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PistonPowered Book Club: ‘When March Went Mad’ by Seth Davis
The NBA’s interest in making sure basketball prospects spend at least some time in college has been a constant subject of debate since the league instituted a minimum age to enter the league. That age restriction gets sillier every year considering some of the league’s biggest current stars — Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Kevin Garnett, Tracy McGrady and Amar’e Stoudemire — skipped college and went straight to the league. Even a crop of next-tier type players like Josh Smith, Jermaine O’Neal, Tyson Chandler, Kendrick Perkins, Monta Ellis and others made the transition from high school to successful pro. Sure, there were busts along the way, but isn’t that the case with college stars as well? When the NBA had so much success drawing from the high school ranks and finding players who became competent rotation players or better, why was it necessary to try and funnel players into going to college?
When March Went Mad by Seth Davis is a good historical starting point for why the NBA would have a vested interest in seeing kids spend at least some time in college. Of the players listed above, I would say that only James came into the league as an established star. The problem with drafting high school players is that, except in rare cases like James’, most fans have seen very little of that high school player. The upside of drafting college players, as shown in Davis’ book, is that with the audience the NCAA has, players can potentially come into the league as established off-court stars, generating buzz and interest in the NBA as a result of college success. Davis chronicles the lead-up to Magic Johnson’s Michigan State team meeting Larry Bird’s Indiana State in the 1979 NCAA Championship game, looking at not only the massive coverage and interest in the game itself, but the divergent paths Johnson and Bird took to becoming major stars.
Some have argued over the years that Johnson and Bird entering the NBA saved the struggling league. They were charismatic, proven winners in an era when some of the league’s marquee names — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Julius Erving, for example — were aging. The NBA had image problems as a result of rampant drug abuse in the 1970s. Ratings were up and down. On the strength of their title runs, Johnson came into the league as a rookie and led the Lakers to a championship. Just one year later, Bird entered the league and vaulted the Celtics back into title contention. Neither team had to spend much time on player development. Neither player needed coaching on how to deal with big media coverage. The expensive work of narrative-building had been taken care when both guys were in college and the NBA reaped the rewards immediately. Even if this generation’s high school-to-NBA players have even greater career accomplishments than Magic or Bird, it took time in each player’s case to get to even an All-Star level, let alone elite status as one of the top players in the game. It took time for fans nationally to connect with them. Even if players like Bryant or James had spent just one year in college, its likely both would’ve helped big-name college teams (Bryant has said in the past that he likely would’ve played at Duke, James has said he probably would’ve committed to Ohio State) to NCAA tournament success, success that would’ve led to greater exposure for the individual players and greater benefits to the NBA when they entered the draft as more famous commodities.
The other interesting theme throughout Davis’ book is the divergent paths Johnson and Bird took to superstardom. Johnson was the guy who loved the spotlight, who the media couldn’t help but cover because his game was so flashy and noticeable and his personality off the court was so big that it drew them in. Bird, on the other hand, was insanely talented and extremely reclusive and uncomfortable with the spotlight. He obviously grew more comfortable with this as he became a pro, but he didn’t deal well with the pressure of playing at his state’s flagship basketball program, Indiana University, which is why he went to Indiana State. Whereas the media was drawn to Johnson naturally, it was almost as if they worked really hard to cultivate the narratives and mythology about Bird.
Anyway, there’s not any kind of Pistons connection to the book, but I loved reading it not only because the Bird-Magic NCAA title game is one of the best moments in college basketball history, but because it’s full of great information on Johnson’s high school career at Lansing Everett. Anyone who has followed some of the state’s powerhouse high school programs over the years will certainly appreciate some of the names Davis caught up with and talked to in the book.
Next up: Forty Minutes of Hell by Rus Bradburd
Previously:
- The Breaks of the Game
- The Jordan Rules
- Playing for Keeps
- Loose Balls
- Fab Five
- The City Game
- The Last Shot
PistonPowered Book Club: ‘The Last Shot’ by Darcy Frey
PistonPowered reader Jacob Tucker provides this week’s Book Club post. If you’d like to contribute, e-mail patrickhayes13(at)gmail(dot)com.
