1. Some Random Musings: It’s been pretty clear that the Eastern Conference is weak and plenty has been written about this fact. Here are a couple more facts that you might not have noticed:
-There are only five teams in the east that have outscored their opponents for the season. The last time that happened was the Eastern Conference in 2003-04 (when the Pistons actually won it all).
-The worst scoring team in the NBA, so far, is the Hornets. They average 89.8 ppg, the only team below the 90 ppg mark. After last night’s win, the team is 207 since Chris Paul went down. They are the type of team that could actually use an inefficient, high volume chucker. The team is relying heavily on Jannero Pargo, who can’t shoot (.363 FG%).
-As bad as the Atlantic is, the Nets are still the “class” of the division. They have a point differential of -0.7 ppg and the Celts are second at -1.8 ppg. If Nets had a home record near what they’ve done during the Jason Kidd Era, they’d be way ahead. Here is the Nets season-by-season home records in that span
Year Home W-L
2005-06: 29-12
2004-05: 24-17
2003-04: 28-13
2002-03: 33-8
2001-02: 33-8
Over that same span, the team has never been above .500 on the road. This year the Nets are 11-10 at home and 4-9 on the road. I have to imagine the team can reestablish a semblance of it’s respectable home court edge. Incidentally, trading Vince Carter really makes no sense. VC may be a bit casual on the court but he’s still very good and you won’t get much but cap relief for him. With Jason Kidd and Richard Jefferson, sans Carter, they will contend for the division by accident, so, they can’t tank it for a good draft pick even if they wanted to. They may as well ride this out and hope they can get a cheap division title.
-The east has only one team with a winning record on the road, Detroit at 11-7. Detroit was the only good road team last year, though the Heat did squeak out a 21-20 record. The last time a conference had only one team with a winning road record was in 2002-03 when the middling Sixers (48-34) were 23-18 on the road. That Sixer team lost to the Pistons in the second round of the playoffs 4-2 and lost all three of its road games.
-The best teams by point differential by conference are the good old Spurs at +8.7 ppg and the Bulls at +4.3 ppg. The Spurs are like old reliable…they’ve led the NBA in this category in every year since 2003-04. The Bulls point differential, if it holds up, is the lowest differential to lead a conference since the 2001-02 Nets at +4.2 ppg.
2. AI and Melo: We’ve already examined how Iverson’s shots might be affected by playing in Denver. I’d thought it might be interesting to see how trades affected other high scorers in the past. Here’s a list of players who were scoring big and found themselves traded shortly thereafter. We’ll compare the year before with the year after, or in some cases the mid-season split:
Player
Year
Team
MPG
PPG
FGM/PG
FGA/PG
FG%
FTM/PG
FTA/PG
PER
A. Dantley
1986-87
Utah
36.1
29.8
10.8
19.1
0.563
8.3
10.5
24.6
A. Dantley
1987-88
Detroit
33.8
21.5
7.4
13.9
0.534
6.7
8.2
18.6
W. Chamberlain
1964-65
Golden St.
45.9
38.9
16.7
33.6
0.499
5.5
13.2
29.8
W. Chamberlain
1964-65
Philadelphia
44.5
30.1
12.2
23.1
0.528
5.7
10.9
27.3
T. McGrady
2003-04
Orlando
39.9
28.1
9.7
23.4
0.417
5.9
7.5
25.3
T. McGrady
2004-05
Houston
40.8
25.7
9.2
21.3
0.431
5.5
7.1
22.9
B. McAdoo
1976-77
Buffalo
38.4
23.7
9.1
20.1
0.455
5.5
7.9
19.9
B. McAdoo
1976-77
New York
39.1
26.7
10.7
20.1
0.534
5.2
6.9
22.6
O. Robertson
1969-70
Cincinnati
41.5
25.3
9.4
18.4
0.511
6.6
8.1
21.5
O. Robertson
1970-71
Milwaukee
39.4
19.4
7.3
14.7
0.496
4.8
5.6
19.6
W. Free
1979-80
San Diego
38.1
30.2
10.8
22.9
0.474
8.4
11.2
22.7
W. Free
1980-81
Golden St.
36.5
24.1
7.9
17.8
0.446
8.1
10.1
19.5
E. Hayes
1971-72
Houston
42.2
25.2
10.1
23.4
0.434
4.9
7.5
19.4
E. Hayes
1972-73
Baltimore
41.3
21.2
8.8
19.8
0.444
3.6
5.4
17.5
Most of the time, the big scorers were going to better teams and, predictably, stats dropped. McAdoo seemed to be a special case because he was going to a bad team and he was very unhappy in Buffalo at that point. Free also didn’t go to a much better team but he saw a drop as well. What have we learned? The price for going to contention is usually points. Indeed, even without Melo and playing for a high scoring team, AI’s numbers are down with Denver (from 31.2 ppg with Philly to 26.0 ppg with Denver) and (surprise!) his field goal percentage is up too (from .413% to .430%). With Anthony’s imminent return, we should see even more drop for Iverson.
Generally when we evaluate GMs, there is a concrete body of work to evaluate. In the case of Jeff Bower, there is really only the 2005-06 season to review. A review of Bower’s rise to GM, does reveal how one might rise up the ladder to an executive position on an NBA team. Bower started his career in the early 1980s as an assistant coach at Penn State (1983-1986) and then over as an assistant at Marist (1986-1995). The Hornets hired Bower as a scout in 1995, a position he held until they needed him to fill in as an assistant coach when Dave Cowens resigned in the middle of the 1998-99 season.
Bower spent the next few years bouncing back-and-froth between assistant coach and the front office as assistant GM. Long-time GM Bob Bass retired after the 2003-04 season and was replaced with Allen Bristow, who had coached the team for 1991-92 through 1995-96, before being fired. Bristow was later re-hired as an assistant GM and replaced Bass as GM. All this shuffling was emblematic of the Hornets’ ownership under George Shinn, who managed to piss off the Charlotte market that had embraced the team and also ran the team to New Orleans, which was a very specious market for pro hoops even before the terrible flooding of 2005.
In keeping with the theme of capriciousness, Bristow lasted through the 2004-05 season and then he resigned citing health issues and Bower stepped in. It was a nice way for Bower to get the top, though the Hornets might not be the ideal franchise to run considering that Bower took over a rebuilding team, an uncertain future because of the floods in New Orleans and, even before that, the teams not meeting its attendance quotas, and dealing with Shinn.
How’s he done so far? Well, it’s really too early to tell. Bower’s only draft was last summer, where he nabbed Hilton Armstrong and Cedric Simmons and he was also involved in the Hornets’ big ticket signing/trades for Peja Stojakovic and Tyson Chandler. With such a sparse resume, I thought it’d be more interesting to look at the most dominant figure in Hornets history, Shinn, who really has taken this franchise where it is today.
George Shinn, The Backstory
Shinn’s back history is pretty improbable. According to BusinessWeek, Shinn graduated last in his high school class of 293 students and worked transient jobs in a textile plant, a car wash, and as a custodian. Shinn later bought into several small business schools and consolidated them into a single name school Rutledge Educational System, Inc.. Shinn was said to have excelled in drumming up admissions and was paid in shares, which he eventually redeemed for somewhere between $30-$50 million back in 1987. Shinn also became a well-known local in Charlotte as a motivational speaker and man about town.
Shinn and Charlotte
Shinn used his newfound wealth to buy into the expansion Charlotte Hornets, who were formed in 1988. The Hornets were an instant hit in Charlotte, a market without another professional team and a market that was situated in the heart of college basketball fandom of Duke, UNC, and NC State (who were all ACC powerhouses), not to mention Wake Forest. The Hornets were a ridiculously hot tickets their first few years in Charlotte, from their debut in1988-89 through 1997-98, the team averaged over 23,000 fans per game, and never averaged fewer than 23,172 in a season.
After that, things got tough. Attendance plummeted:
Year
Total
Avg
1997-98
959,634
23,406
1998-99
480,807
19,232
1999-00
732,827
17,874
2000-01
615,424
15,010
2001-02
462,738
11,286
What happened? Shinn found numerous ways to piss off the good folks of Charlotte. For years, people were not enamored with the way Shinn ran the franchise. In the early 1990s, the Hornets scored in the draft, nabbing Larry Johnson first overall in 1991 and Alonzo Mourning second overall in 1992. They were a granite frontline that looked like it would carry the team through the decade. Shinn gave LJ a huge $84 million extension in 1993-94 only to find out shortly thereafter that Johnson had serious back problems. Johnson played through the pain but was never the Charles Barkley-type monster he had been his first two years in the NBA. When Mourning came due for an extension before the 1995-96 season, Shinn refused to ante up a similar deal. Mourning, as a dominant center, probably was worth paying for but Bob Bass followed instructions and dumped Zo for Matt Geiger and Glen Rice.
The trade worked out better than could’ve been expected and Rice blossomed into an All-Star and helped keep the team competitive, if not a potential championship contender. When Rice’s contract was expiring, Shinn followed the same pattern, and dealt him for Eddie Jones and Elden Campbell in the middle of the 1998-99 season. Once again, the move worked and the team stayed competitive. Similarly when Jones’ contract expired after the 1999-00 season, Bass dealt him for Jamal Mashburn and P.J. Brown, who played at least as well as Jones thereafter. Still, this constant flipping of players wasn’t endearing to fans and there was a sense that Shinn was cheap and wouldn’t pay his players or keep fan favorites. This perception was probably unfair, as nearly every post-LJ contract driven trade was a clear Hornet win, except the Zo trade.
Shinn & Charlotte, The Business Side
At the same time as he was doing all this trading, Shinn was demanding a new arena with more modern amenities. The new arena was supposed to cost about $250 million and Shinn was willing to kick in no more than $100 million, essentially demanding that the city fund well over 50% of the cost. This was also not a good time for Shinn to be asking for charity as Shinn became embroiled in accusations when an female employee accused him of sexual assault. No charges were filed but a civil suit ensued. Shinn won after trial but the win was not clean, as Shinn’s defense was that he, a noted family man, and the married plaintiff were engaged in consensual activity. The trial was a bit of a circus and the ancillary good will the case cost Shinn all of his goodwill in a conservative town like Charlotte. Shinn’s attorney scoffed at the civil suit characterizing the plaintiff’s case as follows: “They met, she gave him a blowjob, she left.” If an owner had problems getting public money under the best of circumstances, this was far from even such a case.
Shinn even had a chance to recapture the good will when Michael Jordan expressed an interest in buying into the team, an offer that Shinn rejected. This also peeved the locals. Despite public outcry, this was probably not an unreasoanblemove. Based upon Jordan’s later dealings with Milwaukee and Washington, it was evident that Jordan wasn’t willing to put much money into the team and thought that his presence was worth a good deal of equity. (One might argue, however, that MJ had a point because he might have fixed things with with specific regard to Shinn’s messy situation in Charlotte).
