get LeBron. Suddenly we’re presented with the greatest hit-or-miss moment in the history of professional sports—like going on Deal or No Deal, getting down to two suitcases and having a 50/50 chance of winning $500 million. For a few seconds, ESPN’s camera shows Jerry West, who has the same look on his face that Forrest Gump had when he groped Jenny’s boobies for the first time. If Jerry had dropped dead right then and there, nobody would have been surprised. Well, we know how it turned out: Cleveland got the first pick, Memphis got nothing, and a heartbroken West retired and eventually disappeared off the face of the earth, presumably to spend the next few years playing Russian roulette in Southeast Asia like Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter. (Sorry to throw consecutive movie references at you, but the situation demanded two of them and that’s that.) Now look at the domino effect over the next five years if Memphis gets that pick:

1. LeBron joins a deep Grizzlies team (Pau Gasol, Shane Battier, Mike Miller …) that won 50 games despite getting nothing from that ’03 draft. A little better than starting out on a lottery team with knuckle-heads like Ricky Davis and Darius Miles, right?

2. Picking second, Cleveland takes Carmelo and built around ’Melo, Carlos Boozer and Carlos Boozer’s chest hair. Since Denver GM Kiki Vandeweghe took Nikoloz Tskitishvili over Amar’e Stoudemire in 2002, it goes without saying Kiki would have been stupid enough to take Darko at number three over Chris Bosh. The rest of the draft probably unfolds the same way, although Chad Ford still probably has the immortal Maciej Lampe going ninth to the Knicks.

3. What are the odds LeBron stays in Memphis after his rookie contract ends? I’m going with between 0.000001 and 0.009 percent. And that might be high. Which means he becomes a free agent following the 2007 season, leading to numerous lousy teams devoting their ’06 and ’07 seasons to carving out enough cap space for him, as well as Isiah failing to plan ahead, inadvertently knocking New York out of the LeBron sweepstakes and a summer of rioting in the streets of Manhattan the likes of which we haven’t seen since the ’77 blackout and the Son of Sam murders. Also, LeBron’s departure swiftly kills basketball in Memphis, with the Grizzlies moving to England and becoming the London Hooligans. (Actually, what am I saying? That still might happen.) And every title from 2008 to 2020 might look different. That’s about it.
   
   
   

9. What if Ralph Sampson entered the 1980 draft?

In April 1980 the rejuvenated Celtics were coming off 60 wins and preparing for a bloodbath with Philly in the Eastern Finals … and as this was happening, they won the coin flip giving them the number one pick (thanks to the McAdoo trade one year earlier). The seven-foot-four Sampson was finishing a much-hyped freshman year at Virginia (15–11, 5 blocks a game); we forget this now, but Sampson ranked right up there with Walton, Kareem and Wilt once upon a time on the This Guy Is Going to Join the NBA and Obliterate Everyone Scale.⁵³ The Celtics quietly started lobbying him: Come play with us. You’ll compete for a title right away with Bird, Cowens, Maxwell and Tiny on the greatest franchise ever. Why risk getting hurt? You and Bird could own this league for the decade. When Sampson improbably turned them down, they settled on plan B: trading that pick (along with number thirteen) for Robert Parish and number three (Kevin McHale), then winning three titles within the next six years.

Do they win those trophies with Sampson? That depends on how you project his career had he skipped those last three college years—in which he never improved playing with inferior teammates while facing slowdown tactics and triple-teams—and got thrown into the fire at the highest possible level on a contender. In 1980, Auerbach believed that Sampson had the athletic ability and instincts to become the next Russell. I always thought Sampson was like a postmerger Kareem sans the Sky Hook: same height, same body, slightly disappointing rebounder and shot blocker (though still solid in both departments), but a mismatch for nearly everyone because of his size and quickness. Those last three college years significantly damaged his ceiling. He never developed a money-in-the-bank shot; if anything, he bought into the whole “Sampson is a guard in a big man’s body” hype, started screwing around 20 feet from the basket and tried to run fast breaks like a mutant Bob Cousy Throw in a dreadful Houston team in his rookie season and that’s four wasted seasons in his formative years. He never recovered. Imagine Ralph learning the ropes in Boston, mastering the rebounding/shot-blocking thing, playing high-pressure playoff games, running the floor with a great fast-break team and getting fed easy baskets from Bird from 1980 to 1984. On paper, that would have been the cushiest situation in NBA history for a franchise center.⁵⁴ Would that have been better than a McHale/Parish combo? Depends on how you feel about Auerbach’s “next Russell” assessment. Red flipped out publicly after Sampson turned them down, hissing that Ralph was being “hoodwinked by glad-handlers” and adding, “The people who advised him to stay in school will have trouble sleeping nights. They’re taking away earning potential he’ll never get back, and they’re forgetting that if he gets hit by a car, it’s the end of the line. It’s ridiculous. If he were an intellectual genius and was planning on being a surgeon, you could see him wanting to go to school.” Considering Sampson only played four healthy NBA seasons and filed for bankruptcy a few years later, maybe Red knew what he was talking about. (Whether he assessed Ralph’s ceiling correctly is another story.) But Ralph stayed in school, leading to …

8. What if the ’86 Rockets never fell apart?

Magic’s Lakers won titles in ’80, ’82 and ’85 and were demolished by the ’86 Rockets. Bird’s Celtics won titles in ’81, ’84 and ’86 and held the number two pick in a seemingly loaded ’86 draft. So who ended up squeaking out two more titles and becoming the Team of the Decade? The Lakers. Why? Because of our number two what-if (sigh), as well as the untimely, unseemly, unprecedented, unfathomable, un-(fill in any other negative word) of the promising Sampson-Hakeem era.

We always hear about the tragic falls of Doc and Darryl, the two Coreys, Mike Tyson, Len Bias and about fifty different bands and singers from the eighties, but nobody ever remembers to include the team Pat Riley once called “the Team of the Future.” For historical purposes, Houston’s “upset” of the ’86 Lakers was eventually dismissed as something of a fluke; during a fifty-month stretch from April ’85 to June ’89 in which we changed presidents, watched Rocky single-handedly end the Cold War, became terrified of cocaine and unprotected sex, lost the ability to produce decent music, made a former Austrian bodybuilder the biggest movie star alive, learned how to market black athletes, looked on sadly as Eddie Murphy lost his sense of humor and Michael Jackson transformed from biggest star on the planet to full-fledged freak and cautionary tale, and set the table for Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld to become the richest comedians of all time, the Lakers lost only one of their eighteen playoff series … only it was to an upstart Rockets team who fell off the face of the earth almost as quickly as they showed up. So naturally, it must have been a fluke. Right?

Here are the facts: The Rockets lost Game 1 and swept the next four, clinching at the Forum even after Hakeem got thrown out with six minutes remaining for fighting with Mitch Kupchak. (This one ended with Sampson famously making his miracle buzzer-beater and Michael Cooper sinking to the floor in disbelief, adding to the whole “what an upset” myth.)⁵⁵ If you watch that series carefully, Houston couldn’t have been a worse matchup for the Lakers, whose major weaknesses were rebounding and defending elite low-post scorers. That Sampson-Hakeem combo was their Kryptonite.⁵⁶ Watching Kareem “try” (repeat: “try”) to defend the impossibly quick Hakeem was like watching one of those slow thirty-five-year-old linebackers (think Tedy Bruschi) getting stuck covering a quick running back (think Brian Westbrook) on a swing pass in the open field without help. Mr. Ninny just had no chance. If they switched him to Sampson (playing the high post), that pulled him away from the rim, robbed the Lakers of their only shot blocker, and allowed Ralph to beat him off the dribble … and that’s before we get to the nightmare of undersized or athletically challenged forwards like Kupchak, A. C. Green or James Worthy trying to handle Hakeem on the low post. If that weren’t enough, Houston was blessed with lanky, athletic perimeter guys (Robert Reid, Lewis Lloyd,⁵⁷ Rodney McCray) who could rebound and cause problems for Magic. In retrospect, the only thing Houston was missing was a coaching staff of female call girls who could have seduced the Lakers after games and gotten them into trouble. That’s how good the matchup was for Houston. Throw in pesky point guard John Lucas (who suffered a drug relapse two months before the playoffs) and they were put on the planet to beat up on those mid-eighties Lakers teams.

Still not sold? Hakeem and Ralph were the first picks in consecutive years (’83 and ’84) and, along with the McHale/Parish combo in Boston, caused such a panic that every mid-eighties team became obsessed with adding size, leading to our number one what-if (hold tight), Joe Kleine and Jon Koncak getting picked ahead of Karl Malone, lottery teams rolling the dice with troubled losers like Chris Washburn and William Bedford and everything else. Suddenly the poor Lakers were a smallball team trapped in a big-man’s league; with Kareem’s rebounding/shot-blocking numbers in free fall, after Houston laid the smack down on them, everyone assumed the Magic-Kareem era was over. We never could have guessed that the promising Hakeem-Sampson era had already peaked in those four games. The following year, they battled the Disease of More (both Sampson and Hakeem wanted new contracts), lost Lucas to Milwaukee (he needed a fresh start) and suffered the double whammy of cocaine suspensions for Lloyd and Mitchell Wiggins (before the ’87 All-Star break, Houston’s three best guards were gone), and while all of this was happening, the effects of a harrowing Sampson fall at the Boston Garden in ’86 started to surface: after injuring his back and hip in the plunge,⁵⁸ he started running differently to take pressure off his back and wrecked his knees. Golden State acquired him during the ’87–’88 season for (hold your nose) Joe Barry Carroll and Sleepy Floyd. So much for the Next Great Team in the West. Only recreational drugs and a fluke fall could stop them.

Here’s the best way to put Houston’s demise in perspective. Let’s say the Pistons fell apart after the ’86 playoffs because Isiah’s knee betrayed him and Dennis Rodman, Vinnie Johnson, and John Salley were all kicked out of the league for cocaine. What happens to that void in the Eastern Conference? At the very least, the Celtics play in two more Finals (’87 and ’88) and possibly steal one or both because they aren’t worn down from battling the Pistons. Maybe Jordan wins eight titles instead of six. Maybe Dominique and the Hawks sneak into the Finals one year. Maybe the Blazers win the 1990 title and Clyde Drexler’s career unfolds differently. Who knows? For the Lakers, having the hoops gods knock that Rockets team off—just vaporize them, basically—was almost as big a gift as that 1979 number one pick from New Orleans. And wouldn’t we remember Hakeem’s career differently had he been sticking it to Kareem and the Lakers for the rest of the eighties? What if he won four or five titles instead of two? Would that propel him past Kareem and make him the second greatest center of all time? It’s safe to say that the ’86 Rockets were the signature what-if team in NBA history.⁵⁹ Twenty years later, the Houston Chronicles Fran Blinebury wrote a column about them called “The Lost Dynasty” that included this quote from Lucas: “When I walk around Houston now and I hear people talk about winning those championships in ’94 and ’95, I just shake my head. I tell them, ‘You’ve either forgotten or you have never seen the best Rockets team. I know. I was a part of it. And I was a big part of bringing it down.’ … You look at most teams that are put together like that one and they get about an eight-to 10-year window. We didn’t know it, but our window was right there, and then it slammed shut.”

Allow me one last Ralph-related note because we can’t have a what-if chapter without him. Only seventeen NBA rookies were considered sure things in the past fifty years: Elgin, Wilt, Oscar, Kareem, Maravich, Walton, Bird, Magic, Sampson, Hakeem, Jordan, Ewing, Robinson, Shaq, Webber, Duncan and LeBron. Eleven of those sure things cracked the top twenty of my Hall of Fame Pyramid (coming shortly). Only Sampson and Webber will miss the Hall of Fame. Only Sampson and Walton failed to play more than four quality seasons, although Walton did win an MVP and Finals MVP and reinvent himself as the sixth man on an iconic team. When you look at Ralphs career compared to every other sure thing, it has to be considered one of the biggest flukes in sports history—a combination of bad luck, the wrong situation, and a player who was slightly overrated in the first place. Sampson flamed out as quickly as Bo Jackson or Dwight Gooden, only without the fanfare and legendary stories to keep his historical fire burning. He didn’t just fade away; there’s no trace of him. He left footprints like the kind you’d see on a beach. He didn’t even inspire a “Whatever Happened to Ralph Sampson?” documentary that would have cruised to a sports Emmy in the right hands. If there’s a lesson with all of this, I haven’t found it yet. Just know that Magic, Kareem and Riley probably wipe their foreheads and say “Phew!” every time somebody brings up the ’86 Rockets. And they should.

7. What if Julius Erving played with Pete Maravich?

Oh, wait, he did! For two exhibition games … but still. Before the ’72–’73 season, Erving signed with Atlanta and jumped to the NBA for two exhibition games before the ABA legally blocked the move and forced him to play another season in Virginia. In retrospect, Doc’s biggest mistake was jumping to the wrong team; Milwaukee held his NBA draft rights but Atlanta thumbed their noses at the Bucks and signed Doc, with the ensuing legal battle involving two professional teams separately suing the Hawks. Everything was held up for one year before Nets owner Roy Boe paid off the Hawks and Squires to bring Doc to New York.⁶⁰ Four absorbing wrinkles here:

1. The ABA without Doc for its last three seasons? One word: catastrophe.

2. In the past fifty-five years, the three most boring NBA seasons were 1974, 1975 and 1976. Let’s just say that Doc would have helped.

3. Had Doc ignored Atlanta and concentrated on joining Milwaukee (not far-fetched since Doc wasn’t a superstar yet and other ABA stars were jumping leagues),⁶¹ Doc and Kareem potentially could have been teammates before either turned twenty-six. And not just that, but an aging Oscar would have been there, and Bobby Dandridge, too. Forget about altering the NBA landscape from 1973 to 1976; once Doc started coming into his own, the ’74 Bucks could have won 70-plus games in a diluted NBA. Don’t you love the what-if game?

4. If everything worked out and Doc jumped to the ’73 Hawks, he would have gone to a team that won 46 games with Maravich, Lou Hudson and Walt Bellamy. Imagine adding Doc to the mix. And what about Young Doc and Young Pistol playing on the same team? I think the pilot just turned off the NO RIDICULOUS ALLEY OOPS sign. A Doc-Pistol alliance would have pushed YouTube to another level, transformed Maravich’s career, caused Brent Musburger to ejaculate on live TV and made Atlanta the league’s most popular team and biggest box office draw. Also, the ABA would have folded within two years and never merged with the NBA. And we’d have copious amounts of game film of the Doctor at his high-flying, mushroom-afro-wearing apex instead of just eyewitness accounts and possibly apocryphal stories. Damn it all.
   
   
   

6. What if New Orleans kept the rights to Moses Malone?

And you thought this one was going to be “What if the ’77 Blazers hadn’t traded Moses?” Ha! Too easy. This decision affected the fortunes of six franchises, swung six MVP votes and at least six titles (possibly more), robbed us of a potential Greatest Team Ever and set the tone for three decades of Clippers futility. The story starts in December 1975: Anticipating a merger, the NBA held a supplemental draft for recent undergraduates who signed with the ABA but didn’t have an official NBA draft class. Lord knows how they came up with the rules for this thing, but five players were drafted (Moses, Mark Olberding, Mel Bennett, Charles Jordan and Skip Wise) and two of the selections cost teams their 1977 number one picks (New Orleans with Moses, the Lakers with Olberding). The following summer, the Jazz decided that they would rather have that number one pick back over keeping Malone’s rights, so Moses was tossed into the ABA/NBA dispersal draft and assigned a price tag of $350,000.⁶²

Now you’re asking, “Wait, Moses was only twenty-one years old. Why didn’t the Jazz just keep him? Wasn’t he better than a future number one pick?” They might not have realized how good he was since Moses broke his foot the previous season and played just 43 games (averaging a 14–10), but the reason was much less defensible. The Jazz were enamored of free agent Gail Goodrich and needed that 1977 number one as part of a compensation package to sign him away from Los Angeles. How can we explain the idiocy of a floundering team deciding, “Let’s team up a twenty-eight-year-old shooting guard who doesn’t play defense with a thirty-three-year-old shooting guard who doesn’t play defense; we’ll score more points and the fans will love it”? That’s just how the NBA worked back then. Sports Illustrated’s Jerry Kirshenbaum wrote a November feature about the trade that included this section: “Goodrich had been signed earlier by the New Orleans front office with the blessing of Coach Butch van Breda Kolff, who had him for a while during his two-year stint as Laker coach in the late ’60s. Van Breda Kolff thinks Goodrich wears his years well, just as he himself does. Now in his fifth pro coaching post, the Jazz boss has a foghorn for a voice, shows up for games in what might be called casual clothes and enjoys the kind of stamina he demonstrated during a nine-hour pub crawl the other day to commemorate his 54th birthday. It was a celebration broken only occasionally by talk of basketball.”

Ladies and gentlemen, your 1976–77 New Orleans Jazz! So what if Gail Goodrich is thirty-three and has eleven years on his NBA odometer? He wears his years well! Who wants to do a shot? And you wonder why Red Auerbach dominated the NBA for thirty years; maybe he was just the only GM with an IQ over 100 who wasn’t drunk all the time. Goodrich suffered an Achilles tendon injury, played just 27 games that first season and retired two years later. So much for wearing his years well. It’s also strange that the Jazz decided Malone’s young legs and voracious rebounding wouldn’t come in handy when Rich Kelley, Ron Behagen and Otto Moore were their incumbent big guys. Remember, Malone’s talent wasn’t exactly a secret; one of the most famous college recruits of all time, Moses became the first player to jump directly from high school to the pros in 1974. The Jazz didn’t care. We can only guess that van Breda Kolff said something like, “I don’t care if he’s talented; supposedly the guy is as dumb as a rock. I want Goodrich!” So not only did the Jazz relinquish the rights to a future three-time MVP, they packaged their 1977, 1978 and 1979 number one picks and a 1980 second-rounder for Goodrich and L.A.’s 1978 number one pick. The Lakers ended up picking number six in ’77 (Kenny Carr), number eight in ’78 (sent to Boston for Charlie Scott) and (wait for it … wait for it … wait for it) number one in 1979 (Magic Johnson). Incredibly, unfathomably, unbelievably, inconceivably, an already moronic decision to overpay Goodrich (just about washed up at that point) ended up costing New Orleans Moses and Magic.⁶³

Hold on, we’re not close to being done. Portland picked Moses fifth in the ABA dispersal draft purely for trading purposes, wanting no part of his $300,000-per-year contract. According to Breaks, Moses struggled in training camp for understandable reasons: Portland had a hyperintelligent offense with a hands-on coach and Moses had never been coached before; this was his third team in three seasons; his skills were extremely raw at this point (just a straight rebounder/banger with great footwork and that’s it); and since he was already on the trading block and backing up both Walton and Maurice Lucas, Moses wasn’t exactly invested in the situation. As the situation devolved into a fire sale, Moses unleashed holy hell in one exhibition game, with players and coaches collectively realizing, “Holy shit! This guy is a prodigy!” They had no idea that the team had already agreed to trade him to Buffalo for a 1978 number one pick and $232,000,⁶⁴ creating …

5. What if the ’77 Blazers didn’t trade Moses Malone?

Put it this way: they ended up winning the title without him and started out 50–10 the following year before Walton’s feet fell apart. Within a year, Walton had signed with the Clippers and their championship window had closed. Had they kept Moses, maybe Walton doesn’t keep playing in pain, maybe they don’t rush Walton back for the ’78 Playoffs, maybe Walton’s feet don’t fall apart, maybe Walton doesn’t have the falling-out with their medical staff … for all we know, maybe Walton plays 400–500 more games in Portland with shortened minutes thanks to Moses. Throw in the way Moses matured in ’77 (averaging a 13–13 in just 30 minutes), ’78 (19–15), and ’79 (25–17, MVP) and who knows how many championships were swung? Think of that vacuum of good teams in the late seventies—could the Blazers have won three in a row had Walton stayed healthy? Four? Five? And what would have happened to Breaks of the Game? Would Halberstam have picked another team? This trade didn’t just swing NBA titles, it could have swung the Greatest Sports Book Ever title! My head hurts.⁶⁵

And we’re not even done, because poor Moses played in Buffalo for exactly six days before they shipped him to Houston for two number one picks in ’77 and ’78, hammering home Portland’s screw-up since Buffalo basically swapped a number one for two number ones. Don’t worry, this worked out just as badly for them as it did for everyone else: Moses only played six minutes in two games for the Braves because, hey, when you already have John Shumate and Tom McMillen at power forward, why see what you might have with the most ballyhooed high school recruit since Lew Alcindor?⁶⁶ That ’77 pick from Houston ended up being number eighteen (somebody named Wesley Cox) because Moses ignited the Rockets and propelled them to a division title. When the Rockets struggled the following season (a combination of Moses missing 23 games and the harrowing after-effects of the Tomjanovich/Washington incident), their 24–58 stink bomb netted Buffalo the number four overall pick—only the Braves had already traded it away (along with their 1979 number one) in the disastrous Tiny Archibald deal.⁶⁷ Buffalo moved to San Diego that summer, so if you’re scoring at home, technically, the fact that they dumped Moses for nothing could qualify as their “curse of the Bambino” moment; from that day on (October 24, 1976), only horrible things happened to them. And deservedly so. What I can’t understand is this: with unhappy Buffalo star Bob McAdoo grumbling about a new contract all summer, why didn’t they keep Moses around as insurance when it looked like they might be trading their star center? Six weeks after the Moses deal, they sent Big Mac packing for John Gianelli and cash. And the seeds of three-plus decades of Clippers futility were planted.

So if you’re scoring at home, Moses Hot Potato ended up swinging the destinies of six franchises in fewer than five months: New Orleans (never recovered, moved four years later); Los Angeles (landed Magic, won five titles with him); Portland (gave away Walton insurance and God knows how many titles); Buffalo (never recovered, moved within two years, jinxed even today); Houston (made the ’81 Finals with Moses, eventually traded him to Philly, and made the Hakeem-Sampson era possible); and Philly (acquired Moses in ’82, won a title with him). We also nearly witnessed the destruction of one of the most talented players ever: by all accounts, Moses moved so many times from 1974 to 1976 that he was practically broken by the time he reached Houston; it took the Rockets an entire season to rebuild his confidence. Eventually he became a Hall of Famer and haunts three teams to this day. And to think, it all started because Butch van Breda Kolff decided that Gail Goodrich wore his years well.

4. What if the 1960 Lakers hadn’t crashed
in the perfect cornfield?

January 18, 1960. The Lakers are flying back to Minneapolis after a day game in St. Louis. They’re riding in their own DC-3. It starts to snow. The plane loses its power. The heat goes off. The pilots can’t communicate with anyone. The plane bounces around in the snow for a few hours, with the pilots opening a side window every few minutes to scrape snow off the windshield so they can see. They have about thirty minutes of gas left and can’t find an airport, so finally they decide to land the plane on the best available cornfield in Carroll, Iowa. They keep trying to land but can’t find an area that isn’t flanked by power lines, so the pilots keep having to jerk the plane up and trying more attempts. At this point, police cars, fire trucks and even the town’s mortician are doing their best to follow a plane they can barely see. Finally, the pilots find the perfect snowy cornfield, cut the engines and land the plane smoothly on about four feet of snow. Everyone cheers. To this day, it’s the closest we’ve ever come to losing a professional sports team.⁶⁸

It would have been the biggest tragedy in NBA history and a crippling blow to a league barely making it at the time. And that’s just the start of it. We lose one of the fifteen greatest players ever (Elgin Baylor) midway through his sophomore season, as well as the most athletic forward of that era and someone who was in the process of knocking down the “basketball can also be played in the air” door. The Elgin/Jerry era never happens. We endure roughly five hundred documentaries, TV features, books and magazine features about that fateful night had it turned out morbidly.⁶⁹ The ’60 Lakers either fold immediately or suspend play, then regroup for the ’61 season after filling out their roster with expansion players and extra draft picks … which only means we’re now re-doing every part of NBA history from 1961 to 2008, including fifteen different Finals. Finally, another owner grabs that Los Angeles market if the Lakers fold. Would we be watching the Los Angeles Warriors right now? What about (gulp) the Los Angeles Celtics? In the biggest understatement of this entire book, I say it’s a good thing that the plane landed safely.