For many boys who grow up on Coney Island in southern Brooklyn the possibility of going to college, choosing their own career path, and finding success is remote. In neglected neighborhoods where the majority of the population lives in 20 story public housing projects, there is but one glimmer of hope for some: basketball.
In The Last Shot, Darcy Frey gives his firsthand account of following four players from Abraham Lincoln High School (alma mater of current NBA players Sebastian Telfair and Lance Stephenson) for close to a year beginning in the spring of 1991. Frey closely chronicles the lives of seniors Tchaka Shipp, Corey Johnson and Darryl Flicking (named Russell Thomas in the book for legal reasons), as well as an up-and-coming freshman named Stephon Marbury.
Shipp is the most physically gifted and perhaps the most “privileged” of the group. As the book begins he has just been invited to the Nike camp – an invitation-only summer camp designed to showcase the nation’s top high school players to college coaches. Johnson has no dearth of talent but his interests are wide and include poetry and fashion as he writes one-liners about as often as he dunks.
Flicking is a student of the game, ceaselessly practicing his fundamentals in unwavering heat. He also has the highest GPA on the team and always keeps vocabulary flash cards nearby in preparation for the SAT.
Frey’s first observation of the 14-year-old Marbury goes like this:
Caught somewhere between puberty and superstardom, he walks around with his sneakers untied, the ends of his belt drooping suggestively from his pants, and half a Snickers bar extruding from his mouth…..Dribbling by himself in a corner of the court, Stephon has raised a ball with one hand directly over his head and threaded it through his legs. From back to front. Without interrupting his dribble. Now he’s doing it with two balls!
Through the experiences of these four players, Frey addresses such topics as the social decline of Coney Island, the mixed messages players receive from corporate sponsors, the shady recruiting tactics of big-time college coaches, the NCAA’s Proposition 48, and other obstacles that stand in the way of that ever elusive hope of “making it.” To be clear, “making it” does not necessarily mean playing in the NBA. Flicking wants to become a nurse. Johnson wants to become a writer. But each player knows that the vehicle to get him where he wants to go is basketball.
Frey paints Coney Island as a desolate community where drugs and violence rule the day. The once proud Lincoln High that boasts such alumni as Joseph Heller and Arthur Miller has succumbed to gang wars and frequent student arrests. Despite the efforts of some dedicated faculty members, socioeconomic conditions have put academics down the priority list. As one local freelance coach notes, “Lincoln didn’t make Coney Island. Coney Island made Lincoln.”
When Shipp attends the Nike summer camp, Frey goes with him. The players are constantly told by Nike staff members that when it comes to basketball, “just go out there and have fun.” Moments later every aspect of a player’s game is analyzed by the top college coaches in the nation. Frey notes that from where they are sitting the coaches can’t even see the scoreboard during team scrimmages, putting the onus on individual play. The players notice this as one remarks, “…you got to be a ball hog at this camp…” and another says, “I’m…shooting every time I touch the ball.” With scholarship money on the line, these players’ futures are dependent on just ‘going out there and having fun.’
Frey witnesses a myriad of recruiting practices by Division I coaches. He hears Jim Boehiem’s constant reassurance as the Syracuse coach steadily backpedals because of recent NCAA allegations of improper benefits. He notes Rollie Massimino’s emphasis on being a family and doing everything together. Within the year Massimino would move three thousand miles away leaving Villanova for UNLV. Frey is entertained by Rick Barnes’ magic card tricks, three cups and a disappearing ball, and the old quarter behind the player’s ear. Barnes tells Shipp that he is the only player they’re recruiting at his position before listing two more and then saying, “…that’s it.” As Barnes gets up to conclude the recruiting meeting he drops his deck of cards revealing a two of spades stamped on every trick card. Rod Baker tells Flicking that they need another guard and he was the first person they thought of. His end of the conversation with Flicking is as follows:
Frankly, I think you could be a pioneer at Cal-Irvine, an impact player, a franchise player. A year from now, when you’re a freshman and we’re playing for a conference championship, it won’t take a brain surgeon to figure out it was [Darryl Flicking] who got us there. And five years from now, I wouldn’t be surprised if people are saying, “Remember when [Darryl Flicking] came in and completely changed the fortunes of Cal-Irvine?”