The public scorn seriously deteriorated the Hornets’ fan base by 2000-01. The team came within one game of the Eastern Conference Finals but had weak attendance. Publicly, Shinn was considered a cheapskate, a hypocrite, a jerk, and unreasonable. In a rather amazing collective decision, the population basically shunned the Hornets. Shinn, who was not happy to be denied the new arena, threatened to cut the first deal he saw to get out of town. At one time this threat might’ve carried some weight but times had changed. In 1988, the Hornets were the only game in town. Now Charlotte had an NFL and NHL team, neither of whom were run by people who pissed off the populace.
New Orleans
In 2002, Shinn moved the Hornets to New Orleans. New Orleans had failed as an NBA city once before, when the New Orleans Jazz left in the late 1970s. In “To the Brink”, Michael C. Lewis’ history of the Jazz, felt that the New Orleans Jazz failed more because of mismanagement and mediocrity. According to Rod Hundley, “[The Jazz] were managed terribly…We had nonbasketball people making basketball decisions.” Most famously, the team gave up the draft pick that turned out to be Magic Johnson for an older Gail Goodrich. Hundley contended that “[i]f we had Magic Johnson, we’d have never left New Orleans.”
Notwithstanding this anecdotal history, the feeling of many was that New Orleans was, at its heart, a small city with strong competition for the entertainment dollar (ever heard of Mardi Gras?) and the Saints were already the first sports team in town. The rumor has it that the NBA only permitted to the move unless Shinn guaranteed that the Hornets would meet certain attendance thresholds. The Hornets first three years in New Orleans were far from successful:
Year
Total
Avg
2002-03
641,683
15,651
2003-04
587,613
14,332
2004-05
583,070
14,221
By the beginning of the 2005-06 season, Shinn was in serious trouble. Attendance was falling, Bass had retired, and the team was coming off of a 18-64 season, it’s worse showing since the early 1990s and they had the worst attendance in the entire NBA. To make matters worse, the team was also being hit with several lawsuits for: (1) failing to pay overtime, (2) improperly intimidating employees, (3) cheating ticket brokers by recording luxury box sales as ticket sales. This last one was particularly interesting because as ESPN.com noted: “The scheme also could have boosted official attendance figures by reflecting sales for large numbers of inexpensive tickets when the money paid really only should have reflected the size of the group in the suite.” Truly mind-boggling when you consider how low the recorded ticket sales were anyway (state officials also believed that the 14,221 listed attendance average of 2004-05 did not reflect the actual turnstile attendance of about 9,000 fans per game).
The interesting issue was whether the NBA had any recourse against Shinn for greatly devaluing the franchise and potentially violating federal employment laws. Much of this, however, became less important to everyone when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans before the 2005-06 season. The Hornets were forced to scramble for a new home and they settled on Oklahoma City. Turns out that Shinn found a winning location despite himself. Put in pure attendance numbers, Oklahoma has been quite rewarding to Shinn, as he has had his best attendance since 1998-99:
Year
Total
Avg
2005-06
744,920
18,168
2006-07
318,035
17,668
Even if the novelty of pro hoops wears off on some level, the Hornets could do okay in Oklahoma City. According to BusinessWeekly:
“Even if attendance wanes [in Oklahoma], Shinn has a head start toward a winning financial season. In the deal that lured him, Oklahoma City offered an incentive-laden package, including a pledge to make up the difference if Hornets revenues from tickets, concessions, and sponsorships fall below $40 million this season. The money would come from city and state coffers as well as from a consortium of local business leaders. ‘We’re a free-enterprise business. I didn’t want to be in a position where I had to continue to borrow money to fund losses,’ says Shinn.”
This leads us to the question that is on everybody’s mind today, will the Hornets return to New Orleans? Last month, Shinn was quoted as saying: “[t]he people (in Oklahoma City) have been not just gracious, they’ve been wonderful. But it’s just a situation that got down to what is the right thing to do, and the right thing is to go back.” Maybe Shinn believes he is speaking the truth but just looking at the numbers, there is no way in hell that the Hornets end up in New Orleans long term. The team’s attendance numbers were putrid before the area was decimated by a Katrina and now half the population left New Orleans. At the same time, Oklahoma City is delivering attendance and profit guarantees. I’d ignore Shinn’s posturing and watch where the money is. Absent, some crazy subsidies, Shinn won’t and really can’t stay in New Orleans much longer.
Verdict
Ordinarily, we’d assess how a team’s GM had executed his decision making in terms of transactions. Here, all we have to assess is the owner. We did this once before, looking at Donald Sterling and the Clippers and concluded that Sterling, was running a pretty nice and profitable organization. In the case of Shinn, we can’t be quite as charitable. Shinn killed his golden goose in Charlotte without need by refusing to budge on the public financing issue and probably lost a lot of money as a result. To compound the problem he left town in a snit, taking the team to a terrible NBA market in New Orleans.
We’ve seen plenty of owners who were unreasonable, were cheap, or just plain putzes. But they all usually had some grand design of winning or being profitable, if not both. Shinn is one of the rare breed who was able to kill the product publicly and kill the bottom line. As an owner, Shinn is entitled to do what he wants but it’s tough to think of a worse owner in the NBA.
Medvedenko hasn’t really played since 2004-05 because of a herniated disk in his back. He wasn’t really the most athletic player before the back injury so I’m not sure what he has to offer. At best, he’s nice jump shooter (a talent he isn’t shy to exhibit). Of course, he’s an extreme non-entity defensively (40 blocks in 248 career games). Still, the Hawks could use a live body (assuming Medvedenko is healthy) up front after Zaza Pachulia because the reserves (Lorenzen Wright and Esteban Batsta) don’t have much.
Charlotte Bobcats
1/3 Acquire Jeff McInnis from New Jersey for Bernard Robinson
There was a degree of desperation to this for the Bobcats. They’ve had some nice wins but, in all, they are still clearly an expansion time. This shouldn’t be surprising but with Michael Jordan coming into the fold and the general sense that fans and observers want results fast, the team felt pressure to have a replacement for Brevin Knight (torn abdominal muscle) over the next month. McInnis has been under the deep freeze since the middle of last year, when the Nets tired of him and sent him home, claiming that he was not diligently working on his rehab. This was preceded by a similar circumstance occurring to McInnis in Cleveland in 2004-05 and before that with Portland (who had a ton of guards in early 2000s).
McInnis claims that he has had a bum rap, telling Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer that “[d]amn, I don’t get how I get that reputation. Most guys wouldn’t take the roles I have taken. I’ve always been a shadow guy. I wouldn’t go to UNC to get attention and let Stack and Rasheed get all the props. I would’ve gone somewhere where I could get noticed more. Man, I just wanna know who says all this stuff about me?”
Well, it doesn’t take much to find crazy McInnis quotes:
-When the Nets tried to buy him out this past off-season McInnis refused to accept a dime less than his full deal, opting to sit out and then dragged his own name through the mud: “Not playing me is one thing, but having a personal grudge against me is another thing….If I have to [sit out the whole season], I will. But it ain’t going to be that simple. There are going to be other steps taken and all that.”
-At the end of his tenure with the Cavs, McInnis was also benched and it was also acrimonious. MSNBC described the situation:
“McInnis blamed stomach cramps, not a ‘viral syndrome’ as the team called it, for him not traveling to the season finale in Toronto. However, McInnis’ excuse seemed shaky after the soon-to-be free agent sulked over playing time and his benching by both Silas and Malone. During Tuesday night’s final home game, McInnis didn’t join his teammates on the bench for long stretches of the second half. And when he was there, he sat with a towel wrapped around his head. ‘I thought I was a true professional during all of this,’ he said. ‘I think they wanted me to blow up and do something crazy.’”
-CNNSI.com quoted a scout on McInnis prior to the 2001-02 season: “It isn’t going to get any easier for Mo Cheeks. I saw McInnis hollering at [his coach with the Clippers] Alvin Gentry a lot last season.”
For what it’s worth, you can’t really find any silly quotes from McInnis prior to his time in Cleveland, just innuendo from the press that he could be difficult to deal with. So what do we really know? It’s clear that McInnis is not easy to deal with and that he can score but doesn’t defend. It’s a bad combination and probably gets him in to trouble that other players with a similar skill-set might not. McInnis can marginally help the Bobcats and all he’ll cost is a little bit of extra money. As McInnis enters his 30s, however, it might behoove to be a quiet because the good soldiers usually last long after their talent disappears and the prima donnas usually leave the court before their playable years are truly up (see Sprewell, Latrell).
Denver Nuggets
12/22 Waive Ivan McFarlin
1/2 Recall Julius Hodge from Colorado of the D-League
I’m not sure if McFarlin actually traveled to Denver, but life in the NBA involves players offering more as salary slots than players. As for Hodge, even if he played well in the NBDL, things are looking bad. Adding Allen Iverson to the mix blocks out even the slightest possibility of breaking into the rotation, as he now has four other guards ahead of him on the depth chart. Still, it’s better to sit on the bench in the NBA then to take the bus to Albuquerque.
Golden State Warriors
1/2 Sign Kelenna Azubuike from Ft. Worth of the D-League
Azubuike had been playing very well in the NBDL (26.2 ppg, .514 FG%, .485 3-FG%) and he’ll be slotted in with Jason Richardson out with the broken finger. It’s unlikely that Azubuike will stick but this is a great spot to possibly play because Don Nelson style of play is guard-oriented, as Matt Barnes can attest.
Memphis Grizzlies
12/29 Fire head coach Mike Fratello and name Tony Barone as interim coach
On pure performance, Fratello probably got a raw deal. The team played it’s best ball under him but Fratello-fatigue seems to always set with all his teams. I know Jerry West was not happy that the Grizz were unable to win a single playoff game in each of Fratello’s two playoff appearances. But let’s be honest, the Grizz played the 2004-05 Suns and the 2005-06 Mavs in the playoffs, two teams that are supposed to sweep the Grizzlies. This year’s poor start was also somewhat excusable. This season effectively ended with Pau Gasol’s broken foot during the summer.
On the other hand, there were good reasons to cut bait with Fratello. The team was not exciting to watch and he did not play the rookies much even when it was clear that this was a rebuilding year. The tight play calling might make sense with a less-talented team but neither fans nor the players like the style and when the style gets you from 25 wins to 30, as opposed to the playoffs before losing. West noted as much, stating that Fratello had run his course with the team.
Fratello’s termination with Cleveland in 1999 had a similar feel to it. Wayne Embry, the GM who was fired along with Fratello, noted in his biography “The Inside Game” that “I think [Fratello] was in the wrong place at the wrong time after the composition of the team changed. Some coaches are better coaching veteran teams. In today’s NBA, I questioned whether Mike had the patience to build a young team and let the youngsters work through their mistakes.”
