The Book of Basketball (106 page)

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

77.
The lowlight happened when Howard Stern appeared as a guest, farted the song “Wipe Out,” and made every inappropriate Magic-related joke possible. Desperate to stem a ratings slide, an overmatched Magic had to smile thinly and absorb the abuse. I can’t remember a time when another celebrity was humiliated that publicly, and for that long, without Corey Haim being involved. The show capsized within eight weeks, costing syndicators more than $10 million.

78.
Out of respect for the mission of this book, I will resist all urges to take potshots at my least favorite NBA player for the next 3,000 words. You have my word.

79.
Longest runs of excellence: Kareen, Nicklaus, Meryl Streep, Ric Flair,
The Simpsons
, Don Rickles, Clint Eastwood, Shawn Michaels, Jim Murray, Colonel Sanders, Johnny Carson, Don King, Walter Cronkite, Nina Hartley, Annie Leibovitz, Siegfried & Roy, Marv Albert, M&M’s, Martin Scorsese, Johnny Cash, Converse Chuck Taylors, Michael Buffer (three references in the Pantheon!), Vin Scully, Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, Peter North, Roger Angell, U2, composer John Williams, the Rolling Stones and the U.S. Constitution.

80.
The secret to Kareem’s success: stretching. Kareem did yoga before anyone even knew what the hell yoga was. I’d make the “yet another reason to hate yoga” joke here but promised you a potshot-free zone. See? I’m a man of my word.

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

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

83.
Like Oscar, Kareem had one too many early brushes with racism and never really recovered. When his high school coach tried to motivate him by yelling that he was “playing like a nigger,” Kareem entered what he would call later “my white-hating period.” Can white guys have a white-hating period? I think I had one when I was little.

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

85.
Nobody remembers Kareem averaging a 33–14 with 23 blocks in 5 games, or that he stayed back in L.A. for treatment and didn’t even get to celebrate Game 6 with his team. This might be the best Finals MVP argument ever: Do you reward Kareem for carrying L.A. to 3 wins, or Magic for playing a game that Bob Ryan later called the best he’d ever seen in person? I vote for Kareem because Game 6 wasn’t a must-win—Philly still had to win Game 7 in L.A. Not likely.

86.
Lucius Allen “ran” Kareem’s Bucks/Lakers teams from ’75 thru ’77; he was so mediocre that Kareem actually led the ’75 Bucks in assists with a paltry 263.

87.
In Round 2, they beat a Warriors team that featured Rick Barry, Gus Williams, Jamaal Wilkes, Phil Smith and a center combo of Clifford Ray and rookie Robert Parish. Kareem averaged 37 points for the series and dropped a 36–26 in Game 7.

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

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

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

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

92.
Including playoff games and MJ’s 34 postbaseball games in ’95, that’s a 632-game stretch over six-plus seasons. That’s not unfathomable—that’s
de
fathomable.

93.
Young MJ was definitely stat-obsessed. During the ’89 season, Jordan became so infatuated with triple doubles that he kept asking the official scorer what he needed during games (two more assists, one more rebound, whatever). The NBA found out and told the scorer that he couldn’t give the info out. Sounds a little Wilt-esque, no?

94.
The list: 1957 (Game 7, triple OT); 1962 (Game 7, Philly plus Game 7, L.A.); 1963 (Game 7, Cincy); 1965 (Game 7, Philly); 1968 (Game 7, Philly); 1969 (Games 4 and 7, L.A.).

95.
Russell retired four months before Kareem entered the NBA. Put it this way: from what we know about Russell’s competitive fire, am I really supposed to believe that Russ didn’t watch a few UCLA games in ’68 and ’69 and think, “I am getting old, it’s time to get out of Dodge soon”? By the way, why did everyone want to leave Dodge so badly? What was Dodge? Did we ever figure this out? Did that saying start because someone laid a horrendous fart in a Dodge Dart in like 1965?

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

97.
The most famous of the stories: The time LaBradford Smith lit him up, strutted too much, and got outscored 47–0 by MJ the next night. This one is slightly apocryphal: Smith outscored MJ 37 to 25 on March 19, 1993. The next night, a pissed-off MJ scored 36 by halftime and finished with a 47–8–8 … but Smith
did
score 15. Chicago won both games.

98.
After getting swept by the ’91 Bulls, Detroit assistant Brendan Suhr said, “I think [MJ] finally realized that one player can’t win at this level, that the farther you get in the playoffs, teams can always stop one man. He finally sees that.” Sure. But you can’t “see it” if your teammates suck.

99.
Jordan’s averages in his six Finals: 31–7–11, 36–5–6, 41–9–6, 27–5–4, 32–7–6, 34–4–2. That’s four 42 Club appearances, by the way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

108.
This was a bigger moment than it might seem. See, Oakley is the real-life Shaft. You know those bar fight scenes in
Road House
when Swayze stands there motionless, with just a thin smile on his face, as ten drunk guys are brawling a few feet away? That’s Oakley. You could hire extras to play gang members at a party, then have them fire blanks at each other ten feet away from Oakley and I’m not sure he’d flinch. My favorite Oakley fact: he served as MJ’s enforcer in Chicago, now they’re both retired … and from what I can tell, he’s
still
Jordan’s enforcer. Could there be a better tribute in life to someone’s kickassability than MJ himself deciding, “You know what? I need to make sure he’s still on my side. I don’t care if we’re in our forties.” Personally, I think Oak should have become the next great action hero. He’s got the looks, the size, the swagger … at the very least, he could mumble through his lines and become the black Steven Seagal. We know everyone in the NBA was afraid of him, personified by the famous story of Oak slapping Barkley hard across the face during a ’99 lockout players-only meeting. I once asked a relatively famous current player, “What makes Oakley more intimidating than everyone else?” His answer: “There’s a lotta tough guys in the league, but Oak don’t give a fuck.” Well, then.

109.
This comeback didn’t turn out so well: Jordan overdid his preseason conditioning and battled a variety of nagging knee and ligament issues for two years. Even worse, he was still running the team and built it around his strengths and weaknesses, hiring a yes-man coach (Doug Collins), slowing them down stylistically and making a horrible trade (Rip Hamilton for Jerry Stackhouse). They missed the playoffs both years. Even the signature book written about the comeback sucked. I now pretend this comeback never happened, and frankly, so should you.

110.
Oak had two legendary NBA feuds: One with Tyrone Hill (who reportedly welched on a poker debt), the other with Jeff McInnis (origins unclear but it definitely involved a woman). I have heard various accounts of the resolutions of these feuds, but each involved Oak laying the smack down like Marcellus Wallace seeking revenge on Zed and the Gimp. By the way, any time you hear about two NBA players who have a longstanding beef, there is a 100 percent chance that the beef started because someone owed money from a card game or someone boinked someone else’s girlfriend or steady hookup. With no exceptions.