Career Stats: 16.4 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 1.9 apg, 1.1 spg, 0.5 bpg, 48.4% FG, 70.6% FT
Accolades: 1983 Rookie of the Year, 2x All-Star (1985, 1989), All-NBA 2nd Team (1985), All-NBA 3rd Team (1989), All-Rookie 1st Team (1983)
The 1982 draft was a loaded class. Dominique Wilkins, James Worthy, Fat Lever, Clark Kellogg, Ricky Pierce and Sleepy Floyd are the highlight players, but the man who walked away with the Rookie of the Year crown was Terry Cummings. T.C. was a lithe combination of power and speed that initially toiled on the moribund San Diego Clippers.
Mercifully, he would be traded into the good graces of perennial powerhouse Milwaukee and when that situation began to go south, Cummings again would be bailed out with a trade to the San Antonio Spurs, sparking the greatest turnaround in NBA history until the 2008 Celtics.
Terry’s good fortune ran out soon after that as a devastating knee injury robbed him of his explosiveness. Nevertheless he soldiered on for another decade as a reserve forward. But when he was at his best, few in the NBA could match his presence, his grace, his strength.
Internment camp in southeastern California - spaz_writer999 (flickr)
When prodded about the possibility that some teams in the young N.B.A. did not want a Japanese-American player so soon after World War II, [Wataru Misaka] has maintained that his demotion had more to do with his modest size.
“I’d like to go back and ask them,” Misaka said the other night, permitting himself that bit of skepticism.
That was the New York Times’ George Vecsey interviewing pioneering player Wataru “Wat” Misaka earlier this week on the Jeremy Lin story sweeping the country.
Misaka was the first non-white or “colored” (I hate that term) person to play in what is now the NBA back in the 1947-48 season. He was from Utah and of Japanese descent. The United States had always been wary and even overtly hostile to Asian immigrants when they began to arrive in the mid-1800s, but the trials of World War II, and the prejudices it allowed to flow freely, were perhaps the darkest times for Japanese-Americans.
Most on the Pacific coast of the United States were rounded up and detained in internment camps following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Until the war ended in September 1945, this was where the majority of Japanese-Americans lived. Internment camps. No trial, no accusation, just assumption of guilt and complicity with a foreign country many of these people were descended from but had never visited.
(Italian- and German-Americans were also given this treatment but not on the same vast scale as Japanese-Americans).
Amidst this climate of fear and dazed craziness, Misaka’s family was fortunate to escape such harsh treatment. Since they were Japanese-American, they were considered perhaps sympathetic to Japan’s plan to dominate the Pacific, but since they lived in Utah, they were in no position to aid the enemy like they would have been had they lived in San Francisco, Los Angeles or Honolulu.
Wat was able to attend Weber State in Utah during the war. In fact, his connections at the university allowed a friend of his to be transfered from an internment camp in California to the Weber State campus. The university president, at Wat’s request, vouched that the young, interned man would be occupied and not get into mischief. A noble thing to undertake, but think about that for a moment.
A young Japanese man never convicted of or tried for anything achieves his freedom only by having a voucher from a white, university president. Sadly, this kind of paternalism was commonplace and highly perfected in the Southern United States where African-Americans could be arrested on charges of “vagrancy” for not being employed, a practice that dated back to the 1870s. The road to be climbed by minorities in the United States then was a steep one.
And that included basketball.
Wat transfered to the University of Utah becoming a basketball standout. After the war, Utah won the NIT tournament played in the bright lights of New York’s Madison Square Garden. Misaka rode the wave of the tournament victory to a contract to play for the New York Knickerbockers after his graduation. Misaka’s tenure lasted a full 3 games before being cut. In those days, a contract was not guaranteed, largely because the franchise, and even the league, was not guaranteed.
The Basketball Association of America (BAA), was a fledgling operation having only begun in 1946-47. It was largely the brainchild of NHL hockey owners looking to fill the seats in their arenas during off-days (hence the BAA’s initial members being in New York, Boston, Toronto, and other northeastern locales). Hockey had a largely white male, blue-collar clientèle and these owners kept that sensibility with their new basketball league, despite the vastly different demographics of basketball.
If Wat’s appearance with the Knicks was shocking, his quick exit wasn’t. At that time and continuing even into the late 1970s, an ethnic minority player of equal caliber (or even slightly superior caliber) would not be kept at the expense of a white player so that fans could “identify” with the team. Examining the team stats, Misaka’s play wasn’t that much worse (or better) than your average backup guard in 1947.
To that point, Leo Gottlieb was given 27 games that year to shoot a terrible (even for then) 20% from the field before being jettisoned. Stan Stutz played the entire season with a 21.8% shooting line. Misaka in very limited action shot 23%. But again, being average wasn’t going to cut it for minority players at that time and Misaka departed New York for his home in Utah to work as an engineer after those precious few 3 games.