Finally as to the question of whether Fratello is truly a slowdown coach, here’s a year-by-year comparison of Fratello-coached teams to NBA average:
(With Memphis)
Year Fratello Team PPG NBA Average Difference
2005-06 92.2 97.0 -4.8
2004-05 93.4 97.2 -3.8
(With Cleveland)
1998-99 86.4 91.6 -5.2
1997-98 92.5 95.6 -3.1
1996-97 87.5 96.9 -9.4
1995-96 91.1 99.5 -8.4
1994-95 90.5 101.4 -10.9
1993-94 101.2 101.5 -0.3
(With Atlanta)
1989-90 108.5 107.0 +1.5
1988-89 111.0 109.2 +1.8
1987-88 107.9 108.2 -1.3
1986-87 110.0 109.9 +0.1
1985-86 108.6 110.2 -1.6
1984-85 106.6 110.8 -4.2
1983-84 101.4 110.1 -8.7
Miami Heat
1/3 Announce that head coach Pat Riley will take a leave of absence and name Ron Rothstein as interim coach
The cynics will note that Riley’s timing to enter the fray and leave it coincide remarkably with the points where the Heat were expected to ascend or crumble. We can’t know that Riley needs surgery ASAP just like we’re not sure that Stan Van Gundy had to re-sign to spend more time with his family in the middle of 2005-06 season. If you assume that Riley may have pulled some strings I still can’t condemn him too much for either move. The Heat ended up with a title from the flipping. Besides, Riley has equity in the team, he can do whatever ownership permits. Hell, most really good coaches aren’t actually that nice anyway. It’s possible Riley could be spending karma points, as some argue, but that’s his prerogative.
As for Rothstein, he was Miami’s original coach back in 1988-89. Rothstein has been a defensive specialist and assisted Chuck Daly during the Detroit title days. In his three years in Miami, Rothstein’s teams improved from 15-67 to 18-64 to 24-58. After the 1990-91 season, however, the team thought his intense style was too much for the young players and he was bounced in favor of the more easy going Kevin Loughery. Rothstein, got another shot, this time replacing Chuck Daly in Detroit. It was an impossible spot because Daly was great and the Pistons were devolving from dynasty to rebuilding. Rothstein had a headache in Detroit as Dennis Rodman started to go more overtly nuts and Isiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer had less than picturesque ends to their careers. The team went 40-42 in1992-93 and missed the playoffs and followed it up with a miserable 20-62 record in 1993-94, after which Rothstein was replaced with Don Chaney. Rothstein hasn’t been a head coach since. Rothstein probably isn’t really an option to coach the team at full strength because Shaquille O’Neal hasn’t taken well to coaching from the less well-known coaches.
Milwaukee Bucks
1/4 Waive Chris McCray
It was a brief cup of coffee for the rookie. His stat line has no positives so far (0-3 from the field) and his only other stats are 2 turnovers and a personal foul. Hopefully, he’ll make a better impression next time.
New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets
12/22 Sign Devin Brown
The team has been so decimated by injuries (Chris Paul, Peja Stojakovic, and David West) that they needed some warm bodies. Brown has his limitations, he’s not a great shooter, but he’s NBA-quality at finishing and defending and has some value. He won’t win the team many games but he can help the team be semi-respectable while also getting his name back in the consciousness of NBA GMs.
New Jersey Nets
1/3 Acquire Bernard Robinson from Charlotte for Jeff McInnis
Robinson’s strongest point is that he is not McInnis. The trade removes a very unhappy player and gets the Nets some salary relief. I’m not sure if Robinson will play much. Robinson is really a small forward and he’ll have to take minutes from Hassan Adams (not likely) or Antoine Wright (possible) or he’ll have to show he can be an undersized power forward on those days when Bostjan Nachbar picks up his six fouls in less then 10 minutes (very possible).
Philadelphia 76ers
1/4 Waive Steven Smith
Besides a 12-minute stretch against Indiana, Smith didn’t really play. I assume the NBDL is the next step.
Portland Trailblazers
1/2 Waive Stephen Graham
Not a great player but Graham definitely showed that he can be useful spot player. Last year, Graham played with three different teams and I expect he’ll get another shot with someone else this year.
Seattle SuperSonics
1/4 Waive Desmon Farmer and Andreas Glyniadakis
Glyniadakis got a chance to play (he started four games) but he is just very raw at this point. He was a fouling machine and had a ton of turnovers. At 25, you have to wonder if he can even be worth spot duty. Still, he’s 7’1 so someone else may take a shot.
When Red Auerbach passed away a week ago, it marked the loss of one of the true giants of the NBA. Most people know the story of Auerbach, the man who had the major hand in creating three Celtic dynasties and was a dominant personality in the NBA up until the day he died. Much has been written about Auerbach over the years and since his death that it’s tough to really tell you something you don’t really know already. Still, an overview of Auerbach’s career is always helpful, and will launch us into some of the interesting lesser known facts that we’d like to explore. So off we go…
What did Auerbach do before coaching the Celtics?
After graduating college in the early 1940s, Auerbach started off as a high school basketball coach when he started to get offers to coach professional basketball teams. In 1946-47, Auerbach was hired to coach the Washington Capitals. Auerbach coached well for the Caps for three years, even winning 17 in a row at one point. When the Caps lost to the Cleveland in the Finals 1948-49, Auerbach and ownership split up and Auerbach took a job as assistant coach at Duke.
Duke was an unusual circumstance. The coach, Gerry Gerard was a friend and was suffering from cancer. In his autobiography “Let Me Tell You a Story”, Auerbach described the situation thusly: “[i]n a way, they were offering me a job where I was supposed to sit around and wait for Gerry to die. ..He said he didn’t have a problem with that, he wanted someone there. But it still felt awkward to me.” Not liking the morbid feel at Duke, Auerbach left shortly thereafter and returned to the NBA with the Tri-Cities Blackhawks. After one season with the Blackhawks, Auerbach did not get along with owner Ben Kerner and bolted to run the Celtics for the 1950-51 season.
The Celtics Pre-Bill Russell
The Celtics first officially were an BAA (the NBA precursor) in 1946-47. For the four seasons before Auerbach was in Boston, the team didn’t come close to .500. In Auerbach’s first year (1950-51), the team jumped up from 22-46 to 39-30. While Auerbach’s coaching probably helped, the Celtics were helped when by the bankruptcy of two other teams and Auerbach was able to poach Bob Cousy and Ed Macauley as a result, who were the team’s two best players by far.
Cousy was a local college star from Boston College and was drafted by Tri-Cities just few months earlier. Auerbach had resisted the temptation to draft Cousy at the time in favor of center Charlie Share. According to Bill Reynolds’ “Cousy”, Auerbach told the Boston Press that he didn’t need Cousy because “[t]he only thing that counts for me is ability and Cousy hasn’t proven to me he’s got that ability. I’m not interested in bringing someone in just because he’s a local yokel.” When Auerbach got Cousy in the dispersal draft, he was less than thrilled and told Cousy: “[y]ou’re not a big man….I hope you make the team, but if you don’t, don’t blame me. It’s a big man’s game.” Years later, in an interview for “Tall Tales”, Auerbach backtracked on his harsh initial treatment of Cousy stating that “I saw Cousy in college. I knew what he could do that he was a great talent. But I looked at my roster and I didn’t need a guard, I needed someone to get the ball off the boards.” In the same chapter, Macauley stated it most succinctly: “Red is never one to second-guess himself or admit that he made a mistake, but I guess even he’d have to say that Cousy wasn’t exactly some local yokel.”
Cousy was second in on the team in minutes and was good right away (15.6 ppg, 6.9 rpg, 4.9 apg). Cousy would go on to lead the NBA assists from 1952-53 until 1960-61 when Oscar Robertson came around. Cousy truly dominated his position statistically at a level that few other athletes dominated his peers. For a little perspective, here are Cousy’s average season versus his peers from the 1950s:
Player
Games
MPG
PPG
FG%
RPG
APG
B. Cousy
924
35.3
18.4
0.375
5.2
7.5
D. McGuire
738
28.3
8.1
0.389
4.2
5.7
S. Martin
745
35.9
9.8
0.364
3.4
4.2
A. Phillip
701
32.2
9.1
0.378
4.4
5.5
B. Davies
462
31.3
14.3
0.378
2.9
4.9
Everyone of these 1950s point guards went to the Hall of Fame and you can see that Cousy beat pretty much every single one of them. While I’m not sure that Cousy could dominate in the modern NBA he was as high above his competition as Magic Johnson was to his peers.
Though Cousy was an something of a lucky draw for Auerbach, he did find several other very good players. The Celts nabbed Bill Sharman in 1951-52 from Auerbach’s former team the Capitals, who also had just folded, and drafted scorer Frank Ramsey in 1954. This Celtics team was a run ‘n gun fun team that was usually in the playoff hunt. From 1950-51 through 1955-56 the Celts averaged a solid record of 40-30 but never advanced to the NBA Finals. The team was fun to watch (they led the NBA in scoring from each year from 1951-52 through 1955-56) but they couldn’t rebound or really stop anyone either–think the Steve Nash Suns or the Don Nelson Warriors of the early 1990s.
Bill Russell: do we have anything to add?
Now that we have a sense of the running team the Celts had before Bill Russell, one can imagine of how much of a help he was. By modern standards, it was like taking Alonzo Mourning or Ben Wallace in his prime on the Nash Suns or the old Nellie Warriors. Well, Russell was significantly more dominant defensive force than Zo or even Wallace in the context of his time and he obviously helped the team jump to championship level. We all know what happened next, the Celts would win 11 of the next 13 titles. Auerbach was the coach until 1965-66 and only lost one playoff series in that time, the 1957-58 Finals against the Hawks when Russell was out with a broken wrist.
Did Auerbach know that Russell would be that good?
Unlike with Cousy, Auerbach was very high on Russell from the beginning, even trading a star in Macauley to St. Louis for the rights to Russell’s pick (seventh overall). Auerbach also traded third round draftee Cliff Hagan who would go on to have a Hall of Famer career–though this was far from apparent at the time. The drafting of Russell was controversial subject and the Hawks and Royals, who picked sixth overall, both had excuses as to why they did what they passed up on him.
In “Tall Tales”, Royals’ owner Lester Harrison rambled on that “[t]he real truth about this draft was the Auerbach and Russell set me up….I was cheated out of Russell, who played poorly at the All-Star Game because he didn’t want to play in a small city like Rochester….We had Maurice Stokes at center, and he would have been as good as Russell if he hadn’t gotten ill. Listen, what was I supposed to do?” In the same chapter, Ben Kerner of the Hawks stated that “I knew I couldn’t afford Russell. I heard that he had turned down $50,000 from the Globetrotters. I heard he wanted $25,000 or $50,000–it didn’t matter because to me, it may as well have been a million. We didn’t have the money.”
Referee Norm Drucker, an impartial observer, saw it differently. He said that “[i]n 1956, St. Louis was an antiblack city. The black players who who played there from other teams–the fans called them such names….I don’t know if Ben Kerner was willing to bring a black player into that environment, although I do know that Ben himself got along very well with his black players in the 1960s.” Likely, money and race played factors. The Hawks got a quality player and a local favorite in Macauley and the team anticipated that Russell, who was considered combative, would not go over well in a Southern city.
Just for kicks, here are players taken in the first round of the 1956 NBA Draft with their career stats:
Draft No.