As soon as Flicking makes up his mind to sign with Cal-Irvine, Baker calls the Lincoln coach to say he’s no longer interested because a guard he thought was leaving decided to come back.
In 1986 the NCAA instituted Proposition 48 which requires student-athletes to score a minimum of 700 on the SAT to obtain a Division I athletic scholarship. Frey is critical of Prop 48 and provides compelling arguments. He points out that the NCAA does not consider any other indications of scholastic potential besides the standardized tests. Educationally disadvantaged and poorly schooled players like the ones at Lincoln have much intellectual ground to cover to meet this minimum requirement. In his pursuit of this Flicking sits at the front of his classes, asks stimulating questions, and even goes to study hall during lunch time. Regardless, he struggles in his attempts to reach the 700 threshold throughout the book.
Frey encountered his share of challenges when writing The Last Shot. He was banned from recruiting visits to all Big East campuses by the NCAA. Flicking’s mother ordered her son not to speak to Frey at one point. He is denied several requests for an interview by Marbury’s father. Having already seen three of his sons fail to “make it” Don Marbury won’t speak unless he is compensated. In the face of these challenges, Frey writes a timeless book. At times triumphant and at times sobering, it’s a case study of the burdens of four high school basketball players in less than fortunate circumstances with the game as their only alleviation. At one point the brash and surprisingly astute Marbury utters, “Man, I’m tired of all this … somebody’s got to make it, somebody’s got to go all the way…”
The concern for these young men is palpable as their actions lead to continual speculation about their outcomes, vacillating from potential NBA star to Coney Island casualty.
On a personal level, The Last Shot shook my naïve perception. The first time I read this book I was young and did not yet realize that having the skills, talent, and tenacity to play basketball at the highest level was merely half the battle. As NBA fans (particularly those of us Pistons fans over the last three years) we often experience emotions of frustration even anger as we bemoan the shortcomings of the players we follow. This book gave me a fresh appreciation for the fact that these players have reached the point where they can even put on jersey and step out onto an NBA floor. In 2004 Darcy Frey released an edition of The Last Shot with a new afterword, updating the lives of Tchaka Shipp, Corey Johnson, Darryl Flicking, and Stephon Marbury. I won’t give it away, but I will say that it is at the same time victorious and demoralizing.
Next up: When March Went Mad by Seth Davis
Previously:
PistonPowered Book Club: ‘The City Game’ by Pete Axthelm
Bringing up the name Arron Afflalo on a Pistons site is asking for trouble nowadays. Afflalo, obviously, has blossomed into a reliable player in Denver and, more importantly, an inexpensive one after the Pistons dealt him (for a pick that has turned into Vernon Macklin … Vernon, you better be good or you’ll never hear the end of it) to clear room to fit bigger name acquisitions under the salary cap.
The problem with the trade wasn’t so much that Afflalo showed promise as a Piston that has been fulfilled elsewhere. Trading Afflalo represented a culture shift. Afflalo was young, hard-working and defensive-minded, all principles that Detroit’s best teams have been founded on. He was essentially replaced on the roster by Ben Gordon, who is expensive and a bad defensive player. Gordon was the flashier player, the bigger name coming off of a memorable playoff performance for Chicago that overshadowed the fact that his team, you know, actually lost the series he was supposedly so transcendant a player in.
When I do these book club posts, I’m always on the lookout for historical parallels between the current Pistons and past Pistons teams that are, I’m finding, mentioned for a variety of reasons in a lot of very famous basketball books. And I bring up the Afflalo situation because in Pete Axthelm’s The City Game, he mentions a Pistons trade in the 1960s that was very similar.
In 1968, the Pistons traded Dave DeBusschere, a solid, tough, defensive-minded player who also happened to be a local star prior to joining the Pistons (he was a standout high school player in Detroit and a great college player at the University of Detroit), to the New York Knicks for Walt Bellamy. Bellamy, a center, had superior numbers. He was flashy, he was a bigger name and he played what was at the time the league’s most glamorous position.