As the BAA scraped by in the Northeast, it began to poach the more established National Basketball League (NBL), which was based in the Midwest, for teams and players, eventually forcing a merger in 1949 and thus the NBA was born.
While Japanese-Americans were being detained in California, a few ball clubs in the NBL began employing black players in 1942, five years before Jackie Robinson’s entrance to MLB and nearly a decade before Earl Lloyd debuted as the first black player in the BAA/NBA. The delay was no accident and sprung from the same forces that quickly spun Misaka out the league.
The BAA (and now NBA) owners were deathly afraid of using too many black players, figuring it would alienate fans and lead to the financial ruin of the league. So, by increments, black players joined, usually as bench players, and guarded another black player when they entered the game. Finally, Maurice Stokes busted down the doors in 1956 winning Rookie of the Year.
Then came Bill Russell the following season. Then Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson and so on. Still, in the early 1960s, there was the assumption among black players that teams had an unspoken quota that only 3 or 4 players per team could be black. When Al Attles, black, was drafted by the Philadelphia Warriors, Woody Saulsdberry, also black and the 1958 Rookie of the Year, was shipped out almost immediately. The quota was apparently all too real.
Nevertheless, the dye had been cast with Stokes and Russell and we now have an NBA that is overwhelmingly black, and increasingly diverse with ever more foreign players. The silly prejudices of the past have died down, but like hope, it springs eternal.
Jeremy Lin’s ascendancy has brought a fresh new batch of insensitive and careless, if not blatantly racist, comments and actions.
For sure, Asian-Americans are rooting for Lin much like African-Americans rooted for Maurice Stokes back in the 1950s. The cheers aren’t so much for that particular person as it is for what that person’s achievements will mean. Stokes winning the 1956 Rookie of the Year meant black players as a whole were more likely to be judged on their individual merits. Lin’s current play means that future Asian players won’t be readily dismissed or given a half-hearted, cursory look.
Liberation from narrow-minded ideas over what can be successful had begun as coaches and teams went out in search of the next Maurice Stokes. Now they’ll go out in search of the next Jeremy Lin.
But there was no “next Maurice Stokes.” There was a Bill Russell, an Elgin Baylor, and even lesser players like Al Attles ready to contribute at a high level.
And there will be no “next Jeremy Lin.” But his success will help ensure that some Asian-American player in the future won’t be dismissed as Wataru Misaka was in the past.
From Rucker Park to Venice Beach to the driveways in countless homes in Indiana and everywhere in between, every person that has picked up a basketball in their life has dreamed of making it to the National Basketball Association. As the greatest basketball league in the world, it is the pinnacle of achievement in the sport. Day by day, year by year, the pool of potential NBA stars is narrowed down. Cuts are made from grade school travel teams through high school varsity, and only the most talented go on to play in college. After one to four years of hard work, the elite of the elite in college declare for the draft. And out of all of these gifted athletes, only one of them is given the honor of being the number one overall pick in the NBA Draft.
Going back to Clifton McNeely of the Pittsburgh Ironmen in 1947, there are 65 players that can make the claim that they were the number one pick in an NBA Draft. This means 65 consecutive years of fans getting their hopes up that this was going to be the turning point of their favorite team. Finally, after what was most likely a miserable prior year, their team would draft the cornerstone of the future. Of course, they tell themselves, success won’t happen instantly. You have to endure another long year of missing the playoffs, pair another lottery pick with the new star the following year, count on the front office to make the necessary free agent acquisitions and trades along the way, wait for title window to close on the currently great teams in league, and then leap into contention.
It’s all so easy.
It’s all so wrong.
Consider this. Since 1990, there have been exactly two players that were drafted #1 overall and won an NBA championship: Shaquille O’Neal (drafted in 1992, titles in 2000, ’01, ’02, and ’06) and Tim Duncan (drafted in 1997, titles in 1999, ’03, ’05, and ‘07). Considering that Shaq won titles with the Lakers and Heat, not the Magic who drafted him, this makes Tim Duncan the only #1 pick since 1990 to win a title with the team that drafted him.
Think it’s limited to just the NBA? Think again. The list of NFL #1 overall picks since 1990 to win a Super Bowl is as follows: Russell Maryland, Drew Bledsoe, Keyshawn Johnson, Orlando Pace, Peyton Manning, David Carr, and Eli Manning. Of that list, Bledsoe and Carr were on the bench in their Super Bowls, and Johnson won his ring with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, not the Jets who drafted him. This makes Maryland, Pace, and the Manning brothers the only #1 picks since 1990 to win titles with the teams that drafted them. And if you want to nitpick, Eli was technically drafted by the San Diego Chargers and immediately traded to the Giants so you could argue for only three players that fit in the previous sentence.
So what gives?
Looking at the past decade of picks (for simplicity, we’ll go back to 2000), the picks can be broken down into four categories: Busts, Solid Contributors, Their Time is Coming, and Jury is Out.
