The Book of Basketball (117 page)

Here’s how my playing time would ultimately break down. Keep in mind, we want these guys going all out at all times.

First quarter.
Jordan, Bird, Magic, Duncan and Kareem start the game. At the 6:00 mark, McHale comes in for Duncan. After the mandatory 3:00 minute timeout, it’s time for a Paul-Wade-Pippen-McHale-Walton quintet.

Second quarter.
Four minutes of hell with our killer press (Duncan-LeBron-Pippen-Wade-Paul). At the 8:00 mark, Walton, Bird, Magic and Jordan return and play with LeBron at power forward for a little “holy shit, look at this passing” interlude. For the last four minutes, Kareem replaces Walton and McHale replaces LeBron.

Third quarter:
Same starters. At 6:00, McHale comes in for Duncan and Walton replaces Kareem. At 3:00, Paul-Wade-LeBron-McHale-Walton.

Fourth quarter:
Four more minutes of hell with our killer press (and Duncan anchoring it). At the eight-minute mark, Jordan, Kareem, Bird, Magic and McHale return. We bring back Duncan for the final 4:00
unless
McHale is destroying his guy and can’t be taken out.

Minutes breakdown:
Jordan (34), Bird (34), Magic (34), Kareem (27), Duncan (24), McHale (20), LeBron (15), Wade (14), Paul (14), Walton (13), Pippen (11), Allen (0).
¹²

(We are gonna fuck those Martians up! Don’t come into our house!) My toughest omissions: ’92 Robinson, ’01 Kobe, ’89 Rodman, ’06 Nash and ’96 Kerr (three-point shooting and free-throw shooting), ’79 Gervin (instant offense), ’84 Bernard (ditto), ’04 Garnett (in LeBron’s place), ’83 Toney (in Wade’s spot), ’89 Dumars (defense and intangibles), ’79 Moses (only for his rebounding), ’87 Barkley (in the LeBron spot, although we couldn’t press with him), ’87 Isiah (instead of Paul).
¹³
The toughest cut? I can’t believe I’m saying this … but it’s Rodman. We could have used him on the Murderous Press. Oh, well.

For a head coach, I’m grabbing ’07 Gregg Popovich (perfect sense of humor, proven success with veteran teams like this one) over any of the Phil Jackson or Pat Riley vintages, just because we don’t need any of their cutesy motivational tricks on a team this good. Pop’s assistants: ’06 Mike D’Antoni (our offensive guru), ’09 Mike Brown (our guru for defending high screens and rotating correctly), ’88 Rick Pitino (pulled from college to run our killer press)
¹⁴
and ’77 Willis Reed (big man coach and protection
just in case an alien starts a bench-clearing brawl). Also, we need 1984 Red Auerbach involved—we’re making him the team president, just so we’d have a crusty old guy happily accepting the All-Universe Trophy in the raucous locker room after the game and saying something sarcastic like, “I kept hearing that the aliens were more advanced in every respect.” (Holds up the trophy.) “Here’s your advancement, I got it right here!”

Speaking of Red, how would a pre-merger team look operating under the same principles? You wouldn’t have the same athleticism—hence, no press with the bench guys—and you’d have serious outside shooting issues since nobody consistently drained anything past 20–22 feet back then. So I’d twist this unit around with a different focus. Check it out.

Starters.
The ’74 Kareem (first scoring option); ’64 Russell (moves to power forward as my leader, shot blocker, and rebounder); ’72 Havlicek (my glue);
’66
West (slightly poor man’s MJ); ’64 Oscar (the maestro). These are my best five guys and the most “modern” of the pre-1977 guys. I want them playing together as much as possible.
¹⁵

