The Book of Basketball (53 page)

So what happened? You wouldn’t say C-Webb had an atrocious career or anything. He made five All-Star teams, an All-NBA first team and three All-NBA second teams. He won Rookie of the Year and a rebounding title in 1999. Starring for a series of memorably entertaining Sacramento teams from 1999 to 2003, he was the league’s second-best power forward and submitted a three-year peak of 25–11–5. He also earned a staggering amount of money; the Warriors, Bullets, Kings and Sixers paid him more than $185 million combined, more money than anyone other than Jordan, Shaq or Kevin Garnett. But like with Billy Corgan and Michael Keaton,
⁵²
we’ll always wonder why his career didn’t turn out differently. During his prime (1994 to 2004), he played 70 games or fewer in nine different seasons, missed 283 of a possible 850 games and battled a never-ending assortment of injuries, culminating with a knee tear in Sacramento that robbed him of his explosiveness and forced him to change his style on the fly (although he remained relatively effective). Webber left us with two mildly fascinating what-ifs beyond the obvious “What if he stayed healthy?” question. We already covered “What if Orlando had just kept his rights?” Here’s a smaller-scale one: “What if the Warriors hadn’t stupidly given C-Webb a massive contract with an opt-out clause after one year?”

Webber entered the Association just when it stupidly started giving youngsters too much negotiating power (the era when inmates were running the asylum), a few years before the powers that be smartened up and pushed for a rookie salary scale. Although many promising careers were affected—including those of Kenny Anderson, Coleman, Vinnie Baker, Larry Johnson, Glenn Robinson, Juwan Howard, Rasheed Wallace, Jason Kidd, Marcus Camby, Antoine Walker, Stephon Marbury and Tim Thomas—Webber remains the biggest and most disappointing casualty.
Armed with that opt-out clause, he wanted no part of Don Nelson’s abrasive style
⁵³
even though there’s never been a better big man for Nellieball. When Webber threatened to opt out of his contract and sign somewhere else, the Warriors panic-traded him for Tom Gugliotta and three number ones. Instead of leading a perennial contender and playing a style that enhanced his talents, Webber found himself carrying a way-too-young Bullets team, developed bad habits and a lousy attitude, injured his knee, missed 116 games in four years and got shipped to Sacramento in a “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” deal for Mitch Richmond and Otis Thorpe.
⁵⁴
When he finally found another freewheeling offensive team, he was twenty-six years old. What a shame.

Much of his career came down to bad timing: seven years earlier or seven years later, a conventional rookie contract would have trapped him on the Warriors (where he belonged all along). His Kings teams had the misfortune of peaking during the apex of Shaq, Duncan and KG, respectively, suffering crushing Game 7 defeats in ’02, ’03 and ’04, and if there’s a complaint against Webber, it’s this one: he wanted no part of the ball in big moments. Here’s what I wrote about Webber after Sacramento’s meltdown against the ’02 Lakers, when every King except for Mike Bibby looked more terrified than the camp counselors at Crystal Lake:

Webber officially grabbed the torch from Karl Malone, Patrick Ewing, Ralph Sampson and Elvin Hayes as “The High-Priced Superstar Who’s Great to Have on Your Team Unless There’s Three Minutes Left in a Big Game.” None of this was really a surprise, but watching C-Webb figure out ways to eradicate himself from crunch-time possessions was the most intriguing subplot of the playoffs. Didn’t it crack you up when Webber would receive a high-post pass, spin 180 degrees so his back could face the basket
—Don’t worry, I’m not shooting, have no fear!—
then desperately look to shuffle the basketball to the nearest available King? Has anyone even played Hot Potato to that degree?

So how will we remember Webber? Ever since Calvin Schiraldi and Bob Stanley self-destructed in Game 6 of the ’86 World Series, I’ve been a big believer that microcosms mean more than you think in sports. Yeah, the Red Sox might have been one more out and fourteen different pitches away from winning the title—hold on, I’m gonna slam my head against the desk for old times’ sake (owwwwwwwww!)—but Boston’s cruddy relievers tortured Sox fans all season. Losing the title because the bullpen collapsed wasn’t exactly a shock to any Red Sox fan. And when you examine what happened in the 2002 Western Finals with a superior Kings team playing the increasingly dysfunctional Lakers, you see that the series hinged on three games: Game 4 (when Horry made a game-winning three-pointer because nobody on the Kings grabbed the initial two rebounds), Game 6 (the worst and most unfairly officiated game of this decade), and Game 7 (when the Kings had multiple chances to close the game and couldn’t get it done). Webber couldn’t have done anything about Game 6 short of killing Dick Bavetta with his bare hands, but he didn’t exactly dominate those last two games. Presented with a chance to define his career once and for all, he couldn’t get it done. It just wasn’t in him. Did he lose his confidence in big games after the infamous “timeout” game in college? Did his unhappy Bullets tenure prevent him from developing the necessary crunch-time chops until it was too late? Did he lack killer instinct in the first place? We’ll never know.

