NBA to Z

Preseason (nose-) picking

2008-10-26T13:33:00.000-07:00

Sports Illustrated has San Antonio winning the NBA championship, seemingly just because of their "every-other-year" mystique. I love the Spurs too, but I can't see them winning it again with this group. Duncan's been around since the days when there was a jump ball after every basket, and all the other stalwarts are a year older as well. (Funny how that works.) True, Ginobili had a bum ankle in last year's conference finals, but Bynum didn't play at all for the Lakers. Artest is with the Rockets, and as much as I detest that sociopath, he could put them over the top if he doesn't self-implode or decide to take up "singing" full-time. Can't see the Celts repeating, with everyone a year older but maybe not wiser, and with Posey gone.

Speaking of Posey, here's another guy who gives the lie to the preposition that players just want to win.

Bob, Bob, Bobbin' along

2008-09-16T04:06:00.000-07:00

What's the best first name to predict NBA stardom?

Of the Top 50 NBA Players of All Time, there are two Nates (Archibald and Thurmond), two Johns (Havlicek and Stockton), and two Jerrys (West and Lucas). There are three Daves (Cowens, Debusschere and Robinson), and three Bobs (Cousy, Pettit and Parish).

There are four Bills: (Billy) Cunningham, Russell, Sharman and Walton.

Add Dave Bing and David West to the Daves, and you've got a pretty good starting five. But sorry, not as good as the Bobs: Add McAdoo and Lanier, and bring Bob Love off the bench.

The Bobs have it.

Pre-Olympic frolics

2008-08-04T14:36:00.000-07:00

The NBA Olympians are waltzing through the far-flung meadows of international hoops, making a mockery of their exhibition tour. Maybe they can stave off the mighty Greeks and staunch Spaniards when the real deal begins. Coach K has whipped the troops into shape, but then he's used to coaching rosters full of NBA players.

NBA says adieu, at long last

2008-06-20T07:48:00.000-07:00

Reflections on 2008 Playoffs (which went on so long they could almost have been called the 2008-09 Playoffs):

Kobe was petulant. The Triangle turned out to be too square for the Lakers. Could Jordan have taken this group to the Promised Land? I think so.

Pierce-Garnett-Allen may like the name Big Three, but they do not resonate like the originals. Where, by the way, were they? We saw Havlicek and Russell ad nauseum, but nary a glimpse of Bird, McHale or Parrish.

Studio analyst Jon Barry may not have inherited his dad's basketball ability but he did inherit the arrogance. Where was the mention of his old man on Father's Day, when Bill Walton was rhapsodizing about being a father to journeyman Luke? Barry might have given at least a nod to his Hall-of-Fame father.

David Stern may not have been happy about the Game 6 blowout, but the referees had to. No pint shaving in that one.

Woe be to Kobe

2008-06-07T01:30:00.000-07:00

Kobe Bryant appears to be able to score at will, choosing to bide his time during a game as he did in the Spurs series, and now evidently biding his time in a series.

Still, Bryant has never engaged the imagination and the heart of America, as Jordan did. His swagger is surly, not joyous like MJ's. His name does not fall reverently from one's lips.

Playoffs march toward July

2008-05-21T17:42:00.000-07:00

Celtics subdue Pistons in Game One. Rasheed hasn't yet guaranteed his team will win the series, but just wait...

We also forecast: Detroit will keep on isolating Rasheed to go one-on-one; he'll miss a couple -- screaming for a foul each time, of course -- and as the game begins to slip away he'll self-implode. Just wait...

What's wrong with Ray Allen? Evidentally he's one of those guys averse to playoff basketball. Amazing how many there are. Rare is the NBA star whose stats go up in the playoffs; rarer still are those who play a 7th game like they've played a first or second. (See Chris Paul.) The Birds, the Magics, the Jordans come along once in a red, white and blue moon.

Has Tyson Chandler been the most one-dimensional player in the playoffs? (Answer: Yes.) Can't remember a single basket he made that wasn't a lob from Paul.