Bench.
The pre-1977 guys weren’t nearly as flexible stylistically and lacked length because the Duncan/KG types just didn’t exist. So what do we do? I thought about run-and-gun with ’61 Elgin, ’59 Cousy, ’62 Wilt, ’76 Doc and ’73 Cowens, but they’d have no outside shooting and might get pancaked defensively. So what if we just unleashed Wilt, revolved the bench around him and re-created the ’67 Sixers or ’72 Lakers as closely as possible? We tell ’67 Wilt going in, “Look, you’re not starting. You will never start. You will also never finish a game. Here’s all we want from you. For six minutes each half, we want you to score as many points as you possibly can. You will be our number one option for those twelve minutes. We will only care
about getting you the ball and playing defense. That’s it. Otherwise, you’re not coming, you’ll never see the future and you’ll never find out what sex with an alien groupie is like. Do you accept this mission or not?” I think Wilt accepts. Maybe even with a hard-on. Then we build a bench unit around him that resembles the ’67 Sixers as closely as possible: ’70 Frazier (reasonable Oscar imitation, plus someone to carouse with Wilt after games); ’70 DeBusschere (rebounding, defense and long-distance shooting); ’75 Barry (passing, long-range shooting, last-minute cooler); ’65 Sam Jones (we already know he can score off the bench). Also, I’m going to isolate Barry off the court like a mass murderer so he can’t interact with teammates in any way. We’ll have to treat him the same way Hannibal Lecter was treated: Keep him on a stretcher with a metal mask covering his face, then wheel him in when we need him for practice and games. This will definitely work.

Deep bench.
The ’75 McAdoo (long-range shooting and added length if we need it); ’73 Maravich (three-point specialist, free throw shooting, garbage time fun).

Coach.
By himself, ’65 Auerbach. Just seven plays and a rolled-up program. We’re going old school through and through.

Toughest omissions.
The ’70 Willis (an enforcer/banger would have been nice); ’76 Doc (I don’t need more scoring); ’59 Cousy (subpar defense and outside shooting); ’58 Pettit (Grumpy Old Editor would have killed me); ’76 Calvin Murphy (scorer, cooler, strange height matchup for teams); ’70 Cunningham (slasher extraordinaire); ’73 Cowens (perfect energy guy); ’64 Satch Sanders (a Rodman-like defensive stopper); ’61 Elgin (just couldn’t find a spot for him). The toughest omissions? Doc and Elgin. We already have enough scoring. Sorry, fellas.

What if we had a seven-game series between the pre-1977 and post-1977 guys for the right to play the Martians? I can’t imagine the pre-’77’s handling Jordan in any conceivable way; he’d definitely annihilate West after Magic kept riling him up that West was the real “Mr. Clutch.” The post-’77’s could throw four lengthy big guys at Kareem and Wilt and
wreak havoc on the Frazier/Jones backcourt with its press.
¹⁶
If it came down to the post-’77’s protecting a lead, they could toss out a Kareem-McHale-Pippen-Jordan-Wade lineup and shackle every pre-’77 guy except ’74 Kareem, whom they’d keep doubling by leaving Russell alone from 15 feet (and daring him to shoot). The pre-’77’s couldn’t take advantage of the three-point line without playing West, Maravich, McAdoo and Barry at the same time … and the post-’77’s would combat it by unleashing Jordan-Wade-LeBron-Paul on them and attacking Maravich defensively. If they ran everything through Oscar, the post-’77’s would have Pippen, LeBron or Wade hound him everywhere. And again, who’s guarding Jordan? Or Wade? Or even LeBron? I can’t see the pre-’77’s winning a single game.

If you want to combine the two eras, I’m fine with ’64 Russell over ’77 Walton,
’66
West over ’09 Wade, and ’72 Havlicek over ’09 LeBron if we’re intent on representing the old guard. But that’s it. Do I need to make those switches? Except for Russell, probably not.

So that’s the Wine Cellar Team for now. I finished this book in mid-April 2009. When
The Second Book of Basketball: A Quick Influx of Cash
is released in 2016, maybe LeBron and Paul replace Magic and Bird as starters. Maybe Kevin Durant bumps Ray Allen. Maybe Dwight Howard turns into a beast and knocks Walton off. Maybe 2012 LeBron supplants 1992 MJ as the team’s alpha dog. I am prepared for anything. I am a basketball fan. I am always ready for the next surprise. You never know when true greatness is lurking around the corner. Just make sure you don’t forget the ones who already lurked.

1.
I never understood the whole wine snob thing. It’s so subjective—wines hit everyone differently and there’s no reason to spend hours on end debating which wine is better. Just drink them and shut up. Nothing’s worse than being trapped in a room with someone who is creating dumb arguments, trying to prove impossible-to-prove things, and hammering you with their insufferable opinions. Unless it’s this book. Then it’s totally fine.