Busts: Kwame Brown, Greg Oden
Aside from the mere fact that in four seasons as a NBA player, Oden has played 82 games, seeing him on this list makes me so depressed for so many reasons. As an Ohio State Buckeyes fan, I wanted to see him succeed so much. Someone made a great point on Twitter the other day by pointing out the best Buckeye to be drafted in the past decade is Mike Conley. I like Mike Conley, but yikes. Secondly is the fact that a multitude of experts are on record as saying Kevin Durant was the better pick, Oden was going to be a bust, his knees couldn’t support his massive frame…and they were right. Third is that Bowie over Jordan and Oden over Durant are two of the most colossal drafting errors that we have seen in our lifetimes, and somehow Portland’s front office was behind both of them. For a dedicated, loyal fan base like the Trailblazers have, that’s just brutal. Lastly, this picture, presented without comment:
Solid Contributors: Kenyon Martin, Yao Ming, Andrew Bogut, Andrea Bargnani
I’m sure some people would like to put Kenyon Martin in the “Bust” category, but let’s consider one thing. The 2000 NBA Draft was horrible. Like, “Get out the Men In Black neuralyzer and flash it in every NBA fans’ eyes so we can forget this existed” horrible. Of the 60 guys picked in that draft, credit the Nets to pick one of the three (Jamaal Magloire and Michael Redd being the others) to make an All-Star team. No one made multiple All-Star Games. Only Redd made an All-NBA Team (third team in 2004). Let’s just move on.
Yao Ming is an interesting case. When he was healthy, he was clearly one of the best centers in the league. His per 36 numbers of 21.0 points, 10.2 rebounds, and 2.1 blocks per game are beyond impressive. The downside of course is that in his four injury plagued years, he played 165 games and missed 163. It’s hard to put him anywhere else other than the “Solid Contributor” category especially considering he only made it out of the first round of the playoffs once in his career.
Their Time is Coming: LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Derrick Rose, Blake Griffin
I firmly believe every player in this list will win a championship one day, but only Rose will do so with the team that drafted him. LeBron and Dwight are both classic cases of the front offices of their respective teams not doing enough to surround them with enough talent to keep them in town. Sorry, but Larry Hughes/Mo Williams/Antawn Jamison and Rashard Lewis/Jameer Nelson/Vince Carter are not exactly Robin to these guys’ Batman. Catwoman maybe, but not Robin. Once LeBron added two All-Stars in Wade and Bosh as teammates, he was able to win a couple of Finals games, and will get the chance to win more this year.
Dwight will be able to do the same once he lands in Los Ange…errr…wherever he ends up. Looking back at the great centers of all time (Shaq, Hakeem, Robinson, Ewing, Kareem, Russell, Wilt, and Mikan), only Patrick Ewing failed to win a ring. Dwight’s time is coming, the only mystery is where it will be. Hopefully, once he gets settled in a place, he will be able to make more than half of his free throws and stop making comments about wanting to be the closer. It would be a shame to see one of the great representatives of the league end his career without a title. Unfortunately for Orlando, he won’t be doing it in Florida.
Jury is Out: John Wall, Kyrie Irving
Wall and Irving are two talented point guards who we don’t have a read on yet as far as what moves will be made to put the necessary pieces around them to win. A year after the Washington Wizards drafted Wall, they are an utter mess of a franchise. The best part of watching Wizards games aside from Wall’s insane athleticism is hoping to catch a glimpse of Jan Vesely’s girlfriend, Andray Blatche doing something ridiculous, and I don’t have a third thing to put here.
Given the fact that Dan Gilbert loves to win/spend money/write crazy notes, Irving has a much better chance of the necessary pieces being put around him in the years to come. Anderson Varejao’s wrist injury in the past week ends any thoughts the Cavs had of challenging for the 8 seed this year which should position them to land a competent shooting guard (yes, competent is a massive upgrade to the current roster) or young center to the roster. Having already accelerated the rebuilding process with two top four picks last year and with cap space available to spend over the next few years, the front office will stop at nothing to instill a winning culture in Cleveland centered around Irving. Whether they are able to do so remains to be seen; it didn’t work out so well for the last number one pick they drafted.
So what does this all mean? If you’re a fan of a team like the Bobcats, Hornets, Wizards, or other team in contention to land the number one pick in the lottery, temper your expectations. They say that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but guess what: neither are NBA teams. A championship team takes skill, luck, and wise maneuvering from multiple people throughout the organization. If your team is lucky enough to do everything possible to build a championship winning club, more power to you. If they’re not, however, you could be looking at a total bust or, arguably worse, a player who takes his talents elsewhere to win a title. My best advice? Expect nothing, and be happy with any success that comes your team’s way. Otherwise, you will fall victim, as many have before you, to the Myth of the Number One Pick.