Team
Player
Games
PPG
FG%
RPG
APG
1
Rochester
S. Green
504
9.2
0.387
4.3
3.3
2
St. Louis
B. Russell
963
15.1
0.441
22.5
4.3
3
Philadelphia
J. Paxson
138
8.1
0.323
4.5
1.6
4
New York
R. Shavlik
8
1.3
0.174
2.9
0
5
Syracuse
J. Holup
192
7.1
0.342
4.4
1.1
6
Boston
T. Heinsohn
654
18.6
0.405
8.8
2.1
7
Ft. Wayne
R. Sobie
192
8.4
0.379
4.1
1.8
8
Philadelphia
H. Lear
3
1.3
0.333
0.3
0.3
While Rochester and St. Louis would’ve been better off with Russell, you have to wonder how the Pistons, Warriors, and Knicks got off without criticism. Their picks barely lasted more than a year or two. Also interesting to note is that only two picks that were great in that first round were both drafted by Auerbach. In addition, the only other pick in the draft to stick was also a Celtic in K.C. Jones (who was Russell’s college teammate).
How often were the Celts tested during the Red/Russell Era?
In addition to Cousy, Sharman, Ramsey and Russell, Auerbach had collected a bunch of great players to work with Russell when the 1950s core got older. Auerbach drafted Sam Jones and John Havlicek to replace them and the team didn’t miss a beat and dominated for years. The league and the playoffs were both smaller back then. In 1956-57, the Celts needed to win only one five game series to reach the Finals and the Celts didn’t have to play more than one round of playoffs in their own conference until Auerbach’s last year. In those years, here are the teams that took the Celts to a deciding game in the playoffs:
–1956-57: Celts beat Hawks 4-3 in the NBA Finals
-1957-58: Hawks beat Celts 2-4 in the NBA Finals
-1958-59: Celts beat Nationals 4-3 in the Eastern Conference Finals
-1961-62: Celts beat Hawks 4-3 in the NBA Finals
Celts beat Lakers 4-3 in the NBA Finals
-1962-63: Celts beat Royals 4-3 in the Eastern Conference Finals
-1964-65: Celts beat 76ers 4-3 in the Eastern Conference Finals
-1965-66: Celts beat Royals 3-2 in the First Round
Celts beat Lakers 4-3 in the NBA Finals
While the Celts were tested a couple of times, they were almost always the best team in the league. From 1956-57 through 1964-65, the Celts had the best record in the NBA each year, usually by a pretty wide margin. The only year they didn’t lead the NBA in wins, 1965-66, the Celts were off the pace by only one game and had a better expected record than the actual leader, the Sixers.
Auerbach as GM: Russell’s Final Years
In 1966, Auerbach retired and named Russell as player-coach. To make an African-American coach was fairly revolutionary at the time and he was the first of his kind. Major League Baseball didn’t have an African-American manager until Frank Robinson in 1975 and the NFL didn’t hire Art Shell until 1989 (which is fairly ridiculous when you stop and think about it). In Thomas Whalen’s “Dynasty’s End”, it is noted that hiring Russell was very controversial and that both Auerbach and Russell endured tons of questions about the issue. While Auerbach clearly did not suffer from the racist tendencies of many of the time, it’s pretty clear that he didn’t make any decisions with any idealistic motives at heart. Rather, Auerbach noted that “when a pro athlete reaches his thirties, the way Russell has, he loses some of his motivating power. He has trouble getting up for games. But as coach he won’t have that problem.”
Auerbach correctly identified that the key now was to squeeze as many title out of the aging core of Russell, Sam Jones, and Havlicek. Auerbach nabbed Bailey Howell for young seven-footer Mel Counts. Howell was turning 30 but he aged remarkably well and averaged nearly 20 ppg and 9 rpg in his first three season with the Celts. Counts would go on to have a middling career for several teams (he’s best remembered for being the recipient of playing time when the Lakers benched Wilt at the end of Game 7 of the 1968-69 Finals, which helped Russell win his final title. Mel Counts was truly the gift that kept on giving for the Celtics).
The Celtics lost to a historically good Wilt-led Sixers team in 1966-67 but would go on to upset that same team in 1967-68 and win a tenth title. In 1968-69, the Celts, running on fumes, still managed to win the final Russell title over the favored Lakers troika of Wilt, Jerry West, and Elgin Baylor. Russell and Sam Jones retired after the season and Auerbach was left to find a new star and coach and to rebuild.
The 1970s Celtics
1969-70, the first year without Russell, was a down year (34-48) and the only good player on the team really was Havlicek. But Auerbach was already re-loading. He drafted Jo Jo White with a mid-first rounder in 1969. In 1970, Auerbach then took Dave Cowens with the fourth overall pick. The core of Hondo, White, and Cowens was not on the level of the Russell teams but it was very good. Cowens was a particularly huge pick because he was an anchor at center for the rest of the decade, averaging 17.6 ppg and 13.6 rpg.
Cowens was a straightforward pick either. At the fourth slot, it was a toss up between Cowens and fellow big man Sam Lacey, who would be taken fifth by the Royals. Lacey had a respectable career (he averaged 10.3 ppg and 9.7 for his 13 seasons and peaked at 14.2 ppg and 13.4 in 1973-74) but Cowens was clearly better (he peaked at 20.4 ppg and 14.7 rpg in 1974-75). It’s unlikely that the Celts could’ve won two titles with Lacey instead of Cowens.
The Celts immediately turned it around with the new core and went 44-38 in 1970-71. The Celts then went on a a nice five-year run where they won two titles and won an average of 59 games per year. It was a very good team but not quite as good as the Knicks of that era. They lost to the Knicks 4-1 in the 1971-72 Eastern Conference Finals. The next year, the Celts won 68-14 games (a franchise record) but they lost to the Knicks 4-3 in the Conference Finals (Havlicek hurt his shoulder and the team was down 3-1 before rallying and losing in Game 7). But in 1973-74, the Knicks (most notably Willis Reed and Jerry Lucas) had aged and the Celts were hitting their stride. They won two of the next three titles before it began to erode.
The Late 1970s: A Bad Time
As Hondo, Cowens, and White aged, no new players really came in to replace. Just the opposite. The team traded Paul Silas, their Charles Oakley-type veteran power forward, for the younger Curtis Rowe. Rowe was a complete dud as a player and was not particularly well-liked as a teammate either. Sidney Wicks, Marvin Barnes, and Bob McAdoo were other bad ideas in the late 1970s. The McAdoo trade (for several draft picks) was reportedly made by owner John Y. Brown without Auerbach’s consent.
Auerbach’s feud with Brown spun out of control and caused the Knicks to solicit his services. Auerbach told Brown that he’d take the Knicks job unless Brown sold. He gave Brown two weeks to sell out his interests or Auerbach would go. Brown gave in and sold out and Auerbach stayed with the Celts for another grand run in the 1980s.
The Bird Years
Like the Bill Russell years, the Larry Bird years were built by Auerbach. As mentioned, the Celts of the late 1970s were the worst kind of team–bad, old, overrated, and overpaid. After a 32-50 season in 1977-78, the Celts were comprised a good older player in Cowens (age 30) and a bunch of aging vets or prematurely fading players like Rowe (fading), Don Chaney (aging), Marvin Barnes (troubled), and Jo Jo White (aging). In the 1978 draft, the Celts had the sixth pick. Auerbach, figuring that the team needed long-term change, chose Bird, who was returning for a fifth year of college but was also eligible to be drafted if a team was willing to wait that year. Bird, of course, would go on to be as good any forward ever and the team became an instant contender. Again, Auerbach was lauded as a genius for finding yet another Hall of Famer.
In “Let Me Tell You a Story”, Auerbach put his choice in perspective: “[a]nyone tells you they knew Bird would be as good as he turned out–including me–is a liar. I thought he was good, very good. He also played a position where we needed help, a lot of help. But did I know he had one the great work ethics ever? No. Did I know he had a genius IQ for the game? No. Smart, yes. Genius, no.”
Skill and Luck
After Bird’s rookie year, the Celts found themselves with the first overall picks, thanks to the Pistons who gave up to picks for McAdoo. We all remember that Auerbach made one of the great trades of All-Time dealing the pick (which ended up being Joe Barry Carroll) to the Warriors for the third pick (Kevin McHale) and Robert Parish, two Hall of Famers in one shot. But this was Auerbach’s fall back plan. Really, Auerbach’s first decision was attempting to convince 7’4 freshmen phenom Ralph Sampson to leave college early and play with Bird.
According to Peter May in “The Last Banner”, here’s how it went down: “[a]t the time, Sampson had just complete his freshman season and had said, even before enrolling, that he was unlikely to remain at Virginia beyond his sophomore year. Auerbach assumed that one more year in college was not a serious obstacle….But a funny thing happened to Auerbach when he flew to Virginia to try and talk Sampson into leaving immediately to join Larry Bird in Boston: Sampson said no. He was having too much fun in college. He wasn’t interested in turning pro. Auerbach, who wasn’t accustomed to having anyone tell him what he didn’t want to hear, was furious.”
If you’re keeping score at home, the Sampson missed two shots of playing with the great dynasties of the 1980s. Sampson turned down similar entreaties from the Lakers before the 1982 draft. In the end, Sampson went to Houston in 1983-84 and was good but his career was submarined by knee problems and his regular playing days were ostensibly over by 1988-89. Would things have been different if Sampson had gone to the Celtics for the 1980 season? Certainly he might’ve been thought of differently had he been part of a perennial contender like the Celts. He would’ve given Boston a front line of Bird, Maxwell, and Sampson, which while not as good as McHale and Parish, would’ve been enough to possibly win a few titles before Maxwell’s and Sampson’s knees went. It wouldn’t have been bad but clearly the Celtics got much more mileage out of McHale and Parish.
Still, as May noted, Auerbach “doesn’t try to put a revisionist spin on this pursuit. He wanted Sampson then, convinced, as many were, that this was going to be the next great center. ‘You couldn’t tell that his career wouldn’t pan out….[H]e looked like a helluva prospect. We would have taken him if he had come out.'”
DJ: The Difference
As a young kid in 1980s, it seemed like the Bird and the Celtics won the Eastern Conference every year. In fact, the Celts window of winning was impressive but they had serious problems with the Sixers. In fact, from Bird’s rookie year to the 1982-83, the Sixers came out of the east three times, beating the Celts twice (the Celts were swept by the Bucks in 1982-83). By 1982-83, the Celts were pretty vulnerable. Tiny Archibald was too old to run the point and the Celts had a decidedly non-offensive backcourt of Quinn Buckner and Gerald Henderson. Then, out of nowhere, Auerbach was able to acquire Dennis Johnson for Rick Robey, a backup center. DJ instantly provided a huge upgrade over Buckner and at the same time Danny Ainge emerged and took Henderson’s job. All of sudden, the frontcourt had some support and this coincided with Bird’s peak and two titles.