3. What if ABA commissioner George Mikan
didn’t screw up the Lew Alcindor sweepstakes?

When Alcindor finished his UCLA career in the spring of 1969, his family assembled a team of agents and advisers and spent the next few months debating between the ABA and NBA. Both leagues needed him desperately: the NBA because he was the biggest star to enter the league since Oscar Robertson, the ABA because Big Lew would have legitimized their league, gotten them a TV contract, and forced a merger down the road. If anything, the ABA should have overpaid for Alcindor and hoped to recoup the money with ticket sales and TV money.

Now here’s where it gets crazy. Without ever tipping his hand publicly, Alcindor decided privately that he wanted to play in the ABA. Milwaukee held his NBA rights, but Big Lew was more interested in the Nets; he grew up in New York, loved the idea of playing near family, found the city’s Muslim population appealing and understood the value of a big market. Milwaukee did nothing for him. How do we know this? He confessed as much in his 1983 autobiography Giant Steps⁷⁰—everything I just told you—and fled Milwaukee as soon as a window opened after the ’75 season. He wanted to play for the Nets. But he wasn’t interested in spending the summer playing the leagues against each another, so Big Lew’s team told the ABA and NBA the same thing: We will meet you once, we will listen to one offer, and that’s that. Do not lowball us. Give us your best possible offer first. The jackasses running the ABA somehow came up with one of their only shrewd ideas: When we meet Alcindor, we’ll give him a certified check for $1 million up front as part of whatever offer we make. Not only will that check prove that we’re serious and we don’t have financial troubles, but it will burn a hole in his pocket and he’ll eventually say yes.

You have to admit, that’s a great plan. Desperate, but great.

Okay, so the NBA goes first and makes an offer that Kareem would later call “extremely good” in Giant Steps. Mikan met Alcindor’s people next. They talk numbers. They talk about sticking Lew in New York and maybe even flanking him with a few of his old UCLA teammates. Money gets discussed. Some figures are thrown around. For whatever reason, Mikan never gives Alcindor that check. It stays in his pocket! Either he freezes or he forgets. There’s no in-between.⁷¹ On top of that, they lowball him with a shitty offer. So Alcindor’s team leaves the meeting wondering why the ABA didn’t totally step to the plate. Alcindor feels insulted and vows never to play in the ABA. The ABA owners flip out when they realize that Mikan never gave him the check. Milwaukee swoops in and signs Alcindor for a record $1.4 million. And Mikan gets canned within a year. As Kareem wrote later, “The Nets had the inside track and had blown it.”

Let’s say Mikan didn’t mess up and Big Lew signed with the Nets. Maybe he steals New York thunder from the ’70 Knicks. Maybe the Nets trade for Rick Barry one year later and become a superpower. Maybe the merger happens sooner than later, maybe the Nets become the team of the seventies, and maybe Lew/Kareem never ends up playing with Magic and the Lakers. Three things definitely don’t happen: the Bucks don’t win the ’71 title, Oscar never ends up in Milwaukee, and we have NBA MVPs in ’71, ’72 and ’74 not named Alcindor or Abdul-Jabbar. I mean, George Mikan could have gone on the Tonight Show, thrown on his goggles and sodomized Johnny Carson on live TV and not done more damage to the ABA than he did by not giving Alcindor that check. My head is spinning.

2. What if Len Bias hadn’t overdosed?

I still haven’t gotten over this one. How can you calculate the short-term and long-term damage? The Celtics had just finished one of the greatest seasons in NBA history and were adding Len Bias. You couldn’t have drawn up a better young forward for that particular team, someone who played like a more physical Worthy, but with Jordan’s athleticism, if that makes sense. (Other than MJ and ’Nique, no eighties player attacked the basket like a young Len Bias. It’s true.) If you sat down on June 19, 1986, right after the Celtics thrashed Houston for the title, and drew up a wish list for the perfect rookie to add to the ’87 Celtics, you would have come up with five wishes: an elite athlete capable of playing either forward spot; an overcompetitive MFer with a mean streak; a scorer capable of carrying Boston’s offense for extended stretches off the bench; a rebounder who could bang with young bucks like Barkley and Malone; and just for the hell of it, someone who loved ramming home alley-oops as Bird’s new toy. You would have settled for a forward who hit three of those check marks; four would have had you high-fiving yourself; five would have made you pass out.

Well, this was too good to be true. Bias dropped dead within forty-eight hours of the draft. Coke. And this is one of those what-ifs where the damages are easy to define. You can see them clearly. They stand out. The NBA lost a potential signature player and faced its biggest drug crisis yet. The Celtics wouldn’t fully recover for another twenty-one years. Long-term, they were just screwed. Pull Pippen from the ’87 Bulls, Malone from the ’85 Jazz or Duncan from the ’97 Spurs—just make believe they never played a game—and that’s how much Bias’ death meant.⁷² Short-term, we missed out on seeing an ’87 Celtics team that would have been the greatest of all time. One of the three greatest teams ever with one of the five best players ever and the greatest front line ever was adding one of the three best forwards of that decade? That’s a lot of greatests and bests. Medium-term, Bird and McHale were forced to play big minutes without Bias; neither of them would be the same after killing themselves that season. Bird’s body finally gave out a year later (first the heels, then the back); McHale injured his foot before the ’87 Playoffs, came back too soon because they didn’t have anyone else, broke the foot, kept playing on it and never really recovered. Bias cuts down everyone’s minutes, keeps everyone from playing injured, makes the actual games easier … it would have been the difference between Bird and McHale traveling 200,000 hours a year in coach or 125,000 a year in first class.

Some other things we missed: a sneering Bias banging bodies with the bad-boy Pistons from ’87 to ’92; a fascinating three-headed Barkley-Malone-Bias rivalry; Bias upping the stakes in any playground game against the Blazers and Hawks; Bird treating Bias like his prized new toy and tossing him as many alley-oops as humanly possible;⁷³ the Celtics improbably becoming “cool”; and an Eastern Conference star who would have stood up to Jordan without blinking or being intimidated. It’s the last point that hurts the most. There was a particular brashness about Bias, a swagger, a playground vibe that nobody else had. These were still the days of tight shorts and awkward high fives; few players were cool and the ones who were (’Nique, Worthy, Jordan, Bernard) kept their emotions in check for the most part. Jordan might have embraced that playground demeanor had he attended a school other than North Carolina, where Dean Smith frowned on anything that could be perceived as showing up the opposition, but the Carolina influence tempered his bluster to some degree. Maybe Jordan landed the sneaker commercials and posters, but Bias was the one who brought the streets to big-time hoops. He resonated with black fans much the way Hawk, Pearl and Doc did back in the day.

When Len’s playground swagger became more fashionable in the ’90s—thanks to UNLV and the Fab Five, postdunk woofing, baggy shorts, trash talk and everything else—that style seemed more contrived, like the players were doing it only to say “Hey, look at me!” Trust me, nothing about Len Bias was contrived. He went out of his way to dunk on people, not because it made him seem cool but because it sent a message and established a tone for the game. He grabbed rebounds in traffic and spat out an occasional “Arrrrrrggggggghhhh!” just to make sure everyone knew who was boss. He barked at teammates, referees and opponents alike. If fans booed Maryland during a road game, he fed off that noise like so many other greats and learned to channel it to shut them up, then thrived on that respectful silence when the game was wrapping up. He played with passion and heart. He showed a mean streak at times but never made you feel like he didn’t give a shit. Quite simply, he stood out. If Bias had arrived on the scene seven or eight years later, I’m sure he would have been wearing baggy shorts and woofing it up just like everyone else, but that’s the beautiful thing: not just that Bias made it big when he did, but that he wasn’t contrived. Bias was ahead of his time. He really was. We spent so many years searching for an archrival for Jordan—the Frazier to his Ali, someone who’d bring out the best in him—when really, that player was probably Len Bias. We were robbed. And so were the Celtics.

(The good news: Bias’ overdose combined with Robert Downey Jr. performing gay tricks for his coke dealer in Less than Zero fostered a fear of cocaine in nearly every American male growing up between 1986 and 1994. To this day, I haven’t tried cocaine or even thought about trying it. Just would have been hypocritical, you know? I guess that’s a silver lining. No pun intended.)

1. What if the 1984 draft turned out differently?

Oh, and you thought no. 1 would simply be “What if Portland had taken MJ over Bowie?” This draft was so complicated that it inspired Houston and Chicago to create the concept of “tanking” during the regular season. Once Houston won the coin flip and locked into Hakeem, all hell broke loose. Here’s what we know for sure:

1. Both Portland (second) and Chicago (third) would have swapped their picks for Sampson, although that wouldn’t have been enough of a return for a much-hyped rookie center who possessed the third-highest trade value behind Magic and Bird that summer.⁷⁴ Years later, Dr. Jack Ramsey told Sam Smith, “We had to have a center. We would have done that [trade].” I sure hope so. In his 1996 autobiography Living the Dream,⁷⁵ Hakeem claims that Houston nearly traded Sampson to Portland for Drexler and the number two pick, writing, “From 1984 until today, the Rockets could have had a lineup with me, Clyde Drexler and Michael Jordan, developing together, playing together, winning together. But the Rockets never made the move.” Whether that’s true or untrue, I don’t blame Houston for turning that down because Drexler hadn’t exactly lit the NBA on fire as a rookie. Still, Hakeem, Jordan and Drexler playing their entire careers together? Just staggering. It’s like imagining what would have happened if Microsoft and Apple had merged in 1981.

2. The sharks circled a crappy Chicago team for Jordan, giving credence to the “Portland seriously blew that pick” argument. Dallas offered Mark Aguirre straight up for the pick. Philly offered an aging Doc straight up for the pick; they also offered the number five pick plus Andrew Toney. Trades with Seattle (Jack Sikma) and Golden State (Joe Barry Carroll) were discussed. Eventually, the Bulls started feeling like they were sitting on a winning lottery ticket. And they were.⁷⁶

3. Patrick Ewing nearly entered the draft before changing his mind and returning to Georgetown. Had Ewing thrown his hat in the ring, he would have gone first, Hakeem second (to Portland) … and then-Bulls GM Rod Thorn told Flip Bondy that Chicago had Jordan rated higher than Bowie because they were afraid of his injury track record.⁷⁷ Obviously if Hakeem had landed in Portland, we’d enter the Marty McFly Zone and have to reconceive everything that happened in the NBA from 1985 to 1998 (different Finals, different champs, no Ewing in New York, etc. etc.). I started trying to figure it out and my nose started bleeding. I took this as a sign to stop.

4. Jordan’s potential was unclear because he played for Dean Smith in the pre-shot-clock era. Everyone knew he was good, but how good? His ceiling didn’t start leaking out until the ’84 Olympic tryouts, which Jordan dominated to the point that U.S. coach Bobby Knight called his buddy Stu Inman (Portland’s GM) and implored him to take Michael.⁷⁸ When Inman demurred and said that Portland needed a center, Knight reportedly screamed, “Well play him at center, then!” We also know that Nike (based in Portland) built an entire sneaker line around Jordan before he played an NBA game. So for anyone to play the “We didn’t know how good Jordan would be” card just isn’t true.

5. It’s a myth that Portland “desperately” needed a center. A 48-win team with a perfectly decent center combo—Mychal Thompson (16–9 in 33.5 minutes) and Wayne Cooper (10–6 in 20.5 minutes)—they also possessed trade chips like Drexler, Jim Paxson (second-team All-NBA and a restricted free agent), Fat Lever (an up-and-coming point guard), Calvin Natt (a bulldog forward) and Cooper. What they really needed was a rebounder; Natt and Kenny Carr were both undersized power forwards. For instance, San Diego shopped scorer/rebounder Terry Cummings all summer and finally dealt him for Marques Johnson after the draft. Why didn’t Portland overwhelm the Clippers with a Cummings offer (like a Drexler-Natt package) and take Jordan second? You got me.⁷⁹ Instead, they sent Lever, Cooper, Natt and their ’85 first-round pick to Denver for Kiki Vandeweghe, an accomplished terrific scorer (29.8 PPG in ’84) who also happened to be the worst defensive player alive. Here’s how lopsided and shortsighted that deal was: Denver jumped from 38 wins to 52 wins and the ’85 Western Finals solely because of that trade. As for Portland, they probably met in the first week of June and debated two potential courses of action:

Door No. 1: Jordan (most exciting college guard of the decade), Lever (twenty-three, named second-team All-NBA just two years later), Cooper (twenty-seven, averaged a 13–8 the next two years in Denver), Natt (averaged a 23–8 in ’85) and an ’85 number one pick (ended up being fifteenth)

Door No. 2: Vandeweghe and Bowie.

Anyone in their right mind goes with Door No. 1 unless they’re reasonably certain that (a) Bowie was a sure thing, and (b) Jordan wouldn’t come back to haunt them. I am assuming that Portland’s brain trust felt “reasonably certain” of those two things. And to hammer home how dumb, indefensible and reckless that feeling was, let’s bang out a retroactive diary of the first twenty-two minutes of the ’84 draft. Our announcers? Al Albert and Lou Carnesecca for the USA Network.

0:02. Albert hypes the proceedings by claiming there are “six bona fide superstars” ready to get picked. Apparently he’s counting 296-pound Charles Barkley twice.

0:03. Peering over a pair of black eyeglasses, Carnesecca fidgets with a pen, rambles uncomfortably for forty solid seconds and does everything possible not to look at the camera. He looks like a priest being questioned by police about an assault on an altar boy. Glad he’s here.

0:07. USA scrolls the order of the entire first round accompanied by some phenomenal eighties porn music. I half expected them to come out of that scroll with Ginger Lynn riding Al Albert on a waterbed. That’s followed by David Stern stepping to the podium for his first NBA draft, only he’s wearing Gabe Kaplan’s mustache from the 1977 season of Welcome Back Kotter. Forget about NBA TV—why don’t they rerun this draft on Comedy Central?

0:10. One of the two guys sitting at Houston’s draft table has a mullet and a bushy mustache. Gotta love the eighties. As we watch them gabbing on the phone, the following exchange happens:

AL: The Rockets timing has been impeccable. Last year, number one with Ralph Sampson coming out; this year, Hakeem Olajwon decided to come out early, and that’s just in time for Houston.

(Three seconds of silence pass.)

LOU (barely audible): The postman did ring twice.

0:11. Hakeem goes first, although he spelled it “Akeem” back then. He’s rocking the low-cut Jheri curl, a black tuxedo and a maroon bow tie. Fantastic.⁸⁰

0:12. Eddie Murphy borrowed his accent for Prince Akeem in Coming to America from the draft interview Akeem just did with Bob Doucette. There is no doubt in my mind. He even named the character after him.

0:16. Stern utters one of the most unforgettable sentences in NBA history—“Portland selects Sam Bowie, University of Kentucky”—as the camera shows the reps at Portland’s table with dueling “Yikes, I hope we didn’t fuck that up” looks on their faces.⁸¹ That’s followed by Bowie ambling to the stage as Al narrates, “Sam Bowie, the young man who came back from a stress fracture injury, the left shinbone, he was out for two seasons, redshirted, he has come back, he returned strong at Kentucky.”

(So a team that just lost its franchise center six years early with repeated stress fractures in his feet just took another center who missed two full college seasons because of his stress fractures? And he’s three years older than the sure thing about to get picked right after him? Sounds encouraging!)⁸²

0:17. During a less than enthralling package of Bowie highlights, Al tells us again that Sam has recovered fully from his stress fractures before adding unironically, “He passed up the Olympics.” High comedy. Every major college player tried out for that team except for Sam. Seem like a red flag to you? Nahhhhhhhh.

0:18. The Bowie highlight package finishes with a frozen picture of Bowie and a graphic with his ’84 stats: 10.5 points, 9.2 rebounds, 52% FG, 72% FT. In other words, his college stats were worse than Mychal Thompson’s NBA stats. What an upgrade!⁸³ Meanwhile, Al and Lou have the following exchange.

AL: And Lou, what do you say for a young player who sat out two formative years and has come back to regain it?

ME: “Don’t pick him”?

LOU: Well, I think it shows the type of perseverance that he has, that he was able to withstand all that misery and come back and perform, and look where he is now.

(Note: nothing gets fans more fired up than words like “perseverance” and “withstanding all that misery.” Screw that Jordan guy and his stupid dunking!)

0:18. Doucette interviews Bowie, who seems like a tragic figure in retrospect; it’s like watching Jackie Kennedy at LBJ’s swearing-in with JFK’s blood all over her dress. Their first exchange:

DOUCETTE: Sam, um, courage has been your middle name, you’ve had to really fight back from some adversity, and I know a lot of folks particularly yourself are happy to see this day arrive.

SAM: Right, I had a two-year layoff with my leg injury, but if I didn’t have the support of the community of Lexington and the state of Kentucky, I don’t know if I would have been able to do it without their help.

(Imagine being a Blazers fan and watching this. Mad props to Sam for defying the odds and coming back, but why take a “defying the odds” guy with a sure thing on the board? Why even risk it? Why? Why? Answer me! Why?)

0:19. It’s only getting better …

DOUCETTE: [The Blazers] tell me that they put you through an extensive physical before they made a decision on you. And the end result was a good one?

SAM (smiling sheepishly): Well, I went up to Portland and they gave me about a seven-hour physical, they didn’t let anything out, so, uh, I don’t know if that’s referring back to the Bill Walton situation, I know he had a stress fracture, but as far as I’m concerned I’m 100 percent sound.⁸⁴

(Waitasecondwaitasecondwaitasecond … a seven-hour physical? This is like watching the Hindenburg take off.)

0:20. Cut to both Chicago reps smiling happily at Chicago’s table⁸⁵ as Al sets up number three by taking a dramatic pause, lowering his voice and finally saying, “Michael Jordan seems to be the next one up.” For the first time in twenty minutes, Lou seems like he might be awake: “Mmmmmm, everyone’s excited about that one. He really captures the imagination.” Then again, you could say the same about a seven-hour physical.

Now it gets really good …

AL: You know, there was a question a little earlier perhaps, Portland toying with the idea of the great, can’t-miss talent of Michael Jordan against Sam Bowie, who, uh, who of course, coming off the injury, he says he is sound, Portland has checked him out through a seven-hour test, but the question is Bowie going now over the course of an 82-game schedule.

LOU (nodding): It is a calculated risk.

(Note: At this point, every Blazers fan in 1984 had thrown up in their mouth at least a little.)

0:22. A giddy Stern: “The Chicago Bulls pick Michael Jordan, from the University of North Carolina.”

The crowd applauds and cheers. They know already. That’s followed by a montage of exciting early MJ highlights with Al telling us, “This man is a can’t-miss” and a suddenly lively Lou adding, “You know, he makes them when they count, he can do it in traffic, he can do it under tremendous control, he’s a great, great creator, in the mold of a Dr. J, not as big, but is in that class, Michael is gonna make a great, great player, he’s what you call the People’s Player, people love to see this young man perform.” Al caps it off by saying, “He is star material, a great shooter, superb athletic ability, there are many teams that tried to pry that third pick from Chicago.”

I mean …

Just read everything from 0:16 to 0:22 again. We’ve seen a revisionist history in recent years that Bowie’s selection was defensible because the NBA was size-obsessed back then. But how can any team roll the dice with red flags like “calculated risk,” “seven-hour physical,” “two-year layoff” and “adversity/courage/perseverance” and pass up white flags like “can’t-miss talent,” “great, great player,” “star material,” “sure thing,” “in the mold of a Dr. J,” “great, great creator” and “People’s Player”? Incomprehensible. Totally, completely incomprehensible.

Which brings us to a special bonus what-if. On the day of the draft, what if Portland’s decision makers took a collective breath, said to each other, “Wait, are we crazy?” and reconsidered everything one last time? It’s like the second-to-last scene in All the President’s Men, when Woodward and Bernstein wake up Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee in the middle of the night to urge him to run their controversial report about corruption spreading all the way through Richard Nixon’s White House. Afraid that Bradlee’s house has been bugged, they bring him outside and fill him in on the front lawn.⁸⁶ The boys haven’t slept in two days; Bradlee is wearing a bathrobe and looks pissed off since they just screwed up the same story a few days before. Finally Bradlee lets them write the story, but not before telling them, “You guys are pretty tired, right? Well, you should be. Go on home, get a nice hot bath, rest up, fifteen minutes. Then get your asses back in gear. We’re under a lot of pressure, you know, and you put us there. Nothing’s riding on this except the First Amendment, the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country. Not that any of that matters, but if you guys fuck up again, I’m gonna get mad. Good night.”

If Ben Bradlee had owned the Blazers in 1984, he would have put the fear of God in everyone deciding on that pick and they would have gravitated toward the sure thing. Blazers owner Larry Weisberg was reportedly enamored of Jordan, but he was also an unassuming, low-key real estate tycoon who didn’t evoke that same Bradlee-like trepidation in his staff. They weren’t afraid of him, and they weren’t afraid of the repercussions. That’s why the Blazers plowed ahead with Sam Bowie … and that’s why they fucked up. But hey, nothing was riding on it except for the future of the NBA, hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue, somewhere between four and ten squandered championships, and a lost opportunity to employ the greatest basketball player of all time.

1. High schoolers, go west or south: Duke, Virginia, Vanderbilt, UNC, UCLA, Rollins, Pepperdine, Arizona, ASU, Miami and my personal favorite, UC Santa Barbara. Stay warm. Just trust me.

2. I threw this idea at William Goldman. His two favorites: George Raft turned down Bogie’s part in Casablanca, and they went after Brando and Beatty for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid before settling on Redford and Newman. “Nobody knows anything in Hollywood,” he wrote me. “Never forget that.” Sounds like the NBA.

3. Please don’t think I liked Titanic—it’s a chick flick and it’s too long.

4. I would have thrown Billy Crudup in there, but he’s like Vince Carter—all the talent in the world and he just didn’t want it.

5. My friend Chris Connelly disagrees and believes that Leo didn’t have the raw sexuality to pull off Diggler believably. This is a nice way of saying that Leo is too much of a skinny sissy.

6. I tried to answer it in a 2002 mailbag and even got my stepfather involved because he’s watched The Godfather 25,712 times. We went with De Niro. Barely.

7. It’s like the Lennon-McCartney problem—you can’t have two alpha dogs in a band or a basketball team. It will implode. It will.

8. I love calling San Francisco “San Fran” even if everyone in the Bay Area bristles in disgust. Why should I have to keep typing “Francisco” when I can save 5 letters? What about my fingers? This book is 250,000 words! You can’t give me the “San Fran” thing?

9. When the expansion Bulls joined in ’67, they were placed in the West and Baltimore finally moved into the East. Although they did briefly considering keeping Chicago in the East and then moving Boston into the West.

10. According to Leonard Koppett, scouts worried that Barry was too skinny to handle the pro game. Even back then, scouts were dumb.

11. Actual Chad quotes from that column: “Darko is really one of a kind”; “What sets Darko apart is his toughness in the post”; “[Carlos Delfino] reminds me of Michael Finley”; “I don’t like [Kendrick Perkins] for the Celtics, I’m not sure how it helps them in the short term or the long term”; “[Maciej Lampe at number thirty is] the steal of the draft.” I love the ESPN.com archives. As long as I’m not looking up my own humiliating predictions. (Emeka Okafor over Dwight Howard, anyone?) Then I hate them.