Barkley admitted to owing $400K at a casino and paid the debt, with a $40K kicker for the attorney involved. Guess he'll have to ask TNT for a raise. Tell us, Sir Charles, who you're betting on, so we can go with the opposite.

Going Green again

2008-05-19T08:17:00.000-07:00

Celts make it to Eastern Finals, but they are not the Celtics of Bird et al, for whom I rooted rabidly. Pierce had 41 and Lebron 45 and afterwards they both likened it to the Bird-Dominique shootout. Har de har har.

I will, however, root rabidly for Boston vs. Detroit. The odious Rasheed, I have decided, is in my top 5 Hated Athletes of All Time, along with:

Bill Laimbeer (number one) -- today is Laimbeer's birthday, one he shares with Kevin Garnett (one of the best guys ever) and Dolph Schayes, an old-timer who people say was the Larry Bird of his day.

Hedo -- he don't

2008-05-11T12:54:00.000-07:00

With the clock at a hair under 9 seconds to play, Hedo Turkoglu waited a full three or four to make his move and get up a hedo steam, and when his finger-roll missed badly time the Magic had run out of time, and tricks. Now the odious Pistons will not have to make the Chauncey move of playing Billups next game. Detroit seems a shoo-in to the NBA Finals, as the Celtics are glaringly overrated and, if it should be the the Cavs in the Eastern Finals, surely the Pistons learned their lesson last year.

Always fascinating to see which guys want the ball and which don't at the end of a playoff game. Rasheed Wallace meekly set a screen and stepped aside as Tayshaun Prince took the Pistons' big shot of the game. Don't count Orlando out completely -- as long as Rasheed is playing there's always the chance he'll wreck his team through self-implosion.

Old enough to die? Old enough to dribble

2008-05-07T04:37:00.000-07:00

The foundation – and a flimsy one it may turn out to be – of the proposition to raise the legal age limit of the NBA to 21 is that both the league and the colleges will be best served by the restriction.

The colleges will benefit because the great players that would otherwise be pros will be plying their talents for their dear old schools for an additional year, raising the level of the college game. And the NBA will benefit because rookies coming in will be armed with the requisite skills and savoir-faire to better represent themselves and, by extension, the NBA’s product.

These seem to be sound arguments, on both sides. The only thing they ignore is the voice of the one in the middle – the athlete himself.

Let’s say you are a 20-year-old college basketball player, and gifted. You’re six-eight or six–nine, you can run like a horse and fly like a bird, and you’re busting at the seams to test your mettle in the crucible of the NBA.

But the powers-that-be say you need to wait another year – for your own good, of course. Even though you’re old enough to be sent overseas to fight and possibly to die, you’re not quite mature enough for the rigors of professional basketball.

Another year of school is what you need, they agree – another year of seasoning and sophistication. Never mind that you have yet to see the inside of a classroom – that the only two buildings on campus you’ve visited are the field house and the cafeteria.

Your university is all for you staying – at least your coach and the fans are – but you can’t see how hanging around for another year is going to make you any smarter. And for the life of you, you can’t see how one more year at State U will satisfy the people who are always shouting about the importance of higher education.

No, you’re no scholar, but you can’t help but get the idea that you’re being used.
You see that your college is getting your services for another year when you could be offering them on the open market. And you figure out that the NBA is keeping its future labor down on the farm, cultivating it at the college’s expense. But since the college is raking in millions in revenue from its basketball program…

The age-limit restriction is patently unfair to the athletes, and maybe even an illegal violation of their right to earn a living.

White is black

2008-05-06T10:28:00.000-07:00

White guys who play like black guys:

Brent Barry
Manu Ginobli
Andrei Kirilenko
Jason Willams

And we'll have to dip back in the past to fill out our roster:

Paul Westphal
Dave Cowens
Tom Chambers
Pete Maravich

An Appaulling Task

2008-05-04T12:14:00.000-07:00

How in the world do you guard Chris Paul? I thought Steve Nash was the most unstoppable point guard, but Paul looks Nash look like he's running in a bog. Paul sets up his teammates just as well or better than Nash (and doesn't need a pick to do so), and is a much better scorer.