Lucky Bluff
After the 1982-83 season, McHale was in line for a big extension and the Knicks wanted him badly. While the Celtics could match any offer for McHale, they feared that the New York money would’ve been too much to match. As such, Auerbach devised a plan of signing three Knicks restricted free agents to force the Knicks to choose between using the cap room on the three players or McHale. In the end, the Knicks blinked and chose to re-sign the three. Who were these jewels? Rory Sparrow, Sly Williams, and Marvin Webster. Sparrow was young but ended up being a middling point guard. Williams (who was let go to Atlanta) had personality issues that undercut a his promising ability. Webster was 31 at the time and ended up playing only one more full season where he scored 3.8 ppg.
The Future Never Comes: Len Bias
By the late 1980s, Auerbach took a step back from day-to-day operations and retired. His last huge move, drafting Len Bias, had turned out tragically when Bias died of a drug overdose the night after the draft. Could Bias have continued the dynasty for Bird? I examined this issue a few years ago and concluded that Bias was a great player but I doubted that he was enough to keep the team at the level of the Bulls of the early 1990s. If you never saw Bias play, I do recommend that you take a look at some highlights of his college career and see what a monster talent he was.
For fun, I thought we’d take a look at Bias’ stats per 40 minutes versus that off other great guards and forwards of the ACC in the mid-1980s in their final college seasons:
Player
PPG
FG%
RPG
APG
TOPG
BPG
SPG
Bias
25.1
0.544
7.6
1.1
3.1
0.4
0.9
Bailey
18.4
0.501
8.5
1.4
1.9
2.9
0.7
Jordan
26.6
0.551
7.2
2.8
2.9
1.5
2.2
Alarie
23.1
0.535
8.3
0.9
2.6
0.9
1.9
Wiggins
24.9
0.527
9.1
1.8
2.7
0.9
2.3
Based on pure numbers, Bias was great–though his ball handling/passing was the worst of the bunch. In addition, Jordan as a junior was clearly superior to Bias in every aspect of the game but rebounds. Really, it looks like Bias might project into one of those great pure scoring small forwards but not a guy who does much in other areas. Let’s see how Bias compares with other scoring college forwards:
Player
PPG
FG%
RPG
APG
TOPG
BPG
SPG
Bias
25.1
0.544
7.6
1.1
3.1
0.4
0.9
Wilkins
24.4
0.529
9.3
1.5
2.3
1.8
1.3
Worthy
18.1
0.573
7.3
2.8
3.2
1.3
1.7
Drexler
18.2
0.536
10.1
4.4
3.1
0.6
3.8
Barkley
21.3
0.638
13.4
2.9
3.2
2.5
1.6
Person
23.8
0.519
8.7
0.9
2.4
0.4
1.1
Mullin
20.9
0.521
5.1
4.5
2.7
0.5
2.2
K.Walker
22.9
0.582
8.9
1.6
1.7
1.4
1.4
These comps aren’t quite as illustrative as the ACC comparison because the stats came, primarily, against different leagues and we have no idea what the pace of play was. We assume the pace was a crawl for Worthy and Nique, who played in the pre-shot clock era, thus those comps are somewhat out the window. In looking at these stats, you still are concerned that Bias had, by far, the weakest block and steal rates and again, he is at the bottom in ball handling. While you hate to get bogged in numbers versus ability, it seems that Bias wasn’t destined to be a superstar as much as single-minded scorer. In either case, the Celtics would’ve been much more respectable in the early 1990s with Bias in a featured role.
The End
Even though we’ve spent some time dissecting how much credit Auerbach should get for many of his moves but it is indisputable that Auerbach is greatest GM in the history of the game, a great coach, and a true innovator. Rather then sum up with a corny ending that Auerbach, himself, wouldn’t want to hear, I thought we’d instead review Auerbach’s final legacy: his players.
Here is a list of the the Hall of Famers drafted Auerbach:
-Bill Russell
-Larry Bird
-John Havlicek
-Dave Cowens
-Kevin McHale
-Sam Jones
Here is my All-Auerbach team:
PG: Bob Cousy, 1958-59, 20.0 ppg, .384 FG%, 5.5 rpg, 8.6 apg
SG: John Havlicek, 1970-71, 28.9 ppg, .450 FG%, 9.0 rpg, 7.5 apg
SF: Larry Bird, 1984-85, 28.7 ppg, .522 FG%, 10.5 rpg, 6.6 apg
PF: Kevin McHale, 1986-87, 26.1 ppg, .604 FG%, 9.9 apg, 2.6 apg
C: Bill Russell, 1961-62, 18.9 ppg, .457 FG%, 23.6 rpg, 4.5 apg
It’s only been about two months since Don Nelson stepped down as Maverick coach and retired. At the time, I had wanted to go through his long and interesting career. The hassles of everyday life prevented me from really going through Nellie’s career at the time but I have regrouped am ready to go. It isn’t necessarily timely to be doing this now, with the playoffs raging and Nellie already fading into the background but a career as interesting as Nelson’s is really something worth examining at any time. With that said, let’s review Nelson’s coaching/GM career:
Nelson Was a Player?
If you don’t know too much about the NBA of the 1960s and 1970s, it might surprise you to know that Nelson wasn’t always this guy with the big gut you see today. He was not only a pro player but a had a long and solid career. But Nellie’s pro career wasn’t one of those foregone conclusions either. Nelson had a nice career at college for Iowa but then found himself coming out of college in 1962 with little chance of continuing his pro career.
Nelson was able to make the Chicago Zephyrs in 1962-63, an one-year old expansion team, a terrible team that featured Walt Bellamy, Terry Dischinger, and little else. Nelson actually played okay for the Zephyrs (6.8 ppg and 4.5 rpg) but was let go at the end of the year. Nelson hooked up with the Lakers for the next two seasons. Nellie’s first year in L.A. was also solid (5.2 ppg, 4.0 rpg in 17 mpg) but his minutes plummeted in 1964-65 (238 minutes in only 39 games). Nelson was then cut by the Lakers in training camp in 1965. While some will say that Nellie had shown little before leaving the Lakers, Elgin Baylor claimed otherwise. In “Dynasty’s End,” by Thomas Whalen, Laker star Elgin Baylor was quoted as saying: “I never could understand why we let Don go. We used to play a lot of one-on-one basketball in practice and Nelson always gave me as much trouble as anybody. I know this: he never had a full opportunity with the Lakers. There were always two or three forwards ahead of him with more experience.”
This seemed like it could be the end of Nellie’s career but Red Auerbach snatched him up for the world champ Celtics and Nelson immediately became a contributor. From 1965-66 through 1975-76, Nelson was either a starter or a key bench member of the Celts. In those years, Nellie averaged over 11 ppg and 6 rpg, maxing out at 15.4 ppg and 7.3 rpg in 1969-70. He also helped bridge the Bill Russell champs of the 1960s with the Dave Cownes’ champs of the 1970s. His most memorable playing moment occurred in the final moments of Game 7 of the 1968-69 Finals, when his jump shot hit the back of the rim, bounced straight up in the air about 10-15 feet and fell straight through to help the Celts clinch the title and beat the Lakers for Russell’s final title. In 1975-76 at age 35,Nellie’s numbers fell to 6.4 ppg and 2.4 rpg and he retired.
Nellie’s First Stop: Milwaukee 1976-87: (540-344, .611%)
With his playing career winding down, Nelson landed on his feet in the Bucks organization as an assistant coach in 1976-77. He was brought in by his ex-Celtic teammate and then Bucks GM, Wayne Embry. The Bucks were in flux at that time. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had forced a trade in 1975 and the team had a little talent but the team was struggling. Incumbent coach Larry Costello was axed when the Bucks started the year 3-15 and Nelson was made head coach, despite only having two months of training. The team improved a bit under Nellie, going 27-37 and the Bucks slowly built up from there with the draft.
After the season, the Bucks had the first, third, and eleventh picks overall in the draft. The Bucks didn’t exactly hit on the picks: they took Kent Benson first, Marques Johnson third, and Ernie Grunfeld eleventh. Benson and Grunfeld were solid pro regulars but had no star potential. Johnson ended up being quite good (though the Bucks passed on Bernard King, Jack Sikma, and Walter Davis to get him). And in 1979, the Bucks nabbed Sidney Moncrief with the fourth pick overall. Thanks to Johnson and a couple of incumbent vets (Junior Bridgeman and Brian Winters who were obtained for Kareem), the Bucks went from a .500 to a 49-win team by 1979-80.
In mid 1979-80, the Bucks went for the brass ring and obtained Bob Lanier, who was aging but still pretty good. The Bucks played well but lost a tough seven-game series to the defending champ Sonics. In 1980-81, the Bucks were starting to hit on all cylinders. Moncrief was starting to play well and Lanier, Johnson, and Bridgeman were all good. The Bucks won 60 games and won the Central Divsion. But 60 wins wasn’t enough to earn homecourt. This indirectly reveals the biggest problems that the Bucks had–the Sixers and the Celtics. The Bucks were very good but never enough to beat both these teams in the same year. Take a look at the Nellie’s Bucks from the 1980s and their playoff runs:
Year W-L Playoff Results
1980-81 60-22 Lost to Philly 4-3 in the second round
1981-82 55-27 Lost to Philly 4-2 in the second round
1982-83 51-31 Lost to Philly 4-1 in the Conference Finals
1983-84 50-32 Lost to Boston 4-1 in the second round
1984-85 59-23 Lost to Philly 4-0 in the second round
1985-86 57-25 Lost to Boston 4-0 in the Conference Finals
1986-87 50-32 Lost to Boston 4-3 in the second round
After losing to the Julius Erving Sixers for three straight years, the Bucks then ran into the problem that Larry Bird and the Celts were starting to peak. The Bucks were good but they just couldn’t match up with these two All-Time teams. By the time the Celts were losing a little steam, the Bucks were also aging and the Pistons would also pop up. Thus despite the fact that the Bucks were winning about 55 games a year they got as far as the Conference Finals only twice and they won a total of one game in those two series.
How Good Were the Nellie Bucks?
It’s pretty clear that the Bucks, for all their wins, were not in the class of the Celts or Sixers. Let’s take a look at the key players from each team (starting lineups chosen from the each team’s best season):
Celtics
Sixers
Bucks
PG:
Dennis Johnson
Maurice Cheeks
Craig Hodges
SG:
Danny Ainge
Andrew Toney
Sidney Moncrief
SF:
Larry Bird
Julius Erving
Paul Pressey
PF:
Kevin McHale
Bobby Jones
Terry Cummings
C:
Robert Parish
Moses Malone
Alton Lister
Forget any other indicator but the Sixers have two clear Hall of Famers, the Celtics have three, and the Bucks have maybe one (Moncrief or Cummings). When you combine that with the fact that the Bucks routinely had holes at the point and center, it makes you think that the Bucks could be beatable. But what about the other also-rans, the good teams that couldn’t get over the championship hump? The truth is there aren’t many other teams in the 1980s that were winning 50 games over even a three-year period and also not winning championships. A couple of teams had nice two or three year stretches (San Antonio and Phoenix in the early 1980s). The only team that falls in that category are the late 1980s Hawks, who won fifty games four years in row with Mike Fratello, but they never even made the Conference Finals.