12. Had Detroit traded down and gotten Wade, now we’re talking about multiple titles. That’s not a fair what-if. Regardless, landing Darko in a top five with Bron, Wade, Bosh and ’Melo was like reaching into a brown paper bag filled with two checks for $100 million, two checks for $10 million, and a check for $10, and pulling out the check for $10.

13. Dallas got suckered by a textbook contract run: for the last 3 months of ’04, Damp averaged a 13–13 and 2 blocks, highlighted by back-to-back 19–21 and 16–25 games in the final week. Take away ’04 and his career average is an 8–7. Good guy.

14. Charles Smith played for Boston a year later and threw up enough bricks to build a three-bedroom condo in Charlestown. Another underrated mistake: cutting Glen Rice and Sean Elliott, which reared its ugly head when Hawkins got hurt in Seoul and Richmond was suddenly the team’s only reliable shooter. And on top of it, they cut Kerr despite an international three-point line. John Thompson, everybody!

15. Let’s chisel this on Thompson’s Hall of Fame plaque: SCREWED UP ’88 OLYMPICS, COST USA GOLD right above the spot where it says HAD MOURNING AND MUTOMBO AT SAME TIME,

16. My favorite awful Chris Wallace moves: tying up Boston’s cap space for three years with an alcoholic making the max (Vin Baker); taking Denver’s 11th pick in ’01 when he could have kept rolling that pick over, then picking Kedrick Brown; trading a number one for Juan Carlos Navarro; trading Joe Johnson and a number one for Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk without signing Rogers to an extension first; picking Joe Forte over Tony Parker; spending $21 million on Darko Milicic; giving away Gasol in a garage sale and getting his younger brother, which was like trading Sly Stallone in 1988 for 3 young character actors and Frank; buying Broadcast.com from Mark Cuban for 3 billion. Yeah, I know he didn’t do the last one, but it just seemed like something he would have done.

17. Hold on, I’m not done with Wallace. My buddy House and I ran into him in a Boston bar after I slammed the Baker deal on ESPN.com. He tried to explain the logic, which was nice of him—but the explanation ended up being so brainless that House pretended to go piss and never came back. The highlight: when Wallace claimed Shammond Williams was the key to the deal. When I asked why Wallace didn’t at least swap first-rounders with Seattle once over the next five years—which they would have done because, you know, they were desperate to get Baker and all—Wallace briefly had a look on his face like, “Shit, why didn’t I think of that?” It was surreal. Thank God I had a witness in House.

18. How you know an event qualifies: Will you always remember where you watched it? (Check.) Did you know history was being made? (Check.) Would you have fought anyone who tried to change the channel? (Check.) Did your head start to ache after a while? (Check.) Did your stomach feel funny? (Check.) Did you end up watching about four hours too long? (Check.) Were there a few “can you believe this”–type phone calls along the way? (Check.) Did you say “I can’t believe this” at least fifty times? (Check.)

19. That game is the NBA’s version of the 18 missing minutes of the Watergate tapes. If you try to watch it, you could die like the characters in The Ring.

20. The lowlights: Reggie Miller retired; O’Neal morphed into an overpaid under-achiever with a bad attitude and was sent packing to Toronto; Jackson and Jamaal Tinsley were peripherally involved in a strip club shooting; their fans grew to loathe the postmelee team so passionately that the Pacers panicked and sent Al Harrington and Jackson to Golden State for a Mike Dunleavy/Troy Murphy pu-pu contract platter; and they lost a reported $30 million in 2009 and might be a threat to relocate. Not even the Basketball Jesus can save them.

21. I don’t think they win the ’04, ’05 or ’07 titles with Kidd. He peaked in ’02 and ’03 and would have been blamed if they didn’t win, which only would have made things worse.

22. Well, unless you’re Mark Cuban—he gave up two number ones and $11 million for the right to pay Kidd three times as much as Devin Harris (a 2009 All-Star).

23. Orlando never got properly skewered for this one. Who overpays for an NBA star recovering from a fractured ankle? I hope every wannabe GM learns one lesson from this book: don’t mess with broken feet and broken ankles.

24. I’m wired differently: I would have been like, “Good luck, everybody! Thanks for the memories!”

25. A great parallel: Billy Corgan started out just as fast as Cobain; by 2001, he was an egocentric bald guy who made music nobody bought. Nobody cares that Smashing Pumpkins vs. Nirvana was a semilegitimate argument in 1994, or that the 12 best Pumpkin songs might be better than the best 12 Nirvana songs. The fact remains, Nirvana came first and paved the way. It’s like comparing David Thompson to Dr. J. The stats might back you up, but you still can’t do it.

26. My dad still complains about the refs in Game 4, when the Knicks rallied from a 16-point deficit with help from Jack Madden and Jake O’Donnell and won in double OT. Heinsohn chased the refs into the MSG tunnel afterward. When Madden screwed the ’91 Celtics on a bogus offensive goaltending call to end the Detroit series, my dad yelped, “Jack Madden hates us! He’s been screwing us ever since you were born!”

27. This one gnaws at me. Bird was riding the biggest hot streak of his career: back-to-back buzzer-beaters in January, the 60-point game and memorable ass-whuppings of Cleveland and Detroit in the Playoffs. He showed up for practice before Game 3 of the Philly series with a heavily bandaged right index finger and started throwing up bricks. Averaging a 30–10 on 52 percent shooting before Game 3, the Legend floundered to a 21–7 with 40 percent shooting for his last 9 playoff games. Both the Globe and Herald connected the dots that summer, reporting that between Games 2 and 3 of the Philly series, Bird got into a fight at a Boston bar called Chelsea’s and punched out a bartender named Mike Harlow (eventually settling out of court with him). So much for the ’85 title. Mike Harlow came thissssssssss close to getting his own what-if in this chapter.

28. I mistakenly attempted the “fourth person singular tense,” as perfected by Will Leitch during his reign as Deadspin editor. We don’t know why he wrote that way, but we always found it interesting.

29. The smoking gun: Kobe was represented by Rob Pelinka, who orchestrated Carlos Boozer’s sleazy move from Cleveland to Utah.

30. Devil’s advocate view: maybe Kobe just realized, “What the hell am I doing? It’s the Clippers! Am I crazy?”

31. During the ’80 season, idiot Cavs owner Ted Stepien traded Butch Lee and his ’82 number one for an ’80 number one (destined to suck since the Lakers were a top-four team) and Don Ford, a run-of-the-mill swingman who looked like a cross between Craig Ehlo and Ted McGinley. With the exception of Mike Bratz, there has never been a worse player traded for a franchise-altering number one.

32. Worthy averaged a 16–6 and shot 57 percent as a UNC senior; Wilkins averaged a 21–8 and shot 53 percent as a University of Georgia junior. ’Nique got knocked out of the Final Four; Worthy shined in the title game with a 28–17.

33. Worthy could have played with Bizarro Worthy (Tom Chambers) on the ’83 Clips. I will explain.

34. Yes, I wrote this at the time. Repeatedly. For anyone reading this book from 2030 on, the guy Atlanta took instead was a forward named Marvin Williams who couldn’t start for UNC the previous year. I thought this was a bad sign.

35. In consecutive drafts, Hawks GM Billy Knight took Marvin Williams over Paul and Shelden Williams over Brandon Roy. There’s a 17 percent chance he just sold you this book at an Atlanta Borders or Barnes & Noble. Tall, late ’40s, black, seemed sad … was that him?

36. I would have said “next decade” but supposedly Roy’s knee ligaments are made out of this book. By the way, there’s a 98.5 percent chance that “What if Portland had taken Durant over Oden?” will crack The Second Book of Basketball in 2016.

37. Remember when the Texans took Mario Williams over Reggie Bush and everyone gave them copious amounts of shit? It was the best thing that ever happened to Williams; he killed himself to prove everyone wrong. NBA examples along the same lines: Paul, Karl Malone, MJ, Paul Pierce, Rashard Lewis and Caron Butler. Most underrated example: Tom Brady.

38. Even weirder: the Knicks bought Bob McAdoo from Buffalo 20 games into the season and gave him the same money they would have given to Doc. Huh? Wilt flirted with a Knicks comeback that same summer—potentially, the Knicks could have trotted out Wilt, Haywood, Doc, Frazier and Monroe.

39. This also ranks among the great what-ifs if you were a dealer living in Manhattan in the early ’80s. No Micheal Ray in New York?

40. This was like Marbury for Kidd, only with the Russian roulette aspect of “each guy has battled serious coke/alcohol problems and will either make or break our franchise.” And yes, the Warriors were broken. They dumped him to Jersey for Sleepy Floyd four months later.

41. Hold on, this gets better. Your 2005 NBA Executive of the Year? That’s right, Mr. Bryan Colangelo! I love the NBA.

42. I’m not totally absolving Johnson here. So they dicked him around a little. When you’re playing with Steve Nash, do you know what that means? You’re playing with Steve Nash! Why give that up unless you have to?

43. They downgraded from Deng or Iguodala to Rondo to Fernandez to nothing … which means they traded a number seven pick in a loaded draft for $4.9 million, less than they paid Banks to sit on their bench in ’07. Well done!

44. My buddy JackO and I have been joking about that workout for years. Unless Penny was making half-court shots while stepping on broken glass and swinging his genitals like a lasso, there’s no effing way that one workout should have swayed the Magic from a Webber/Shaq combo. None.

45. I hate the Magic, Jazz, the Heat and everyone else for the whole “It feels funny using ‘they’ when you write about a team whose name doesn’t end in an s” conundrum.

46. Poor Carter ended up signing a two-year, $1.5 million deal with San Antonio, with Duffy’s agency repaying Carter the lost wages from the Miami deal. One of my top-12 can’t-be-proven NBA conspiracy theories ever: Miami paid Duffy to “forget” to send that letter.

47. When the Lakers re-signed Kobe that summer, a secret handshake promise to trade Shaq ASAP was part of the deal. I know this for a fact. Let’s just say I had a few drinks with the right person once.

48. I took this section from a February ’08 column. Within ninety minutes of it being posted, an enterprising reader made a homemade version of the ad and posted it on YouTube. I’ve never been prouder.

49. Browne Sanders was the fellow Knicks employee who sued Isiah for sexual harassment and won. Isiah could have settled out of court but couldn’t even pull that deal off.

50. During the Browne Sanders lawsuit, it was revealed that Stephon Marbury had boinked a female MSG intern named Kathleen Decker outside a strip club in his SUV. The Daily News showed a picture of the SUV on its front page with the headline, “Truck party!” Basically, the name for my 2007–8 fantasy hoops team fell out of the sky. Also, Decker’s father won the 2007 Most Horrified Dad ESPY.

51. “Wait a second, there’s a Jack Twyman section?” you ask. You’re fuckin’-A right there’s a Jack Twyman section!

52. You have to love a draft that had two of the top 20 what-ifs playing off the same scenario. I hope you fledgling GMs learned something in this chapter: don’t trade number one picks five years down the road for guys like Don Ford and Otis Thorpe. By the way, the guy who made those trades and helped kill professional basketball in Vancouver—Stu Jackson—was improbably hired by Stern and given a perplexing amount of power this decade. I had two different connected NBA friends inadvertently make the same joke: if Stern is Michael Corleone, Stu is definitely Fredo. In Fredo’s defense, I don’t think even he could have ruined basketball in Vancouver that quickly. Either way, I hope Stu turns down every one of Stern’s invitations to go fishing.

53. In retrospect, we should have known that a guy named Ralph wasn’t going to be one of the best centers ever. Had he embraced the Muslim faith and changed his name to Kabaar Abdul-Sampson or Raheem Sampson, he’d have been unstoppable. Look at the names of the best players ever: they’re all great names that you’d give a sports movie character. Michael Jordan. Bill Russell. Magic Johnson. Jerry West. Larry Bird. Moses Malone. You’d never name the lead of a sports movie Ralph Sampson or Darko Milicic.

54. Two of Sampson’s three defining moments involved Boston anyway: his scary fall in March ’86 (it happened in the Garden, so it makes you wonder if ghosts were involved), and the punch he threw at six-foot-one Jerry Sichting in Game 5 of the ’86 Finals, leading to Boston’s fans rattling his confidence in Game 6 (and the debut of the Ralph Sampson “I hope I get out of here alive” face).

55. This was the second-best buzzer-beater other than Jerry West’s half-court shot in the 1970 Finals. How many series end on a twisting, 180-degree fling shot that happens in under a second? And they diagrammed it in a huddle to boot!

56. Houston won Games 2, 3 and 4 by 10, 8, and 10, with Hakeem scoring 75 in Games 3 and 4. Pat Riley later lamented, “We tried everything. We put four bodies on him. We helped from different angles. He’s just a great player.” The Rockets badly outrebounded L.A. in their four wins. As SI’s Jack MacCallum wrote afterward, “The Rockets headed into [the Finals] secure in the knowledge that they had gone over, around and through the Lakers. And everybody else knew it, too.”

57. Lloyd was devastating in transition and startlingly efficient: from ’84 to ’86, he averaged a 16–4–4 on 53% shooting. He’s also the starting two-guard on the “Now that I’m watching this game 20 years later on ESPN Classic, I can totally see him failing a drug test—he’s got crazy eyes!” All-Stars.

58. Sampson went up for a dunk, got blocked, got twisted awkwardly and crashed to the ground so violently that the Garden made an ohhhhhhh sound and went deathly quiet. He landed right on his head and back, almost like he fell out of a bunk bed while sleeping. They carried him off on a stretcher a foot too short, so his mammoth legs dangled off it. Here’s how bad the injury looked when it happened: I actually remember where I was when I watched it live (my mom’s bedroom—she had a great TV). You know it’s a watershed moment when you can remember where you watched it.

59. Personally, I think the Lakers should retire the number of Houston’s coke dealer, as well as the Celtic who fouled Sampson in that ’86 game in Boston.

60. It’s really too bad that ESPN legal analyst Roger Cossack wasn’t around then—he would have been more visible than Mel Kiper Jr. during the month of the NFL Draft.

61. Charlie Scott and Mel Daniels bailed on the league during the ’73 season and got away with it. So it did happen. The ABA only had the legal resources to pick their spots and block bigger stars like Rick Barry.

62. You have to love the way the NBA operated in the mid-’70s. The Jazz said, “Um, hey, we’ve been thinking about it—we’d love a mulligan on that Moses decision,” and Commissioner O’Brien’s office said, “No problem—here’s your number one back!” Given how haphazardly things were run back then, it makes you wonder if they called O’Brien, he was on the other line, his secretary asked what the call was about, the Jazz told her, she said “Hold on” and passed the message on to O’Brien, and he waved her off by saying “Fine, fine, just tell them yes” before getting back to his phone call with Ben Bradlee or Walter Mondale.

63. Yes, the Jazz probably wouldn’t have earned the number one overall pick three years later had they just kept Moses, since he won the MVP 3 years later. That “Moses and Magic” line just looked imposing on paper, you have to admit.

64. This part kills me. How did they decide on $232,000? Somebody needs to write a book detailing every fucked-up thing that happened in the NBA in 1976. It could be 1,200 pages.

65. The Buffalo pick ended up being number three overall in ’78: Portland sent it to Indiana along with Johnny Davis for the number one overall pick, taking Mychal Thompson as Walton insurance. Maybe Thompson wasn’t a Pantheon center, but he was good enough to get his own goofy Nike poster: just Thompson wearing a Hawaiian shirt and holding a parrot while sitting by a tropical pool. The implication being … I don’t know.

66. On January 25, 1977, one week after SI wrote a “Look at how Moses has ignited the Rockets” feature, Tates Locke (the guy who quickly buried Moses in Buffalo) was fired as the Braves’ head coach. This was not a coincidence. For the Lost fans out there, three-plus decades of bad luck for the Braves/Clippers started right after they fired Jack and replaced him with Locke.

67. New Jersey traded the pick a fourth time, leading to the Micheal Ray era in New York. Sadly, I am out of cocaine jokes. I’m tapped.

68. Nowadays, we have a Catastrophe Rule: an emergency expansion draft in which every team can only protect four or five guys. Then that team gets the top pick of the next draft (plus its own pick). It’s a good thing this isn’t widely known because an irate Knicks fan would have tampered with the team’s charter during the Isiah era.

69. And one sappy Disney movie in the late ’90s with Samuel L. Jackson playing Elgin and Matthew McConaughey playing Hot Rod Hundley in a film called Cornfield of Dreams or Final Flight.

70. I bought this book for $6 online; the highlight was reading it, gleaning all the information I needed, then starting a bonfire with it in my backyard. In the words of Marv Albert, “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is on fire!”

71. Looking back, it’s the biggest NBA turnover ever other than Isiah’s pass that the Legend picked off (1987) and Mail Fraud getting stripped right before Jordan’s last shot (1998). It’s too bad the ABA didn’t have George McGinnis hold the check; he would have turned it right over.

72. Remember, Bias was supposed to take the torch from Russell, Havlicek and Bird. That’s how good he was. Also, there was a cap in place by ’86 and owners like Ted Stepien weren’t stupidly giving away number one picks anymore. It was significantly tougher to improve. Fuck.

73. I know I mentioned this twice but it continues to kill me. Remember, Bird routinely got bored during games, spent entire halves shooting left-handed and once played an ’86 game where he and Walton tried to figure how many different ways they could run a play where Bird threw it in to Walton, then cut toward the basket and caught a return pass from Walton. You’re telling me he wouldn’t have said, “I want to see if I can get Len 15 alley-oops tonight”? I am shaking my head.

74. My hypothetical top ten: Bird, Magic, Sampson, Isiah, Bernard, Moses, ’Nique, Moncrief, McHale, Buck Williams.

75. I found this information online—I refused to buy Living the Dream because it sounded so awful. A strong statement from someone who bought Give ’Em the Hook by Tommy Heinsohn.

76. Philly’s offer never became public. One year later, Harold Katz tried to swap Doc for Terry Cummings before Doc called him out and the entire city of Philadelphia turned on Katz. Although that’s not saying much. Philly would turn on me just for making fun of them in this footnote. Crap, there goes another book signing.

77. They had just been burned by two questionable high draft picks: Ronnie Lester (bad knees) and Quintin Dailey (bad soul). They wanted a sure thing.

78. The two best players in prolonged tryouts that included every relevant name from the ’84 and ’85 drafts? Jordan and Barkley. Chuck ended up getting cut after Knight told him to lose weight and Barkley went the other way. Other cuts: Malone, Stockton, Joe Dumars, and Terry Porter. Guys who made it: Jeff Turner, Joe Kleine, Steve Alford and Jon Koncak. I think Chris Wallace and David Duke were advisers to Knight that summer.

79. Or they could have overwhelmed Houston for Sampson: the number two, Drexler and Fat Lever.

80. You know what’s interesting? Houston just passed up the greatest player ever and I still feel like they made the right pick. You always go with a sure-thing center over a sure-thing guard. Always.

81. Stern always said the entire franchise’s name during this draft except this one time: He skipped the “Trail Blazers” part, like he was trying to get off the stage as fast as possible. You can’t blame him.

82. During the same summer The Sure Thing with John Cusack was released. Coincidence? I say no!

83. Did Bowie’s staggeringly unstaggering college stats remind you of anyone else? I’m thinking an OSU center, number one pick, looked 20 years older than his age, also played for Portland …

84. Worth mentioning: Sam was extremely polished and handled himself well. I feel bad for the guy. I mean, it’s not his fault they drafted him over Jordan, right? And he was a quality center when he was healthy. Which was only 54 percent of his career, but still.

85. If you ever get a chance to watch this clip, check out the look on the guy who’s on the phone for Chicago—he’s so delighted, it looks like he’s getting blown under the table. We’ll never know for sure.

86. Jason Robards won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Bradlee in one of my favorite performances ever. He owns every scene of a movie with Redford and Hoffman in it. Within seven years, he was playing the lead in Max Dugan Returns. I don’t get Hollywood.

FIVE
MOST VALUABLE CHAPTER

SAY WHAT YOU want about the NBA, but fifteen of its running features and subplots distinguish it from every other professional sport (in a good way):

1. A wildly entertaining rookie draft that helped calibrate my Unintentional Comedy Scale. Things settled down over the last few years when agents and PR people realized things like, “Maybe we shouldn’t send him to the draft dressed like a pimp” and “Maybe it’s not a good idea to give David Stern a full body, genitals-on-genitals hug after you get picked,” but it’s still one of my favorite TV nights of the year, if only because Jay Bilas has a ton of length and a ridiculous wingspan.

2. A dress code for injured players that, after an adjustment period, ultimately led to fashionably dressed scrubs hopping onto the court after time-outs to dole out chest bumps and high fives. We witnessed a blossoming of the Overexcited Thirteenth Man in the ’08 Playoffs; if Walter Herrmann was the Jackie Robinson of this movement, then Brian Scalabrine was Larry Doby and Scot Pollard was Don Newcombe. Where else can you see a $2,000 leather jacket get stained with sweat by a chest bump?

3. Courtside seats that serve a double purpose: First, they’re hard to get without connections or unless you have six figures sitting around for season tickets. If you’re sitting in them, your success in life has been validated in some strange way, even if everyone sitting in every non-courtside seat probably thinks you’re an asshole. (It’s the same phenomenon as sitting in first class and watching everyone else size you up in disgust as they’re headed to coach, multiplied by fifty.) And second, it’s the best possible seat in any sport. You’re right on top of the court, you hear every order, swear, joke, insult or trash-talk moment, and if you’re lucky enough to be sitting right next to one of the benches, you can hear them discussing strategy in the huddle.¹ There isn’t another sports fan experience like it. I’d even argue that the twelve seats between the two benches—six on each side of the midcourt line, or as they’re commonly known, the Nicholson Seats—are the single greatest set of seats for any professional sport.

4. Cheerleaders dressing like hookers and acting like strippers. Can’t forget them.

5. Foreign players entering the NBA with heavy accents, then picking up a hip-hop twang over the course of a few seasons from being around black people all the time. I call this “Detlef Syndrome” because Schrempf was the ultimate example; by the halfway point of his career, he sounded like the German guys in Beerfest crossed with the Wu-Tang Clan. It’s just a shame that Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t train at an all-black gym in the seventies; we really could have seen something special.²

6. An even weirder phenomenon than Detlef Syndrome: for reasons that remain unclear, the NBA causes some journalists to write NBA-related columns or features like they’re “writing black.” Unquestionably, it’s the worst journalistic trend of the last twenty years other than the live blog. I never understood the mind-set here: There are a great many black players in this sport; therefore, I must make my prose a little more urban. Really? That’s logical? I don’t get it. You feelin’ me? Word. This is one phat book I’m writing, yo. Recognize.

7. Real fans yanked from the stands to shoot half-court shots for cars, money or whatever else is being offered. What other sport allows fans to become part of the action like that? Of course, they never come close because of the little-known rule that only unathletic people, females or people weighing over three hundred pounds are chosen for the halfcourt shot. But still, at least it’s exciting.³

8. The most simple yet revealing statistics in any sport: points, rebounds, steals, blocks, assists, free throws, field goals, threes and turnovers. Over the past ten years, a series of stat freaks inspired by the baseball revolution pushed a variety of convoluted statistics on us, but really, you can determine the effectiveness of nearly any player by examining an NBA box score. Rarely does a post-1973 box score deceive, although a few subtle stats could be created to make things even better. We’ll delve into this during the Wes Unseld section.⁴

9. What other sport offers the broken-nose mask that Rip Hamilton popularized? For how prevalent these things have been for the past thirty years, I can’t believe we never came up with a nickname for it. A few years ago I launched an unsuccessful movement to name it “the Schnozzaroo.” Never caught on. What’s strange is that they’re such an afterthought for players who care deeply about their postgame wardrobe, their appearance, their shoes—and yet they’ll slide on these homely, bland plastic masks without sprucing them up. Shouldn’t they be painting them the way goalies decorate their masks in hockey, or maybe even wearing an intimidating, Hannibal Lecter-style mask for a big playoff game? What about putting advertising on it (like the Nike logo)? We need to spruce up the Schnozzaroos. You have to love a league that just spawned this paragraph.