Listen to Axthelm describe DeBusschere’s impact on the Knicks:
DeBusschere is the kind of athlete who plays hard and looks it, during every second that he is on the court. Perspiration gushes off his face, his chest heaves as he races up and down the floor, his whole body strains and contorts as he elbows for position under the boards. There is no economy or subtlety in the style, no sense that it all comes easily. You watch DeBusschere and you understand what hard work pro basketball can be — and what a job the man is doing.
The acquisition of DeBusschere made a good Knicks team into one of the most entertaining in league history. He was a perfect compliment to center Willis Reed, his intelligence and toughness rubbed off on his teammates and the Knicks of that era began to challenge teams with much more star power.
The trade of DeBusschere and the trade of Afflalo are just subtle reminders of how some of the things that contribute most to winning — toughness, defense, work ethic, intelligence — are often the first things cast aside in a quest for players with more flair or style. Bellamy only played 109 games in Detroit. He played for seven teams in 14 seasons, putting up good numbers in every place. He may have had more overall talent than DeBusschere, but the Knicks were a far better team with DeBusschere instead of Bellamy.
But that’s far from the only Pistons connection in Axthelm’s book. Former Michigan star Cazzie Russell was a source of criticism for fans and media in NY because the Knicks picked him ahead of Syracuse star Dave Bing, who went to the Pistons one pick later. Russell was a good NBA player, but not the star he was in college and Bing, as we know, went on to have a Hall of Fame career.
The biggest connection fans of the Pistons, particularly those who watched the three title teams closely, will make is simply the style of play. The Knicks were a suffocating defensive unit under Red Holzman. They had a collection of players — Walt Frazier, DeBusschere, Reed, Russell, Bill Bradley and Dick Barnett ( — all capable of controlling the game, but all selfless enough to let others take control if they had it going. Check out this quote in the book from Larry Merchant of the New York Post on Willis Reed and tell me that it doesn’t sound like it could describe an in-his-prime Ben Wallace or Dennis Rodman:
“Reed plays the game the way long-distance runners are supposed to run: dropping dead at the finish line. Whatever he has he gives.”
And parts of this description of the Frazier-Barnett (pre-Earl Monroe trade) backcourt could adequately describe the peaks of Isiah Thomas/Joe Dumars or Chauncey Billups/Rip Hamilton:
Frazier’s emergence as a star had a multiple effect on the team. Taking charge of the offense and setting fire to the defense, he brought out the best in his teammates. And nobody benefited more than the sleep-eyed, high-dribbling, awkward-shooting Dick Barnett. Dick had always had a deadly shooting eye; Frazier’s passes found him open so often that his shooting became a far more potent weapon. In his quiet, workmanlike way, Barnett also had been an outstanding defender; but Frazier’s flamboyant defensive style provided a perfect complement to his own steady guarding, and made more people aware of the job Barnett could do on his man. As each game passed, Frazier and Barnett seemed to develop a keener sense of one another — and Garden crowds developed a deeper love for them.
Axthelm doesn’t just chronicle the Knicks, however. His book is also covering a parallel basketball world on the NYC playgrounds, recounting legends like Connie Hawkins, Earl ‘The Goat’ Mannigault and many others. I’ve always been jealous of the overall NYC basketball scene, not because I think it’s superior to Detroit’s necessarily, just because the history is so intact. Detroit has playground and high school legends, guys who were pegged for greatness and got derailed, but we’ve generationally not done a very good job of re-telling and mythologizing those players the way New York has over the years.
On a more personal level, I particularly enjoyed Axthelm’s book because those late 1960s and early 1970s Knicks teams were my dad’s favorite teams ever (until the 1980s … remember, if you think being a Pistons fan is tough now, try rooting for this franchise in the pre-Isiah era). He told and re-told the story of watching an injured Willis Reed limp out of the locker room and play in game seven of the 1970 NBA Finals, which the Knicks won. His all-time favorite non-Pistons were Earl Monroe and DeBusschere. My dad was a teenager when that team was winning, so obviously, his stories over the years were a mix and match collection of his memories. This book filled in some of the blanks and made me appreciate that team even more than I already did.
Next up: The Last Shot by Darcy Frey.
