The Book of Basketball (80 page)

28.
Just like Karl Malone, only the exact opposite.

29.
I always loved Clyde for carrying off another first name as his nickname. When does that ever happen? For instance, if I was Bill “Rufus” Simmons, that would be weird. But Walt “Clyde” Frazier sounded perfect. Maybe it’s a black/white thing. All right, it’s definitely a black/white thing.

30.
In Game 7 of the NYK-Boston series in ’73, when New York became the first team to win a Game 7 in Boston, Frazier kills Jo Jo White down the stretch with 19-footers. Couldn’t be stopped. It’s demoralizing to watch even thirty-five years later.

31.
I’d love to know who banged more high-caliber ladies from 1969 to 1975, Frazier or Joe Namath. Had they kept score, it’s a better battle than Federer and Nadal in the ’08 Wimbledon Finals. I’d make Namath a slight favorite.

32.
Tiny Archibald was the one ahead-of-his-time point guard playing in that 1970–1975 stretch, and that’s when he peaked statistically and had the famous lead-the-league-in-points/assists season. Makes you wonder what would have happened had there been more Tinys.

33.
Frazier’s attempt to shatter the Unintentional Comedy Scale as a Knicks announcer for the past two-plus decades did not factor into this ranking.

34.
This was back when the players actually had wives. By the mid-nineties, this became the “girlfriends, hos, bimbos and the-bitch-claims-she’s-pregnant-but-the-paternity-test-hasn’t-come-back-yet” section.

35.
It seemed inconceivable then that any Walton kid would make the NBA. When Luke broke out at Arizona, I remember asking my dad, “Wasn’t that the little Walton kid who looked like Rocky Dennis?” Now he’s something of a ladies’ man: I even had a reader compare him to Jennifer Love Hewitt in that guys love JLH (and it makes girls furious) and girls love Luke (and it makes guys furious).

36.
When that happened, Dad and I debated whether a kookier person had ever sung that song in front of more than 15,000 people, ultimately deciding no.

37.
Once they mercifully separated and Mrs. Chief accused Chief of hitting her during an allegedly wild brawl, we read her allegations at my father’s house—my dad, my stepmother and me—and agreed within seconds that either (a) the Chief was innocent, or (b) if he laid his hands on her in an inappropriate way, it was only because he feared for his own life. We all wanted to testify at the divorce trial in his defense. And my stepmother is a raging feminist and successful doctor who went to Smith College. That’s how crazy Mrs. Chief was.

38.
Grumpy Old Editor: “Mine too, and I hate the Celtics.” He’s a delight.

39.
Imagine being drunk in your mid-twenties, stumbling out of a bar, hailing a taxi and getting picked up by Cowens. That’s reason no. 736 why I wish I had been single in Boston in 1976 instead of 1996. Other reasons include blondes with Farrah Fawcett haircuts, polyester suits, discos, guilt-free use of cocaine, sex without consequences or fear of AIDS, season tickets to the Celtics for $6 per game and, of course, the lack of bras.

40.
I could totally see Cowens playing center on some of Nash’s Suns teams, or anchoring the ’07 Warriors team that ended up beating Dallas. Really, he could have fit in with any NBA team except New Jersey, where he absolutely would have run Vince over with his taxicab within about five weeks.

41.
See, I told you this book would be free of Boston biases! And you were worried after I put Sam ahead of the Iceman. Just wait until we get to the top five.

42.
From March 24, 1970, through Game 4 of the ’70 Finals, Wilt played seven games vs. Unseld, five vs. Kareem, and four vs. Wilt and averaged 29.6 points and 17.5 rebounds a game.

43.
The Knicks relived this fuckup 20 years later, playing Ewing and Bill Cartwright together for three frustrating years. You know a franchise is historically inept when they start repeating old mistakes like Dubya did with Iraq. By the way, they gave up three quality role players for Bellamy, including “Jumping” Johnny Green, a four-time All-Star who would have been a YouTube hero 40 years later.

44.
According to a
New York Times
article by Jane Leavy in 1979, Willis was injected with 250 milligrams of an anesthetic called carbocaine. If I told you that a famous person used something called carbocaine in 1970, would you have guessed Willis Reed or Keith Richards?

45.
The case against Iverson: he’s a ball hog (averaged 23-plus shots in 7 straight seasons); he’s a horrible three-point shooter (31% career, three straight sub-30% years from ’02 to ’04); he turned the ball over too much (3.8 career per game, four seasons of 4.4 or higher); and he was a 2-guard in a point guard’s body (so you had to match him with a tall point guard to keep Iverson from defending bigger 2-guards). The only defensible gripe was his three-point shooting—nobody who sucks that much from deep should attempt nearly 3,300 threes in 12 seasons.

46.
Right before Philly dealt Iverson to Denver in 2006, the ex-players on
NBA Coast to Coast
(Greg Anthony, Tim Legler and Jon Barry) traded Iverson war stories like they were talking about a Mayan warrior.

47.
Iverson only played with two All-Stars in Philly: Theo Ratliff and a becoming-decrepit Dikembe Mutombo. His prime was saddled with overpaid role players (Eric Snow, Aaron McKie, Kyle Korver, Kenny Thomas, Marc Jackson, Brian Skinner, Greg Buckner, Tyrone Hill, George Lynch, Corliss Williamson), overpaid underachievers (Derrick Coleman, Keith Van Horn, Sam Dalembert, Joe Smith), overpaid and washed-up veterans (Todd MacCulloch, Toni Kukoc, Chris Webber, Glenn Robinson, Matt Geiger, Billy Owens) and underachieving lottery picks (Jerry Stackhouse, Tim Thomas, Larry Hughes).