In the spirit of HP’s own NBA historian, Curtis Harris, today we have a very special guest who takes a look back at an historic time in the NBA: One of the most dynamic offensive battles to have ever taken place in the game of basketball.
Steve Smith is an award-winning Australian basketball writer who recently shared an inside look at this most prolific of battles with me, and asked me to share it with you. What follows is an exclusive inside peek into this, one of the greatest games ever played. We’d like to thank Smitty for taking the time to dig up this bit of previously unpublished history of the game for Hardwood Paroxym, and we encourage you to follow him on Twitter at @smittys07 for more scintillating nuggets and great conversation about the beloved game.
Let ‘Em Loose: The 1990-91 Denver Nuggets
by Steve Smith
Conceding an average of 130.8 points per game, the 1990-91 Denver Nuggets have, over time, been dismissed as a statistical anomaly wrought by an eccentric coach intent on bringing a college fast-break system to the pros. Think you’ve got a good grip on run-and-gun basketball? Think again.
On Saturday, November 10, 1990, the Denver Nuggets made their way to the team’s morning shootaround at Phoenix’s Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Players shuffled on to the floor in dribs and drabs, still weary from the previous night’s 135-129 defeat to Seattle.
Their NBA campaign was just a week old and they were already the talk of the league, for all the wrong reasons.
Having conceded an average of 148 points in their first five games – including 162 to the Run TMC-powered Golden State Warriors in the season opener – NBA analysts from Orlando to Oakland and everywhere in between were wondering just what the hell new coach Paul Westhead was doing.
In his own mind, Westhead was certain he knew what he was doing, saying before the season started, “We’re gonna run, we’re gonna keep on running, if the pace ever slows down, we’ll speed it up and we’re gonna run and run and run some more! … There will be 200-point games. I feel very confident that we will be on the upside of that score but 200 points is gonna happen.”
With a furrowed brow, the 51-year-old coach watched rookie Chris Jackson prepare for his first NBA game, his mind racing as fast as his hyper-kinetic offense …
What followed that evening was an offensive gala for the ages, as the Suns and the Nuggets broke all the borders of the boxscore.
Unfortunately for Denver, Phoenix was a team perfectly built to exploit the idiosyncratic nature of Westhead’s warp-speed tactics, and racked up 50 points in the first 12 minutes.
And they were just getting started.
By half-time, even Phoenix fans were wondering what in the world had just happened as the Suns poured in another 57 points in the second period to take a remarkable 107-67 lead at the main intermission. That’s 107 points. By one team. At half-time.
More than twenty years later, Paul Westhead sits in his office at the University of Oregon – where he is entrenched as the women’s basketball head coach – and, looking back at that game, recalls not being overly concerned at having conceded a century-plus in just 24 minutes of defense-deficient ball.
“I remember one of my assistants, Jim Boyle, said to me, ‘We have a problem here. They’re gonna score 200 points!’ Westhead says. “And I said, ‘Well, I always wanted to be in a 200-point game, just not on the losing end!’
“So I said, ‘Don’t worry about it, don’t worry about it, they can’t keep the pace, that’s not the worry’, I knew they couldn’t keep that up.”
And while the white-hot Suns cooled off a little after the break (see, Westhead knew what he was talking about), Denver were left to lick their wounds yet again when the final horn sounded.
At first glance the 30-point margin looks like an ordinary November blowout, except the score was an unfathomable 173-143.
Two decades after the fact, the boxscore still reads like something out of fantasy hoops heaven. Rookie Cedric Ceballos tallied 32 points and backcourt duo Kevin Johnson (23 points, 17 assists) and Dan Majerle (21 points, 13 assists) feasted on the non-existent Denver defense.
For the Nuggets, high-flying forward Orlando Woolridge led all scorers with 40 points, while debutant Jackson had 26 points and six assists but gave up seven turnovers in a first game that probably still has him shaking his head at the sheer absurdity of it all. To this day, the 173 points scored by the Suns is the equal highest in NBA history for non-overtime games; the 107-point outburst stands alone as the greatest scoring splurge for the opening half of any NBA game.
But for Westhead, the game remains the prime example of why he always felt – and still feels – that 200 points is not only possible but probable.
“I only say that because we created that run,” Westhead says. “We could sustain it but we weren’t good enough to score well enough and defend well enough but that’s an example where it’s possible. You’ve got a game where it’s 173, well, had we’d been better we’d have been above 173, into the 180s, the 190s or perhaps even 200. So I wouldn’t say it’s as difficult as the four-minute mile that no-one ever thought we could do, it’s like that though, people say, ‘nah that’s crazy, that’s impossible’, but sure you could!”
“Let em loose” was the Nuggets’ pre-season slogan and could not have been more prescient.
Unfortunately, the slogan applied more to the opposition than it did for Denver, as the Nuggets proved in the space of eight days the absolute audacity of their shoot-first-and-ask-questions-much-much-later style.