10. Telecasts with Hubie Brown, a man who mastered the hypothetical first-person plural tense over the past twenty-five years and transformed it into a common conversation device. What would our lives have been like without Hubie? I wish Paul Thomas Anderson had cast him as Jack Horner’s assistant director in Boogie Nights, just so we could have had a moment like this one during the filming of Spanish Pantalones: “Okay, let’s say I’m Dirk Diggler in this scene. I’m hooking up with Rollergirl, I’m on a waterbed, I’m horny as hell, I’m Spanish, I’m hung like a horse and my pants are on fire. Now I’m thinking about rolling Rollergirl over from missionary to doggie style because I know that I’m keeping my options open and I can go right from doggie into another position. I also know that I should be thinking about using a Spanish accent….”

11. The unique-to-the-NBA phenomenon where a traded player looks dramatically different in his new uniform. Sometimes it looks like he’s been reborn, sometimes it’s like he’s finally found the perfect color/style, sometimes he looks like something’s drastically wrong, and in rare cases the uniform makes him look slower, fatter and less athletic (like Shaq when he joined the Suns). I remember when Kwame Brown got traded to the Lakers and looked magnificent in his new duds: his arms looked bigger, he seemed more imposing and he carried himself differently. For all we knew, he had transformed into Jermaine O’Neal. But absolutely nothing had changed talent-wise except that he turned a Wizards jersey into a Lakers jersey. As we soon found out. Because Kwame Brown sucks. Still, for those first few Lakers games, he looked pretty damn good. It’s just unfortunate that actors, politicians and singers can’t take advantage of the new-uniform phenomenon; people like Jakob Dylan, Matt LeBlanc, Joe Biden and Adam Duritz could have remade their careers.

12. In my lifetime, David Stern narrowly edges Pete Rozelle as the commissioner with the most dominant personality, someone who always kept his league in complete control, gained such power and prominence that we actually wondered if he had fixed certain games or banned certain superstars without telling us, spawned a generation of legendary, Bill Brasky-like “Did you hear about the time Stern spent twenty minutes f-bombing _______________[name at least two executives from any company, sponsor, network or the league itself from the past twenty-five years]?” stories and anecdotes, and left such a legacy that he inspired one writer (in this case, me) to make a semiserious case in one column for why David Stern should be our next president. Just like there will never be another Magic, Michael or Larry, there will never be another David Stern.⁵

13. Mothers who show up for home games, go overboard supporting their sons and sometimes make fools out of themselves. Every time I think back to a Sixers game during the Iverson era, it makes me jealous that I can’t write this book right now with twenty thousand fans cheering me on as my mom sits in the front row wearing a Simmons jersey, whooping it up and holding a sign that says, MY BABY IS THE SPORTS GUY AND HE’S ALL THAT!

14. Tattoos. Tons and tons of tattoos. No other sport has you saying things like, “I wonder what those Chinese characters stand for” and “Wait a second, is that Notorious B.I.G.’s face on the point guard’s right arm?” My buddy JackO has been arguing for years that, along with a game program, home teams should hand out a tattoo program that explains the origin of every tattoo on both teams (complete with pictures). Like you wouldn’t thumb through it during time-outs?

15. The Most Valuable Player award that matters the most.

(Sound of a record screeching to a halt.)

Wait, you don’t believe me? Can you name the last ten NFL MVPs? You can’t. Can you name the last ten MVPs in each baseball league, then definitively say which guy was better each year? Nope. Do you even know the name of the NHL MVP trophy, much less the last ten winners?⁶ Unless you’re Canadian, probably not. Only the NBA taps the full potential of the Most Valuable Player concept: everyone plays against each other, it’s relatively simple to compare statistics, and if you watch the games, you can almost always figure out which players stand out. You only have to follow the season. If you combine the MVP voting with the All-NBA teams, the playoff results, and individual statistics, you end up with a reasonable snapshot of exactly what happened that NBA season, much like how the four major Oscar awards reasonably capture what happened in Hollywood from year to year.

Of course, there are exceptions. Charles Barkley won the ’93 MVP even though Jordan was still the best player alive and proved it authoritatively in the Finals. Well, you know whose name sits next to “1993 NBA MVP” for the rest of eternity? Barkley. That’s just the way this crap works. One year later, Forrest Gump won Best Picture over The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction. If you could only watch one of those three movies again, which one would you pick? I bet you’re not picking Gump. If you’re old enough to remember walking out of the theater after those three movies in ’94, which one left you the most blown away? Again I bet you’re not picking Gump. I remember seeing a Shawshank matinee with my girlfriend at the time,⁷ limping out of the theater in disbelief, then sitting in her car afterward having an “I can’t believe how freaking amazing that was” conversation and not departing the parking lot for fifteen solid minutes. That definitely didn’t happen when I walked out of Gump. Although I do remember wondering how Jenny Gump died of AIDS when it hadn’t been created yet.

So why didn’t Shawshank win the Oscar? Because it had a crappy title.⁸ If they had gone with a generic Hollywood title like Hope Is a Good Thing or Crawling to Freedom, more potential moviegoers would have understood the premise and seen it. When flipping through movie times in a 1994 newspaper, you weren’t gravitating toward the prison movie with the confusing title and a douche like Tim Robbins in the leading role. Believe me, I was nearly one of those people. I specifically remember not wanting to see Shawshank until my dad (an early Shawshank lover) told me something crazy like, “Look, if you don’t see this movie within the next forty-eight hours, I’m coming over and severing your carotid artery with a machete.” Now? It’s one of the greatest titles of all time. I wouldn’t change a thing about it. Back then, it probably cost that movie $75 million and the Oscar. As for MJ, he didn’t win the ’93 MVP because everyone was tired of voting for him. That’s the only reason. And it’s a shitty one.

Which brings us back to the point of this chapter: Just because somebody won an Oscar or an MVP doesn’t necessarily mean he deserved it. Since the MVP means more to the NBA than any other sport, and since we’re headed for a mammoth “Evaluating the Best Players Ever” section in a few pages that involves an Egyptian pyramid—no, really—I thought we’d travel back in time and correct every mistake or injustice in MVP history. I’m also creating a Playoffs MVP because it’s nonsensical that we have awards for the regular season and Finals, but nothing covering every playoff series including the Finals. For example, the 2007 Spurs wouldn’t have won without Tim Duncan, their entire low-post offense, best defender, best rebounder, best shot blocker and emotional leader. With nearly eight hundred games (including playoffs) and one knee surgery already on his odometer, Duncan had learned to pace himself during the regular season by then, concentrating on defense and rebounding and saving his offensive energy for message games and playoff games. In the regular season, he played 80 games and finished with a 20–11–3, shooting a career-high .546 from the field and making first-team All-NBA. Then he averaged a 22–12 and blocked 62 shots in 20 playoff games as the Spurs swept Cleveland in the Finals. So what happened? A French guy (Tony Parker) stole Finals MVP honors for lighting up a particularly poor group of Cleveland point guards, averaging a 30–4 in the sweep and shooting .568 from the field.⁹

Let’s say your great-grandkid looks back at that season sixty years from now. Dirk Nowitzki won the MVP, Tony Parker won the Finals MVP … and other than his first-team All-NBA spot and solid playoff numbers, how would you discern that Duncan, by far, was the crucial player on the best team of the 2006–7 season? You couldn’t. That’s why there should be a regular-season MVP, a Finals MVP and a Playoffs MVP, and that’s why I’m handing out my imaginary Playoffs MVP, creating a universal definition for regular-season MVP and settling every erroneous pick since 1956. But before we get there, three crucial MVP wrinkles have to be mentioned:

Wrinkle no. 1. The first award was given out for the 1955–56 season, with players controlling MVP votes and writers handling All-NBA first and second teams. (Only one rule: players couldn’t vote for anyone on their own team.) I know they were still finding their way in the mid-fifties, and granted, this was the same league that played for eight years before realizing it needed a shot clock. But given the racial climate of the fifties and the general resistance to the influx of black players, how could anyone have expected a fair vote when 85–90 percent of the players were white? Wasn’t it more of a popularity contest than anything? When you apply the “best player is decided by his peers” concept to modern times, you can see its inherent dangers and potential for a lack of objectivity. Critics are critics for a reason—it’s their job to objectively evaluate things. You can’t expect players to suddenly become impartial reviewers. For instance, let’s say the 2008 players considered Kobe to be a world-class bully, egomaniac and phony.¹⁰ Under this scenario, if they were voting for the 2008 MVP, would Kobe have had any chance of pulling it out over Chris Paul, a player everyone respected and loved?¹¹ And considering the Hornets loved Paul and wanted him to win, wouldn’t they have voted for someone without a real chance like LeBron? NBA players should only be voting for things like Worst B.O., Guy You Don’t Want to Leave Alone with Your Girlfriend, Least Likely Star to Pick Up a Check, Toughest Poker Competitor, Ugliest Player and Craziest Mothafucka You Don’t Want to Cross.

Wrinkle no. 2. Starting with the 1979–80 season, a handpicked committee of journalists and broadcasters was given the voting reins, creating more problems for obvious reasons (some might not follow the entire league, some might be biased toward the guy they’re watching every night, some might be dopes about the NBA) and less obvious ones (recognizable stars now had an advantage, as did someone without a trophy competing against a previous winner). Starting in the early nineties, a more subtle problem developed: a group almost entirely composed of middle-aged white journalists couldn’t identify with the current direction of the league, missed the access they once had and openly despised the new generation of me-first, chest-pounding, posse-having, tattoo-showing, commercial-shooting overpaid stars but were still being asked to objectively decide on the MVP. I’d say that’s a problem. I once asked a well-known basketball writer if he had DirecTV’s NBA Season Pass, and he recoiled in disgust, like I had asked him if he’d ever been to a sex club and banged someone through a glory hole or something. And this was a guy with an MVP vote. Can we really rely on the over-fifty, “I used to love the NBA before the league went to hell” demographic to make the right decisions?

Wrinkle no. 3. Current voters openly confess to being confused about the voting criteria, mainly because the NBA powers that be willingly facilitated that confusion by never defining the term “valuable.” They like when radio hosts and writers get bent out of shape about it. They want voters to wonder if it’s an award for the best player or the most valuable one, or both, or two-thirds one part and one-third the other part, or whatever ratio someone ends up settling on. We only know the following:

1. It’s an award for the regular season only.

2. Candidates have to play at least 55 games.

3. Whoops, that’s all we know.

See how we might have trouble coming up with the right pick annually? That’s why I pored through every season making sure that every choice was either completely valid, relatively valid, or invalid, applying my own definition of the MVP, a formula I have been revising and redefining for an entire decade before finally settling on the language for life last summer.¹² My definition hinges on four questions weighted by importance (from highest to lowest):

Question no. 1: If you replaced each MVP candidate with a decent player at his position for the entire season, what would be the hypothetical effect on his team’s records? You can’t define the word “valuable” any better. Say you switched Chris Paul for Kirk Hinrich during the summer of ’07. How would the next Hornets season have turned out? They won 57 games in a historically tough conference with an offense geared around Paul’s once-in-a-generation skills, and if that’s not enough, he was a beloved leader, teammate, and team spokesman. Switch him with Hinrich and they’re probably 30–52 instead of 57–25, and that’s without mentioning how Paul saved basketball in New Orleans and evolved into one of the NBA’s true ambassadors. Ranking the 2008 MVP candidates only by this question, Paul ranks first, Kevin Garnett second, LeBron James third, Kobe Bryant fourth, and Earl Barron fifth.¹³

Question no. 2: In a giant pickup game with every NBA player available and two knowledgable fans forced to pick five-man teams, with their lives depending on the game’s outcome, who would be the first player picked based on how everyone played that season?¹⁴ Translation: who’s the alpha dog that season? The Finals answer this question many times … but not every time. We thought Kobe was the alpha dog in 2008, but after watching him wilt¹⁵ against Boston in the Finals—compared to the way LeBron carried a crappy Cavs team to seven games against Boston and nearly stole Game 7—it’s unclear. This question reduces everything to the simplest of terms: we’re playing to 11, I need to win, I can’t screw around with this choice, and if I don’t pick this guy, he’s gonna get pissed and kick our asses as the second pick. I mean, imagine the look on ’97 MJ’s face if someone picked ’97 Karl Malone before him in a pickup game. It would have been like Michael Corleone in Godfather Part II when Kay informed him about her abortion.

Question no. 3: Ten years from now, who will be the first player from that season who pops into my head? Every season belongs to someone to varying degrees. Why? Just like the political media can affect a primary or a presidential campaign, the basketball media can swing an MVP race. They shape every argument and story for ten months, with their overriding goal being to discuss potentially provocative angles, stories or controversies that haven’t been picked apart yet. There’s no better example than the ’93 season: Jordan was still the best, but the controversial Barkley had just been swapped to Phoenix, then made a leap of sorts at the ’92 Olympics, emerging as the team’s most compelling personality and second-best player. Pigeonholed during his final Philly years as a hotheaded, controversial lout who partied too much, wouldn’t shut his trap and showed truly terrible judgment—epitomized by the incident when he accidentally spat on a young fan, followed by the story being twisted around to “Barkley spits on young fan!”—suddenly everyone was embracing Chuck Wagon’s sense of humor and candor. Once he started pushing an already good Suns team to another level, Barkley became the story of the ’92–’93 season, a bona fide sensation on Madison Avenue and the most charismatic personality in any sport.¹⁶

Should that “transformation” have made him the most valuable player in 1993? Well, the ’92 Suns won 53 games, shot 49.2 percent from the field, scored 112.7 points per game and gave up 106.2. The ’93 Suns won 62 games, shot 49.3 percent, scored 113.4 and gave up 106.7. They rebounded better with Barkley but he weakened them defensively. Maybe they had a better overall team in ’93, but didn’t free agent pickup Danny Ainge, rookies Oliver Miller and Richard Dumas, emerging third-year player Cedric Ceballos and new coach Paul Westphal deserve a little credit? You also can’t discount what happened in the Western Conference: following a particularly strong ’92 campaign that featured four 50-win teams and nine above-.500 teams in all, only six ’93 teams finished above .500 and the eighth playoff seed went to a 39-win Lakers team. Barkley’s regular-season impact, purely from a basketball standpoint, wasn’t nearly as significant as everyone believed. Admittedly, he injected that franchise with swagger, gave them a proven warrior and inside force, boosted home attendance, helped turn them into title favorites and pushed a very good team up one level. For lack of a better word, he owned that season. When you think of ’92–’93, you think of Barkley and the Suns first; then you think, “Wait, wasn’t that the year Chicago pulled out the Charles Smith Game and then MJ single-handedly destroyed Phoenix in the Finals?” Still, ownership of a season shouldn’t swing the voting. In ’93, it did. That’s just a fact.

Question no. 4. If you’re explaining your MVP pick to someone who has a favorite player in the race—a player that you didn’t pick—will he at least say something like, “Yeah, I don’t like it, but I can see how you arrived at that choice”? I created this question after what happened with my ’08 MVP column, when I picked Garnett and found myself deluged with “You’re a homer, you suck!” emails from fans of other candidates. I expected the choice to be unpopular, but that unpopular? Did I make a mistake? I rehashed my thought process and realized that my logic was sound and (seemingly) unbiased: I’d abided by the same reasons for which I picked Shaq in ’05—namely, that Garnett transformed the Celtics defensively and competitively, turned the franchise around, gave it leadership and life and spawned a record 42-win turnaround—and included a few I-saw-this-happen examples to bang my logic home. Still, I was biased for one reason: I had watched nearly every minute of that Celtics season, whereas I had only seen pieces of 25–30 Hornets and Lakers games. My affection for the Celtics didn’t taint my opinion but my constant exposure to them did: I knew exactly how Garnett affected the 2007–8 Celtics because I watched every game, read every story and followed them every day for eight months. Did I know exactly what Chris Paul did for the Hornets?¹⁷ Not really. Had I grown up a Hornets fan and diligently followed their miraculous transformation I inevitably would have ended up arguing Paul’s merits.¹⁸ The crucial variable: any Lakers fan would disagree with Paul over Kobe, but at the very least they would have understood the logic. They wouldn’t have agreed with it, but they would have understood it. Well, they didn’t understand the wisdom of the Garnett pick. At all. And that’s a problem. Hence, the creation of question no. 4.

Lump those questions together like MVP Play-Doh and suddenly we have a trusty formula. Ideally, I want a player who can’t be replaced, then an alpha dog, then someone who owned that season to some degree, then a pick who doesn’t need to be overdefended to a prejudiced party … and after everything’s said and done, a choice who vindicates my support by kicking ass in the playoffs. Although it sounds great on paper, it doesn’t happen every year as you’re about to see. For reference purposes, here’s the complete list of NBA alpha dogs in the shot-clock era, along with the actual MVP winners and my choices for Playoffs MVP. I put in boldface the MVP winners who, after much research and deliberation, I signed off on as a valid choice that can’t be debated.

Alpha Dog (1955): Dolph Schayes
MVP: Bob Cousy¹⁹
Playoffs MVP: Schayes

Alpha Dog (1956–57): Bob Pettit
MVP: Pettit (’56), Cousy (’57)
Playoffs MVP: Paul Arizin (’56), Russell (’57)

Alpha Dog (1958–65): Bill Russell
MVP: Russell (’58, ’61, ’62, ’63, ’65); Pettit (’59), Chamberlain (’60), Robertson (’64)
Playoffs MVP: Pettit (’58), Russell (’59–’65).

Alpha Dog (1966–68): Wilt
MVP: Wilt (’66, ’67, ’68)
Playoffs MVP: Russell (’66), Chamberlain (’67), Russell (’68)

Alpha Dog (1969–70): West
MVP: Wes Unseld (’69), Willis Reed (’70)
Playoffs MVP: John Havlicek (’69), Walt Frazier (’70)

Alpha Dog (1971–74): Kareem
MVP: Jabbar (’71, ’72, ’74), Cowens (’73)
Playoffs MVP: Kareem (’71), West (’72), Frazier (’73), Havlicek (’74)

Alpha Dog (1975): Rick Barry
MVP: Bob McAdoo
Playoffs MVP: Barry

Alpha Dog (1976–78): Unclear²⁰
MVP: Kareem (’76–‧77), Walton (’78)
Playoffs MVP: Cowens (’76), Walton (’77), Bobby Dandridge (’78)

Alpha Dog (1979–83): Moses Malone
MVP: Moses (’79, ’82—’83), Kareem (’80), Erving (’81)
Playoffs MVP: Dennis Johnson (’79), Kareem (’80), Bird (’81), Magic (’82), Moses (’83)

Alpha Dog (1984–86): Bird
MVP: Bird
Playoffs MVP: Bird (’84, ’86), Kareem (’85)

Alpha Dog (1987–88): Bird/Magic (tie)
MVP: Magic (’87), Jordan (’88)
Playoffs MVP: Magic (’87—‧88)

Alpha Dog (1989–90): Unclear²¹
MVP: Magic (’89, ’90)
Playoffs MVP: Isiah Thomas (’89, ’90)

Alpha Dog (1991–93): Jordan
MVP: Jordan (’91–’92), Barkley (’93)
Playoffs MVP: Jordan (’91—’93)

Alpha Dog (1994–95): Olajuwon
MVP: Hakeem (’94), David Robinson (’95)
Playoffs MVP: Hakeem (’94—‧95)

Alpha Dog (1996–98): Jordan
MVP: Jordan (’96, ’98), Karl Malone (’97)
Playoffs MVP: Jordan (’96–’98)

Alpha Dog (1999): Haywood Jablome²²
MVP: Malone
Playoffs MVP: Duncan

Alpha Dog (2000–2): Shaq
MVP: O’Neal (’00), Iverson (’01), Duncan (’02)
Playoffs MVP: Shaq (’00–’02)

Alpha Dog (2003–5): Duncan
MVP: Duncan (’03), Garnett (’04), Nash (’05)
Playoffs MVP: Shaq (’02), Duncan (’03, ’05), Ben Wallace (’04)²³

Alpha Dog (2006): Kobe
MVP: Nash
Playoffs MVP: Dwyane Wade

Alpha Dog (2007–9): Unclear
MVP: Nowitzki (’07), Bryant (’08), LeBron (’09)
Playoffs MVP: Duncan (’07), Paul Pierce (’08)

That leaves a whopping seventeen MVP seasons needing to be hashed out: 1959 (Pettit), 1962 (Russell), 1963 (Russell), 1969 (Unseld), 1970 (Willis), 1973 (Cowens), 1978 (Walton), 1981 (Doc), 1990 (Magic), 1993 (Barkley), 1997 (Mailman), 2002 (Duncan), 2005 (Nash), 2006 (Nash), 2007 (Nowitzki) and 2008 (Kobe).²⁴ We’re separating them into three categories: fishy choices that were ultimately okay; fishy choices that were proven to be stupid, and outright travesties of justice that should have resulted in arrests and convictions. Before we rip through them, I urge you to pour yourself a glass of wine, put on some John Mayer and maybe even don a smoking jacket.

(Waiting …)

(Waiting …)

All right, let’s do it.

CATEGORY 1:
FISHY BUT ULTIMATELY OKAY

Bill Russell (1962)

Already the two-time defending MVP (shades of MJ in ’93), Russell peaked statistically in ’62 like so many others, averaging a 19–24–5 for a 60-win Boston team and providing typically superhuman defense. If the media were voting, Russell would have gotten boned because of the “You already won a few times and it’s time for some new blood” corollary (shades of MJ in ’93), and either Wilt (50–25, first-team All-NBA) or Oscar (the league’s first triple double) would have prevailed. They were the season’s dominant stories other than pinball-like scoring and Elgin Baylor getting saddled with military duty and only playing 48 games—all on weekends, all without ever practicing with the Lakers—but somehow averaging an ungodly 38–19–5.²⁵

I would argue that Elgin’s 38–19–5 was more implausible than Wilt’s 50 a game or Oscar’s triple double. The guy didn’t practice! He was moonlighting as an NBA player on weekends! ‧Wilt’s 50–25 makes sense considering the feeble competition and his gratuitous ball hogging. Oscar’s triple double makes sense considering the style of play at the time. But Elgin’s 38–19–5 makes no sense. None. It’s inconceivable. A United States Army Reservist at the time, Elgin worked in the state of Washington during the week, living in an army barracks and leaving only whenever they gave him a weekend pass. Even with that pass, he had to fly coach on flights with multiple connections to meet the Lakers wherever they were playing, throw on a uniform and battle the best NBA players, then make the same complicated trip back to Washington in time to be there early Monday morning. That was his life for six months. The only modern comparison would be Kobe’s ’04 season, when he was accused of rape²⁶ and flew back and forth between Colorado (where the hearings were taking place) and either Los Angeles or wherever the Lakers happened to be playing, and everyone made an enormous deal about Kobe’s “grueling” season even though he was flying charters and staying at first-class hotels. Can you imagine if Kobe had been reenacting Elgin’s ’62 season? The world would have stopped. We would have given him a Nobel Prize. And yet I digress.

