The Book of Basketball (60 page)

61. BOB MCADOO

Resume: 14 years, 7 quality, 5 All-Stars … ’75 MVP … MVP runner-up: ’74, ’76 … ’73 Rookie of the Year … Top 5 (’75), top 10 (’74) … 3-year peak: 32–14–3 … 3-year Playoffs peak: 32–14 (22 G) … leader: scoring (3x), minutes (1x), FG% (1x), FT (1x) … bench player for two champs (’82, ’85 Lakers) … traded 3 times in prime

60. NATE ARCHIBALD

Resume: 13 years, 7 quality, 6 All-Stars … top 5 (’73, ’75, ’76), top 10 (’72, ’81) … 2-year peak: 31–3–10 … leader: points (1x), assists (1x)
,
minutes (1x) … only player to lead NBA in points and assists (34.0, 11.4) … started for 1 champ (’81 Celts)

Remember when everyone called Ben Wallace underrated for so long that he became
overrated
, leading to the Bulls killing their franchise by giving away Tyson Chandler so they could sign Wallace to an unconscionable $60 million deal? The same thing happened to McAdoo from a historical standpoint. When the NBA left Mac off its 50 at 50 list and outraged every NBA junkie, the subsequent backlash turned out to be the best possible thing for McAdoo’s legacy. Now he’s a little overrated, if that makes sense. The case for McAdoo: For a three-year stretch in Buffalo, he was the best NBA player not named Kareem, averaging a 32–14 as an undersized center and scoring on anyone and everyone … because of his body (six foot nine, 210 pounds) and offensive game (unstoppable facing the basket, better with a fast pace), he had the misfortune of peaking in the wrong era (the slowdown seventies) … in fact, if you could pick any player to play center for the Nash/D’Antoni Phoenix teams, you’d pick McAdoo … you can’t blame him for getting traded to a series of awful teams (first the Knicks, then Boston, then Detroit, then New Jersey) … after Jersey traded him to the Lakers,
¹
Mac became a game-changing bench player for two title teams, submitting one of the single greatest sixth-man seasons in 1982: averaging a 15–5 in 21 minutes a game, then a 17–7 with 56 percent shooting in just 26 playoff minutes per game … and if you’re talking aesthetics, nobody in this Pyramid had a more fun name, few were cooler to watch (Mac played with a particularly detached, effortless, cooler-than-cool style), and few had a more distinct calling card (a beautiful and unblockable jumper released from the top of his head)
²
… again, he was a victim of his era more than anything—not just the style of play and his bad luck finding a good team, but that he peaked in the “it’s okay to get a huge contract, stop caring, and dabble in coke” era … it’s also worth mentioning that Dr. Jack Ramsay, a notoriously tough
person to win over, coached Mac on those Buffalo teams, loved him, swore by him, and even told
Sports Illustrated
in 1976, “The thing to remember about Mac is that he is going to get much, much better. In every aspect of his game … He works hard. He takes care of his body so he’ll be around for a long time. He goes almost 48 minutes a night, always learning. Mostly, he wants to be the best who ever lived. He wants that very badly.” Or … not.

The case against McAdoo: He thrived during the weakest three NBA seasons of the past fifty years (that ’74–’76 stretch we keep bringing up) and Buffalo never made it past the second round with him … after the merger, his numbers dipped significantly and he developed such a selfish reputation that four teams dumped him in a five-year span … when Boston owner John Y. Brown dealt three first-round picks for Mac, Red Auerbach was so distraught that he nearly quit that spring to take over the Knicks (an honorable-mention what-if candidate) … Mac played for one .500 team in the next five years (’77–’81) before getting released by the Pistons
³
… if you’re really feeling cynical, you could call Mac the poster boy of a decade that nearly destroyed the league, the most renowned of the Talented/Overpaid/Selfish/Passionless Stars That Fans Disliked and Wondered During Games if They Gave a Shit and/or Were on Drugs.
⁴

I would argue that McAdoo was overrated
and
underrated. Maybe he peaked in a crappy league and the merger exposed him, but he also peaked in the worst possible era for his personality and game. Give him credit for being a pioneer of sorts because, before McAdoo, nobody imagined that an NBA offense could revolve around a jump-shooting big man.
⁵
Throw him in a time machine, stick him in the 2002 draft, give him to Chicago as
its number two pick, put him under a rookie contract for five years and make him earn his next deal, and Mac would have evolved into a more unstoppable version of Dirk Nowitzki, especially if he’d found a coach like D’Antoni or Nellie along the way. And what if he learned to shoot threes? Yikes.