In the NBA record books, the top-three games for “Most points, both teams, first half” read as follows:174 — Phoenix (107) vs. Denver (67), Nov. 10, 1990; 173 — Denver (90) at San Antonio (83), Nov. 7, 1990; 170 — Golden State (87) at Denver (83), Nov. 2, 1990. Eight days, three records. It’s a record for offensive blitzkriegs and defensive futility all rolled into one crazily endearing up-tempo package.
Giving up 130.8 points per in the pros beggars belief but as Westhead noted at the time, “We want to create a pace in the game that will break anybody – except us.”And remarkably, for Westhead anyway, the squad actually performed better than he expected, despite winning just 20 games all season and never once keeping an opposing team to under 100 points.
“Well, we had an interesting team,” Westhead recalls. “The Nuggets, prior to my arrival, were a good established team but their players got old, they were retired or were traded off so the team we had when I arrived was a couple of young players and some veteran free agents so it was kind of a put-together team.”
Having previously coached the Lakers to a title in 1979-80 before moving on to the pre-Jordan Bulls, Westhead arrived in the Mile High city in 1990 after successfully implementing his turbo-driven offense at Loyola Marymount.
“When I arrived I kind of changed the approach,” Westhead says. “We tried to play breakneck fast-break basketball, you know, try to shoot the ball every four or five seconds, as quickly as we could get down the court. The players did a better than average job in doing that, it’s not an easy thing to do but they picked up the speed game and responded pretty well.”
Westhead swears to this day that the system works – with the right personnel and the right environment.
He knows within himself his plan was sound: get his players ultra-fit in training camp and then leave opponents in their dust in the thin air of the McNichols Sports Arena with a tempo that was supposed to make Showtime look like Slowtime.
In hindsight though, should the fact that some of the key rotation players on his roster included Joe Wolf, Blair Rasmussen and Todd Lichti have sounded a warning bell? Or that his best scoring options were Woolridge (who had a well-earned reputation for a Tarzan-like physique and a Jane-like ability to avoid contact), pint-sized point guard Michael Adams (who had injury problems throughout the season), an out-of-shape Jackson in his rookie season and a 36-year-old Walter Davis, who could be generously described as only just past his prime?
Not according to Westhead.
“I wouldn’t say it didn’t work,” Westhead counters. “I would say if you looked at wins and losses then you’ll say it didn’t work because you didn’t win enough games. My easy answer to that is to say we just didn’t have a top-level player or two to win the game in the last two or three minutes when you needed to close out games. It’s a little bit of both but nonetheless, the players did a good job in running the ball and causing problems with opponents who weren’t accustomed to playing at that fast pace.”
In fact, Westhead maintains his system rejuvenated the careers of veterans like Woolridge and Davis.
“Orlando Woolridge, was an example of a player who was a free agent, he’d left the Lakers because he was too old, he was 33-34 years old and he came to us,” Westhead says. “Because he ran our system, half-way through the year he was leading the NBA in scoring, he was averaging 32 points a game. He then got injured, he had an eye injury and had to sit out a couple of weeks, when he came back he had to wear a mask and his scoring went down. But he was like the perfect example of a player rejuvenated with a speed game that allowed him to score at will.
“If Orlando (Woolridge) had played in a slow game, at his age, he would’ve struggled to get 10-15 points in a game and now here he is getting 30 points a game, easy. So for a player like that, it was the perfect thing for him.”
As for Davis, Westhead smiles at the thought of putting new life into the old Greyhound.
“I have a fond memory,” Westhead remembers, “of Walter Davis coming to me – his knees were gone – and saying to me he could only play a certain amount of minutes, he could barely practice, in fact one time he came to me and said ‘Do you want me to practice or play games?’ So I said, ‘OK, let’s just play games.’ So he was in one game and he had made six or seven shots in a row and he put his fist up.
“Now, in his world, when you put your fist up – the Dean Smith/North Carolina world – meant he wanted to come out of the game. And I yelled out to him, ‘I’m not Dean Smith, and you’re not coming out until you miss!’ So I think he made about three or four more shots and then he missed and then I took him out. He came out with this big smile on his face but he was exhausted.”
And interestingly, Westhead theorises that any chance of extended success was only stymied by injuries to Adams, his floor general, who was the ignition sequence to his offense.
“Michael Adams was the key player for us,” Westhead says. “When he was fit and played well, he was a great fast-break point guard. But when he had to sit out – he had hamstring problems – our effectiveness went down, oh, maybe 50 per cent, because the point guard is the key to that system.”
But would his system work in today’s NBA, where even the quote-unquote 07 Seconds Or Less Suns could never quite get over the play-off hump?
“I have a couple of reflections,” the ever-Shakespearean Westhead muses. “Yes, it could work with the right group. That pace can be very effective because teams aren’t accustomed to it, teams don’t like to defend against that. The hitch always is, ‘will players agree to do it for the long haul?’ It’s an 82-game season plus playoffs and exhibition games, so a normal NBA team may play 100 games in one year.