In the sixties, first-place votes counted for 5 points, second place for 3 points and third place for 1 point. You could only vote for three players. The ’62 MVP voting broke down like so:

Russell: 297 (51–12–6)²⁷; Wilt: 152 (9–30–17); Oscar: 135 (13–13–31); Elgin: 82 (3–18–13); West: 60 (6–8–6); Pettit: 31 (2–4–9); Richie Guerin: 5 (1–0–0); Cousy: 3 (0–0–3).

You’re not gonna believe this, but I have a few thoughts. First, Elgin’s season was so freaking amazing that he missed 40 percent of the season and still finished fourth (even grabbing three first-place votes). Second, Wilt’s “legendary” season impressed his peers so much that only nine players (10 percent of the league) gave him a first-place vote, proving how silly the ’62 statistics were (as well as the level of Wilt’s selfishness).²⁸ Third, West, Pettit, Guerin and Cousy grabbed as many first-place votes as Wilt and stole another twelve second-place votes and fifteen third-place votes. West averaged a 30–8–5 and wasn’t the best guy on his own team; Pettit averaged a 31–19 for a 29–51 Hawks team; Guerin averaged a 30–7–6 for a 29–51 Knicks team; and Cousy had his worst season in 10 years (16–8–4) and only played 28.2 minutes a game. Should any of them have sniffed the top three? You could say they split the “I hate blacks and they’re ruining our league” vote. Anyway, I’m fine with the Russell pick: he was the dominant player on the dominant team. Thirty years later, Wilt or Oscar would have won and I’d be ranting and raving about it. Let’s move on.

Bill Russell (1963)

Great two-man race between Russell (17–24–5, superhuman defense for a 60-win Boston team) and Baylor (34–14–5 for a 53-win Lakers team). Both legends were at the peak of their respective powers, which seems relevant because Russell was valued a little more highly than Baylor at the time.²⁹ Here’s how the voting broke down: Russell: 341 (56–18–7); Elgin: 252 (19–36–18); Oscar: 191 (13–34–21); Pettit: 84 (3–14–27); West: 19 (2–1–6); Johnny Kerr: 13 (1–1–5); Wilt: 9 (0–2–3); Terry Dischinger: 5 (1–0–0); John Havlicek: 3 (0–1–0); John Barnhill: 1 (0–0–1);³⁰ Walt Bellamy: 1 (0–0–1). Good God! The NBA logo in ’63 should have had a Ku Klux Klan hood on it. The votes for Dischinger (26–8–3 in just 57 games for a 25-win Chicago team) were particularly appalling. Even if some votes were strategic back then—no Laker was voting for Russell, no Celtic was voting for Elgin, and maybe no Royal was voting for Elgin or Russell—it’s telling that inexplicable votes always seemed to be for white guys.

Back to Elgin and Russell. In modern times, Elgin would cruise to the MVP for the typical bullshit reasons of “He’s never won it before” and “He’s overdue and we need to recognize him.” That same faulty logic led to many of the egregious MVP crimes on this list (we’ll get to them), as well as Marty Scorsese finally winning an Oscar for a movie that ended with a rat crawling on the balcony as a big neon SYMBOLISM! SYMBOLISM! sign flashed in the background. So I can’t endorse Elgin’s candidacy here. With that said, of every “He’s overdue and we need to recognize him with an MVP” season in NBA history, ’63 Elgin ranks right up there. It’s an absolute shame that he never won the award.

(And if the Lakers had won the ’63 Finals, then I’d be pleading his case. But they didn’t.)

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1972)

Here we have the league’s reigning alpha dog and MVP averaging a career-best 34.6 points, 16.8 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game for a 63-win team. From 1969 to 2008, that’s the single greatest statistical season by a center; Young Kareem was also the best defensive center of that decade other than Nate Thurmond. So I can’t kill this pick. But we should mention—repeat: mention—that the Lakers broke two records (69 wins, 33 straight) en route to Jerry West’s first championship. Unfortunately, nobody could decide which Laker was more responsible: West (26–4–10, led the league in assists) or Wilt (15–19–4, 65% FG, led the league in rebounds)? Check out the bizarre voting, the only time that one team placed two of the top three: Kareem: 581 (81–52–20); West: 393 (44–42–47); Wilt: 294 (36–25–39).

This raises an interesting question: Should a special “co-champs” choice be added to the ballot for every season with a memorable team that didn’t have an identifiable alpha dog? The ’58 Celtics (Cousy and Russell), ’70 Knicks (Reed and Frazier), ’72 Lakers (West and Wilt), ’73 Celtics (Hondo and Cowens), ’97 Jazz (Stockton and Malone), ’01 Lakers (Shaq and Kobe), ’05 Heat (Shaq and Wade) and ’08 Celtics (Pierce and Garnett) all qualify and solve many of the problems in this chapter. The ’72 season was the ultimate example: Kareem was the singular MVP and West and Wilt were co-MVPs. Right? (You’re shaking your head at me.) Fine, you’re right. Dumb idea.

Bill Walton (1978)

Even an unbiased observer would admit that for the eleven months stretching from April ’77 through February ’78, the Mountain Man was the greatest player alive and pushed that Portland team to surreal heights.³¹ Right as that team was cresting, the February 13, 1978, Sports Illustrated—one of the watershed issues of my childhood because of an insane Sidney Moncrief tomahawk dunk on the cover—ran an extended feature on the Blazers in which Rick Barry called them “maybe the most ideal team ever put together.” Everything centered around Walton (19–15–5, 3.5 blocks), the next Russell, an unselfish big man who made teammates better and even shared killer weed with them. Two weeks after the SI story/jinx, the big redhead injured his foot and didn’t return until the Playoffs, when he fractured that same foot in Game 2, killing Portland’s playoff hopes and leading to his inevitable messy departure.³²

Now …

It’s hard to imagine anyone qualifying for MVP after missing twenty-four games, much less taking the trophy home. But we’re talking about an especially loony season, as evidenced by our rebounding champ (Mr. Leonard “Truck” Robinson) and assists champ (the one, the only, Kevin Porter). Kareem sucker-punched Kent Benson on opening night, missed 20 games and struggled for the remainder of the season. Erving submitted a subpar (for him) season.³³ The strongest candidates were George Gervin (27–5–4, 54% FG) and David Thompson (27–5–5, 52% FG), both leading scorers for division winners who weren’t known for their defense. Guards weren’t supposed to win MVPs back then; only Cousy and Oscar had done it, and as much as we loved Skywalker and Ice, they weren’t Cousy and Oscar. So Walton drew the most votes (96), Gervin finished second (80.5), Thompson third (28.5) and Kareem fourth (14); a dude from Venice named Manny, the league’s unofficial coke dealer, finished fifth (10).³⁴

The case for Walton: He played 58 of the first 60 games and the Blazers went 50–10 over that stretch. He missed the next 22 games and the Blazers stumbled to an 8–14 finish (hold on, huge “but/still” combo coming up), but they still finished with a league-best 58 wins and clinched home court for the Playoffs. So yeah, Walton missed 24 games and had an abnormally profound impact on the regular season, winning 50 games during a season when only two other teams finished with 50-plus wins: Philly (55) and San Antonio (52).

The case against Walton: Borrowing the Oscars analogy, would you have accepted the choice of No Country for Old Men for Best Picture if the movie inexplicably ended with thirty-five minutes to go? (Actually, bad example—that would have been the best thing that ever happened to Old Men. I hated everything after we didn’t see Josh Brolin get gunned down.³⁵ You’re never talking me into it. I hated English majors in college and I hate movies that are vehemently defended by English majors now. The last twenty minutes sucked. I will argue this to the death.) Take two: Would you have accepted The Departed as Best Picture if the movie inexplicably ended with thirty-five minutes to go and you never found out what happened to DiCaprio or Damon? No.

Ultimately it comes down to one thing: even if Walton and the Blazers only owned 70 percent of that season, still, they owned it. Nobody else stood out except Kareem (for clocking Benson), Kermit Washington (for clocking Rudy T.), Dawkins (for breaking two backboards), Thompson/Gervin (for their scoring barrage on the final day), the Sonics (who started out 5–22 and staged a late surge to make the Finals) and Manny (the aforementioned coke connection that I made up, as far as you know). That’s good enough for me—I’ll take 70 percent of a Pantheon season over 100 percent of a relatively forgettable season. I’m signing off. We’ll make an exception here with all the missed games. Just this once.

Tim Duncan (2002)

The ’02 season featured a ballyhooed battle between Duncan (a career year: 25–13–4 plus 2.5 blocks and superb defense) and Jason Kidd (15–7–10 and superb defense), with Kidd owning the season because of a much-argued-about trade the previous summer, when Phoenix swapped Kidd to New Jersey for Stephon Marbury a few months after Kidd was charged with domestic assault.³⁶ Energized by the change of scenery, Kidd led the perenially crappy Nets to 52 wins, swung the New York media behind him and stood out mostly for his unselfishness and singular talent for running fast breaks, as well as his attention-hogging wife, Joumana, who brought their young son courtside and seemingly knew the location of every TV camera.³⁷ Maybe Kidd’s ’02 season didn’t match his ’01 season in Phoenix (17–6–10, 41% FG), but mostly by default, Kidd became the featured story in a historically atrocious Eastern Conference,³⁸ leading to one of the closest (and dumbest) MVP votes ever: Duncan: 952 (57–38–20–5–3); Kidd: 897 (45–41–26–9–3); Shaq: 696 (15–38–40–25–5); T-Mac: 390 (7–5–28–45–10).

Um … why was this close? Duncan topped 3,300 minutes, 2,000 points, 1,000 boards, 300 assists and 200 blocks, carried the Spurs to a number two seed in the West, didn’t miss a game and had a greater effect on his teammates than anyone else but Kidd. Look at his supporting cast: Bruce Bowen, Antonio Daniels, 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-being-past-his-prime Terry Porter. That’s a 58-win team? Had you switched Duncan with someone like Stromile Swift, the Spurs would have won 25 games. Meanwhile, the Lakers swept the Nets in the Finals in a mismatch along the lines of Tyson-Spinks, Ryan-Ventura and any Melrose Place cast member acting in a scene with Andrew Shue.³⁹ That’s when we all realized, “We knew the East was bad, but we didn’t know it was that bad!” That a 39 percent shooter for a 52-win team in a brutal conference nearly stole the MVP from the greatest power forward ever during his finest statistical season for a 58-win team … I mean, you can see why I don’t trust the MVP process so much.

(By the way, Shaq retained alpha dog status this season, remaining on cruise control for 82 games—partially because he was lazy, partially because this was the year when he fully embraced his abhorrence of Kobe—before turning it on for the playoffs and averaging a 36–12 in the Finals. From there, he spent the entire summer eating. In fact, I think he grilled one of the Wayans brothers, covered him in A-1 sauce and ate him at one point.)

CATEGORY 2:
FISHY AND ULTIMATELY NOT OKAY

Bob Pettit (1959)

Again, any time you’re putting the MVP in the hands of mostly white players competing in an era marred by racism and resentment toward black athletes, you’re definitely hitting a few speed bumps. The league had an unwritten “only one or two blacks per team and that’s it” rule in the fifties; even as late as 1958, the Hawks didn’t have a single black player. So it’s a little suspect that Pettit (a white guy) won the ’59 MVP award in a landslide over the league’s reigning MVP and most important player (Russell, a black guy) when 90 percent of the votes were from whites. Check out their numbers during ’58 and ’61 (when Russell won) and ’59 (when Pettit won), factor in their defensive abilities (Pettit was mediocre; Russell was transcendent), then help me figure a coherent explanation for Pettit nearly tripling Russell in the ’59 voting that doesn’t involve a white hood.

Here are the numbers:

Here’s how the ’59 voting shook out: Pettit: 317 (59–7–1); Russell: 144 (10–25–29); Elgin: 88 (2–20–18);⁴¹ Cousy: 71 (4–11–18); Paul Arizin: 39 (1–7–13); Dolph Schayes: 26 (1–6–3); Ken Sears: 12 (1–1–4); Cliff Hagan: 7 (1–4–0); Jack Twyman: 7 (0–1–4); Tom Gola: 3 (0–1–0); Dick McGuire: 3 (0–1–0); Gene Shue: 1 (0–0–1).

Here’s what happened in the ’59 playoffs: Elgin’s 33-win Lakers team shocked Pettit’s Hawks in the Western Finals, then were swept by the Celtics in the Finals.

You know how the host of The Bachelor always says going into commercial, “Coming up, it’s the most dramatic rose ceremony ever”? Well, this was the most racist MVP voting year ever. You had Pettit’s bizarre landslide win (really, six times as many first-place votes as Russell?), half the league ignoring Elgin, the Cooz stealing four of Russell’s first-place votes and four other white players (Arizin, Schayes, Sears, and Hagan) unaccountably earning first-place votes. You can’t even play the “Pettit was a sentimental choice” card because he’d already won in ’56. And if you’re not buying the race card, remember the times (pre-MLK, pre-JFK, pre-Malcolm, pre-desegregation), the climate (in baseball, the Red Sox signed their first black player in ’59: the immortal Pumpsie Green), and stories like the following one from Tall Tales about the Lakers playing an exhibition game in Charleston, West Virginia. Their three black players (Baylor, Boo Ellis, and Ed Fleming)⁴² were not allowed to check into their hotel or eat anywhere in town except for the Greyhound bus station. Here’s how Hot Rod Hundley and Baylor remembered the incident:

Hundley: “The people who put on the game wanted me to talk to Elgin about playing. After pregame warmups, I went into the dressing room and he was sitting there in his street clothes. I said, ‘What they did to you isn’t right. I understand that. But we’re friends and this is my hometown. Play this one for me.’ Elgin said, ‘Rod, you’re right, you are my friend. But Rod, I’m a human being, too. All I want to do is be treated like a human being.’ It was then that I could begin to feel his pain.”

    Baylor: “A few days later, I got a call from the mayor of Charleston and he apologized. Two years later, I was invited to an All-Star Game there, and out of courtesy I went. We stayed at the same hotel that refused us service. We were able to eat anywhere we wanted. They were beginning to integrate the schools. Some black leaders told me that they were able to use what had happened to me and the other black players to bring pressure on the city to make changes, and that made me feel very good. But the indignity of a hotel clerk acting as if you aren’t there, or people who won’t sell you a sandwich because you’re black … those are the things you never forget.”

So yeah, things eventually did change; some of those changes were already in motion in 1959. But Russell and Baylor were pushing the sport in a better direction and some of their peers weren’t, um, down with the new movement yet. That’s the only explanation for the lopsided voting. I don’t mean to come off like Sam Jackson screaming, “Yes, they deserved to die and I hope they burn in hell!” in A Time to Kill, but at the same time, bigotry affected the ’59 vote and that’s that. Russell was the MVP.

Wes Unseld (1969)

As a rookie with the Bullets, Unseld made a name for himself with bone-crushing picks and crisp outlet passes, averaging a 14–18 and shooting 47% for a 57-win team. Willis Reed played a similarly valuable role in New York, averaging a 22–14 and shooting 52% for a 54-win Knicks team, but Unseld’s total in the MVP voting more than doubled Willis (310 to 137) and Unseld grabbed first-team All-NBA honors. In the first round of the ’69 playoffs, Reed and the Knicks swept Baltimore and everyone felt stupid.⁴³

Here’s my problem: if you’re giving the MVP to the fifth-best re-bounder in the league and he’s only responsible for 20 points a game (in this case, 14 points and three assists), he’d better be a cross between Russell and Dikembe Mutombo on the defensive end. Poor Unseld was only six foot six and eventually grew a Fletch-like afro to make himself look taller—shades of Tom Cruise wearing sneakers with four-inch lifts—and it’s not like he was defending the rim and spraying shots everywhere. If anything, his value lay in subtle talents like outlets and picks. Maybe Big Wes was a wonderful role player, the perfect supporting piece for a contender, someone who made his team better (and eventually other teams better when he made a brief run at being the worst GM ever). But he was never a dominant player, you know?

No matter. By the holidays, everyone had decided that something special was happening with this Unseld kid; in the simplest terms, he stood out more than everyone else. His outlets were fun, his picks were fun and his rebounding stats were good enough that you could sell him as MVP and not get laughed out of the room. That doesn’t mean he was more valuable than Willis, Billy Cunningham (a 25–13 for a feel-good Sixers team that overachieved), or even a stat-monger like Wilt (21–21 plus shotblocking and 59% shooting). Much like Steve Nash in ’05 and ’06, this was the proverbial “nobody else jumps out, I really like watching this guy … fuck it” vote. You felt good about yourself if you voted for Wes; it meant you knew your hoops and appreciated the little things about basketball. The following year, Unseld had an even better season (16–17 with 52% shooting) for another good Bullets team, only they left him off the ’70 All-Star Team and both All-NBA teams. In fact, he never made a first or second All-NBA team again and only played in four more All-Star Games. You know what that tells me? It tells me that everyone felt like they got a little carried away with the ’69 MVP award—like sending a girl a dozen roses after the first date or something.⁴⁴

Here’s how the voting went down: Unseld: 310 (53–14–8); Reed: 137 (18–11–14); Cunningham: 130 (15–16–8); Russell: 93 (11–8–22).⁴⁵ I thought Cunningham earned the MVP and here’s why: even after dumping Wilt to L.A. for 45 cents on the dollar, Philly rallied for 55 wins and second place in a ferociously competitive conference. The key to everything? Cunningham. After rugged rebounder Luke Jackson blew out his knee in Game 25, Dr. Jack Ramsey’s ’69 Sixers willingly embraced small-ball, moving Cunningham to power forward along with guards Archie Clark, Hal Greer and swingman Chet Walker, pressing all over the court and running as much as they could. Their chances hinged solely on Billy C. playing bigger than his size (six foot six), logging gargantuan minutes (82 games and 3,345 minutes in all) and battling the likes of Elvin Hayes, Jerry Lucas, Gus Johnson, and Dave DeBusschere every night. Not only did he pull it off, he finished third in scoring and tenth in rebounds. In a transitional season devoid of an alpha dog, it remains the league’s single most impressive feat. For whatever reason, everyone was more interested in Wes Unseld’s picks and outlets. My vote goes to Billy C.

Bob McAdoo, 1975

One of the top twenty-five players ever (Rick Barry) peaked during the regular season (31–6–6, league leader in steals and FT%) for a team that finished first in the West, then carried his underdog Warriors over Washington in the Finals with a vintage performance (28–6–6, 50 steals in 17 playoff games). One of the top sixty-five players ever (McAdoo) peaked during that same season (35–14, 52% shooting, 3,539 minutes) for a team that finished third in the East, then lost in the first round in seven games to Washington (whom Golden State eventually swept).⁴⁶ McAdoo may have been an ahead-of-his-time offensive player enjoying a banner year, but Barry’s passing, unselfishness and overall feel separated him from everyone else. Unfortunately, we were still stuck in the Look, Big Guys Are More Valuable Than Anyone Else and That’s That era, a mind-set that wasn’t helped by the lack of titles for Oscar and West in the sixties and never changed until Bird and Magic showed up.

But that’s not what was so galling about this MVP race. Here’s the one time where we can definitively say, “The other players stuck it to Player X.” Check out the top five: McAdoo: 547 (81–38–28); Cowens: 310 (32–42–24); Hayes: 289 (37–26–25); Barry: 254 (16–46–36); Kareem: 161 (13–21–33). So Barry was the league’s best player and proved as much in the playoffs … and he finished fourth? What happened? Barry was the Association’s most despised player, someone who whined about every call, sold out teammates with a variety of eye rolls and “why the hell did you drop that” shrugs and shamelessly postured for a TV career (even moonlighting for CBS). We can’t discount residual bad blood from Barry jumping to the ABA, as well as his reputation for being a gunner and not clicking off the court with black players.⁴⁷ So what if he turned his career around, became a team captain, led the league in steals and free throw percentage, finished second in points, finished with most assists (492) of any forward ever and led his team in every relevant statistical category except for rebounds? Rick Barry didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell with the other players voting. They thought he was a dick. That may have been true, but nobody was more valuable in 1975.

Julius Erving (1981)

This season featured a two-man jog⁴⁸ between division rivals Erving (25–8–4 for a 62-win Philly team) and Bird (21–11–6 for a 62-win Celtics team that clinched home court by beating Philly in Game 82). Doc became the “sexy” media story that season because Philly blossomed as an unselfish team, so everyone collectively decided at the halfway point, “Okay, this is Doc’s year.” Meanwhile, Bird quietly gained steam as the season went along, putting up a series of 20–20 games (36–21 at Philly, 35–20 in Chicago, 21–20 in Cleveland, 28–20 in New York) during an absurd 25–1 streak before suffering a painful thigh bruise, playing in pain for a month and healing in time for a February West Coast trip in which he tossed up a 23–17–8 with four steals in Seattle, then a 36–21–5 with 5 steals and 3 blocks in Los Angeles less than twenty-four hours later (with an injured Magic watching from the sidelines). By the last month of the season, everyone should have agreed that (a) Bird and Doc were dead even and (b) the guy whose team clinched home court should get MVP. Didn’t happen. In that eighty-second game in Boston, Bird scored 24 in the victory and was all over the place—5 steals in the first quarter alone—while Erving struggled to tally just 19 points. When the Sixers and Celtics met in the ’81 Eastern Finals, Philly self-destructed with a three-games-to-one lead and Bird banked home the game-winning shot in Game 7. Bird for the series: 27–13–5. Doc for the series: 20–6–4. Two weeks later, the Celtics captured the title in Houston. So much for it being “Doc’s year.”

Does that mean Bird was the league’s best player? Not necessarily. You could make a strong case for Moses, the league’s best center from 1979 through 1983, only Moses was toiling away on a subpar Rockets team that finished 41–41 in 1980 and 40–42 in 1981. (Note: It’s hard to argue anyone was supremely valuable when he couldn’t drag his team over .500, even someone trapped on a bad defensive team with teammates who were either too young, too old or lousy to begin with.)⁴⁹ So if we’re giving the MVP to someone who wasn’t the alpha dog, then it’d better be a great player having a career year—again, not in play in 1981—which means the time-tested “best guy on the best team” theory comes into play. And that was Bird.

Now, you might be saying, “Screw it, there was no clear-cut MVP that year and everyone knew Bird would get one eventually, so I’m glad Doc got it because he meant a lot to the league.” First of all, you’re a sap for thinking that; we showed Doc how much he meant six years later when he got showered with gifts during his retirement tour. Second, the MVP trophy isn’t a token of our affection—it’s not a diamond ring, a plasma TV or even a cock ring. What is it? An honor that says definitively, “The majority of us agreed that this guy was the most important player of this particular season.” And since that’s the case, everyone screwed up because four months after the ’81 Playoffs ended, Bird graced the cover of SI for a feature titled, “The NBA’s Best All-Around Player.” Why didn’t they realize that when he was tossing up 20–20’s? You got me. But if Bird was considered the NBA’s best all-around player during a year without a definitive MVP and his team won the title, and we gave the award to someone else, then we made a mistake and that’s that.⁵⁰

Dirk Nowitzki (2007)

An edited-for-space version of what I wrote in my 2007 MVP column after realizing that Nowitzki didn’t qualify under any of my three MVP questions⁵¹ but remained the consensus choice:

Statistically, Nowitzki submitted superior seasons in 2005 and 2006, and his 2007 stats ranked behind Larry Bird’s best nine seasons, Charles Barkley’s best 10 seasons and Karl Malone’s best 11 seasons. Nowitzki’s shooting percentages were remarkable (50 percent on field goals, 90 percent on free throws, 42 percent on 3-pointers), but his relevant averages (24.6 points, 9.0 rebounds, 3.4 assists) look like a peak season from Tom Chambers. He can’t affect games unless he’s scoring, doesn’t make his teammates better and plays decent defense at best. If you’re giving the MVP to someone because of his offense, he’d better be a killer offensive player. You can’t say that about the 2007 Nowitzki.