2.
Not to get too technical, but we’re throwing each pick in the time machine right after his season ends.

3.
FYI: We’re playing the Final Finals at MSG, selling tickets and everything. I don’t want to make the same mistake Rocky made when he fought Drago in Russia on Christmas Day for no money. (Which barely topped these other doozies as the dumbest moment of
Rocky IV:
Apollo dying in the ring for ten solid minutes without medical help and 100 people crowding the ring; Rocky climbing a 20,000-foot Russian mountain in snow boots and a winter coat; and the Soviet crowd turning on Drago and rooting for Rocky.) If the future of the world is at stake, we may as well profit from this thing. By the way, I envision the Final Finals ending like
Rocky IV
did, with the Wine Cellar Team and the Martians forging a mutual respect and Magic Johnson telling the fans, “What you just saw out here was 12 humans and 12 aliens practically killing themselves … but I guess it’s better than ten billion” and “If the Martians can change, and the humans can change,
everyone can change!”

4.
His most underrated postseason: 7 brutally physical games against the Thugball Knicks, 6 hard-fought games against an excellent Cavs team, and 6 more against a scary Blazers team … and he never faded even one iota.

5.
Worth noting: I changed my opinion on ’92 MJ vs. ’96 MJ between 17 and 700 different times. I’m still not sure that I made the right pick. The ’92 MJ was athletically superior and had a 90 percent idea of The Secret; the ’96 MJ was 90 percent as good but embraced The Secret. So tough. I don’t know. Fuck.

6.
I considered ’92 David Robinson here because he averaged a 23–12 with a staggering 6.8 stocks per game (4.5 blocks, 2.3 steals), the highest post-1973 total of all time. And there was no greater teammate or better center candidate for my press. But Robinson had that propensity to choke in the clutch, and if anything happened to Kareem …

7.
That’s an homage to my friend Dave Dameshek, a radio host with a weekly “Jerk List” who starts the segment by telling all of that week’s jerks, “Just remember, I didn’t do this
… you
did this.”

8.
When
The Second Book of Basketball
is written LeBron will almost definitely be unseating Larry Legend or Duncan from the starting lineup, barring a terrible injury or someone framing him for a crime. For now, I want an intangibles guy as my backup small forward and that’s Pippen. We’ll keep Bron in the garage with a cover on him like a brand-new Testarossa.

9.
You know this book has dragged on too long when I’m coming up with subnicknames for my nicknames (thooler/cooler). Don’t worry, we’re almost done. I know you’re like one of those overheated marathon runners on the twenty-sixth mile right now.

10.
Conceivably, I could have picked all five members of the ’92 or ’93 All-Defense First Team: Pippen, Rodman, MJ, Dumars and either Robinson (’92) or Hakeem (’93), then swapped LeBron for MJ and made that my Murderous Press. But that would have involved dumping Walton for Robinson/Hakeem, Wade for Dumars and Ray Allen for Rodman … too risky. You wouldn’t believe how much time I spent coming up with this team. We are talking dozens and dozens of hours. And every time I thought, “I really need a life,” I remembered, “But hey, it’s for my book!” and that made it okay.

11.
Wait a second … did I just steal an idea from Rick Pitino, one of the least successful NBA coach/execs in modern basketball history? This book
really
needs to end soon.

12.
Sorry, Ray. You’re a luxury. Nobody plays 12 guys; it’s nonsensical. If you don’t like it, we can make calls to Kerr and Nash right now. Just say the word. By the way, if LeBron beats out Wade for those backup SG minutes, I’m fine with that. May the best hypothetical man hypothetically win.

13.
Poor Isiah even gets cut from the Wine Cellar Team (for a legitimate reason this time: 3-point shooting). But considering MJ hated him enough to keep him off the Dream Team, wouldn’t he have said, “Look, I’d rather see Earth blow up over being teammates with that guy?” I feel like the answer is yes.

14.
I went with ’88 Pitino instead of ’96 Pitino because ’96 Pitino had too big an ego to be somebody’s assistant. This is a guy who once wrote a book called
Lead to Succeed: 10 Traits of Great Leadership in Business and Life
one year
after
he finished ruining the Celtics and the entire team quit on him.