48.
You could fill an entire chapter with secondhand Iverson stories of the “I heard he slept with ten women in one night” and “I heard he was out drinking all night, then played a day game in Boston and scored 49” variety. By all accounts, the guy doesn’t sleep. He’s a vampire. Might explain why his career came to a screeching halt in 2009.

49.
When his teammates couldn’t match that ferocity, that’s when things fell apart. Just ask Keith Van Horn, who might still be in therapy from playing with the Answer. There were times when Iverson looked so pissed off at KVH for letting him down, the possibility of a postgame shower rape was in play.

50.
That’s right, I quoted from
Sex and the City.
To this day, I will defend Season One for being funny, well written and original. I cannot defend the next few years, obviously. But Season One was solid. You can add this footnote to my “Gay List” (of tidbits that would make one of my friends say, “He’s definitely not gay, but …”), along with the fact that I enjoyed the first season of
Friends
, I loved Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy” video, I own every Smiths and Cure album as well as
And the Band Played On
on DVD; two of my favorite shows ever were
90210
and
Melrose Place
and I went to a Coldplay concert and would go again.

51.
One pretty lady in my section swooned every time Bird walked by and studied him to the point that she noticed there was a barely perceptible quarter-sized stain on the left front leg of his shorts. It drove her crazy. “Would it be out of line if I offered to wash his shorts?” she asked once. These are the questions that get asked when you’re sitting that close to NBA players.

52.
Please add this entire paragraph to my Gay List. Thank you. By the way, Young Wilt was supposedly the king of the “Whoa!” category.

53.
Paul Mokeski would be last.

54.
The Robinson hype machine peaked in 1991 when Pat Riley said, “David is the spitting image of Russell, only David is a better athlete” and Cotton Fitzsimmons argued that he’d already surpassed Bird, MJ, and Magic, saying, “They’re all MVPs—this guy is more. He’s the greatest impact player the league has seen since Kareem.”

55.
I took my SATs around the same time and scored a 1330. That’s one of my enduring highlights from high school—narrowly beating David Robinson on the SATs.
Yeah, 1330 to 1310! I fucked that guy up!

56.
Best moment of the series: Robinson getting presented with the MVP before Game 2, then a pissed-off Hakeem destroying him in San Antonio with a Hall of Fame eff-you performance. By Game 5, Robinson was a shell of himself. Here’s how Leigh Montville described it in
SI:
“Robinson was tentative, off-balance, hitting only six of 17 shots for 19 points, grabbing but 10 boards, missing important foul shots. Lost. David Robinson was lost. ‘I’ve never felt this way before,’ he said afterward. ‘For the first time in my life, I felt I let my teammates down.’”

57.
Robinson belonged to the Tony LaRussa All-Stars, maybe my favorite example other than Coach K or LaRussa himself. By the way, Robinson averaged a 6–6 in the Mavs/Lakers series (12 games) before rallying a little in the Finals (11–7).

58.
Elliott averaged a 22–7 and shot 43% from three as a senior at Arizona; Rice averaged a 26–6, shot 52% from three and led Michigan to the ’89 title. At no point in his life was Elliott a better small forward than Rice. Also, Rice averaged 20-plus points in six different NBA seasons and peaked in ’97 for Charlotte: 27 points a game and a surreal 47% from three (taking 440 of them).

59.
That’s not totally true. I’ll also remember him for being the Michael Spinks to Hakeem’s Mike Tyson.

60.
Of those 15 losses, three were by double digits and five were by three points or less.

61.
And that includes size. Walton was listed at six-foot-eleven but he was easily seven-foot-two or seven-foot-three. When he played in Boston, he was at least 2 inches taller than Parish and McHale. He never wanted to be thought of as a seven-footer.

62.
My favorite Walton trait other than the exquisite passing: he always kept the ball over his head after every rebound on either end and was always in position to make a play. Walton tapes should be shown to fledgling high school centers for the rest of eternity.

63.
That double album included “Life Goes On,” “All About the U,” “Picture Me Rollin‧,” “California Love,” “I Ain’t Mad at Chu” and “How Do U Want It” … and the B-side of the “How Do U Want It” single was “Hit ’Em Up,” the one where he declared war on Biggie Smalls. I keep waiting for Shaq to remake “Hit ’Em Up” about Kobe, although technically, “Tell Me How My Ass Tastes” could have qualified.

64.
It’s hard to say who had more feet problems: Walton or James Caan’s
Misery
character after Annie Wilkes hobbled him.

65.
My apologies to Walton for not coming up with the perfect Grateful Dead song here.

66.
After watching Dunleavy destroy the Clippers and make no friends in the process, this quote kills me. Dunleavy wouldn’t start World War III—he’d just keep you in the war for twenty-five years as casualties mounted and he blamed everyone else.

67.
Which they didn’t. If anything, they were either silently cheering Sobers or figuring out how to jump in, pretend to break it up and “accidentally” sock Barry a couple of times. Again, Barry spends the next minute postfight repeatedly touching his wig to make sure it didn’t get messed up. I wish Sobers had pulled it off and waved it to the crowd like they do in wrestling.

68.
Barry’s ego was so huge that he nearly chose TV over the NBA in his prime. It’s amazing the guy didn’t release a sex tape. Did I mention he wore a wig for the entire ’76 season? I mentioned that, right?

69.
Devil’s advocate point: He averaged a ton of shots that year—29 during the season and 33+ in the playoffs. In Game 3 of the Finals, he scored 55 on 48 shots. As for Game 4, here’s how Frank Deford described it: “[Barry] handled the ball 59 times. Twice he lost it, three times he was fouled before shooting, 43 times he shot and only 11 times did he pass off. On occasion, it looked as if his teammates were trying to steer the ball away from him, and in the fifth game Coach Bill Sharman risked censure by sitting Barry down for a long period.” The lesson, as always: don’t trust stats.