The argument for the big German is simple: He’s the most reliable crunch-time scorer in the league and the best player on a 66-win team. Of course, when the ’97 Bulls won 69 games, you could have described Jordan the exact same way … and he finished second to Malone. Then again, maybe we should scrap the historical comparisons after Steve Nash’s back-to-back trophies transformed the award into what it is now: a popularity contest. It’s a 900-number and Ryan Seacrest away from becoming a low-key version of American Idol. And since people want the big German to win the award this year, he’s going to win it. In the irony of ironies, Nash played his greatest season at a time when everyone took him for granted and paid more attention to Nowitzki…. You could have switched Dirk with Duncan, KG, Bosh, Brand or any other elite forward and the Mavs still would have won 55–65 games. But the 2007 Suns were built like a complicated Italian race car, with specific features tailored to a specific type of driver, and Nash happened to be the only person on the planet who could have driven the car without crashing into a wall. The degree of difficulty was off the charts. So yes, this was my favorite Nash season yet.

Did I vote for him? In a roundabout way, yes—Nash earned my vote for second place (I couldn’t give my MVP vote to a total defensive liability) and the Fans earned MVP because we had endured one of the least entertaining seasons ever. I know, I know, lame.⁵² But as I wrote in the column, “I wish we handled MVP awards, the Oscars and the Emmys the same way—if there’s no deserving candidate in a given year, let’s roll the award over to the following year and make it worth two awards, kinda like how golfers roll over a tie in a skins match and count the next hole for twice as much. I never understood the concept of dispensing awards out of obligation over anything else. An award should be earned, not handed out.”

You have to admit it’s a fantastic idea. At the very least, every MVP ballot should include another choice: “This year sucked; I refuse to make a first-place vote. Please make my vote next year worth two.” Anyway, you know how the Dirk debacle turned out: Golden State shocked Dallas in one of the biggest NBA upsets ever, although it stopped being so unrealistic right as the Warriors were butchering the Mavs in Game 3 in front of a frenzied G-State crowd. Here’s what I wrote between Games 4 and 5, when it became apparent that so many had made such an enormous mistake vouching for the MVP-ness of Mr. Nowitzki:

We’re headed for the most awkward moment in NBA history within the next 10 days. Here’s how it will play out:

(We see Jim Gray, David Stern and Dirk Nowitzki standing awkwardly in front of a single camera at halftime of a Round 2 playoff game.)

GRAY: Now to present the 2006–7 Most Valuable Player Award, NBA commissioner David Stern.

STERN: Leave. Now.

(Gray slinks off.)

STERN: Well, Dirk, maybe the playoffs didn’t turn out the way you planned, but for 82 meaningless games during one of the worst seasons of my 23-year tenure, you were the best player in a terrible league. Unfortunately, voting for the award happens right after the regular season, so voters weren’t able to factor in your complete meltdown in Round 1 against Golden State. You didn’t just fail to step up like an MVP should, you whined and complained the entire series, disgraced your teammates and embarrassed your fans. Not since David Hasselhoff has America been so embarrassed by someone with a German-sounding name. I don’t know whether to hand you this trophy or smash it over your head. Lucky for you, this is being televised, so I can only hand you the trophy and congratulate you on the 2006–7 Most Valuable Player Award. I’m going to leave now so I can throw up.

DIRK NOWITZKI (taking the trophy): Thank you, Mr. Commissioner.

(Stern waves disgustedly at him and walks away.)

And … scene!

That’s pretty much what happened. Never before had a so-recently-disgraced player accepted the trophy in such awkward fashion. Poor Dirk ended up fleeing to Australia to clear his head like Andy Dufresne or something. Now that we’re examining this stuff retroactively, if you’re ignoring my skins match suggestion, then Nash gets the ’07 MVP because he shouldn’t have won in 2005 or 2006 (we’ll get to that), so in a weird way, he was due even though he wasn’t due. I know it’s like voting for a DH to win a baseball MVP, but there’s no other option. You have to believe me.⁵³

CATEGORY 3:
OUTRIGHT TRAVESTIES

We’re counting these down in reverse order from eight to one:

8. Kobe Bryant (2008)

He bitched for a trade and disparaged teammates before the season started. He spent the first few weeks on businesslike cruise control before “embracing” his teammates, then fully committing himself after the Gasol trade. From there, we spent the next two months hearing that it was Kobe’s year, that he was finally “getting it,” that this was the best all-around ball he’d ever played, that he was becoming a leader on and off the court, that he was even going out to dinner with his teammates and picking up checks. This revisionist fairy tale gained steam through the first three rounds before going up in flames during the Finals, when Kobe didn’t play a single great game and stink-bombed a must-win Game 6 (going down with surprising meekness). The Lakers splintered as soon as things got rough, proving something I had been arguing all along: the whole “Kobe is a leader” thing was a complete and total crock.

This should have been Chris Paul’s trophy—nobody meant more to his team or his city—and if not him, then Garnett for salvaging professional basketball in Boston, teaching everyone how to play defense, carrying the team with unbridled intensity for 82 games, and even convincing James Posey, Eddie House and P. J. Brown to take discounts to play with him. I still can’t believe everyone bought into Kobe’s Bee Ess. Let’s just move on before I punch something.

7. Steve Nash, 2005

A baffling choice that gets more baffling with time. When they changed the hand check rules and ushered in the “let’s make basketball fun again” era, Nash jumped out as Phoenix’s quarterback of a thrilling offense. Everyone (including me) was enthralled that someone had revitalized the Cousy-like potential of the point guard position; at some point, things escalated and writers started throwing him out as an MVP candidate, which initially seemed preposterous because it would have been the first time (a) a table setter won the award; (b) a non-franchise player won the award; and (c) a defensive liability won the award. Those are three pretty big leaps.

Were there racial implications to the Nash/MVP bandwagon? In a roundabout way. It was fun to root for Nash. Here was a Canadian dude with floppy hair and a nonstop motor who looked like Kelly Leak, made throwback plays (like his trademark running hook), knew how to handle a fast break, made teammates better and always handled himself with class. His style (unique, exciting) and color (white in a predominantly black league) made him stand out more than anyone else in any given game. Beyond that, he was the league’s biggest new wrinkle and a “Steve Nash is fun to watch, why can’t he be the MVP?” column or radio angle stood out.⁵⁴ Everything snowballed from there. When Shaq battled minor injuries and Dwyane Wade escalated his game to “poor man’s MJ” heights, there were just enough cracks in Shaq’s MVP campaign that the door opened for Nash, colored by a slew of “It’s been such a delight to watch someone this unselfish who handles himself with so much class” media comments (in columns or on the radio), a nice way of saying, “I’m glad he’s not one of those me-first black guys with tons of tattoos who pounds his chest after every good play.” By then, the Nash bandwagon was running amok like the runaway train that freed Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive. Throw in the NBA’s vested interest in pushing Nash—remember, the guy considered to be the future of the league had been dealing with a rape trial just twelve months before—and as soon as the “nobody else jumps out, I really like watching this guy … fuck it” logic came into play during awards time, just enough people were feeling that way that poor Shaq ended up getting robbed. Our final voting for 2004–5: Nash: 1,066 (65–54–7–1–0); Shaq: 1,032 (58–61–3–3–1); Nowitzki: 349 (0–4–43–30–16); Duncan: 328 (1–0–40–13–19); Iverson: 240 (2–4–20–20–23).⁵⁵

My vote went to Shaq because of a simple mathematical exercise revolving around two indisputable facts:

1. The Lakers won 57 games in 2004 and 34 games in 2005.

2. Miami won 42 games in 2004 and 59 games in 2005.

I’m no Bill James, but even I can crack those numbers: Shaq caused a 40-game swing, shifted the balance of power from West to East and would have won the title had Wade not gotten injured with a three-games-to-two lead in the Eastern Finals. As I wrote at the time, “This year has been special in the sense that people get him now—he’s had a breakout season, only in the personality sense. Now there isn’t a more beloved, charismatic, entertaining athlete in any sport. When I think of the 2004–2005 season, I’m going to think of Shaq first … and that’s the very definition of an MVP. At least to me.” I still feel that way.

6. Magic Johnson, 1990 MVP

If you ever run into Charles Barkley for any social reason—at a blackjack table, boxing match, Gambler’s Anonymous, wherever—bring up the 1990 MVP race and watch him go. Here’s what he’ll say: “I had the most first-place votes! That’s the only time that ever happened! First of all, I wanna know how I could get the most first-place votes and not win the award! I think you should only vote for one guy—I don’t get why you have to rank the votes. Number one, they don’t do the Oscars that way. And first of all, either you’re the best guy or you’re not. So number one, if the most people thought I was the best guy, then that makes me the MVP. First of all, if I’m the best guy, then I’m the MVP, anyway. So number one, I should have been the MVP. And second, Magic should give me that damned trophy!”

Here were the three candidates:

Magic: 22–12–7, 79 games, 2,937 minutes, 63 wins … a world-class defensive liability by this point … received credit for keeping L.A. going without Kareem even though they were better off with the Vlade Divac/Mychal Thompson combo … best four teammates: James Worthy, Byron Scott, A. C. Green, Divac … Playoffs: 25–6–13, 49% FG (9 games, second-round loss) … the weakest of his three MVP years.

Barkley: 25–12–4, 1.9 steals, 60% FG, 79 games, 3,085 minutes, 53 wins … below-average defender … best four teammates: Johnny Dawkins, Rick Mahorn, Hersey Hawkins, Mike Gminski … Playoffs: 25–11–6, 54% FG (10 games, second-round loss) … best all-around year to that point.

Jordan: 34–7–6, 2.8 steals, 53% FG, 82 games, 3,197 minutes, 55 wins … league leader in scoring and steals … first-team All-Defense … best four teammates: Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, Bill Cartwright, John Paxson … Playoffs: 37–7–7, 51% FG (18 games, Eastern Finals loss)

    And the voting: Magic: 636 (27–38–15–7–4); Barkley: 614 (38–15–16–14–7); Jordan: 571 (21–25–30–8–5).

    Everyone remembers Barkley getting screwed when Jordan had a bigger gripe. Look at his superior offensive numbers and remember that (a) he was the league’s best defensive noncenter and (b) Barkley/Magic couldn’t guard anyone.⁵⁶ Why didn’t Jordan cruise to the award? First, the media kept perpetuating the bullshit that Bird and Magic “knew how to win” and Jordan “ didn’t know how to win yet.” (What a farce.) Second, Barkley emerged as somewhat of a hip choice, becoming the Man on a raucous Sixers team that memorably brawled with Detroit on the final night of the season. And third, MJ was still facing a “selfish” rap even though he was making 53% of his shots. Wouldn’t you want him shooting as much as possible? When everyone was calling him a ball hog in ’89 and ’90, MJ averaged a combined 7.2 assists, 23.2 field goals and 8.5 free throws per game. In ’93, when everyone claimed he embraced the triangle, trusted his teammates, and all that crap, he averaged 5.5 assists, 25.7 field goals and 7.3 free throws per game. I’d argue that Jordan started cresting in ’88 and it took his underwhelming supporting cast three full years to stop murdering him every spring. He’s my ’90 MVP.

5. Dave Cowens, 1973 MVP

Four factors collided this season: Boston nearly broke the record for regular-season wins by going 68–14 (so everyone felt obligated to vote for a Celtic); Kareem won in ’71 and ’72 (so everyone felt obligated to vote for someone else); the league was heading into the “everyone’s overpaid and doesn’t give a shit” era (so someone as intense as Cowens stood out); and the players (still voting) didn’t realize that Boston shared a division with 21–61 Buffalo and 9–73 Philly (padding their record by going 14–0), whereas Milwaukee finished 60–22 in a tougher division and had the same point differential as Boston. Besides, you couldn’t really pick a best player on those Celtics teams—Cowens (21–16–4 and the rebounding duties), John Havlicek (24–7–7 and the crunch-time duties), and Jo Jo White (19–6–6 and the ballhandling duties) were equally indispensable. It’s hard for me to believe that Cowens was more valuable than Havlicek. Even the voting reflects this: Cowens: 444 (67–31–16); Kareem: 339 (44–24–27); Nate Archibald: 319 (44–24–27); Wilt: 123 (12–16–15); Havlicek: 88 (12–16–15).

Sounds like we needed a co-MVPs choice on the ’73 ballot. Meanwhile, the league’s best player (Kareem) averaged a 30–16–5 and provided superior defense for the troubled Bucks (other than a slew of injuries and a suspicious Wali Jones meltdown that led to his release,⁵⁷ the Big O became the Really Big O), also suffering a personal tragedy when seven coreligionists living in his Washington, D.C., house were murdered by a rival Muslim faction. (A February 19 SI feature about Kareem was even headlined “Center of a Storm.”) And you know what? The Bucks still won sixty. Kareem’s candidacy was crippled by dubious support for Archibald, the first player to lead the league in points and assists—and beyond that, minutes (a jaw-dropping 3,681), field goals, free throws, field goal attempts and free throw attempts—for a 36-win team that missed the playoffs. Can you really be “most valuable” when your team lost 46 freaking games? And don’t get me started on the foolishness of a point guard averaging nearly 27 shots and 10 free throw attempts per game. Isiah could have hogged the ball like that; same for Chris Paul, Kevin Johnson or Tim Hardaway before he blew out his knee. None of them did it. Why? Because it would have killed their teams! They were point guards! We haven’t seen anything like Tiny in ’73 before or since and it’s definitely for the best. Anyway, Kareem got robbed.

4. Charles Barkley, 1993 MVP

First, if any of the four media members who gave their ’93 first-place votes to Patrick Ewing are reading right now, please put down this book and spend the next hour trying to ram your head up your ass. You did it in 1993; I want to see you do it again. How can you live with yourself? Second, the quality of the top three in ’93 ranks up there with the races in ’62, ’63, and ’64, as well as the back-to-back Bird-Magic-MJ battles in ’87 and ’88.⁵⁸ Check out these numbers:

Barkley: 835 votes (59–27–10–2–0): 26–12–5, 52% FG … 62 wins … his greatest all-around season.

Hakeem: 647 (22–42–19–12–2): 26–13–4, 53% FG, 150 steals, 342 blocks (league leader) … first-team All-Defense … 55 wins … his greatest all-around season to that point.

Jordan: 565 (13–21–50–12–2): 33–7–6, 50% FG, 221 steals (league leader) … first-team All-Defense⁵⁹… 57 wins … retains alpha dog status for the season.

That’s right, signature seasons from three of the best twenty players ever! Unfortunately, eighty-six voters overlooked the fact that Jordan and Hakeem were two of the most destructive defensive players ever and Barkley couldn’t guard Ron Kovic. Don’t you have two tasks as a basketball team: to score and to stop the other team from scoring? At the time, I would have voted for MJ first, Hakeem second and Barkley third. And I would have been vindicated because Jordan cremated the Suns in the ’93 Finals. So there.

3. Steve Nash, 2006 MVP

I picked Nash fifth in my ’06 MVP column, writing, “A cute choice last season, mainly because none of the other candidates stood out and I could see why someone would have been swayed. (Like ordering one of those fancy foreign beers at a bar, the ones in the heavy green bottles with the 13-letter name that you can’t pronounce, only someone else is drinking it, so you say to yourself, ’Ah, screw it, I’m tired of the beer I always drink, lemme try one of those.’) But this year? I’m not saying he should be ignored, but if you actually end up picking him, either you’re not watching enough basketball or you just want to see a white guy win back-to-back MVP’s.”

Here’s what I wrote in that same column after picking Kobe (edited for space):

You don’t know how much this kills me. Actually, you probably do. But Mamba passes all three MVP questions …⁶⁰

Answer for Question No. 1

Kobe. The dude scored 62 in three quarters against Dallas, then 81 against Toronto a few weeks later. He’s about to become the fifth player in NBA history to average 35 points a game (along with Wilt, MJ, Elgin and Rick Barry). He made up with Shaq. He made up with Phil. He made up with Nike. He appeared on the cover of Slam magazine with a mamba snake wrapped around him. He did everything but make the obligatory cameo on Will and Grace. No player took more abuse from writers, broadcasters and radio hosts this season, but Kobe seemed to feed off that negative energy. It was almost Bondsian. And just when it kept seeming like he might wear down, he’d toss up another 50 just to keep you on your toes. Kobe was relentless. That’s the best way to describe him this season.⁶¹

Answer for Question No. 2

Kobe. He’s the best all-around player in the league, the best scorer, the best competitor, and the one guy who terrifies everyone else. Plus, if you didn’t pick him, he would make it his mission to haunt you on the other team.

Answer for Question No. 3

If you replaced Kobe with a decent 2-guard (someone like Jamal Crawford) for the entire ’06 Lakers season, they would have won between 15 and 20 games. I can say that in complete confidence. Terrible team. When Smush Parker and Kwame Brown are your third-and fourth-best players, you shouldn’t even be allowed to watch the playoffs on TV. Throw Kobe in the mix and they’re headed for 45 wins. So he’s been worth 25 victories for them. Minimum.

    Here was the voting in 2006: Nash: 924 (57–32–20–8–6); LeBron: 688 (16–41–33–23–7); Nowitzki: 544 (14–22–25–36–17); Kobe: 483 (22–11–18–22–30); Chauncey Billups: 430 (15–13–22–18–25).

(Translation: I give up.)

2. Willis Reed, 1970 MVP

With Russell retired and the Celtics floundering, the Knicks took command of the East, won a league-high 60 games, ignited Manhattan and became the media darlings of the ’70 season. Their two best players were Reed and Frazier: Reed averaged a 22–14, shot 50 percent and protected his teammates; Frazier averaged a 21–6–8, ran the offense, guarded the best opposing scorer and would have led the league in steals had they kept track. If there was ever a season for co-MVPs, this was it. Since the belief was that centers were more valuable than non-centers, Reed (498 votes, 61–55–28) squeaked by Jerry West (457 votes, 51–59–25). And nobody ever thought about it again.

Well, check out West’s season again. He averaged a 31–5–8 for a 46-win Lakers team that lost Wilt at the 12-game mark with a torn knee (he never returned in the regular season) and had its other two top players (Baylor and Happy Hairston) miss 55 games combined. The next four best players on that team? Mel Counts, Dick Garrett, Keith Erickson and Rick Roberson. Even Charles Manson had a better supporting cast than the Logo that year. Somehow the Lakers finished second in the West, then Wilt returned for the playoffs and they rallied to make the Finals. Statistically, this was West’s finest year: he led the league in points, finished fourth in assists and shot 50 percent from the field and 83 percent from the line. From a big-picture standpoint, West carried the Lakers all season and dragged them to within one victory of the title. From an alpha dog standpoint, if you had to pick someone who bridged the gap between Russell’s retirement and Kareem’s ascension, you’d pick West. And beyond that, he’s one of the best eight players ever, as well as the guy they selected for the freaking NBA logo, only he never captured an MVP. So why wasn’t this his year? Because the New York media were too busy losing their minds over an admittedly entertaining Knicks team. This was an eight-month circle jerk that eventually led to something like seventeen books being written about that season.⁶² A Knick was getting the MVP and that was that. The Logo never had a chance. Just know that the trophy was pilfered from him.

1. Karl Malone, 1997 MVP

This wasn’t an MVP race, it was a crime scene. The previous season, Jordan averaged a 30–7–4 for a 72-win team, finished with 109 first-place votes and would have been the unanimous MVP if not for the four morons who voted for Penny Hardaway, Hakeem and Malone.⁶³ During the ’97 season, Jordan’s credentials “dropped” to 69 wins and a 30–6–4—in other words, he was 98 percent as good as the previous season—only Malone stole the award with a 27–10–5 for a 64-win Jazz team. Here’s the voting from that year:

Malone: 986 (63–48–4–0–0)
Jordan: 957 (52–61–2–0–0)

Look, I was there—this was inexplicable as it was happening. We’ll cover Malone’s inadequacies in a later chapter, but here’s the best analogy I can give you: For my buddy House’s bachelor party in 2008, a group of us trekked to Vegas for four days and landed at the world-renowned Olympic Garden one night. Normally in strip joints, I suggest we find a corner and surround ourselves with those big comfy chairs—I call it the “Chair Armada”—so we aren’t continually approached by below-average strippers trying to pull the “Maybe if I plop right down on his lap, he’ll feel bad for me and buy a lap dance” routine. There wasn’t a corner this time around, so we grabbed a few chairs facing the stage and it worked almost as well. Unable to dive-bomb us from behind, the strippers settled for circling repeatedly and trying to catch our eyes. This strategy could have worked if most of them didn’t look like Hedo Turkoglu. One mediocre Asian with fake cans probably circled us twenty times in two hours—never drawing an extended glance from any of us—before our buddy Monty checked her out on the twenty-first approach, gave up on finding a more appealing option, and said, “Fuck it.” And off they went. When we made fun of him the next morning, he said simply, “It was getting late.”

What does that have to do with Karl Malone? Just like that fake-boobed Asian stripper, the Mail Fraud circled the MVP voters for ten solid years and never finished higher than third. Meanwhile, the NBA was becoming more and more diluted—expansion had ravaged the league, some younger stars (Shawn Kemp, Penny Hardaway, Larry Johnson, C-Webb, Kenny Anderson, Derrick Coleman) weren’t panning out, and Hakeem, Barkley, Robinson, Drexler and Ewing were past their primes—which meant Utah, a team that was worse in 1997 than they were in 1988 or even 1992, suddenly became a juggernaut in the West.⁶⁴ There also wasn’t a dominant story in ’97. Everyone was Jordaned out. The “Shaq goes to Hollywood” and “Here comes Iverson” stories had been beaten to death. So had the “Hakeem, Drexler and Barkley are three future Hall of Famers and they’re all playing together” story. Latrell Sprewell hadn’t strangled P. J. Carlesimo yet (although he’d definitely considered it). The Grizzlies, Spurs, Celtics and Nuggets spent the last two months desperately trying to outtank each other for Tim Duncan. By mid-March, once everyone realized that the Bulls couldn’t win 73 games, we were just plain bored and awaiting the playoffs. Then, SI’s Jackie MacMullan wrote the following piece for her March 19 column:

Headline: “The Jazz Master”

    Subhead: “Malone is playing like an MVP—not that anyone has noticed.”

    First sentence: “Jazz forward Karl Malone knows Michael Jordan will win the league MVP trophy again.”

You get the idea. You can’t blame Jackie for looking for a cute angle—she spent about 800 words talking about how underappreciated Malone was over the years. (Which was true, to a degree.) That got the ball rolling, and within a couple of weeks, this became the cute story du jour. Why couldn’t the Mailman win the MVP? I hadn’t started my old website yet but remember thinking, “Why couldn’t he win the MVP? Because MJ is in the league! How ’bout that reason?” I just thought this was the dumbest thing ever. I couldn’t believe it. So the playoffs rolled around and fifty-three voters turned into Monty at the OG: Malone strolled by them for the umpteenth time, they shrugged, stood up and brought him into the VIP room. And that’s how Michael Jordan got robbed of the ’97 MVP. Fortunately for us, he exacted revenge in the Finals over (wait for it) Karl Malone and the Utah Jazz! In Game 1, after Malone missed two go-ahead free throws in the final 20 seconds, Jordan swished the game-winner at the buzzer, turned and did a clenched-fist pump, a move that Tiger Woods later would hijack without paying royalties. And that’s when everyone who voted for the Mailman felt really, really, really dumb. I love when this happens.