I never thought anyone would threaten to duplicate Tiny Archibald's feat of leading the league in scoring and assists in the same season, but Paul could.

ABC ran a profile of Lebron at home with wife and kid at halftime of Celtics-Hawks game today. I'm sure Deshawn Stevenson was tuned in.

White on white

2008-05-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

White guys who play like white guys:

Dirk Nowitzi
Wally Sczerbiak
Kyle Corver
J. J. Redick
Luke Walton
Darko Milosevic

Anybody from Duke

Next time: White guys who play like blacks

Haywood had his heyday

2008-04-22T12:12:00.000-07:00

Today is the 59th birthday of Spencer Haywood, a star of yesteryear who experienced the highs -- and the "highs" -- and lows, or depths, of pro basketball.

Haywood led the U. S. to victory in the 1968 Olympics, averaged 32 a game as a sophomore in college, and then bolted for the ABA, the first ever to do so. He was also the first ever to sign with the NBA before his college class graduated, when he took his suit to do so all the way to the Supreme Court and left the ABA for the NBA's Seattle Supersonics. On both occasions, Haywood was vilified.

For a great recent story about Spencer Haywood, visit

Spencer Haywood at 59

Suns vs. Spurs, Game 1, April 19

2008-04-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

Nothing like the NBA Playoffs. People who prefer the NCAAs don't know basketball. And people who say the pros don't play defense know even less.

The fact is that the good offenses are so efficient, and the stars so skilled offensively, that they're impossible to defend.

How do you guard Steve Nash, for example? He's a great shooter, one of the two or three best passers in history, he runs off about a thousand picks a game and he pretty much always makes the right decision.

How do you guard Tim Duncan? The Suns got Shaq for defense, mostly, and he holds Duncan to 40 in the playoff opener.

And as far as drama goes, the NBA Playoffs have all the nailbiting tension of the NCAA Tournament -- repeated six or seven times in a row! The antagonisms and the gamesmanship build throughout a series, until the 7th game, if it comes about, is almost unbearably intense.

It gets worse for a Bad Boy

2008-04-17T13:47:00.000-07:00

Isiah probably on his way out as Knicks' coach. I wonder if he'll try to slink off without shaking hands.

By the bye, I've always wondered: How do you get the pronunciation Eye-Zay-ah out of the spelling Eye-Zie-ah?

Jabs at Jabbar

2008-04-16T16:59:00.000-07:00

Birthday of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, age...who cares?

Kareem would still be playing if they hadn't made him quit. As it was, he went on about 10 years too long.

Yes, the skyhook was the most devastating weapon in basketball -- and also the most tedious and infuriating. No wonder no one's ever copied it -- it's boring!

He was a six-time MVP, but the Kareem began to curdle when he went over to the Lakers and Showtime became Slowtime, as Magic and the other racehorses often had to stand and idle until Kareem dragged his ass downcourt.

His all-time points record is one of the most bogus in sports.

On top of that, Jabbar, nee Alcindor, was always surly and aloof, which people blamed on his freakish size but which was also a manifestation of his unfounded belief that he was smarter -- more intellectual -- than anyone.

Just because you collect art and jazz records, that doesn't mean you're an intellectual.

Caught in the draft

2008-04-15T09:46:00.000-07:00

Michael Beasley announces he will enter the NBA draft. "It's time for me to take my game to the next level," he says. He's well on his way to success -- already talking in cliches.

The playoffs are set. Atlanta cops the last spot in the East, Denver in the West. The Nuggets Carmelo Anthony got too mellow after his "worst outing of the year," as the AP puts it. "He was charged with DUI, then taken to police headquarters before being released to a 'sober responsible party.'" Couldn't have been Iverson.

Lakers vs. Spurs (4.13) notes

2008-04-14T09:03:00.000-07:00

Michelle Tafoya interviews Spike Lee, who's doing a doc on A Day in the Life of Kobe Bryant. Can't wait for that. Personally I'd rather see A Day in the Life of Jellybean Bryant (Kobe's dad). Spike says that 17 cameras are trained on Kobe at all times. Fascinating. Kobe's wife may try to hire Spike's crew for her personal use.

Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson get to talking about all-time talkers in the NBA. Jackson says Bird and Gary Payton were two of the talkiest, and that Reggie Miller "would never shut up." We need two more to round out an all-star team. Any nominees?

Van Gundy (Gumby) is funny. I bet he had to be a real wiseguy to cope when he was coaching. Jackson is good and insightful, making up for being one of the most annoying players of all time. He would back in, back in, back in, and at the free-throw line would take aim with his fingers positioned like a periscope.

The Lakers win, incidentally, in a breeze, taking over sole possession of first in the West. Ginobli sat out for the Spurs -- he is who makes them go.

The Iceman paddeth

2008-04-09T04:50:00.000-07:00

On this day in 1978, the San Antonio Spurs’ George Gervin scored 63 points in his final game of the regular season to edge out the Denver Nuggets’ David Thompson for the NBA scoring title. Thompson had scored 73 earlier in the day, so Gervin was justified in piling up the points; he had the 58 he needed to overtake Thompson by early in the third quarter.

Gervin, nicknamed "The Iceman," went on to become the league’s top scorer again in 1979, 1980 and 1982, making him one of just three NBA players to capture four or more scoring crowns.

The Spurs were fun to watch, playing in the HemisFair arena before raucous crowds that often clanged cowbells in support of their guys. Gervin never saw a shot he didn't like; his signature was an underhand finger-roll from 10 feet or more. Gervin had a physique made for YMCA ball, but he scored over 25,000 points in his combined ABA/NBA career.

Thompson, in the Hall of Fame along with Gervin, was an unbelievable leaper (44-inch vertical jump) with just as catchy a nickname ("Skywalker").

After being edged out by Gervin as scoring champ, the next year Thompson signed a $4 million, five-year contract with the Nuggets, making him the highest-paid player ever in team sports at the time. But he was beset with injuries and substance abuse problems and eventually traded to Seattle in 1982.

Thompson injured himself falling down some stairs at New York City’s Studio 54 club during the 1983-1984 season and was later released by the Sonics, effectively ending a career that, had it been all it could have been, would have placed him much farther up in the pantheon of all-time stars.

Rondeau to Hondo

2008-04-08T10:19:00.000-07:00

John Havlicek turns 46 years old today.

I was never a Celtics fan until Bird came along, but I admired Havlicek. He was the first to give a cachet to the sixth-man role, and never complained about coming off the bench.

He could run all day and never break a sweat. I saw this firsthand, when I was a counselor at Red Auerbach's summer camp and played in a pickup game with him. (Jo Jo White was another horse of this stripe.)

When I tell people how Havlicek played a whole game in the playoffs in 1973 without the use of his right (shooting) arm and scored over 20 points, I have to wonder if I'm even remembering it right -- but there it is, a matter of record (I looked it up).

And he had one of the great sports nicknames ever.

Happy birthday, Hondo.

Catty Shaq

2008-03-31T06:36:00.001-07:00

Shaq says former coach Pat Riley’s hair is slicker than the Valdez oil spill…

Riley says Shaq should know, as he is as big as the Valdez…

Shaq says that if Riley is burned out on coaching, he should pay himself $150,000 for a motivational speech…

Shaq says know one is asking him to play with Chris Quinn and Ricky Davis anymore. Quinn and Davis say no one is asking them to stand and hold the ball while Shaq gets his big, fat ass down court and camped under the basket anymore…

Shaq says he likes the nickname Big Aristotle. We think it fits, too, because everything he’s ever said (mumbled) is Greek to us…

Saint Luke, to some

2008-03-30T12:22:00.000-07:00

Today is the birthday of Jerry Lucas, born in 1940.

Lucas played 11 years in the NBA (1963-73), with the Cincinnati Royals, the San Francisco Warriors and the New York Knicks, and averaged 15.6 rebounds and 17 points a game. Twice he averaged more than 20 rebounds a game. He was only 6' 8".