Since no one in the 1980s quite fits as a comp to the Bucks, let’s take any franchise with a nice three to five-year run over the last 25 years and see how this group stacks up. In choosing these squads, we look for a run of at least three 50-win seasons and at least two Conference Finals appearances (but no titles). Here are the teams I came up with:
New York Knicks 1991-1997
Indiana Pacers 1993-2000
Utah Jazz 1991-1998
Phoenix Suns 1989-1995
Portland Trailblazers 1989-1992
Portland Trailblazers 1998-2001
Seattle SuperSonics 1992-1998
First off, this definition surely excludes a few teams that are very good and arguably better than these squads (Kings 2000-2004, Heat 1996-2000, Magic 1994-1996). But in an effort to compare the Bucks with teams of similar accomplishments, we’ll stick with the above-mentioned criteria. I see the Bucks as worse than most, if not all of these teams. Each of these teams were tougher in the front court (with the possible exception of the early 1990s Blazers) and all these teams have at least one Hall of Famer. The Bucks are not much worse but they are at the bottom of this list.
Nellie v. Embry
The juiciest thing to come out of Milwaukee was that Nelson and Embry, the friend who brought him into the Bucks, are now estranged. In fact, Embry wrote in his autobiography, “The Inside Game” that Nelson was a racist and that he forced Embry out of Milwaukee. Nelson denied both of these charges and stated that Embry was upset that Nelson didn’t offer him a job after Embry was let go by the Cavs in the late 1990s. Specifically, Embry stated that their relationship became strained over whether to sign Dave Cowens in 1982. Embry also said by 1984 Nelson had usurped total control of personnel decisions when he overruled Emby to draft Kenny Fields. Finally, Embry stated that Nelson fabricated stories that Embry was abusing expense accounts.
I don’t what’s true on this subject but it does raise an interesting question of which of these men deserves credit for building the Bucks of the 1980s. In his book, Embry takes credit for most of the smart moves and implies that Nelson didn’t quite know what was going on some of the moves. In assessing this point, it’s tough because both Embry and Nelson have nice track records outside of Milwaukee. All we learn from this is that time can strain even the best of relationships.
Nellie’s Second Stop: Golden State 1988-1995 (277-260, .516%)
After the 1986-87 season, Nellie left Milwaukee to become the GM of the previously mediocre-to-bad Golden State Warriors. After one season as GM, Nelson jumped back into coaching to start the 1988-89 season. The Warriors jumped from 20-62 to 43-39 in that season. Nelson was helped by the emergence of Chris Mullin, who went from good player to great player that year (26.5 ppg), and rookie of the year Mitch Richmond. The Warriors even upset the Jazz in the first-round of the playoffs. The seven seed Warriors began to amass a bunch of talented offensive players over the next few years (Sarunas Marciulionis, Tim Hardaway, Chris Gatling). In 1990-91, the Warriors again scored an upset as a seven seed, beating the David Robinson-led Spurs with their high scoring guard-oriented offense, nicknamed Run TMC (referring to Tim Hardaway (22.9 ppg), Mitch Richmond (23.9 ppg), and Chris Mullin (25.7 ppg)).
So entering 1991-92, the Nellie Warriors had been a team with some scoring talent that had tepid regular seasons but two nice upsets. This time, the Warrior fans expected the team to put it all together if they could get some front court help. Nelson then made one of the more controversial moves of his career trading Richmond for rookie forward Billy Owens. Nellie’s rationale was that the team had a glut of two guards (Marciulionis and Mario Elie) so losing Richmond would be okay if the forward was worth it. In fact, Marciulonis played very well (18.9 ppg and .538%) while Owens was solid (14.3 ppg and 8.0 rpg). The Warriors went 55-27 and had the second best record in the west behind the Blazers. As luck would have at, the Warriors great regular season was coupled with a playoff fizzle and the Warriors lost 3-1 to the Sonics in the first-round. It wasn’t quite the upset it seemed because the Sonics did have Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp but it was clearly a bitter end for the Warriors most winning season since 1975-76.
After 1991-92, things gut funky for Nellie. The Warriors crashed to 34-48 in 1992-93 as Mullin, Marciulionis, and Owens all missed over half the season with injuries. The Warriors were able to parlay this bad season into a nice draft pick of Chris Webber in the 1993 Draft. So coming into the 1993-94 season, the Warriors had an exciting potential lineup with young athletic players like Hardaway, Latrell Sprewell, Mullin, Owens, and Webber. Unfortunately, the Warriors never quite got to see the whole lineup together because Hardaway blew out his knee. The rest of the squad went ahead and won 50 games with Webber winning Rookie of the Year but were swept out of the playoffs by the Suns.
And then things fell apart for Nellie and the Warriors in Shakespearean fashion. The source of the problem was Nelson’s relationship with Webber. Apparently Webber had been Nelson’s whipping boy for the 1993-94 season and Webber didn’t appreciate it. Webber probably wasn’t the only rookie to get the rough treatment from and Old School coach but Webber had some unusual leverage. Prior to 1995, there was no rookie wage scale. Thus, a draft pick could get pretty much any contract he could negotiate. Webber’s deal was a bit unusual as it allowed him to be a restricted free agent after only one season. Webber decided to use his free agent status to demand either a trade or Nelson’s firing.
The situation became a real soap opera where people debated whether Nelson was out of touch with the younger players and whether Webber was being petulant or reasonable in his tactics. Nelson had earned high status to Warrior fans so he was able to win the short-term battle and ownership sided with him. Webber was traded to the Bullets for Tom Gugliotta. But the controversy wasn’t over. The Warriors got off to a hot start (7-1) but then problems emerged. Some players, notably Sprewell, rebelled and it appeared that the team wasn’t even trying and collapsed to 19-55. Nellie did not survive the collapse, he was fired after the team fell to 14-31. Thus, ended the Nellie Era in Golden State.
A Closer Look at the Richmond Trade
Trading Richmond was one of the more controversial moves of Nellie’s career. Richmond was a young player at his peak and he was devastated about the deal. The trade for Owens, however, was questioned because Owens ended up having quite a mediocre career and Richmond would be an All-Star for about seven or eight more years. As mentioned above, the Warriors were loaded with guards (Marciulionis, Elie, and Sprewell). So, trading Richmond made some sense but the problem was the booty gotten in return. But trading for Owens was a flawed plan. This isn’t a second-guess on Owens in particular (he had a decent career) as much as it is a recognition that another small forward was not what the Warriors needed. Ironically, the player drafted one pick after Owens was exactly what the defensively challenged Warriors need—Dikembe Mutombo.
Some Reflection on Webber and Nelson
Nellie’s tenure in Golden State was ultimately knocked off by his conflict with Webber. As much as Webber came off as a immature jerk in that scenario, it’s clear that it was handled wrong. Webber was a talent that shouldn’t be given up on unless you can get value in return. Gugs was a good player but not quite in Webber’s league. Moral of the story, keep your superstars if you can.
Nellie’s Brief Stop in the Big Apple: New York 1995-96 (34-25, .576%)
Nelson next ended up in New York and this just didn’t work. The Knicks were a bruising half court team, programmed with a tough mentality by Pat Riley. Nelson sought to rewire the Knicks into his image of a more offensively varied team. It was a decent idea in theory but the player’s weren’t having any of this. In particular, Nelson’s idea was to take touches away from Patrick Ewing and put the ball in Anthony Mason’s hands (Mason was a good passer in the post). He also benched popular John Starks for Hubert Davis (and even tried to trade Starks for Vinny Del Negro). Finally, Nelson kept playing Charlie Ward in the low block because he was convinced that Ward was a good rebounder for a guard.
This radical change did not go over well with the players. The Knicks started 17-6 but then slumped to 17-19 over the next games. At this time the Knicks defense eroded, highlighted by a 17-point home loss to the lowly Clippers. The team completely quit on Nelson and he was fired a few days later (even though his last game as Knicks coach was a win at Toronto).
I have no doubt that Nelson could’ve have eventually turned the Knicks into one of his “teams.” But the problem was the Knicks were still a pretty good team with some good vet players. The more prudent idea would’ve been to try to win with Ewing as centerpiece until the time when Ewing was no longer a Hall of Fame-type player (that would happen in about two years). The stay revealed Nelson’s worst side, his need to win his own way. Some more adaptive coaches would’ve maintained the status quo until it was untenable. Instead, Nellie tried to radically reshape the Knicks to quickly. Granted, the Knicks were resistant to his changes but with a little flexibility in tact, New York could’ve been a much better experience for Nelson.
Nelson came to Dallas at the nadir of his career. The quick and successive failures of the Webber Affair and then in New York had forced him into declaring retirement (on the Knicks’ dime). But Nelson would get some luck. The Mavericks had been slowly stinking for about six years when new owner Ross Perot, Jr. hired Nelson as GM. At that time the Mavs had been trying to rebuild around a young perimeter-oriented team of Jason Kidd, Jimmy Jackson, and Jamal Mashburn. This didn’t work to well because the frontline was abysmal (Lorenzo Williams, Loren Meyer, and Cherokee Parks) and the “Three Js” had been fighting over shots and had health issues. Kidd had broken ribs in a car accident, Jackson had ankle issues, and Mashburn had knee problems.
Nelson came in a decided to dump them and start over. One common misconception was that Nelson traded Kidd to Phoenix (for Michael Finley, A.C. Green, and Sam Cassell). In fact, the incumbent coach Jim Cleamons had authorized that maneuver. Nelson came in in mid 1996-97 and immediately dumped Mashburn (for Kurt Thomas and Sasha Danilovic) and Jackson (as part of a big deal with Cassell and Gatling for Shawn Bradley and Robert Pack). Neither traded turned out very well and, in fact, some speculated that Nelson had made the deals to ensure that Cleamons’ squad so that Nelson could fire him and take over as coach too. In fact that is exactly what happened. Nelson took command of the team. His reputation was now even lower in the gutter too because both Mashburn and Jackson deals looked bad and I recall Sport Illustrated writing an article likening Nelson to a mad scientist.
Unsurprisingly then, the Mavs struggled in Nellie’s first few years. In 1996-97, the Mavs went 24-58 with Cleamons as coach. Nelson took over and went 20-62 the next year. But 1998-99 would mark a turning point. Prior to that season, Nelson drafted Dirk Nowtizki and traded for Steve Nash, two moves that paid huge dividends. The Mavs slowly improved the next two years until 2000-01 when they broke through and won 53 games and upset the Utah Jazz in the playoffs. Since then the Mavs have been on the fringes of championship contention, a very good team but not quite championship level. Finally in late 2004-05, Nelson retired as coach and that leaves us where we are today.
The Nash/ Nowitzki Gambits
As good as the acquisition of Nash and Nowitzki moves looks now, back in 1998-99 they were not as well-received. Nash was a backup guard for the Suns (behind Kidd and Kevin Johnson) and though the Suns thought he’d be good he had not definitively shown that he was starter material. Despite this, Nelson gave up a high draft pick for Nash (the pick ended up being Shawn Marion) and immediately gave Nash a six-year, $36 million contract extension. This was not a great idea given that Nah had a lot to prove. In fact, Nash’s first two years in Dallas were not great:
Year MPG PPG APG
1998-99 31.7 7.9 5.5
1999-00 27.4 8.6 4.9
Everyone had inkling that Nash was a good player but he didn’t hit an All-Star level until 2000-01 and people were actually starting to run out of patience with him that he put up 15.6 ppg, 7.3 apg, and shot .487%. Nash was a four-year college grad and it still took him four more years to merit a starting job. Just goes to show you that every player develops differently and the notion that college or pro experience work differently with each individual player.