As for Archibald, you could call him Tiny McAdoo because they had such similar careers, right down to being relative pioneers, peaking early as superstars, bouncing around in relative obscurity and finding the Juvenation Machine (in Tiny’s case, on a few 60-win teams in Boston). After making a name for himself on the New York playgrounds, Tiny became a hero to every local point guard who followed him (Kenny Anderson, Stephon Marbury and Bassy Telfair, to name three). His career is remembered unfairly because everyone mentions the “only guy to lead the league in points and assists in the same year” first, which is like remembering Bruce Springsteen’s career by praising him for selling so many
Born in the USA
albums. If your point guard sets a dubious record like that, you probably didn’t win that many games (as the ’73 Royals proved by going 36–46). The thing that stood out about Tiny—and remains relevant now, even if you’re watching the ’81 All-Star Game or a Sixers-Celtics battle—was the complete control he wielded over every game. If playing point guard is like mastering Grand Theft Auto, then the final mission should include the following things: your handle is so superior that opponents would never even think of pressuring you full-court; you can dribble to any spot on the floor at any time of the game, and if you need to do it, you can always get to the rim and/or draw a foul if your team needs a hoop; no teammate would dare bring it upcourt if you’re on the floor; every teammate who grabs a defensive rebound immediately looks for you; and defenders play four feet off you at all times because they don’t want to have their ankles broken, which means you’re starting the offense between the foul line and the top of the key on every possession. Of all the point guards I’ve watched in person in my lifetime, only six completed that final mission: Tiny, Isiah, Kevin Johnson, sober John Lucas, young Tim Hardaway and Chris Paul. You never forgot any of those guys were on the court, not for a second.

One other thing about Tiny: when he separated his shoulder during Game 3 of the Eastern Finals in ’82, it robbed us of a fascinating Lakers-Celtics
Finals. Boston had an 18-game winning streak that season and loved experimenting with a truly batty lineup: Parish, McHale, Tiny, Cedric Maxwell … and Larry Bird playing two-guard. (The Legend could pull it off because he was surprisingly quick back then, as evidenced by his three straight All-Defenses from ’82 to ’84, and besides, the league wasn’t stacked with athletic two-guards yet.) Meanwhile, the Lakers were running teams off the floor. Kareem and Wilkes still had their fastball, McAdoo had evolved into a supersub, Magic was playing three positions, and they had two elite ballhandlers (Magic and Nixon) and a deadly 1–3–1 press that wreaked havoc. So Tiny’s injury prevented the highest-scoring Finals of all time, and beyond that, Bird and Magic could have been playing two-guard and defending each other in crunch time. Now
that
, my friends, is a great injury what-if.

59. ROBERT PARISH

Resume: 21 years, 14 quality, 9 All-Stars … top 10 (’82), top 15 (’89) … started for 3 champs (’81, ’84, ’86 Celtics) and 2 runner-ups (’85, ’87) … 3-year peak: 19–11–3 … career leader: games (1st), rebounds (8th) … averaged a 15–9 or better 12 times

One of the tougher Pyramid calls. His longevity and durability were simply astounding; he played 14 seasons in Boston alone, missing just 42 games
total
and never playing fewer than 74 games during the Bird era. In five seasons from ’84 through ’88, when the Celtics made the Finals four times, Chief churned out 494 games (including playoffs) and limped around on a badly sprained ankle in the ’87 Playoffs. His consistency was uncanny—he never seemed to have good streaks or bad streaks, rarely exploded for the occasional 35–20, never yelled at officials, never got into fights or barked at teammates—to the point that he almost seemed like a cyborg. Hell, Parish even
looked
the same for his whole career.
⁶
Except for his first Boston season when he grew a mustache, he never gained weight,
changed his hair, grew weird facial hair or anything. I can see any eighties Celtics highlight and know the season immediately just from Larry Bird’s hair and mustache, just like how I could tell any
Miami Vice
season based on Don Johnson’s hair and weight.
⁷
But Parish? From 1982 to 1993, there’s no way to tell. It’s impossible. He always kept himself in shape, alternately loping like a gazelle and limping around during dead balls like a creaky old man. Chief always kept you on your toes.

