The Book of Basketball (27 page)

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 freebaser 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 timeout, 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.