As for Nowitzki, I don’t think people quite remember the controversy surrounding his drafting. At the 1998 draft, Nowitzki was a wild card from Germany. His entire reputation was based upon one game where he dominated a group an 18-year old American team and there was only a few snippets of grainy film available to watch of him. Nelson nabbed Dirk with the ninth overall pick and it only took him a year to develop into a good pro and the rest is history, averaging 17.5 ppg in his second season at age 21.
Finally, there is also a misconception that the Mav ripped off the Bucks because technically the Mavs traded their sixth overall pick (Robert Traylor) to Milwaukee, who drafted Dirk Nowitzki for the ninth pick. But this wasn’t a bona fide trade. The Mavs purposely let Dirk slip to ninth and then made a pre-arranged trade with the Bucks to draft him at cheaper salary slot. So, the Bucks had no real shot to draft Dirk and it can’t be characterized as a true blunder.
*excludes Nelson’s 2004-05 record because it isn’t clear which games are credited to Nelson or Avery Johnson
Nelson And Projected Won-Loss
Nelson has been a very good coach and, with the exception of New York, he has rebuilt teams into competitive franchises and he has found good talents in all these places that others could not. Interestingly, Nelson’s teams have underperformed their projected won-loss record:
On Milwaukee
Year
Actual
Projected
Difference
1977-78
30-52
31-52
-1
1978-79
44-38
39-43
5
1978-79
38-44
47-35
-9
1979-80
49-33
52-30
-3
1980-81
60-22
61-21
-1
1981-82
55-27
57-25
-2
1982-83
51-31
54-28
-3
1983-84
50-32
54-28
-4
1984-85
59-23
60-22
-1
1985-86
57-25
65-17
-8
1986-87
50-32
52-30
-2
On Golden State
Year
Actual
Projected
Difference
1988-89
43-39
40-42
3
1989-90
37-45
32-50
5
1990-91
44-38
45-37
-1
1991-92
55-27
52-30
3
1992-93
34-48
37-45
-3
1993-94
50-32
46-36
4
1994-95
26-56
24-58
2
On New York
Year
Actual
Projected
Difference
1995-96
47-35
49-33
-2
On Dallas
Year
Actual
Projected
Difference
1997-98
20-62
20-62
0
1998-99
19-31
19-31
0
1999-00
40-42
39-43
1
2000-01
53-29
55-27
-2
2001-02
57-25
54-28
3
2002-03
60-22
64-18
-4
2003-04
52-30
54-28
-2
2004-05
58-24
59-23
-1
Over the course of his career, Nelson’s teams have played 23 games worse than their projected record, including 1985-86 when the Bucks went 57-25 but based upon the points for/against the Bucks were projected to have a 65-17 record. I don’t know if this is a fluke or not but it is interesting to see that Nelson underperformed the projections. I suspect it may be a fluke because after leaving Milwaukee, the differential between actual and projected wins narrowed greatly.
Nellie’s Best Team?
This is an interesting question and it really comes down to two or three teams. Nellie has won 60 games twice, once with the 1980-81 Bucks and again 20 years later with the 2002-03 Mavs. We can also throw in the 1985-86 Bucks who won 57 games but actually were projected to win 65 and the 59-win 1984-85 Bucksa. Let’s again look at the line ups and see the squads:
Let’s first deal with the Bucks teams. I tend to think that the latter two Bucks teams are superior to the 1980-81 model. The 1980-81 was very well-balanced really didn’t have a power forward (Johnson was a small forward) and Moncrief wasn’t at his peak yet. The 1984-85 team has Cummings and Moncrief’s peak but playoff-wise they weren’t great (swept out of the second-round). The 1985-86 team made the furthest but they were also swept out of the playoffs. Given all this information, there really isn’t a satisfying answer to the best Buck team of the three. My preference is the 1985-86 team because they won a lot, had a true power forward, a peaking Moncrief, AND had the furthest playoff run but I recognize that the difference in the three is academic. In fact, I think all three teams are probably slightly worse than the 2002-03 Mavs who featured Nowitzki (the best player Nellie ever coached) and Nash.
The All-Nellie Team
Nelson has coached a ton of All-Star talent so finding an “All-Nelson” Team is quite a challenge. Let’s see what we have:
PG: Tim Hardaway: Right off the bat we have a really tough decision. Nelson couldn’t find a good classic point guard on Milwaukee but he made up for that with Steve Nash and Tim Hardaway. Each player had about four All-Star years playing with Nelson but had different strengths. Let’s take a look at their seasons under Nellie:
Nash PPG FG% APG Eff.
1998-99 7.9 .363 5.5 9.90
1999-00 8.6 .477 4.9 10.93
2000-01 15.6 .487 7.3 18.04
2001-02 17.9 .483 7.7 19.34
2002-03 14.5 .465 7.3 19.01
2003-04 14.5 .470 8.8 18.51
Hardaway PPG FG% APG EFF.
1989-90 14.7 .471 8.7 18.89
1990-91 22.9 .476 9.7 25.30
1991-92 23.4 .461 10.0 24.33
1992-93 21.5 .447 10.6 23.47
1993-94 INJURED-DNP
1994-95 20.1 .427 9.3 20.24
Both were great players for Nelson but Hardaway seems to be the superior player. He scored more and passed more (though he did play in a more up tempo offense). In addition, T-Hard was actually a better defender.
SG: Sidney Moncrief: This is a three-horse race between Moncrief, Michael Finley, and Mitch Richmond. In addition, their numbers are all basically identical. All three were great all-around guards. So how do we differentiate them? I think we can eliminate Richmond because he played the fewest seasons with Nellie (three seasons) while Moncrief (eight seasons) and Finley (eight seasons) both played with Nelson a long time. Now things get dicey. Their stats are very similar and both were great players. I’ll give a slight edge to Moncrief if only because there were points when he was arguably the best player on a very good team while Finley was complementary to Nash and Nowitzki.
SF: Chris Mullin: As much as I liked Paul Pressey as a player who could do everything on the court, Mullin is clearly a better player. Marques Johnson was also quite good but but Mullin scored over 25 ppg in five straight years and was a very good all around player (better than people remember).
PF: Terry Cummings: See below.
C: Dirk Nowitzki: Dirk is a power forward and he’s the best player that Nelson has ever had. We place him at center because in true Nelly fashion, he would’ve surrendered a pivot man for the ability to go small with Cummings and Nowitzki starting together. Finally we note that Patrick Ewing and Chris Webber each might be the true best player Nelson ever coached but their brief time with Nelson and the fact that Nellie didn’t really like themmust cause us to disqualify both of them from the Nellie Team.
Robert Cherry is a writer, journalist, and businessman whose work has appeared in The Arizona Republic, The New York Times, and The Jerusalem Post. After selling his food manufacturing business, Robert published his first book which is a about Wilt Chamberlain, a fellow Philadelphian, and one of the compelling figures of the 20th Century. Robert’s definitive biography: “Wilt: Larger Than Life” (Triumph Books) has deconstructed Chamberlain’s life on and off the basketball court and provided new insight into the life that few have been able to fully grapple with. Robert was kind enough to talk with us.
Question: What interested you in writing a sports-related book?
Robert Cherry: I became interested in journalism through Red Smith, the syndicated sports columnist whom I read in the Philadelphia Inquirer in the 1960s. Enjoying him, I began to read books by and about the other great sportswriter from the 1920s and 30s and 40s, a golden age of sports writing—people like Paul Gallico, Grantland Rice, Wesbrook Pegler and John Kiernan. But my favorite was always Red Smith, a great reporter and superb writer. But as much as I loved Red Smith, I never worked as a sportswriter. I was a general assignment reporter and feature writer and, on one paper, a columnist. Column writing—“flapping your wings in public,” as H. L. Mencken called it, was my favorite kind of newspaper writing. I like to express my opinion and that is what columnists get paid to do.
Q: How did your life journey lead to writing the book about Wilt?
RC: I was born and raised in Philadelphia and went to the same high school [Overbrook] as Wilt, though six years after him. When Wilt died in October of 1999, I listened to the tributes to him on WIP [Philadelphia’s local sports radio station] and I was struck by the heart-warming and interesting stories that so many callers offered. Then the [Philadelphia] Daily News wrote about how Wilt befriended [former teammate] Paul Arizin’s granddaughter, who had a terminal illness. I was moved to tears when I read the article. These stories revealed a side of Wilt that I was unaware of. I thought if I didn’t know about this side of Wilt, the average sports fan probably didn’t, either, and that this would be an opportunity to gather the stories and write a book about Wilt. And here we are, five and a half years later.
Q: What was the most surprising thing you learned about Wilt in writing the book?
RC: I didn’t really find one great surprise. I set myself the task of writing the most comprehensive book about Wilt’s life on and off the basketball court. I wanted to answer the question, to my satisfaction if no one else’s, why Wilt’s teams didn’t win more championships. I must have read 3,000 to 5,000 newspaper stores about Wilt and interviewed his teammates and the opposing players at every level—high school, college and the professional years. Looking over the box scores and newspaper accounts, I found—and think I document the case—that Wilt was not the reason his teams failed to win more championships. Even when his teams lost, Wilt’s stats and contributions were tremendous. He almost always delivered for his team. As for Wilt off the court, I uncovered no great revelations but all the details about his life evoke a clear picture of this unique man. I was impressed by the affection that Wilt’s friends and associates still hold toward him. Wilt could be high maintenance—moody and unpleasant at times. After his death, Wilt’s friends and associates could have complained about that aspect of his personality to me—or others. But none of them did so. I was also struck by how even to his friends and teammates Wilt was—and remains—larger than life. They all had Wilt stories, which made them laugh, and in some cases, tear up, as they recalled their enigmatic, compelling friend or teammate.
Q: Wilt, the player, was well before my time, but when he died I remember being in shock. Even to the younger fans, Wilt was superhuman and not subject to laws nature that everyone else was.
RC: That was my reaction, too. And he wasn’t before my time. Everyone considered him “Superman,” and in some respects, he was; but in others, of course, he was all-too-mortal, and died all-too-young at 63. That said, I never realized how extraordinary Wilt’s constitution was until I began my research. In running drills, he lapped teammates and he was always the fastest man on the team, including the guards. One teammate told me that he never saw Wilt tired. Wilt drank gallons of water and 7 Up and ran six miles a day until he had hip problems in the 1990s. And he was incredibly strong. Everyone marveled at, and told me stories about, his amazing strength. When he was in his 50s, one friend related how he would curl 110-pound dumbbells as easy as most people life a telephone receiver.
Q: What killed Wilt?