"Luke" won a national championship at Ohio State in 1960, was a three-time MVP of the Big Ten, and is considered to be perhaps the best player ever in the conference. In 1999 he was named to Sports Illustrated's five-man all-time college all-star team.

Don't remember him? Lucas himself could help you. After his playing days he got involved with memory improvement and training. He wrote The Memory Book with Harry Lorayne.

Lucas is on the NBA's 50 Greatest Players of All Time list.

Happy birthday, Clyde

2008-03-29T10:50:00.000-07:00

Birthday of Walt Frazier. He's 41.

A four-time All-Star and member of Hall of Fame; named one of NBA's Fifty Greatest Players.

His high point: 36 points and 19 assists in the 1970 NBA Championshhip's final game, overshadowed by Willis Reed limping out at the game's beginning and scoring the first two hoops.

His low point? Maybe getting torched by Pistol Pete Maravich for 68 points on Feb. 25, 1977. If not the cheesy commercials for Just For Men with Keith Hernandez, another slice of New York ham.

Chris cross at way he goes out

2008-03-28T10:25:00.000-07:00

Chris Webber retires -- ho hum. Webber was a great player -- one of the most mobile big players ever -- but hung around too long.

The monumental gaffe in the NCAA title game, Webber calling timeout when Michigan had none, seemed to haunt him his whole professional career. He always looked sheepish.

You can put a fairly good team together of Chrises: Webber, Chris Bosh, Chris Paul, Chris Duhon, Chris Mullen. Two of the five are lefties.

Backup Chrises: Mihm, Anderson, Kaman, Wilcox, Dudley. With Dudley, you have maybe the worst free-throw shooter ever on a team with one of the best (Mullin). And one of the ugliest long haircuts (Anderson's) with surely the ugliest-ever short one (Mullin again).

The Big Little House

2008-03-23T04:14:00.000-07:00

Shaq is now a figure that fits his name: broken-down, teetering, on the verge of collapse -- just like a shack. He's inspired the Suns to a just-barely .500 record since he's been here. He keeps 'em laughing, all right, but will the Suns be laughing all the way to the NBA championship? Maybe. The Celtics had M. L. Carr, remember.

Wilt: A remembrance

2008-03-22T02:43:00.000-07:00

When Wilt Chamberlain died, he left at least 20,000 (by his own estimate) female hearts grieving. I also loved Wilt, but not in that fashion.

Wilt wooed and won me early. I was barely a teen, but watching that big galoot play basketball — well, it was love at first sight.

“The Stilt,” one of Wilt’s monikers, perfectly describes the young player I remember. Long and lithe, with a 50-inch vertical jump, Wilt ran the floor like a great kangaroo. He was bigger, faster and stronger than everyone, so absurdly dominant that watching him you’d laugh out loud, for the sheer preposterous joy of it.

Along with his other-worldly abilities, Wilt was more animated than anyone – a man of infinite gestures. The splayed hands, the wince, the head thrown back in disgust – all these were Wilt trademarks, registering the frustration of a man infernally put-upon.

You had to laugh, seeing Wilt deflated at the foul line, having clanked another one, or bent over, beseeching a referee. The idea of sympathy for a man that large!

Everything about Wilt was a little cartoonish, including those statistics he engraved in stone. “My records are unbelievable,” he observed, accurately if un-humbly. These include averaging 50 points a game in a season, logging 48.5 minutes per game that same season (an NBA game is 48 minutes long), and never, ever fouling out of a game.

As for the 100 points he put up in one game, professional players ever afterward (before Kobe, that is) could only shake their heads in wonder.

Despite all of Wilt’s patently unfair advantages, he saw himself as an underdog. Sometimes you had to agree. Wilt was big, but what could one man, no matter how big, do against thousands?

“The world is made up of Davids,” Wilt said, “and I’m Goliath.”

Wilt could never do enough. Sure, he put up big numbers, said the Davids, but how many championships did he win? Wilt won two, a number that most NBA players would kill for, but a total pitifully inadequate to the universal expectations.