So what’s the problem? Parish was really, really good … but never great. His elite skills were big-game rebounding (you could always count on Chief for 15–20 boards in a Game 7), intelligent defense, a reliable turnaround jumper, a sneaky baseline spin move that worked like a Jedi mind trick (guys knew it was coming yet kept falling for it), fantastic picks (he was one of the first centers to thrive on high screens), high percentage shooting (54 percent or higher in every Boston season) and an unparalleled ability to outsprint other centers for easy layups and dunks. He didn’t mind being a complementary player (much like Sam Jones, he never wanted the pressure of carrying a team every night), didn’t care about shots and willingly did the dirty work for everyone else. Within a few years, Boston fans learned to appreciate him and started chanting “Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeef” every time he made a good play. If Robert Parish was your
fourth-
best guy, you were in fantastic shape. At the same time, he couldn’t have fallen into a cushier situation—a talented team that had elite low-post players (Maxwell, then McHale), one of the best offensive players ever (Bird), intelligent guards (Archibald, DJ, Henderson, Ainge) and above-average backup centers in every year but 1987 (Rick Robey, McHale, and Bill Walton, to name three), as well as a rabid fan base and media corps that would have ripped him if he’d coasted like he did with Golden State.
⁸
We always hear about stars like Maravich who never found the right team; here’s a case where someone found the perfect team.

So I guess it depends on what you want from your big guy. From a talent
standpoint, fourteen centers had better Pyramid resumes (we’ll get to them). During his prime, Boston fans were always hoping he neutralized better guys or played them to a relative standstill … and with the exception of the ’85 Finals, he usually did or came close. That made him more valuable than you might think. For instance, let’s say Bill Gates developed a computer program that allowed us to effectively simulate games with players from different eras (using not just statistics but intangibles) and we started a twelve-team sim league of all-time greats, with the draft going in snake fashion (last pick of the first round gets the first pick of the second round). I’d grab an elite scorer, a rebounder /low-post player, a point guard and a perimeter shooter with my first four picks (in some order), wait for everyone else to snap up the top twelve centers, then grab Parish with my sixth-round pick, knowing he’d thrive as a complementary player. So if I was picking fifth, I’d grab Bird in Round 1; Pettit, Malone or Barkley in Round 2 (unless Havlicek somehow fell to me); Isiah or Stockton in Round 3 (unless Kobe somehow fell to me); McHale in Round 4 (unless I needed a point guard, in which case I’d take Frazier or Nash); the best two-guard available in Round 5 (Drexler, Greer or someone like Sam Jones if he slid), then Chief with my sixth pick. In a dream scenario, I’m ending up with Bird, Malone, Isiah, McHale, Jones and Parish as my top six picks, then I’m gunning for a long-range shooter (Reggie Miller) and a hybrid guard (Joe Dumars?) from there. That’s a nice top eight: I have size, shooting, speed, low-post guys, defense, clutch scoring … everything you’d want from a team. And the key would be Parish holding his own at center and not caring that we stuck him doing all the dirty work. Not many Hall of Famers would accept that role, but he would, and that’s what made him so valuable.

One last Parish story: His defining moment happened after Bill Laimbeer clotheslined Bird, causing a brawl and getting the Legend tossed from Game 4 of the ’87 Eastern Finals. Game 5 shifted to the Garden and you could
feel
the collective hatred for Laimbeer. We wanted blood.
⁹

Meanwhile, Laimbeer loved tormenting Parish and seeing how far he could push such a fundamentally serene guy, so the ensuing altercation was almost preordained. Late in the second quarter, Parish took a Laimbeer elbow to the ribs, and something snapped—it was like the
Naked Gun
scene when Reggie Jackson decides that he has to kill the queen, only there wasn’t a beeping signal triggering Chief, just fifteen thousand fans pining for vengeance. They ran down to Boston’s side for a fast break. Laimbeer had position on Parish for a rebound, only his left arm accidentally poked Parish in the chest. And the Chief—for the one and only time in his career—
completely and totally lost his shit
, doling out a one-two sucker punch from behind and belting Laimbeer to the floor as everyone else stood in shock.
¹⁰
What did we do? We gasped … then we cheered. And we kept cheering. To this day, I’m convinced we willed the Chief to do it. We brainwashed him. I will believe that until the day I die.