“I’m convinced that if they would buy into the speed game, they would be – if they had enough quality – they would be very successful. Will they do it? There’s the rub. And if they back off on it, then it immediately turns south on you and it turns against you.”
And turn against him it did.
Even with the drafting of Dikembe Mutombo and a belated effort at a more conventional offensive system, Westhead was fired at the conclusion of the following season with a two-year record of 44-120.
Following his departure from Denver, Westhead went back to the college ranks at George Mason, rather less successfully than with Loyola, as it turned out. He became something of a coaching nomad after being replaced at Mason in 1997, taking the reins of the LA Stars in the ABA and then heading to Japan’s Pro League.
Westhead made a return to the NBA coaching ranks with Orlando (under Johnny Davis) in 2003 before the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury handed him the top job in 05.With the Mercury’s title run in 2007, Westhead became the first man to coach both a NBA and WNBA team to a championship.Nowadays, the 72-year-old Westhead is still pushing his teams to run – getting his Oregon girls to score 100 points rather than the magical 200-mark is the aim – but the memory of a bold (critics might be less generous) experiment in the Mile High City remains etched in his memory.
“Denver doesn’t seem that long ago,” Westhead laughs. “I don’t know if it’s because you play a fast game everything goes fast, the years go fast. I can clearly picture our attempt to get out and run and some of the fast games we played. And some of the teams we played, see, teams just don’t like to play against you, they ultimately may beat you if they’re better than you but it’s not an easy win for them.”
Even today, deep down, Westhead knows there’s no middle ground with what he runs, that his hyped-up offence will only work if everyone is on board and the talent level matches the intensity.
“There is some truth that it can be doomed to fail,” Westhead admits, somewhat echoing ESPN’s Guru of Go documentary about his coaching career. “This style of play, you either get it or you don’t. You either do it or you don’t, there’s no in-between. So, if you’re gonna try this as a coach and as a team, when it works, you win, you win championships.
“But when it doesn’t work, you’re doomed, there’s no in-between.”
Career Stats: 21.2 ppg, 10.4 rpg, 4.3 apg, 1.8 spg, 0.5 bpg, 45.2% FG, 73.0% FT
Accolades: ABA MVP (1973), 4x NBA All-Star (1969-’72), ABA All-Star (1973), 3x All-NBA 1st Team (1969-’71), All-NBA 2nd Team (1972), All-ABA 1st Team (1973), NBA All-Rookie 1st Team (1966), NBA Champion (1967 Philadelphia 76ers)
There are three distinct Billy Cunninghams. For the first three years of his career, he was the 6th Man for the 76ers entering games and delivering a hot dose of instant offense. For the next several years after that, he was perhaps the best forward in all of basketball. His game flourished beyond scoring and encompassed tremendous rebounding and deft passing. However, the last three years of his career were filled with frustrating injuries that eroded a unique and sparkling talent.
Before his hotshot pro career, Cunningham grew up in New York City and then headed down south to attend the University of North Carolina. In his 4 years at Chapel Hill, Cunningham averaged 24 points and 15 rebounds. At the conclusion of his senior year, 1965, he was named ACC Player of the Year. With such play, it’s unsurprising the Philadelphia 76ers made him the 5th overall pick in the 1965 Draft and back north Billy headed and was immediately injected into one of the great rivalries in the NBA.
Stokes tallied 32 points and nabbed 20 rebounds in Rochester’s 100-98 loss to New York Saturday. On Sunday, he dropped to 17 points but again collared 20 rebounds as the Royals handed the champion Syracuse Nationals a 83-80 defeat.
Career Stats: 16.4 ppg, 17.3 rpg, 5.3 apg, 35.1% FG, 69.8% FT
Accolades: 3x All-Star (1956-’58), 3x All-NBA 2nd Team (1956-’58), 1956 Rookie of the Year
Maurice Stokes was not the 1st black player in the NBA. That honor belongs to Earl Lloyd in 1950 (and Wat Misaka was the 1st non-white person in the league in 1947). Nor was Stokes the first selected at a lofty draft position. Ray Felix was taken #1 overall in 1953. Nor was he the first all-star. That would be Don Barksdale in the 1952-53 season.
Maurice Stokes was simply the 1st black superstar in the NBA. Not just a really good or all-star caliber player, but one who truly shifted the fortunes of a franchise by himself and could alter the way the game as a whole was played. He wasn’t merely a player who did an established role particularly well, he expanded, fused and created new roles for his position (power forward) in ways that still have been mastered by only a few players.
Whom does KJ remind you of? He can penetrate like Magic. He’s as quick with the ball as Stockton. He’s as good with his left hand from close-in as Larry Bird. His attitude is part Mailman Malone, part pit bull. He has dunked over a pair of All-Star centers—7’4″ Mark Eaton of Utah and 7-foot Kevin Duckworth of the Portland Trail Blazers…Beyond that, says teammate Tom Chambers, KJ “has the quickest first step I’ve ever seen.”