Never mind that Bill Russell, Wilt’s eternal tormentor, was surrounded by Hall-of-Famers, while Wilt was, for most of his career, a man alone. If Wilt was so great, he should have won more.

Wilt always let the Davids bring him down. If what he did wasn’t good enough, why, then, he’d do more. His inferiority complex impelled him to lead the league in assists one season, and after basketball to try boxing, coaching, beach volleyball and the marathon.

It compelled him to prove himself again and again – even in the boudoir, the Freudians will say.

Wilt’s craving for acceptance, often plaintive, was what made him mortal, finally. Had he maintained an Olympian remove, we would have revered him. Instead, he wrote dumb books and did talk shows, harping and harping on his prowess. He became a figure of fun.

As Wilt grew ridiculous, so did his records. We dismissed them, and him, as outlandish. The more he hectored us, the more we laughed. In the end, Wilt had cut himself down to our size.

But no one who ever saw him in his prime will ever forget him. He was power wedded with grace, phenomenally fast, wondrously imposing – a Prometheus in shorts.

Wilt’s at peace now. And he’s coming into his own. People look at the numbers and gape. The great deeds are acknowledged. Friends and foes grow older and mellower, and remember Wilt with fondness. And my emotions are stirred, thinking of my old flame.

I see him crouch, palming the ball like a grapefruit. I see him scowl, annoyed at the gnats swarming about him. I see him soar – and my heart soars with him.

There was a giant in those days.

Cavs vs. Pistons notes

2008-03-20T13:03:00.000-07:00

Cleveland-Detroit, March 19:

Ilgauskas is dead-ringer for Col. Glenn Manning, the Amazing Colossal Man (“I don’t want to grow anymore”)…It takes Rasheed about 12 seconds to start yammering at the refs. This is the star tailor-made for Detroit, where the fans scream “Sheeeed!” when he gets the ball (at least I think it’s “Sheeeed!”)…Color man Jon Barry says Lebron is best all-time going to the basket. Barry’s old man wasn’t bad, and was definitely the all-time ref-baiter…Has anyone ever benefited more than Tayshaun Prince from staying the extra year in college?...Cavs win in a ho-hum affair.

All-time alphabetical team

2008-03-18T13:02:00.000-07:00

Kids, if you’ve got NBA immortality in your crosshairs, you need to pay attention to one big determining factor—besides practice.
No, it’s not what part of the country you play in, how tall you are or the coaching you receive. All these are relevant, granted, but by far the most important consideration is…what letter your last name starts with.

If your last name begins with Q, V, X, Y, or Z, forget it. The only remotely great players saddled with any of these initials had them in their FIRST names—Xavier McDaniel and Zelmo Beatty.

You’re not much better-off with F, K, N, or U. Only one player with each of those initials makes the “great” list—Walt Frazier, Bernard King, Steve Nash, Wes Unseld. As for L, there were Bob Lanier and Jerry Lucas, but we’re subtracting one for Bill Laimbeer, bringing the L total down to one, also. We could give them Maurice Lucas, who was marginally great, out of sympathy.

The letters I and O haven’t been very auspicious. There are Allen Iverson and Dan Issel—Issel not making the NBA’s All-Time 50 Greatest list is a grave injustice—for the I’s, and for the O’s, Hakeem and Shaq.

Not much better are E or T. We count Julius Erving, Patrick Ewing and Alex English for the E’s, and David Thompson, Isiah Thomas and Nate Thurmond for the T’s.

A and S are only a bit better: Paul Arizin, Nate Archibald, Abdul-Jabbar and Ray Allen for the A team; and John Stockton, Bill Sharman, Dolph Schayes and Jerry Sloan for the S’s. But Allen and Sloan are just borderline.