1. Or at a Lakers game, where you can hear Kobe bitching out teammates and coaches! That reminds me of the highlight of the ’08 Finals: Matt Damon cheering the Celts in Game 5 when Phil Jackson turned and hissed, “Sit down and shut the fuck up!” Had they won, I think I would have sacrificed a pinky for Damon to snap into Will Hunting mode and pull the “Hey, Phil, you like apples? … How ’bout them apples?” routine.

2. Another classic example: Olajuwon sounded like Prince Akeem in Coming to America, only if he hung out in downtown Oakland for 10 years.

3. The half-court shot is my lifelong passion. It should only be shot one way—a three-step start, followed by a heave from under your collarbone. After spending 15 years watching fans shoot it like a free throw or whip it like a baseball, I asked the Clips to let me shoot one for an ESPN segment. That morning, they let me practice at the Staples Center and it took 20 minutes to adjust to the glass backboard and the rows of seats behind it (you have to shoot it 2 feet farther than you’d think). By game time, I was ready but had too much adrenaline and banked it off the front of the rim—one inch lower and I would have banked it home. Story of my life. Here’s why I’m telling you this: if you ever get picked, do the three-step heave and aim two feet farther than you think.

4. Let’s hope that’s the first and last time anyone writes that sentence.

5. My favorite Stern story: he held up the 30th pick in the ’08 draft for four full minutes to ream ESPN officials for reporting rumors about Darrell Arthur’s supposedly problematic kidneys, dropped roughly 800 f-bombs, put the fear of God into everyone and then calmly strolled out and announced Boston’s pick. The man has no peer.

6. It’s the Hart Memorial Trophy, named after Dr. David Hart, the father of Cecil Hart (coach and GM of the 1924 Canadiens). Dr. Hart donated the trophy that year to the league, so they named it after him. I’m not making this up.

7. You know it’s a memorable flick when fifteen years later you can remember exactly where you saw it. I saw Shawshank in Braintree and Pulp Fiction at a scummy Loews Theater in Somerville. (Whoops, cue up the porn music.) “Bow-cha-cha bow-bow-bow … thank you for coming to Loews … sit back and relax … enjoy the show!”

8. The only way that title could have been worse was if they called it 500 Yards of Shit-Smelling Foulness or The Prison Rape Redemption.

9. The Cleveland crew: Daniel Gibson, Damon Jones and Eric Snow, whose shooting prowess I described in 2007 by writing, “If my life were at stake and I had to pick any NBA player to miss a 20-footer that he was trying to make, or else I’d be killed, I’d pick Snow and rejoice as he bricked a set shot off the side of the rim.”

10. This is a hypothetical example. As far as you know.

11. Actually, with the way the NBA works now—players from different age groups bonding by coming through the ranks at the same time and, in some cases, knowing each other since AAU ball—it’s not far-fetched to think that there’d be more politicking now. The whole Bron-Melo-CP generation loves each other. Wouldn’t those guys have swung 2008 votes behind Paul? Wouldn’t the older guys have gravitated toward KG?

12. That’s not a lie. I spent as much time working out the kinks for this MVP theory as Jonas Salk did on the polio vaccine.

13. Come on, he was the heart and soul of the Tankapalooza All-Stars in Miami! Do they get Michael Beasley without him?

14. I think this is how the annual Rucker League tournament works in Harlem. I’m not kidding.

15. Do you think they created the verb “wilt” because of Wilt Chamberlain? It’s an honest question.

16. The NBA definitely needed a Barkley charisma injection that season. Look at the elite veterans other than MJ: Malone, Stockton, Ewing, Hakeem, Dumars, Drexler, Mullin, Pippen, Robinson, Brad Daugherty, Mark Price. All nice guys, but would you want to spend the weekend in Vegas with any of them?

17. I keep typing “Chris Paul” because he’s one of those guys whose name has to be said all at once. It’s weird to call him “Chris” or “Paul.” He’s like my friend Nick Aieta in this respect.

18. The same phenomenon happens with parents: they spend so much time with their kids that they begin to think, “There are no other kids like this!” and “He’s so far advanced over every baby his age!” By the way, you should see my daughter run. Fast jets, phenomenal balance. Much better than the other four-year-olds.

19. They didn’t hand it out this year, but Cousy averaged a 21–8–6 and finished second in scoring and first in assists. He was the Imaginary MVP.

20. Kareem was a wash with McAdoo in ’76 and Walton in ’77–’78.

21. Can’t pick between Magic and MJ in ’89–’90. Impossible.

22. I hated the 50-game, strike-shortened season when everyone was out of shape. I refuse to pick an alpha dog. You can’t make me. It’s like choosing between syphilis and anal warts.

23. The case for Wallace: 23 games, 10.3 PPG, 14.3 RPG, 100 combined blocks/steals, excellent D on Shaq in the Final, and a splendid afro.

24. Again, I’m ignoring the ’99 season. I went to most of the Celtics games that year because my dad never wanted to go—the lockout ended too abruptly and three-fourths of the league was out of shape. Awful season. No award should have been given out other than the Eff You Award. Which, by the way, would be an awesome award. “Ladies and gentlemen, our five-time Eff You MVP, Mr. Vince Carter.”

25. Goes to show you where the league was in 1962—it couldn’t even pull some strings to get its most exciting player out of military duty.

26. Kobe settled with the alleged victim for a significant amount of money before the case went to trial. We never heard from her again. You could have a good “Has anyone ever paid more money for one sexual encounter that we know about because of ensuing legal arguments?” argument between Kobe and Michael Jackson.

27. Those numbers stand for first-, second-and third-place votes. Russell’s 51–12–6 means he had 51 firsts, 12 seconds, and 6 thirds.

28. The ’62 Knicks were outraged by his 100-point game against them, specifically how Wilt hogged the ball and the Warriors fouled near the end to get him the ball back. It’s safe to say he didn’t get any of their votes.

29. Here’s how we know this: If Boston called L.A. and proposed a Russell-Elgin trade, L.A. would have initially thought, “Wow, Russell is available?” and maybe even had a meeting. If the Lakers proposed the same trade, Auerbach would have hung up on them.

30. Barnhill was a rookie guard for St. Louis who averaged a 12–5–4 and didn’t make the ’63 All-Star team, but somebody gave him a third-place vote. Inexplicable. His nickname was “Rabbit.” Don’t you miss the days when athletes had animal nicknames?

31. I am not an unbiased observer. Wait until we get to the Pyramid section; I do everything but splooge on Walton’s ’77 Topps card.

32. “Messy” is an understatement: Walton demanded a trade, filed a medical malpractice suit, lost some friendships and signed with the Clips in 1979. This was one of the ugliest sports divorces ever. Right up there with Clemens and McNamee.

33. That was also the year he cut down his afro. Big mistake. That afro made him look six foot ten and added at least a foot to his vertical leap.

34. I have no clue what the scoring system was this season; all they released were final points. For all we know, the players voted right after plowing through a pile of cocaine the size of a Gatorade bucket. I can’t make enough coke jokes about this era.

35. If I ruined the movie, too bad—it’s been out for two years. That reminds me: at a New Year’s Eve party in ’95, my buddy JackO told me that he hadn’t seen The Usual Suspects; I had a few in me and blurted out, “Kevin Spacey is Keyser Söze.” He’s still pissed 14 years later. And you know what? I don’t care. If you haven’t ruined a movie twist for a friend as a way to bust his balls, you’re missing out in life. I’m telling you. We’ve had probably a hundred hours worth of conversations about me blowing The Usual Suspects for him. Even right now, he’s fuming. This is great.

36. Anytime “he smacked his wife, let’s get him the hell out of here” is the only reason for dealing one of the best top-ten point guards ever, I’m sorry, that’s a shitty reason. By the way, this footnote was written by Ike Turner.

37. This backfired when Kidd dove into the stands for a loose ball, landed on his son and broke his collarbone. Karma is a bitch, isn’t it? No young child should be allowed to sit courtside or in the first few rows of a basketball game. It’s too dangerous and any worthy parent would know that. I never liked Joumana after that. Hold on, I have to get off my high horse.

38. Ironically, Kidd had a career year in ’03 (19–9–6, 41% FG) and finished ninth in the voting because everyone was still mortified by how ’02 turned out.

39. You can still find pieces of Todd MacCulloch’s body sticking to the ceiling of the Staples Center after Shaq ripped him apart like a pit bull.

41. Elgin won Rookie of the Year and finished with a 25–15, yet earned as many first-place votes as Sears and Schayes combined. Huh?

42. Totally underrated sports nickname: “Boo.” When I’m the tsar of sports, I’m going to demand that we always have athletes nicknamed “Boo,” “Goo,” “Night Train,” “Blue Moon,” “Goose,” “Rabbit,” “Cool Papa,” “Turkey” and “Bad News.”

43. The Bullets were weakened before the playoffs when Gus Johnson blew out his knee, but still … an MVP can’t get swept in the first round, right? The Grumpy Old Editor says Bullets coach Gene Shue blew that series with the not-so-brilliant idea of having Unseld bring the ball up like a point guard. The ruining-to-helping ratio over the course of history with NBA coaches has to be 8:1.

44. As a freshman in college, I made the rookie mistake of buying Janine Cunningham a half dozen roses after sucking face with her a few nights before. She left treadmarks running the other way. I could have given her a handful of plutonium and it would have gone better. And she was a cool chick. In fact, I guarantee she loves being referenced in this book. The point is, don’t overreact with women or MVP votes.

45. The real outrage was that Russell didn’t win Coach of the Year. Name me another coach that was also playing 45 minutes a game.

46. In fairness, Mac had a monster series, averaging a 37–13 in a whopping 327 minutes and even interacting with a teammate two different times.

47. Barry defended himself from this rap in a December 1974 SI feature with this eye-popping quote: “We like each other for what we are, not for the color of our skins. I was kidding Charlie Johnson the other day, saying, ‘Don’t tell me about you guys being put down. You had all the great detectives, didn’t you? There was Boston Blackie, Sam Spade, The Shadow …’ It’s a great atmosphere.” Yikes! Cut off his mike! Imagine if somebody said that now. ESPN would have a 12-hour town hall meeting about it. I think Rick Barry made this book 3 percent better. I really do.

48. You couldn’t really call it a “race” because neither guy was at his peak.

49. The complete list: Barry (retired after the ’80 season), Calvin Murphy, Rudy Tomjanovich, Allen Leavell, Billy Paultz, Mike Dunleavy, Tom Henderson, Bill Willoughby. Oof.

50. I made that decision using the same facts, theories, and rules of thumb that govern every other inch of this chapter. If you still think I’m a homer, then allow me to introduce you to my law firm, Buh Low Mee. P.S.: Bird got screwed out of the ’81 Finals MVP as well; Cedric Maxwell won by a 6-to-1 margin in a Duncan/Parker-type situation. Personally, I think people were just excited to vote for someone nicknamed “Cornbread.”

51. The answers: Gilbert Arenas (question 1); Kobe (question 2); either Nash, T-Mac, or LeBron (question 3). As I wrote, “Usually, the most logical MVP candidate owns two of those questions (and ideally, three). Not this season.” Question 4 hadn’t been created yet.

52. It was part protest (for the shitty season) and part parody (because Time magazine had named “You” the 2007 Man of the Year). One of my dumbest ideas ever. It almost caused an Internet riot. I still get emails about it.

53. Nash and the Suns nearly toppled the San Antonio Donaghys in the playoffs. By the way, the MVP debate should have been decided by a Dallas-Phoenix game in mid-March when Nash emerged as the top dog, notching a 32–8–16 and nearly every clutch play in a double-OT victory. I watched the game with House and JackO and we agreed that it was a seminal moment of the 2007 season; Nash just wanted it more than Nowitzki did. You could see it. I still remember House hissing, “So much for the MVP race.” How did Dirk end up winning? I have no idea. The one silver lining: when we learned in 2009 that Dirk was engaged to a thirty-seven-year-old former stripper with eight aliases and outstanding warrants for credit card fraud, I spent a solid week refreshing eBay hoping she put his 2007 MVP trophy on there.

54. That’s not a racial argument. The same process would have happened had he looked like Earl Boykins. People will always gravitate toward an underdog, especially if he has bad hair.

55. My favorite MVP voting fact of 2005: some idiot gave a first-place vote to Amar’e Stoudemire, whose career had been invigorated and reinvented by Nash. That’s like giving your vote for the Nobel Prize in Medicine to Frankenstein’s monster instead of Dr. Frankenstein.

56. The Lakers were shocked by Phoenix in the ’90 playoffs mainly because Kevin Johnson ripped them to shreds. Put it this way: if you were a speedy point guard from 1987 to 1991 and you couldn’t light up the Lakers, you really needed to reevaluate things.

57. The Bucks believed Jones was using drugs, hired PI’s to follow him, placed him on medical suspension for “loss of weight and stamina” and finally fired him. Jones professed his innocence and sued the Bucks for the rest of his owed salary, getting his money when Milwaukee’s “Any time someone loses weight and acts irrationally they’re on drugs” defense held about as much legal weight as the “She was asking for it” defense.

58. I say ’87 was the best modern race. Magic finished first with a remarkable 24–12–6 and finally seized control of L.A. from Kareem. MJ averaged 37 a game, officially became the Next Great Player and finished second. And Bird submitted his finest season ever (28–9–8, 53% FG, 40% 3FG, 90% FT and a superb blondafroperm) and finished a distant third only because everyone was tired of voting for him. When you get career years from the greatest forward and point guard ever, along with a breakout year for the best player ever, that’s a pretty good MVP race.

59. This had to be the greatest first-team All-D ever: Pippen, Hakeem, Rodman, Jordan and Dumars, all in their primes. Wow. Not a bad Best Starting Five of the ’90s if you wanted to kick ass defensively.

60. He also passed question 4: none of the fans from opposing teams would have been outraged by a Kobe pick.

61. His stats: 35.4 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 4.5 APG, 45% FG, 27.2 FGA … and he won 45 games with Smush, Kwame, Brian Cook, and Chris Mihm playing big minutes—or, as Lakers fans called them at the time, the Shit Sandwich.

62. Shades of the ’04 Red Sox here: the event itself was eventually exceeded by the media and fans telling everyone how great it was and desperately trying to put everything in perspective. By the way, I include myself—my Red Sox opus was called Now I Can Die In Peace. Still in bookstores with a third edition!

63. That’s reason number twenty-five why MVP votes need to be made public: if you make a pick that dumb, you should be obligated to defend it. I’m against anonymous incompetence in all forms.

64. I’m springing one of my favorite theories here: the Tipping Point Friend. Every group of female college friends goes between eight and twelve girls deep. Within that group, there might be three or four little cliques and the backstabbing is through the roof, but the girls get along for the most part and make a big deal about hanging out, doing dinners, having special weekends and everything else. Maybe two of them get married early, then the other ones start dropping in their mid-20s until there’s only five left—the cute blonde who can’t get a boyfriend because she’s either a drunk, an anorexic, or a drunkorexic; the cute brunette who only attracts assholes; the 185-pounder who’d be cute if she lost weight; the not-so-cute one with a great sense of humor; and the sarcastic chain-smoker with 36DDs who isn’t quite cute enough to land anyone but hooks up a lot because of the 36DDs. In this scenario, the cute brunette is the Tipping Point Friend—as long as she’s in the group, guys will approach them in bars, clubs or wherever. Once she settles down with a non-asshole, now all the pressure is on the drunkorexic and if she can’t handle it, then the girl with 36DDs has to start wearing crazy shirts and blouses to show off her guns. My point is this: the Jazz were the sarcastic chain-smoker with 36DDs who hooked up often but never found a serious suitor. By 1997, their competitors had dropped out and they were suddenly the hottest friend in their group. Does that mean they were hot? No!!! No!!!!!!!!! For the love of God, no!!!!!!!!!

SIX
THE HALL OF FAME PYRAMID

BY NOW, YOU’VE probably figured out that I love basketball. When you love something unconditionally, does that mean it’s perfect? Of course not. I find myself tinkering with ways to improve my favorite sport all the time, constantly asking, “Why don’t they do that?” or even better, “Why wouldn’t they do that?” Here, off the top of my head, are thirty-three suggestions to improve the NBA.

1. I wish the Finals would go back to the 2–2–1–1–1 format.

2. I wish we’d make a pact to agree that (a) there will never be another MJ, and (b) we’re not allowed to compare anyone to him anymore.

3. I wish we would change the NBA trade deadline to 4:00 a.m. on the Saturday night of All-Star Weekend, just so we’d have at least one megadeal per year consummated after 20 Jack-and-Cokes in the wee hours. Imagine seeing this scrolling across the ESPN news ticker in the wee hours: ESPN’s Ric Bucher reports that Portland GM Kevin Pritchard and Thunder GM Sam Presti just finished Patrón shots at the Dallas Ritz-Carlton’s main bar and made the bartender call up ESPN.coms trade machine.

4. Borrowing this idea from a Philly reader named Mike: I wish we’d abolish those hideous in-game coach interviews, simply because I can’t handle hearing someone like Nancy Lieberman get stoned by another coach after she asks what they have to do to stop the other team’s best player. They are running out of ways to say, “I have no idea, Nancy. If I knew that, we’d be winning the game.” This has to end. Like, right now.¹

5. Come to think of it, I wish we didn’t have NBA sideline reporters. But if we have to have them—and really, I don’t see why—I wish we hired casual female fans like my wife. Why? Because casual female fans notice things during sporting events that nobody else notices. My buddy Strik once sent me a “Bruce Willis in da house!” text during a Clips game—I quickly relayed this information to the Sports Gal, who scanned the lower sections of the arena with the intensity of Jack Bauer looking for a terrorist in a crowded mall. Within about ten seconds she found Bruce sitting courtside to our right, like she had a homing device in her head. Then she spent the next thirty minutes watching him and making comments like “He seems nice” to the lady sitting next to her. So why couldn’t someone like my wife become a sideline reporter? Why pretend this is a serious gig? My wife would file reports from the Blazers’ huddle like, “Guys, Greg Oden seems sad, he just seems sad to me, I hope everything’s okay,” or “Phil Mickelson and his wife are sitting courtside, and guys, I do not like her roots,” or even “Guys, I’m still trying to get an answer as to why Amar’e Stoudemire is wearing that suit. Lime green is not his color, as we all know.”²

6. I wish Utah and New Orleans would switch last names so New Orleans could be the Jazz again. Let’s do the right thing here. America has suffered long enough.

7. I wish WNBA scores and transactions would be banned from all scrolling tickers on ABC and ESPN. I’m tired of subconsciously digesting tidbits like “Phoenix 52, Sacramento 44 F” and thinking, “Wait, that was the final score?” before realizing it was WNBA. Let’s just run their scores on NBA TV with pink lettering. And only between the hours of 2:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m.

8. I wish we could agree on a universal fantasy league scoring system that everyone used. Here’s my vote: Has to be auction style; eight categories and double weight for points-rebounds-assists; $50 total for weekly free agent claims (highest bid wins each player); twelve-player roster with one injury spot; you have to start a PG, SG, SF, PF and C, with four extra starting spots for a guard, SG/SF, PF/C and a ninth man; extend fantasy through the real NBA playoffs, with weekly head-to-head play wrapping up at the end of the regular season (winner taking home 35 percent of the pot and second place getting 15 percent), then the top four advance to the playoffs (same 35/15 payout), keep six players and fill out their rosters with players from other fantasy teams that didn’t make it in a straight draft (with number one drafting first each round). Not only did I just solve fantasy basketball in one paragraph, but as the postseason drags on and teams drop out, by the NBA Finals, it would be like the last scene of Rollerball: just a few fantasy owners heroically skating around and trying not to get struck by a flaming motorcycle. You have three Celtics, I have two Hornets, let’s fight to the death. It also brings us closer to our ultimate goal as fans: playing fantasy 365 days a year. Yes, we can.³

9. I wish we could choose two teammates to combine for fantasy purposes every season. Back when they played on the Pacers together, I always wanted to combine Antonio Davis and Dale Davis into one roto monster called Über-Davis for my fantasy league. Now I’m thinking that, before every season, we could vote on ESPN.com for a pair of teammates to be combined for fantasy purposes to make drafts more interesting. For instance, Oden and Joel Przybilla could become “Joreg Pryzboden” with an ’09 average of 14–16 with 2.4 blocks. You wouldn’t have enjoyed rooting for Joreg Pryzboden?

10. I wish every vote for the major awards and All-NBA teams would be made public. Again I am against anonymous incompetence in all forms.

11. I wish all footage from the lockout season would be destroyed. As well as tapes of every Knicks-Heat playoff game from the nineties. And any Pistons-Nets playoff game from 2000 on. I am against celebrating bad basketball in all forms.

12. Stealing a premise from Rasheed Wallace, I wish the defending champion’s coach would wear a WWE-style championship belt to every game. If his team loses the title at the end of the season, the incumbent would then hand over that belt to the winning coach (hopefully sobbing like Johnny Lawrence at the end of the 1984 All-Valley Karate Tournament).

13. Remember my wish for a program that explained the origin of every NBA tattoo? I also wish the league would designate tattoo shops in every NBA city as an “Official NBA Tattoo Store,” load those stores with cameras, then require players to get inked only in those thirty stores. Why? For our new NBA TV reality show, Where Ink Happens. This can’t miss. “Coming up on Where Ink Happens, Michael Beasley stops by to get ‘Beas Breeze’ tattoed on his neck!”

14. I wish teams weren’t allowed to play music during game action. I don’t need to hear the Jaws theme as the Spurs are trying to stop Kobe with two minutes to go. I really don’t. Also, if your announcer feels obligated to pump up fans with in-game comments like “Get on your feet!” or “Lemme hear it—Deeee-fense! Deee-fense!” then you shouldn’t have a basketball team. It’s really that simple.

15. I wish we would change the NBA’s championship trophy back to a hockey-like cup (which was the case through the late seventies). I also wish we wouldn’t name that trophy after Larry O’Brien, who nearly ran the NBA into the ground and was so shortsighted that his staffers had to talk him into the Slam Dunk Contest. Screw him. Let’s make it a cup and call it the David Stern Cup. He carried O’Brien for those last few years, anyway.

16. You know how every member of an NHL champion team gets to spend one day with the Stanley Cup during the summer? I wish every member of an NBA championship team spent one day with the David Stern Cup. Talk about a mortal lock for potential comedy … can you imagine certain NBA troublemakers in brief control of the Stern Cup? Would the thing even come back in one piece? Would they lose it? Would they try to smoke pot from it? Who would be the first guy to lose it for a few hours?

17. During the first three quarters of NBA games, I wish all made baskets from mid-court and beyond were worth four points. Give me one reason why this shouldn’t be a rule. You can’t.

18. I wish Isiah Thomas would be given his own reality TV show where he takes over businesses, stores and companies and runs them into the ground (like a cross between 30 Days and Wife Swap). In one episode, he could take over a popular Starbucks and immediately fire the most popular barista, raise the prices of chewy marshmallow squares and trade the store’s only espresso machine for a six-month supply of soy milk. The following week, he could become a casino pit boss in Vegas and immediately raise every blackjack table to $25, ban smoking, get rid of every American-born blackjack dealer and force the waitresses to wear more clothes. On and on it would go.⁴

19. I wish NBA cameras would no longer be allowed to zoom in within eighteen inches of somebody’s face. I don’t need any more unpopped whiteheads, acne scars and dangling nose hairs in my life.