., Wilt died of heart disease. Except for close friend, few people knew how sick he was the last couple of years of his life. When he returned to Kansas to have his jersey retired [in January1998], he looked horrible—ashen skin, hollow eyes, excessive sweating. I give the first detailed account of his last years and months, sad though they are.
Q: Let’s go back to Wilt’s early years. It struck me while Wilt was the epitome of cool later in life, his high school years were quite the opposite.
RC: Theteenage years are awkward and insecure for everybody. Wilt had all that and he was a foot taller than everyone else. Wilt got better looking as got older—his head seemed to fit his body better. At 17, Wilt’s head didn’t fit his body and his ears stuck out. He was skinny—not the sculpted physique of his latter years. You don’t have to dig to deep to realize that Wilt was very self conscious at that age and that he wasn’t the flamboyant, confident Wilt of his adult years.
Q: Why did Wilt leave Kansas early?
RC: His game wasn’t developing in college. Opponents held the ball [there was no shot clock in the NCAA until the 1980s] and grabbed Wilt. He wanted to earn money for himself and his family. One of the first things he did when he turned professional was to buy a home for his parents. Between these two factors it was a pretty clear cut decision to go pro.
Q: Was it true that Wilt was hard to deal with personally?
RC: Yes and no. Wilt could be difficult, at times, especially when he didn’t respect a coach. He liked playing for Frank McGuire, Alex Hannum and Bill Sharman, the last two of whom he played on championship teams with. But even then, in the case of Hannum, there was tension and the success was short-lived. Ironically, while they often argued, Alex Hannum and Wilt became very close after their basketball days ended; they both loved going to the track and betting on horses.
Q: One of the more controversial portions of Wilt’s career was his exit from 76ers after the 1967-68 season. Apparently, Wilt took the position that he deserved a part of the team and would not move from this point. What exactly happened?
RC: In mid-1964-65, the San Francisco Warriors traded Wilt back to Philly to the Sixers. But Wilt didn’t want to go back to Philly and he threatened to retire at the end of the year. The Sixers were owned by Ike Richman, who was Wilt’s lawyer and good friend, and Irv Kosloff. Ike traded for Wilt despite the retirement threats. Wilt said that Ike promised him, Wilt, 25% of the team. Wilt and Ike had a father-son relationship. Stan Lorber, who was both Ike and Wilt’s doctor, believes it likely that Ike promised Wilt part of the team. After all, Wilt was the best player in the NBA and Ike was wealthy so it isn’t unreasonable to believe that they had this understanding. But Richman died suddenly and his partner Kosloff didn’t feel bound by what Wilt claimed was an oral agreement. This dispute poisoned the relationship between Wilt and Kosloff.
Q: It seemed the Wilt had a scorched earth policy in relationships with the teams he played. Why do you think that is?
RC: I agree with your observation. As for why it happened—when it happened—it was part of Wilt’s personality. There was some element of it in Wilt’s departure from Philadelphia in 1968, but life is complicated. Wilt had other reasons to want to leave Philly for California in 1968. His parents, with whom he was close, lived in California. He owned an apartment house there. And in California, it was easier for Wilt to date white women. Remember, we’re talking about 1968—when it was not so acceptable for a black man to date white women as nowadays, when it is a non-issue. Finally, Wilt was a huge star in Philadelphia—actually too big for the city of his and my birth—but in Los Angeles he was one of many celebrities, albeit always the most visible, and so had more privacy—though, in his case, privacy is a relative term.
Q: How much did you intend to write about Wilt and his relationship with Bill Russell and what did you learn about this relationship?
RC: I intended to write a lot about it and I did. I was pleased to see that, with one exception, Wilt and Russell were very magnanimous and always respectful toward each other. The one exception was Russell’s criticism of Wilt after the 1968-69 Finals, as a result of which they didn’t speak for 20 years. I tried to talk with Russell but I couldn’t get him to do an interview.
Q: Through your research did you come to a conclusion about the debate over who was the better player?
RC: It’s one of those great unanswerable sports debates. If Russell and Wilt had reversed teams would Wilt have won as often as Russell did with the Celtics? I can’t and don’t know the answer to this question but I think it’s pretty clear that Wilt would’ve won more than the two championships had he had Russell’s supporting cast. In any case, my opinion is that Wilt was the greater center of the two.
Q: I know that the Celtics, and Red Auerbach and Bob Cousy in particular, liked to tweak Wilt with comments about how Wilt couldn’t win the big one. Was there any merit to this? Did Russell have something that Wilt didn’t?
RC: Yes, Russell played with 8 future hall of famers, 9 if you count Red Auerbach. Cousy said that Wilt didn’t elevate his teammates like Russell did. But Wilt had to score for his teams to be competitive. In the early years, Wilt scored more than 30% of his team’s points while Russell only had 12-15%. Wilt blocked more shots than Russell. Still, there is some merit to the observation that Russell had an intensity that Wilt, at times, lacked—or to the observer, seemed to lack.
Q: You were able to get Butch van Breda Kolff to talk to you about Wilt? [Editor’s note: van Breda Kolff was Wilt’s coach on the 1968-69 Lakers. They got along very poorly and clashed all year. This feud culminated in the middle of the fourth quarter of game 7 of the 1968-69 Finals. Wilt hurt his knee and had to leave the game at about the five minute mark of a tight game. Van Breda Kolff refused to reinsert Wilt into the game, despite Wilt’s protest that he was ready to play a minute or so later. The Lakers went on to lose the game and the series and Van Breda Kolff was fired]. Could van Breda Kolff explain why he chose to have Mel Counts remain in the game when Wilt was ready to return?
RC: Wilt had hurt his knee, the same knee, incidentally, he would tear up the next year, so he was clearly hurting and had to leave the game. Let me emphasize the point, since even the authors of sports books—I won’t name names—get it wrong: Wilt had to leave the game. He could barely walk, much less run. Russell’s statement that Wilt “copped out” of the game was dead wrong. Even van Breda Kolff, no fan of Wilt, defends Wilt on this point When Wilt said “I’m ready” a minute or so later, van Breda Kolff says he thought that Counts was doing better. Counts did hit a couple of shots but he had started missing shots and Wilt could jump about two feet higher than Counts. Who would you want playing at the end of the championship game—Wilt Chamberlain or Mel Counts? I think van Breda Kolff wanted to show Wilt (and the world) that the Lakers could win without him. But benching Wilt cost van Breda Kolff his professional coaching career.
Q: Did you interview [then 76ers GM] Jack Ramsay about Wilt? I remember in “Season of the 76ers” Ramsay was critical of Wilt.
RC: Yes,I interviewed Ramsay. Much as I admire Jack Ramsay, I’m also aware that Wilt had criticized Ramsay in a book and human nature being what it is, Ramsay is not a huge Wilt fan. Jack said that he thought Wilt was insecure and always felt unappreciated, with which I agree. Given the choice between Wilt and Russell, Ramsay chooses Russell. I factor in Wilt’s criticism of Jack Ramsay when I consider Ramsay’s choice.
Q: What about Wilt’s relationship with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?
RC: They didn’t like each other, though when Jabbar was young they had a teacher-student relationship. I think the problem stemmed from competition about who was king. Both had hang ups, as who does not. They were abnormally tall, also famous, and black and that takes a toll. The same was true to some extent with Russell and Wilt.
Q: How would you compare Russell and Wilt as people? Do you think their rivalry was personal too?
RC: Everyone I spoke to said Russell was difficult to deal with and that Wilt was charming and fun to be around but high maintenance. It’s reasonable to say that Russell envied Wilt’s his acclaim and flamboyant lifestyle and Wilt envied Russell’s all those championship rings.
Q: Let’s talk a bit more about the criticism of Wilt’s inability to beat the Celtics. From my readings, it seems that the Celtics generally had the better team. But there were clearly a few times when Wilt had a least as good a team as Russell, most notably with some of the mid-1960s Sixers teams. Do you think the criticism of Wilt for losing with respect to those teams was fair?
RC: No, except in 1968, when I think, and write, that Wilt and his teammates blew it—there is no way the Celtics ought to have beaten the Sixers in the 1968 Eastern Finals. The Sixers went up 3-1 in the series that year only to lose three straight games, two of which were home games. In game seven, Wilt did not score much, though, as usual, he led everyone in rebounds gathered. I examined this game very carefully. That year, Wilt average 10-15 touches per quarter. In the fourth quarter of game 7, Wilt had only two touches, and those were off of rebounds. Even Wilt can’t score without the ball. I blame all the Sixers for failing to get Wilt the ball—including Wilt who should have demanded the ball and not excluding the coach, Alex Hannum, who should have told his players to get the ball into Wilt. They’re all to blame for the debacle in 1969, and I do so in the book.
Q: What about 1968-69? The Lakers had Wilt, Elgin Baylor, and Jerry West and the Celtics were aging and decaying as a team? It seemed to me that the Lakers were much better.
RC: The 1968-69 Lakers just didn’t mesh. The whole of the team was less than the sum of the parts. Wilt and Baylor had problems about who would be “top dog” and Wilt and Van Breda Kolff hated each other. No one says that West and Baylor were losers for being unable to beat Russell and the Celtics. The fact is that the Lakers didn’t play well, and Boston was phenomenal. They also had the luck of the Irish. Sam Jones, falling down, hit a desperation shot to win one game in the series and Don Nelson hit that high bouncer in game 7. Wilt played well in the series as a whole. But in game 6, with the Lakers having a chance to clinch the series, Wilt came up short by my reckoning. He had only 8 points. Had Wilt had one of his vintage 30-point nights, there never even would’ve been a game 7 and the Mel Counts incident. Game 6 was the most egregious example, in all my research, of Wilt not rising to the occasion in a big game and for which I criticize him. I asked Jerry West about this and he said “sometimes it flows and sometimes it doesn’t.” But I think this game is the one example of Wilt not quite having the intensity or killer instinct that Cousy alluded to. I couldn’t imagine Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan failing to rise to the occasion in similar circumstances.
Q: Who are your top five centers of All-Time?
RC: My top five are:
1. Wilt
2. Shaquille O’Neal
3. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
4. Bill Russell
5. Hakeem Olajuwon
I give Wilt a slight edge over Shaq. I would’ve loved to see them play against one another. The reason I give Wilt the edge is that Wilt had more stamina and Wilt was faster and would beat Shaq down the court, especially late in the game; and, without doubt, Wilt could jump higher than Shaq—so I give him the edge in rebounding and defense. Both would score lots of points, but overall I lean towards Wilt.
Q: Who’s the best basketball player of All-Time?
RC: Given Michael Jordan’s intensity, his will to win, and his record, you have to say that he is the greatest player of All-Time. Yet, if I were starting a team I’d pick Wilt first. That may sound or read as inconsistent but that is what I’d do. When he wanted to, no one could dominate a basketball game like Wilt Chamberlain, including Michael Jordan.
Q: Robert, thank you very much for your time.
RC: My pleasure.
“Wilt: Larger Than Life” is published by Triumph Books. It can be ordered online at WebOrders@triumphbooks.com or by calling 1-800-335-5323.