C, D, P, and R claim five players each, by our reckoning: Cousy, Chamberlain, Cowens, Billy Cunningham and Tom Chambers for the C section (even though the last two are iffy, they make it for being two of the greatest white leapers ever); Duncan, Dantley, Debusschere, Drexler and Bobby Dandridge (a forgotten great) for the D’s; Pettit, Pippen, Payton, Parish and Geoff Petrie (one of the NBA’s all-time great athletes) for the P shooters; and Russell, Willis Reed, David Robinson, Guy Rodgers and the Big O for the R’s (which ought to get bonus points for having two of the all-time top five, some would argue).

G, H and J are distinguished enough. In the G’s: Gervin and Goodrich (both double-G’s), Artis Gilmore, Hal Greer, Richie Guerin and Kevin Garnett. H has Elvin Hayes (he could also be claimed by E, as that was his nickname—the Big E), Havlicek, Heinsohn, Connie Hawkins, Cliff Hagan and Spencer Haywood. J is the most distinguished of the group, with Jordan, Magic and Lebron, not to mention Sam Jones, Marques Johnson and Dennis Johnson. Johnson is the best name, for sure, to be born with in our system.

The B team takes a backseat to nobody: Bird, Barkley, Baylor, Barry, Bing, Bryant, Walt Bellamy. Five are on the All-Time 50 and Kobe is certain to be on the next edition, and perhaps at the top. W is the equal of B, in numbers and talent: West, Walton, Wilkens and Wilkins, Wade, Worthy and Westphal (four on the All-Time 50, with Dominique a mysterious omission, to many).

The all-time best letter? M. You’ve got Maravich, the Malones (Karl and Moses), McGrady, McHale, McAdoo, Calvin Murphy, Earl the Pearl, Reggie Miller, George McGinnis and Sidney Moncrief. That’s 11 great players, four more than the runners-up. We’re talking numbers here, not overall quality. That’s another discussion.

NBA not what it used to be?

2008-03-17T08:59:00.000-07:00

No, the NBA isn’t what it used to be—but who is? Professional basketball has changed, indeed, but whether for better or worse—well, that depends on one’s prejudices, of course, and also on one’s experience and perspective.

Those who decry, for example, the violence in the NBA as alarming and unprecedented should read Terry Pluto’s estimable “Tall Tales,” a chronicle of the early days of pro basketball. Pluto interviews players who recall that games would erupt in fights more often than not, slugfests that sometimes would spill into the stands, where drunken fans taunted the athletes who had to play a whole game of basketbrawl before they could start drinking.

Pluto also touches on the racism that was de rigueur in those days. Black players, no matter how gifted, were systematically blackballed for years, and finally admitted into the league only when a few owners grasped the economic imperatives of it.

Soon, unhappily, the sport got too black for America’s liking. For that reason among others, NBA games were seldom shown on television in the ‘sixties, and when the ABA came along and offered players another marketplace and bargaining power against tight-fisted owners, those that signed aboard toiled in even greater obscurity.

After the leagues merged, the NBA reached its low ebb in the 1970s. Even in 1980, when Magic Johnson beat Philadelphia with his sublime performance in the final game of the season, interest in the sport was so lukewarm that the game was shown on tape-delay late that night.

Magic and Larry Bird did spark a revival that swept the NBA into its Golden Age, which lingered through the Jordan years—but those three players were anomalies, maybe three in the top five of all time. What else did we have during that era? Dennis Rodman, the Bad Boys (with two of the most craven athletes ever, Bill Laimbeer and Isiah Thomas), Jordan going off to play baseball, Shaquille O’Neal showing his astounding lack of basketball skills as Hakeem Olajuwon tap-danced on his head in the NBA Finals.

Today’s NBA players are bigger, stronger and faster than ever, and none of them has green hair. They play above the rim, with breathtaking grace and speed, and every time down the court one of them—often Lebron James—is apt to do something you’ve never seen before. Ninety-nine percent of them would rather win a championship than be an All-Star. Yes, some of them are surly and selfish. But given the incredible scrutiny and ceaseless criticism they all undergo, not just from the media but from every casual and ill-informed observer with a beer or a blog and time on his hands, it’s a wonder that each and every one of them doesn’t snap and run amok in the stands.

We all remember a time when things were better—it was back when our parents were shaking their heads over how much worse things were than in their day.