Here’s what we do know: Webber never took over when it truly mattered, even if he had more than enough talent to do so. That’s his legacy. If Webber’s career were a video game, I’d love to press the reset button, start over with Orlando never making that risky trade and see what happens. But that’s the thing about real life: you don’t have a reset button, and if you make a couple of poor decisions along the way, those decisions sometimes end up shaping the player or person you become. We will remember Webber as one of the best seventy-five NBA players ever, but we’ll also remember the potential for so much more.
⁵⁵
In an interesting twist,
Webber retired and quickly emerged as a special talent for TNT and NBA TV: candid, handsome, eloquent, passionate, funny, capable of sounding “blacker” or “whiter” depending on his supporting cast. I remember watching one of his first appearances after he signed with TNT in 2008 and thinking, “Holy crap, C-Webb could be a fantastic TV guy!” And I was right. Although it was fitting that, right after Chris Webber retired, people were still wondering about his potential.

71. LENNY WILKENS

Resume: 15 years, 9 quality, 9 All-Stars … ’68 MVP runner-up … leader: assists (1x) … 4-year peak: 21–5–9 … Playoffs: 16–6–6

We can only place so much stock in All-NBA teams; after all, Latrell “Future Coach Choker” Sprewell goes down in history as one of the five best players in 1994. But how could Wilkens finish second in the ’68 MVP voting without making first-or second-team All-NBA that same season? Isn’t that impossible? I caught a few of Lenny’s games on tape (mostly All-Star contests back when everyone tried) and thought he had a fine command of those games, but they also illuminated why he’s the only NBA 50 at 50 member who failed to make an All-NBA team, or why he missed the Playoffs for each of his last seven seasons. Wilkens was very good and not great. The statistics and win totals back that up, and that’s before we tackle how the ABA/expansion dynamic skewed everyone’s stats from 1969 to 1976. Check out Lenny’s career arc and remember that he turned thirty right before the ’67–’68 season:

Wilkens (‧66–’68): 18–5–7, 43% Wilkens (’69–’73): 20–5–9, 44%

So wait … from age thirty-one to age thirty-five, Lenny got slightly
better?
I doubt it. If Lenny was a B-plus for eight years, he jumped to an A-minus in a depleted/diluted league. Which is fine. But he shouldn’t have made 50 at 50 over Dennis Johnson, a better all-around player who
achieved more success in a tougher era. If you’re giving him credit, congratulate Wilkens for being the last effective player-coach; he pulled double duty for the Sonics in his prime and led their ’72 team to 47 wins as their second-best player. Which leads us to a tangent: why hasn’t a team tried a player-coach since Dave Cowens did double duty on the ’79 Celtics? I believe it could work for four reasons. First, real coaches get fired all the time, relentlessly, over and over again. So we’re doing
something
wrong. (From 2004 to 2005, every coaching job in the East changed hands within eighteen months. Hire an NBA coach and there’s an overwhelming chance he’ll be gone within three years. The same guys seem to get passed around like a beer bong at a keg party, only nobody questions the wisdom of spending millions on someone who failed elsewhere.
⁵⁶
Just a few stand out every season: usually Gregg Popovich, Jerry Sloan and two other guys. Eighty percent of the coaching fraternity always seems interchangeable, ranging from half decent to “I wouldn’t hire that guy to manage a McDonald’s.”) Second, Russell won two titles as a player-coach so it can’t be that hard. (Sure, the game is more technical now and you have to break down game film and scouting reports. But couldn’t quality assistants handle 90 percent of that? It’s not football; only five guys play, game plans are fairly simple, and common sense usually prevails. Look at Phil Jackson: he’s been more spiritual adviser/caretaker/relationship therapist than X’s-and-O’s teacher and the dude has nine rings. The best NBA coaches don’t overthink things, which is perfect for a player-coach since you don’t have time to overthink.) Third, coaches usually get fired because they “stop reaching their players” or because “the team needs a spark.” Would a player ever tune out one of his best teammates, someone who leads by example on the floor each night? It’s the foundation of all teams: two or three players rising as alpha dogs, everyone else falling in line. Who knows the strengths and weaknesses of players better than someone playing with them? It’s no different from George Clooney directing a movie, right? And
even though the CBA prohibits teams from paying a player for a nonplaying job, a team could convince a player to coach for free and make the “real” head coach his lead assistant.

