The Book of Basketball (58 page)

24.
Dino Radja’s take in ’95: “Without his injuries [Saba] would have been better than David Robinson. Believe me, he was that good. In 1985, he was a beast. He ran the floor like Ralph Sampson. Could shoot the three, dunk. He would have been an NBA All-Star 10 years in a row. It’s true, I tell you.” Okay, Dino, okay! Settle down.

25.
During the ’05 Playoffs, there was confusion about whether we should call Horry “Big Shot Bob” (the prevailing thought) or “Big Shot Rob” (Horry’s preference). I went back and forth and even called him “Big Shot Brob” at one point.

26.
Later, Horry made the pivotal play of the ’07 Suns-Spurs series by knocking Nash into the press table at the end of Game 4, leading to suspensions for Amar’e Stoudemire and Boris Diaw (for coming off the bench). Even washed up, Horry could turn a series around.

27.
That didn’t happen. Only in the ’05 Finals did a team win with its best player (Duncan) playing semipoorly, although Detroit’s defense (and the Wallaces) had something to do with it. With the exception of Game 5, all tapes of this series should be destroyed. Like, right now.

28.
Rasheed is a great example of the
Sliding Doors
analogy. If he hadn’t landed on the Pistons, he’d be remembered for the 41-technical season, being the face of the Jail Blazers, and being another “shoulda been better” guy. And if the Pistons hadn’t won the year before, he’d be remembered for leaving Big Shot Rob open.

29.
Cazale played Fredo Corleone and had crucial roles in five movies before dying of cancer:
The Godfather, The Godfather II, The Deer Hunter, The Conversation
and
Dog Day Afternoon.
Would you rather have Cazale’s career or be a bigger star who wasn’t respected as much (someone like Patrick Swayze or Rob Lowe)? For me, it’s no contest—I would rather be Cazale (except for the cancer part), and I would rather be Horry than Karl Malone. Just like Cazale, nobody would have fit in with those Rockets-Lakers-Spurs teams like Horry did, and only true fans appreciate him. So there you go.

30.
Some other members of the Horry/Dogg Hall of Fame: Mario Elie, Danny Ainge, Joe Pantoliano, Claude Lemieux, Don Cheadle, Johnny Marr.

31.
This is a Fox Sports cable show helmed by Chris Rose, a likable talent saddled with a worse supporting cast than Moses with the ’81 Rockets. Usually they give up and just start counting shit down. Wise move.

32.
The famous racist Hawks story: Southerners Pettit and Clyde Lovellette froze out college legend Cleo Hill so blatantly that coach Paul Seymour got fired for standing up to them. Hill was eventually blackballed from the league. See
Black Magic
for the details.

33.
We knew we were in trouble when former teammate Keon Clark called Vince overrated and pointed out that the ’02 Raptors played best without him (a fact, by the way). It’s not like Keon was sitting around taking shots at people; he barely knew where he was half the time. This is the same guy who got arrested for marijuana possession during the summer of ’02, leading to one of my favorite conceivable NBA scenarios ever: Keon’s agent juggling $20 million free agent offers, then getting a phone call from Keon, who tells him, “Um, this is my one phone call, so don’t hang up …”

34.
You’re not gonna believe this, but GM Rob Babcock was fired shortly afterward.

35.
Right before the playoffs, I wrote the following: “My buddy Gus asked the other day, ‘Has anyone ever won the Comeback Player of the Year award for their performance in the same season?’ I say we give him that award, along with the Most Sobering Reminder That We’re Idiots for Caring About Professional Sports award.”

36.
Well, after I wrote this section for the book, I attended a Clips-Nets game with my buddy Sal. Vince came out like gangbusters and finished with 42. At one point Sal said matter-of-factly, “Wow, Vince is trying tonight.” When fans
notice
if you’re trying, there’s a 100 percent chance you failed to reach your potential as a player.

37.
Underrated playoff game: Magic and Mullin “guarding” each other in Game 2 of their ’91 series, with Magic dropping 44 and Mullin getting 40 as both teams said, “Screw it, they’ll cancel each other out.” G-State prevailed, 125–124, in the last great moment of the TMC era.

38.
Golden Boys
is worth a read if only for the no-holds-barred “Is this dude gay or what?” section on Laettner, which almost seems brazen now. I don’t think Laettner was gay; he just went to Duke.

39.
Bing took care of himself, dealt wonderfully with the media, did a ton of charity work, became one of the country’s leading black businessmen, founded the NBA Retired Players Association and was named Detroit’s Humanitarian of the Year in 1985.

40.
Bing battled eyesight problems and eventually went legally blind in one eye. Spike Lee claims in his NBA memoir that Bing measured jump shots not by looking at the basket but by glancing down at his position on the court because he couldn’t see the rim. Seems more farfetched than the ending of
He Got Game.

41.
Bobby played at Norfolk State with Pee Wee Kirkland, Hooker Grant and Mad Dog Culpepper. Have there ever been three greater nicknames on the same team? What chain of events needs to happen for someone to earn the nickname “Hooker” again? And how can I help?

42.
Grumpy Old Editor reports that Howell may have been the ugliest player of the ’60s: “He looked like he should have had bolts in his neck.”

43.
Owner Irv Levin swapped franchises with John Y. Brown that summer, sending Washington, Wicks, Kevin Kunnert, and Williams’s rights for Marvin Barnes, Billy Knight, Tiny Archibald, and two second-round picks without telling Red, a colossally one-sided deal that, as always, somehow worked out for Red: Williams was a bust, Archibald revived his career, one second-rounder became Danny Ainge, and Red dealt Knight for Rick Robey, who eventually netted Dennis Johnson. So in a roundabout way, the awful Westphal trade was responsible for Bird, Ainge, Tiny, and DJ becoming Celtics.