Career Stats: 17.9 ppg, 9.1 apg, 3.3 rpg, 1.5 spg, 49.3% FG, 84.1% FT
Accolades: 3x All-Star (1990-’91, ’94), 4x All-NBA 2nd Team (1989-’91, ’94), All-NBA 3rd Team (1992), 1989 Most Improved Player
Over the past decade it’s become fairly commonplace to see a diminutive point guard rise up amongst the lowpost trees to deliver a slam. Derrick Rose, Steve Francis and Russell Westbrook are some prime examples, but they’re exploits don’t hold the revelatory power that Kevin Johnson’s assaults had in the late 1980s.
Short players had certainly been dunking for a while. Buffalo Brave Randy Smith in the 70s and Johnson’s contemporary Spud Webb come to mind, but Johnson’s frequency of slams was at a then-unparalleled level. But don’t let the dunks fool you. KJ was a superb point guard. He could dish the ball with expertise and run an offense like a floor general should.
Prior to Steve Nash’s run in the desert, Kevin Johnson held the mantle as most recognized and lovable Suns player. Rightfully earned too, considering he played 11 seasons and almost 700 games with the club. However, Kevin Johnson’s NBA sojourn began as a Cleveland Cavalier.
I am of the firm belief that you cannot possibly put a number on how much social media has enhanced the sports viewing experience. The real tipping point came sometime between 2007 and 2008 when Twitter went from being a novelty website that was a nice complement to Facebook to seriously challenging and possibly, depending on who you talk to, passing Mark Zuckerberg’s creation in terms of popularity. Per The Telegraph, It was in this timeframe that Twitter went from 5,000 tweets being sent per day in 2007 to 300,000 per day in 2008 to 50 million per day in 2010. Twitter has become the source to go to for breaking news in the world. Yes, there is misinformation out there as there is with all news sources; if you kept track of Joe Paterno’s health over the weekend, this is still fresh in your mind . Ultimately though, no other site or service offers the kind of instant emotional reactions that you see during a big moment or game like Twitter. I thought it would be fun to go back and review some of the more memorable moments in NBA history and talk about how they would have been remembered had Twitter been popular then.
Jordan’s Flu Game
The Moment: Michael Jordan shakes off the flu to have one of his most epic games of his life. With 15 points in the fourth quarter including the game winning 3 pointer coming with 25 seconds remaining in the game, Jordan leads the Bulls to an 88-85 victory allowing Chicago to take a 3-2 lead in the Finals.
If Twitter Existed: I’m not sure exactly when the torch was passed to Michael Jordan and he went from collectively being known as a great player to being known as the greatest of all time, but Twitter following this game certainly would have accelerated this process. Jazz fans tweet about their #GoldenOpportunity going by the wayside; after all, the greatest player ever was operating at 50%! Bulls fans are quick to deem Willis Reed as #Overrated. Darren Rovell immediately begins assessing the market value of a Jordan endorsed brand of flu shots next year.
Reggie Miller’s 8 Points in 9 Seconds
The Moment: Down 105-99 with 18.7 seconds left, Reggie Miller hits a 3, steals the inbound pass, and drills another 3 to tie the game at 105. Following two missed free throws by the Knicks’ John Starks and a missed shot by Patrick Ewing, Miller is fouled and makes both free throws to put the Pacers ahead 107-105. The Knicks never got another shot off in the game.
If Twitter Existed: One of those moments that tweets go from “Reggie cuts it to 3 but it could be too little, too late” to “OH MY GOD HE STOLE THE INBOUND” to “R3GGI3 MILL3R!!!!!!” to “#EpicChoke by the New York Bricks” in the span of a few minutes. Pacer fans become convinced that this is the year that Indiana brings home their first NBA title. Spike Lee refuses to tweet for 20 days.
LeBron’s 48 Special
The Moment: LeBron James goes supernova and scores 48 points against the Pistons in a double overtime, Game 5 Eastern Conference Finals victory. LeBron scores the last 25 points of the game for the Cavaliers and 29 of their last 30 points overall. Bill Simmons goes on to dub it LeBron’s 48 Special.
Quick diversion here…I remember just about everything about this game, but most vividly, I remember sitting around with a bunch of fraternity brothers and other friends watching it. Being from Cleveland and going to college in Indiana, my fellow Hoosier natives would cheer against Cleveland teams just to irritate me. From about halfway through the fourth quarter to the end of the double overtime though, every person in the room with me went from saying “Go Pistons!” to “I cannot believe what I am seeing right now.” Absolutely one of my favorite moments in college.