The fourth and last reason is simpler: what better way for a moribund franchise to get their fans talking? No random coaching move would get a run-of-the-mill team more publicity and attention short of hiring Whoopi Goldberg or reuniting Spree and P.J. Besides, is it really dangerous to experiment with a job that already carries an 80–85 percent rate of failure? Of all the kooky NBA nuances that long ago disappeared—players smoking at halftime, players on the floor when they’re coked up, players inexplicably punching each other in the face—the player-coach is the one that should have endured. As soon as some billionaire reader buys me an NBA team to run, I’m bringing it back.
⁵⁷

70. DAVID THOMPSON

Resume: 9 years, 5 quality, 4 All-Stars (1 ABA) … top 10 ABA (75), top 5 NBA (’76, ’77) … 2 All-Star MVPs … 3-year peak: 26–5–4 … best player on ABA runner-up (76 Nuggets), averaged a 26–6–3 (11 G)

Lacks a conventional resume but aces the “Did he connect with fans on a spiritual level?” and “I’ve never seen anyone in my life like this guy!” tests. I remember attending a postmerger Nuggets-Celtics game and being so blown away by Thompson that my father’s innocuous comment, “Too bad we only get to see him once a year,” left me profoundly disappointed. Since we didn’t have
SportsCenter or
DirecTV back then, for all I knew, Thompson was dunking on everyone’s head ten times per game and I was missing it.

We’ll remember Thompson as the Intellivision to Jordan’s PlayStation 2,
an original prototype for every high-flying two-guard who followed. Blessed with a lightning first step, a reliable jump shot, and a 44-inch vertical leap that had him handling jump balls for North Carolina State (not strange until you remember that seven-foot-four behemoth Tom Burleson played for them), Thompson had everything you’d want in your shooting guard except height. Listed at six foot four, Thompson was closer to six foot two and looks noticeably shorter than his contemporaries on tape. Didn’t matter. The dude soared through the air like a Bud Light daredevil bouncing off a trampoline.
⁵⁸
What really separated him was his zero-to-sixty explosiveness in traffic. Surrounded by four or five taller players, time and time again Thompson took your breath away by springing four feet to block a shot or dunk on someone’s head. He didn’t need a running start and didn’t need to bend his knees. Honestly, it was like watching a squirrel. In thirty-five years of attending NBA games, I’ve never seen anything remotely approaching the sight of Thompson’s leaping ability in person; he made you feel like you were watching a lousy sports movie with bad special effects where the lead character gets magic sneakers or something. You don’t earn the nickname “Skywalker” unless there’s a
really
good reason. I just wish someone had told this to Kenny Walker.

The defining Thompson story: During the same afternoon as Havlicek’s final game, Thompson was battling Gervin for the 1978 scoring title.
⁵⁹
Back then, the Boston Garden’s PA announcer rattled off NBA scores during timeouts (remember, we didn’t have T-shirt cannons and JumboTrons back then), so after giving the Nuggets-Pistons halftime score, he added, “David Thompson has 53 points,” and everyone gasped in disbelief. I remember thinking, “He’s gonna break 100! He’s gonna beat Wilt!” He ended up with 73 points, but the fact remains, Thompson was so explosive that an eight-year-old NBA fan honestly believed he
could
score 100-plus points in a game.
⁶⁰
So what happened to him? He developed a monster coke problem like so many other rich celebs in the late seventies, battled a variety of injuries and eventually blew out his knee after falling down a Studio 54 stairwell.
⁶¹
When Jordan arrived in November 1984, Thompson was already gone. And maybe it’s impossible to capture the magnitude of Thompson’s premature demise, but screw it, let’s try. David Thompson was …