44.
If Boston passed on Bird, Portland was picking next, then the Lakers. Let’s say Portland passed on Bird because they wanted immediate help given Walton’s uncertain injury status. Had the Lakers taken Bird and waited for him—a good possibility with Jerry West in charge—they would have landed Magic a year later and had Bird, Magic
and
Kareem.
Holy shit.

45.
That type of trade happened routinely in the ’70s and ’80s: a team stupidly deciding, “Hey, let’s trade our best all-around player and the heart of our team for an overrated star who’s a bigger name and might be able to sell more tickets.” Now teams just wait until the overrated star becomes a free agent, then they overpay him and kill their cap space. This counts as progress in the NBA.

46.
Fun Artis fact: after Kentucky signed him, they measured him for reporters at the press conference. Artis was seven-foot-eight when they included his mammoth afro. Seven-foot-eight!

47.
Artis snapped at Maurice Lucas once and chased him across the court, cornered him, then got decked by a roundhouse right. The punch put Lucas on the map and reinforced the whole “Artis is a big pussy” argument.

48.
Through 2008, T-Mac ranked fourth in career playoff scoring, at 28.5. Not as good as it sounds. His career playoff record: 16–27.

49.
Walsh’s close friends include Peter Vecsey and Dan Klores (the latter a documentary filmmaker and formerly powerful PR guy in New York). There’s a reason you’ve never read a negative Donnie Walsh piece.

50.
Now you’re asking, “Why put Dumars at no. 75, then?” Because he was a winner, he was clutch, and he would have been fun to play with. By the way, the Pistons took him 18th in the ’85 draft, one spot ahead of Boston. The Celts were one Detroit brain fart, one coke binge, and one heart malfunction away from getting Dumars, Lenny Bias and Reggie Lewis in consecutive drafts and dominating the ’90s. Alas.

51.
Tim Hardaway was the first perimeter guy who blew out his knee and came back relatively the same. Nobody before him ever fully recovered. The six most tragic examples: Billy Cunningham, Marques Johnson, Bernard King, Maravich, Moncrief and Elgin Baylor.

52.
Remember, Keaton had a slight lead over Tom Hanks heading into their second decade of the Funny/Cool/Hip Guy Who Can Also Get Serious competition; then poor Keaton fell off the face of the earth and Hanks started winning Oscars. Now Hanks looks at him like Mariah Carey looks at Whitney Houston: “Yeah, maybe you won the first battle, but I won the war. Handily.
Now go do some more crack, bitch!
”

53.
Poor Nellie learned a valuable lesson: you can’t ride rookies when they’re making ten times as much money as the coach.

54.
I went to one Bullets-Celtics game where I was absolutely and totally convinced that C-Webb was stoned during the game. I was with a buddy who was smoking a ton of pot at the time and he felt the same way; you tend to notice when other people seem high. It’s like being in your own personal ESP Club.

55.
Considering Webber earned nearly $200 million, can you call him disappointing? He ended up being no. 72 instead of no. 28 … is that the worst thing in the world? I think it comes down to one issue: You know when you go to a car wash and they offer you the “everything” package? Only a few NBA players are chosen every generation for the “everything” package. If they fuck it up even a little, it’s disappointing. So yeah, Webber finished no. 72. But he still goes to sleep every night knowing he could have been forty or fifty spots higher. And if he doesn’t think about it, then that explains everything.

56.
My funniest example: Orlando fired Brian Hill in 1997. Vancouver hired him and he led them to a sizzling 31–123 record before getting fired in 2000. Five years later, you know who hired him again? Orlando! The NBA coaching situation is so abysmal, teams rehire guys they already fired. Does that happen in any other walk of life? That’s like CBS announcing in 2013 that they’ve decided to give Craig Kilborn his own late night show.

57.
I love this fourth argument. It’s the same reason why Milwaukee should have hired me as its GM in 2008, or why the Clips should have done the same in 2009. Why the hell not?
You’re going nowhere anyway! Why not make the fans feel like they have a man of the people in charge? Why not get people talking? What’s more likely to lead
PTI
for a week in May: “Bucks Hire John Hammond as GM” or “Bucks Hire ESPN Columnist as GM”? Wouldn’t that become one of the biggest sports stories of the year? Now that’s a hiring that definitely passes the Mom Test.

58.
Growing up in Carolina, Thompson shot hoops on a dirt surface in his backyard. Some wonder if this led to his freakish jumping ability, especially since MJ grew up playing on a dirt court. If my son shows any promise at all with hoops, I’m building a clay basketball court in my backyard.

59.
That was one of the great random sports days: Havlicek’s final game, Thompson exploding for 73 (a record for noncenters for 28 years), Gervin responding with 63 and Gary Player coming back from seven strokes to win the ’78 Masters. If ESPN Classic had ever started a show called
The Greatest
SportsCenters
We Ever Could Have Had
, April 9, 1978, would rank right up there.

60.
Another weird fact about April 9, 1978: Thompson broke Wilt’s record for most points in a quarter (32) and held it for five hours until Gervin broke it (33). Also, Thompson made 20 of his first 21 shots in the game. Strangely, everyone agrees that he wasn’t forcing shots or gunning for the title. He just had it going.

61.
The Studio 54 incident happened in 1984, well after the likes of Andy Warhol and Liza Minnelli had stopped hanging out there. Had Thompson’s career ended in ’79 because he got flung down a Studio 54 stairwell by Bianca Jagger’s boyfriend or something, now
that
would have been cool.