20. I wish Allen Iverson would start a charity so he can hold a celebrity golf tournament. Why? Because what would be more entertaining than the First Annual Allen Iverson Celebrity Golf Tournament? Anything? Anything at all? Imagine AI showing up five hours late for his 9 a.m. tee time. How would he be dressed? How would he react if he missed a four-foot putt? Or imagine a terrified Kyle Korver in a foursome with 50 Cent, Ron Artest and Ice Cube. What about Jim Nantz saying, “Let’s go to Verne Lundquist on sixteen, where there’s apparently been some gunfire again”? I might devote the rest of my life to making this tournament happen. If Michael Douglas can have a celebrity golf tournament, why can’t Allen Iverson?⁵

21. For the NBA League Pass package, I wish we always had the option of watching our favorite team’s telecast with our favorite team’s announcers and local commercials. What’s the point of shelling out two bills a year for the NBA or baseball and not getting your own guys every game? I want Tommy Heinsohn screaming after every call that goes against the Celtics. I want the Foxwoods and Giant Glass commercials. Don’t deprive me!

22. I wish that if a parent brings a young child to courtside seats at an NBA game and that poor kid subsequently gets trampled by a gigantic basketball player diving for a loose ball, then that parent should lose parental rights and Angelina Jolie or Madonna gets to adopt the kid.

23. I wish we would dump double technicals. If two players have a non-punching altercation, or they keep jawing at each other to the point that they have to be separated and the referees can’t keep the game moving … yes, I can see it. But NBA refs hand out double technicals if two players look cross-eyed at each other.⁶ What’s wrong with allowing the competitive juices to flow? Isn’t a reasonable amount of trash-talking part of what makes the NBA so much fun?

24. For NBA All-Star Weekend, I wish we had a H-O-R-S-E contest, a half-court shot contest and a dunk contest with a rim that keeps rising like a high jump bar, and I’m not resting until all three things happen.

25. I wish we had the option of dumping the Evil Box. Other than Viagra and the Internet, the most dangerous development for marriages in the past two decades has been the Evil Box—that constant score/time box that remains in the corner of our TV screens during games. Once upon a time, you could just tell your wife/girlfriend, “Two more minutes, the game’s almost over” and she’d be totally fooled. It could have been the start of the fourth quarter and she’d never know, except for those dreaded moments right before a commercial when the huge score graphic would come flying out of nowhere. Now? When you pull the “two more minutes” routine, they immediately glance at the Evil Box and know you’re lying. The whole thing sucks. As soon as technology advances to the point that our Internet service is connected to our televisions and everything is controlled by one remote, I’m giving viewers the option to dump the Evil Box if they’re trying to deceive their ladies.⁷

26. I wish the South Park guys (Matt Stone and Trey Parker) would purchase an NBA team. We need them in the league for comedy’s sake. Let’s give them the Nuggets at a steep discount.⁸

27. Stealing this idea from Louisville reader Jason Willan: During the lottery, I wish every team sent a representative who makes no basketball sense but has an obscure tie to the city or franchise. Representing the Memphis Grizzlies … Lisa Marie Presley! Representing the New Jersey Nets … Joe Piscopo!⁹ Representing the Miami Heat … Philip Michael Thomas!”¹⁰

28. I wish we’d dump the rule that teams can call another time-out following a time-out, since the last three minutes of a game shouldn’t take twenty-five minutes. Why not prevent teams from calling consecutive time-outs unless the ball has been inbounded? Wouldn’t that reward good defense and penalize offenses too inept to call a good play? Wouldn’t the games flow much better? I also wish we made a rule that no team could call time trailing by more than six points with less than 20 seconds left.

29. I wish the All-Star Game would be changed to the following format: best two players in the league buck up for first choice, then proceed to pick their teams like they’re on a playground. And while we’re here, same goes for the NBA Playoffs: you win the number one seed in your conference, you get to pick your opponent for the first round; then number two makes a pick; then number three. Imagine the bad blood that could transpire.

30. I wish NBA TV would buy the rights to SNL’s “Referee Pittman Show” sketch and bring it back with various NBA referees—just a half-hour show of a serious studio audience asking Dick Bavetta and Bennett Salvatore matter-of-fact questions like “What’s it like to referee with your head all the way up your butt?” and “My boy and I were wondering—we know you have no soul, but what takes its place? Is it human excrement or dog excrement?”

31. I wish we would give out the Mokeski, given annually to the best American-born white player in the league. Last year’s winner would have been … David Lee? Kevin Love? See, you’d be fascinated by the Mokeski award.¹¹

32. I wish we would shorten the regular season by six games, guarantee the top six seeds in each conference, then have a double-elimination tourney for the seventh and eighth seeds between the remaining eighteen teams. I suggest this for five reasons. First, it would be entertaining as hell. In fact, that’s what we’ll call it: the Entertaining-as-Hell Tournament. Second, I’m pretty sure we could get it sponsored. Third, the top twelve teams get a reward: two weeks of rest while the tournament plays out. Fourth, a Cinderella squad could pull off some upsets, grab an eighth seed and win fans along the way. And fifth, with the Entertaining-as-Hell Tournament giving everyone a chance, no team could tank down the stretch for draft picks without insulting paying customers beyond repair. Why are we paying full price to watch forty-eight minutes of garbage time as four starters pretend to be injured on the bench?¹²

33. I wish we could blow up the Basketball Hall of Fame and start over.

I care about the thirty-third wish more than the other ones. Why? Because few arguments cause more problems than this one: Come on, that’s the way we’ve always done it! When those nine words become the sole reason for keeping something intact, it’s a bigger red flag than the one Nikolai Volkoff waved. Change is good. Change leads to hockey masks for goalies, wheels for suitcases, baby seats for little kids and seats atop the Green Monster. Change leads to iTunes, breast implants, Madden video games, Tommy John surgery, plasma televisions, Black-Berrys, podcasts, JetBlue and Patrón tequila. Change leads to Vegas casinos making decisions like “What if we put a blackjack section outside next to a topless pool?” If you don’t keep moving, that means you’ve stopped.

With the Basketball Hall of Fame, we stopped. The place doesn’t work. It’s been a failure for twenty-five years and counting. Consider the following true story: Of all my friends, only my buddy House loves the NBA as much as me. We’ve been buddies since my freshman year in college, road-tripped numerous times, smelled each other’s farts, eaten hundreds of meals together, had thousands of inane sports calls … hell, we even ran the high screen like Stockton and Malone once upon a time. We’re probably in the top 0.0000000000000001 percent of NBA fans, as evidenced by me writing this book and House owning game-worn jerseys of Tom Gugliotta, Manute Bol, and Bobby Sura.¹³ If two college students in Massachusetts ever would have declared, “Screw class today, let’s road-trip to Springfield,” it would have been us. Even after college, when I lived in Boston for the next decade, House visited me twice a year and we were only a brisk ninety-minute drive from Springfield.¹⁴

Well, from 1988 to 2002, guess how many times we went to Springfield together? Zero. Zero! We didn’t go once!

You know what that tells me? That the Basketball Hall of Fame doesn’t work. Cooperstown works because of the gorgeous drive through upstate New York, a throwback trip that makes you feel like you’re traveling in a Volkswagen Bug with Ray Kinsella and Terence Mann. The trip works because there’s no easy way to get there; the closest airport is an hour away, making it more rewarding since it’s a sacrifice just to get there. It works because they built a gigantic hotel in Oswego and flanked it with a fantastic golf course. It works because of 150 years’ worth of baseball memories and memorabilia, and because of the generational twinge with any Cooperstown trip. My dad took me there because his dad took him there, and now I’m taking my son there. You know, the whole Field of Dreams angle. If you’re fortunate enough to sire a son, you’d feel like an inadequate father if you didn’t take him to Cooperstown. Like you were cheating him.

Springfield doesn’t work that way. There’s no father-son angle because the NBA hasn’t been popular long enough. There’s no beautiful ride, just a bunch of ugly highways and a downtrodden city that battles a complex about being the poor man’s Hartford.¹⁵ The Hall itself is constantly being renovated and re-renovated; because it attempts to “celebrate” the history of basketball, college basketball and professional basketball, the end result feels like three different agendas competing at once. Back in 2002, they opened a $45 million, 80,000-square-foot home near the old one—the third by my count—and surrounded it with retail stores and restaurants. Did it work? Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve never been there. There’s been too much residual damage, like a restaurant that burned its customers with too many bad meals over the years … and now they’ve reached a point where they could hire the best chef on the planet and it wouldn’t make a difference for me. So why hasn’t the NBA dumped Springfield and built its own Hall of Fame? Because that’s the way we’ve always done it! Hence the problem: what you’re about to read, for all intents and purposes, is a pipe dream. It will never happen. The NBA would never do it—they’re too invested in the Springfield location, just like they’re too invested in the WNBA.¹⁶ This is the closest you will ever come to a pure NBA Hall of Fame: a pipe dream.

How would it work? Well, we need the right location. Only one place works. Only one.

(Think about it.)

(Keep thinking, it will come.)

(And … time!)

Indiana.

Has to be Indiana, right? That’s the basketball capital of the world. They filmed Hoosiers there. The Basketball Jesus grew up there. Bobby Knight coached there. They have the most rabid basketball fans on the planet. If you’re looking for the same elements that make Cooperstown work—an out-of-the-way destination, the Field of Dreams drive, a sense that basketball matters more than anything else—then Indiana should be the place. Personally, I’d stick it in French Lick. Bird grew up there, they already have a casino (seriously, they have a fucking casino)¹⁷ and there’s something exciting about road-tripping to a place named French Lick. It just feels right. All of it. The heart of Indiana doubles as the heart of basketball. That’s where the NBA Hall of Fame should be.

We also need a hook that separates it from Springfield and every other Hall of Fame before it. That brings me to an idea that first trickled into my columns in 1997, the same year baseball launched interleague play, when I drove to Shea Stadium for the first ever Red Sox-Mets regular-season series with my buddy Gus Ramsey and his father, Wally (two die-hard Mets fans whom I’ve known forever). On the way to the game, Wally came up with a brainstorm to inject some much-needed life into baseball’s Hall of Fame voting.¹⁸ Ideally, the Hall of Fame should be a place where someone could stroll in, spend weeks walking around and absorb everything about the game; by the time they departed, they would know everything there is to know about that particular sport. Cooperstown, Springfield and Canton are more interested in showcasing as much stuff as possible; even their Hall of Famer plaques are randomly showcased with no real thought given to each player’s specific place in history. It’s like having a Hall of Fame for models and putting the plaques for Gisele Bundchen and Christie Brinkley right next to the one for the “before” model from the first “before/after” Weight Watchers ad. Shouldn’t careers be weighted in some way? We spent the rest of out ride figuring out the number of levels (settling on five in all, with Level 5 being the highest) and arguing topics like “Was Koufax an L4 or an L5?” and “Was Nolan Ryan even an L2?” That’s when I knew the Pyramid idea could work. Anytime a brainstorm immediately leads to heated arguments in a sticky rental car, and any time cool abbreviations manifest themselves organically like “L4” and “L5,” you know you’re on to something. So screw it—if we’re building an NBA Hall of Fame from scratch, why not make it a five-level pyramid (like a mini-replica of the Luxor casino in Las Vegas,¹⁹ only without cigarette burns on the carpets) where great players aren’t just elected to the Hall of Fame but elected to a particular level depending on their abilities?

Pour yourself some scotch and break out a stogie … this is about to get good. Imagine you fly to Indiana, rent yourself a car and make the ninety-minute drive to French Lick. You check into the Larry Bird Luxury Golf Resort, drop your stuff off, head over to the Pyramid and buy your ticket. They direct you to the second floor of the basement (everyone starts their tour there), where you can find relevant memorabilia from seven NBA decades: old jerseys and exhibits, seats from the old Madison Square Garden, pieces of the parquet from the Boston Garden, all the different basketballs and sneakers used over the years, the first 24-second shot clock, the evolution of NBA video games and everything else of that ilk. Consider this the most historical floor on the building. From there, you take the escalator up to the top floor of the basement, where you find special sections devoted to the greatest games and playoff games, as well as plaques to recognize five distinct groups of players. None of them would be considered Pyramid guys, but we couldn’t have a Hall of Fame without them. Remember, the goal is to learn everything you possibly can about the history of the NBA, as well as who mattered and what happened.²⁰ So here are those five groups:

GROUP 1: THE PIONEERS

Celebrating the greats who launched their careers between 1946 and 1956, when the league was still evolving into what it eventually became. Think George Mikan, Bob Cousy, Joe Fulks, Ed McCauley, Bill Sharman, Dolph Schayes, Bob Pettit, Arnie Risen, George Yardley, Vern Mikkelsen, Dick McGuire, Harry J. Gallatin, Ed Macauley, Buddy Jeanette, Larry Foust, Cliff Hagan, Neil Johnston, Bobby Wanzer, Clyde Lovellette, Al Cervi, Tom Gola, Slater Martin, Johnny Kerr, Jim Pollard, Bob Davies, Richie Guerin, Bob Feerick and Max Zaslofsky.²¹

GROUP 2: THE HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS AND OTHER AFRICAN AMERICAN PIONEERS

I’m not nearly black enough to write this paragraph. But here’s what I’m thinking: tributes to pioneers like Sweetwater Clifton, Chuck Cooper, Ray Felix, Cleo Hill, Don Barksdale and Earl Lloyd; a “History of the Globetrotters” memorabilia section and video room; talking holograms of President Obama, Charles Barkley, Magic Johnson and others discussing the effects of the pioneers on their games and their lives; and the documentary Black Magic playing on a twenty-four-hour loop. Also, we could probably hire down-on-their-luck stars from the sixties, seventies, and eighties like Marvin Barnes and Spencer Haywood to work there as congenial ushers and pay them an obscene rate like $50 an hour. This would clearly be Jabaal Abdul-Simmons’ favorite floor in the Pyramid.

GROUP 3: GREATEST ROLE PLAYERS

Celebrating underrated players with specific skill sets who were inordinately valuable for good playoff teams. I’d start with these twenty-five: Michael Cooper, K. C. Jones, Frank Ramsey, Horace Grant, Bobby Jones, George Johnson, Don Nelson, Satch Sanders, Al Attles, Ben Wallace, Eddie Johnson, Vinnie Johnson, John Paxson, Bill Laimbeer, Bill Bradley, Kurt Rambis, Paul Pressey, Ricky Pierce, Bruce Bowen, Steve Kerr, Paul Silas, Rudy LaRusso, James Posey, Downtown Freddie Brown and Jack Haley.²² We could vote a new one in every three years. Also, Bowen’s plaque could come with a device that accidentally trips people as they walk by.

GROUP 4: THE RECORD HOLDERS

Guys like Scott Skiles (dished out a record 30 assists in one game), Elmore Smith (a record 11 blocks), Larry Kenon (13 steals), Frank Layden (58 nose picks), Rasheed Wallace (41 technicals) and Wilt Chamberlain (20,000 sexual partners) get their due.

GROUP 5: THE COMETS

Potential Hall of Famers who suffered a career-crippling injury or were derailed by personal problems, extenuating circumstances or even death. I’d start with these eighteen: Micheal Ray Richardson, Andrew Toney, Penny Hardaway, James Silas, Marvin Barnes, Gus Johnson, Ralph Sampson, Brad Daugherty, Maurice Stokes, John Lucas, Sam Bowie, Terry Cummings, Roy Tarpley, Reggie Lewis, Grant Hill, Alonzo Mourning, Drazen Petrovic and Tim Hardaway.²³ We’re leaving out Lenny Bias only because I’d end up staring sadly at his plaque and screaming, “Why? Whyyyyyy?” for ten to twelve hours before security pulled me away.

Okay, we’re done with the basement. After wading through the lobby on the ground floor—which features an oversized NBA Pro Shop; Bennett Salvatore’s new steakhouse, Two Shots for Wade; Rik Smits’ Dutch Oven Pizza; and an NBA-themed diner owned by Hubie Brown called the Tremendous Upside Café—we start climbing the levels of Pyramid guys. Please pay attention because this is super-duper important. Here are those five levels:

LEVEL 1 (GROUND FLOOR)

Just-made-it Hall of Famers or better, either because of the David Thompson Factor (great career, not long enough), the Dan Issel Factor (very good for a long time, never great) or the Pete Maravich Factor (memorable career, never won anything). This will all make sense in a few pages.

LEVEL 2 (SECOND FLOOR)

No-doubt-about-it Hall of Famers who couldn’t crack Level 3 for one of five reasons: they never won a title as an elite guy; something was missing from their career totals; they never peaked for two or three years as a top-five guy; at least two or three guys played their position at the same time and were better; or their careers were shortened by injuries and/or rapidly declining skills. To fill out this floor, we’re adding sections devoted to the twelve greatest teams of all time (as voted by our Hall of Fame Committee), along with screening rooms so fans could sample our extensive video library.²⁴ We’ll also have a giant section devoted to everything you ever wanted to know about the ABA.

LEVEL 3 (THIRD FLOOR)

No-doubt-about-it Hall of Famers who ranked among the best for a few years with every requisite resume statistic to match; no MVP winner can drop below Level 3 unless there is a fantastic reason. To fill out this floor, we’re adding sections devoted to influential coaches, referees, writers, owners, and innovators. That’s right, Danny Biasone and Borsalino hats finally get their due! Maybe we can even hand out complimentary $24 bills with Biasone’s face on them. In fact, let’s do this. It’s my elaborately fake idea that will never happen. Done and done.

LEVEL 4 (FOURTH FLOOR)

Basically L3 guys, only there’s something inherently greater about them. Possible tip-offs: Do they have to be considered in any “best of all time” discussion? Did they have transcendant games or memorable moments? Were they just dominant at times? Will you always remember watching them play, even when you’re ninety years old and peeing on yourself? Are they in the mix for some all-time benchmarks? To fill out this floor, we’re also throwing in sections devoted to the four NBA commissioners—Kennedy, Maurice Podoloff, O’Brien and Stern—as well as the Scottie Brooks Hadlen Memorial Library and Bookstore featuring every relevant NBA-related book ever written. Including this one. On its own shelf. Just dozens and dozens of copies. And maybe even a six-foot cardboard cutout of me. What, you’re going to deny my self-serving participation in my own fake idea? How dare you!

THE PANTHEON (PENTHOUSE)

Take a deep breath. We’re at the top of the Hall of Fame Pyramid, literally and figuratively. These are the twelve greatest players of all-time, the best of the best … the Pantheon.²⁵ There would be windows on all sides, a few balconies and maybe even a view of lovely Indiana from all directions. I’d have a conference room with seats where famous people could give speeches or presentations, or even a Q & A, just so they could make announcements like “Ladies and gentleman, just a reminder, Elgin Baylor will be taking questions on the Pantheon Floor at three o’clock.” We also need a bar that opens at five every night (with a Happy Hairston Hour) and eventually turns into a hopping nightclub called Pantheon, equipped with one of those special elevators that take you from the ground floor right to Pantheon (like they have in the Palms). All right, I’m getting carried away. But here’s what I love about the Pyramid model:

• Fans and writers would (I hope) argue about which players belong on which levels; it would become the “Jessica Biel vs. Jessica Alba” of sports debates. Is Shaq an L4 or a Pantheon guy? Does Reggie Miller make it past L1? Does Kobe crack L4? Where does Elgin land since he never won a title? What about Oscar, the greatest guard before MJ and Magic? Was Cousy great enough to be an L4? You get the idea.

• After we decide on the Pyramid guys—remember, we’re dumping some current Hall of Famers into the basement in the “Pioneer,” “Role Player,” and “Comet” exhibits—a special selection committee would reassign levels to every player who made the cut. Let’s say the committee features fifty well-known former players, journalists, and broadcasters. Each would vote on levels for every existing Hall of Fame member from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest); the average score for each member (rounded up) would determine his level; and each person would have to vote for twelve players (no more, no less) for the top level of the Pyramid. Makes it a little more interesting, no? Especially when we make the votes public. If you’re the dimwit who kept Scottie Pippen from being an L3 because you voted for him as an L1, everyone needs to know that you’re a dimwit

• The Pyramid structure would look cool. Besides the aesthetic benefits of a five-story building housing every meaningful nugget of NBA history and resembling an actual Egyptian pyramid, can you imagine climbing each level as the floors get smaller and smaller … and finally reaching the Pantheon? Unbelievable. I’m getting chills just thinking about it.²⁶ Even if it can never happen, that’s the great thing about pipe dreams … you can still have fun with them, right?²⁷ So here’s how my levels would break down and why, and if you think this wasn’t a convoluted excuse to rank the best NBA players in reverse order from 96 to 1, well, you don’t know me well enough. These rankings were weighed by the following factors:

1. How well did he grasp The Secret?

2. Did he make a difference on good teams? Did he get better when it mattered? If your life depended on one game, would you want him out there trying to win it for you? Would you trust him completely and totally in the final two minutes of a do-or-die game? In short, would you want to be in an NBA foxhole with him?

3. Would he have been not-so-fun, semifun, fun or superfun to play with? We’ll explain this in the Nash section.

4. Did he get traded at any point in his prime? If so, why? This doesn’t matter as much with Level 1 or Level 2, but I need a really good reason to forgive trading a Level 3, 4 or 5 guy in his prime.

5. As a personal preference, I value someone who was great for a short period of time over someone who was good for a long period of time. Give me two transcendent years from Bill Walton over fourteen non-transcendent years from Walt Bellamy. I’m not winning a championship with Bellamy; I’m winning one with a healthy Walton. So I’d rather have two great Walton years and twelve years of patchwork nobodies than fourteen straight Bellamy years, if that makes sense.

(Note: Bellamy’s career exemplifies why we need the Pyramid. He averaged a 29–17 during his first three seasons—1961–63, before the league changed color and got bigger—and never made another All-Star team after ’64. He’s one of nine players to finish with 20,000 points and 14,000 rebounds, only Wilt owned him to the degree that the Dipper once shook his hand before an opening tip, promised Bellamy that he would get demolished, destroyed him for an entire half, then told him before the second-half tip, “Okay, now you can score.” His teams never won—in fact, Bellamy’s teams won just two playoff series and dealt him twice in his prime. When the ’68 Knicks traded Bellamy and Howie Komives for Dave DeBusschere, the deal quickly turned them around and ushered in a six-year run of contention. The great George Kiseda²⁸ even wrote, “Walt Bellamy is the skeleton in the closet of the 20,000-Point Club.” Clearly, Bellamy missed his calling—if he’d come along thirty years later, he would have been revered by fantasy owners and remembered in an entirely different light. Same for Jerry Lucas.)²⁹

• 6. How deceiving were the guy’s stats? Issel’s numbers look fantastic until you remember that he couldn’t have guarded the best guy on a WNBA team.³⁰ Karl Malone’s gaudy stats don’t reflect how his face looked like he’d been given a monster Botox injection at the end of every big game. You have to factor this stuff in. Statistics are extremely helpful, they fill in a lot of holes, but that’s it. Beyond that, how much did the guy’s era affect his stats? Remember the lessons from the “How the Hell?” section.

• 7. Did he have at least two memorably remarkable qualities about his game? We’ll explain in the Pippen section.

• 8. Was he a great teammate, a decent teammate, a forgettable teammate or a gaping asshole? We’ll explain in the GP section.

• 9. Did he make at least one first or second All-NBA team in his career? If the answer is no, we need a reason that makes sense, like Nate Thurmond falling short only because Kareem, Wilt, Cowens, Unseld and Reed peaked during his prime. We’ll call this the Bill Laimbeer Corollary because I was looking for any possible reason to keep him out of the Pyramid—after all, he was a world-class douche and that was the best reason that worked. Screw him.³¹

• 10. Did he resonate on a level beyond stats? Did he connect with fans on a spiritual level or an “I’ve never seen anyone in my life like this guy” level? Was he an original prototype? Could he ever be re-created? Think Earl the Pearl.

• 11. If it’s a player from 1946 to 1976, how well could his game have translated to the modern era?