If Twitter existed: Marv Albert calling it “one of the greatest performances in NBA history” immediately results in #MarvAlbert becoming a trending topic worldwide and people instantly declaring it the single greatest performance in all of sports history. Pistons fans are in awe and tweet things like “…” and “I have no words for what I just saw.” No Cavs fan can resist tweeting “I am a witness!”
Len Bias’s Death
The Moment: Drafted on June 17, 1986, by the defending champion Boston Celtics, Bias died of a cocaine overdose just two days after the draft. Though they would go on to make the Finals anyway the following year, Bias’s death prevented the Celtics from ushering in a new era of Celtics basketball, and it would be 21 years before the most storied franchise in the league collected another title.
If Twitter Existed: Shock. Outrage. Anger. Sadness. Without a doubt, this is the most emotional of the scenarios on this list. Of course, the cycle of how the news is relayed to the public most likely looks something like this: the initial news breaks that Bias was found not breathing, speculation begins as to what killed him, some guy that you’ve never heard of before reports Bias has died, legitimate news sources will deny this report citing sources close to the hospital, a respected reporter at CBS, Yahoo!, AP, or ESPN finally confirms his passing after it actually happens. Tweets are split 80/10/10 among those wishing him condolences/those blaming the prevalence of drugs in the 80s/those reacting to how it impacts Boston’s title chances next season.
Malice in the Palace
The Moment: With 46 seconds to go in a Pacers-Pistons game in November 2004, Ron Artest fouls Ben Wallace hard. Wallace goes after Artest by shoving him, and both benches subsequently clear. After it seems that cooler heads have prevailed, a fan launches a cup at Artest which causes Artest to go into the stands and fight some fans. Chaos ensues. When the dust settles, it results in 146 games worth of suspensions, $11 million in fines, and may have cost the Pacers a chance at the 2004-05 title.
If Twitter Existed: Pacer fans over the course of the night slowly come to the realization that there is no way that Artest will be seen again this season. They begin furiously tweeting @NBA insisting that Ben Wallace was the one who started the entire mess, and the Pistons fans were the ones who caused it to spill into the stands. Detroit’s reputation for being a dangerous area is reinforced as the brawl becomes thenumber one trending topic in the nation. Ron Artest sends out 45 tweets in a row afterwards which are completely incomprehensible, yet shatter the record for most exclamation marks used in one Twitter session.
Jordan’s Last Shot
The Moment: Down three with under a minute to go, Jordan scores a bucket, steals the ball from Karl Malone on the defensive end, and hits a 20 foot jumper with 5.2 seconds left to seal the Bulls sixth title and win the game 87-86. Jordan would retire on top of the world, his lasting image being him posing at the top of the key with perfect follow through form. Note: I refuse to acknowledge that the “Jordan on the Wizards Era” actually happened.
If Twitter Existed: Jazz fans immediately call for all three referees’ heads for failing to call an offensive foul on Jordan after discarding Bryon Russell just prior to the shot. #ConspiracyTheory, #NBAIsRigged, and #FireStern all become trending topics in Salt Lake. Bulls fans fire back saying MJ broke Russell’s ankles. Chicago sportswriters immediately begin tweeting their favorite memories of Jordan as they reminisce about his incredible career. At least one sportswriter embellishes his story involving Jordan and a casino to the point that absolutely no one believes it actually happened. Everyone agrees that they will never, ever see another Jordan.
While we have no way of knowing what actually would have been tweeted before, during, and after these moments, we do know that there will be plenty of opportunities in the future to get reactions. What will you say?
Lever’s low profile has been largely of his own doing. On the court his moves are efficient and, thanks to his stamina, relentless rather than spectacular. And he shows all the apparent passion of a CPA at a Chapter 11 hearing. “Some guys show their feelings, some guys don’t,” he says. “I may not, but they’re jumping around inside.”
Lafayette “Fat” Lever was indeed “relentless rather than spectacular.” But in a peculiar twist, that relentlessness became spectacular. Think of him as the stream of water that unerringly flows forth through the years, centuries and millennia and eventually turns into the mighty Mississippi or carves out the Grand Canyon.
This 6’3″ point guard was like that mighty stream. He just wore on you in every stat, every facet and every way.
Accolades: 1979 Rookie of the Year, All-NBA 2nd Team (1979), All-Rookie 1st Team (1979)
Sports is filled with a bevvy of surprising twists and turns. Little known players plucked deep in the draft or who languish in minor and overseas leagues sometimes make it big like Nick Van Exel. Other times, players fulfill the hype surrounding their #1 pick status and routinely exhibit the stuff of legend like Magic Johnson.
Then there are the handful of cases… the handful of sobering, disquieting and painful cases… of players gifted beyond belief. Who possess talent able to change the course of games, if not the course of The Game, but who never get the chance to totally work their magic, to ply their skill to the utmost.
That’s the maddening case of point guard Phil Ford. Greatness, sheer basketball beauty, cut down as it was blossoming into something spectacular. Something positively wonderful.