Note: Next week, regular PistonPowered commenter Jacob Tucker will do the honors discussing Frey’s book. If you have a basketball book you’d like to pitch writing about as a guest post, feel free to send an e-mail to patrickhayes13(at)gmail(dot)com. The more voices, the better.
Previously:
PistonPowered Book Club: Fab Five by Mitch Albom
I’ve tried for Pistons angles in each of these book club posts so far, but there’s not much I can do on that front with Mitch Albom’s Fab Five. Well, I take that back … there are a few things I could tie into the Pistons, but I doubt anyone wants to reminisce about former Pistons Christian Laettner or Eric Montross, both guys who led their college teams to wins in national title games over the University of Michigan during the two years that Albom chronicled, depending on your perspective, either the greatest class of basketball talent ever assembled or the most hyped class ever. Or maybe they’re both? Who knows.
I chose to do a post on Fab Five not because people aren’t familiar with the story — after the insanely popular ESPN documentary produced by Jalen Rose, I would say their story is definitely not unfamiliar. And I also don’t have some new, fresh ground to cover in a discussion on the book, the players, the movie or the controversies. The reason I wanted to write something about this book is simple: I wanted to write about Chris Webber.
Webber had a fantastic career as a player. He played in two national title games and had a successful NBA career. Even if there are some ‘what could’ve been?’ questions that linger because of injuries, the fact is what Webber was was still great. Maybe he had the talent to revolutionize the power forward position, as some predicted when he was a young player. Obviously, he didn’t quite reach those heights, but he was still one of the best big men of his era. And now, he’s arguably the best former athlete broadcaster out there.
But the question that will always haunt Webber will be the fact that he never won a title at any level. Now, he’s not the first great player to retire title-less. Plenty have done it. But the instances in which Webber got close — twice in college and then in the 2002 Western Conference Finals to the Lakers in one of the most controversial series in recent NBA history — were not just losses, they were career-defining, heart-breaking losses.
But, rational or not, I choose not to define Webber that way. I happily close my eyes to the high profile shortcomings. Timeout? What timeout? I don’t care about the Ed Martin scandal (Feldman will probably suspend me from the site for writing that). I just loved the artistic way Webber played the game. For me, Webber’s career is not defined by his failure to win a title. It’s defined by constantly nearly missing perfect situations.
I love hypotheticals. They’re pointless, but usually always interesting to talk about, and Webber’s career is one of the best to play the hypothetical game with.
What if he’d stayed another year at Michigan? Let’s face it, Michigan had more talent than any team in the country for two straight years. Duke was fantastic, but their experience and intelligence were truly their greatest assets when matched up with UM in the 1992 final. UNC? There is no way that team could compare with Michigan talent-wise in 1993. What if Webber would’ve come back for one more run in 1994? I loved Nolan Richardson’s Arkansas teams, but could they have really dealt with the huge Webber-Howard frontline when one of their bigs was undersized Corliss Williamson? Would their pressure have been as effective with such a high post weapon like Webber who also handled the ball really well for a big man? Teams as talented as Michigan was rarely go without winning a title if they take enough shots. Other things could’ve gone wrong in 1994, but with Webber back, it would’ve taken a crazy upset to keep them from winning the title.
Webber moved on to the NBA where, for a second, it looked like he and Shaquille O’Neal would’ve formed the best frontline of their generation in Orlando. Instead, Webber was traded to Golden State on draft day for Penny Hardaway. But think, for a second, about a Webber-O’Neal high post/low post combination. Would there have been any team that could’ve successfully defended both of those guys? Now, Webber and O’Neal both have egos, as all star athletes do, so there are certainly questions as to whether they could’ve co-existed, but Webber has always been an unselfish player, and I’m convinced it would’ve worked with Shaq. Hardaway was certainly a fantastic player and a key reason that the Magic made the Finals in 1995, but it’s not like the team was completely devoid of perimeter options. Scott Skiles, Nick Anderson and Dennis Scott would’ve been a perfectly formidable starting five with Webber and O’Neal. Skiles and Scott would spread the floor with their shooting and Anderson’s ability to slash and cut would’ve made him a nice target for Webber’s high post passing. If the Magic kept Webber, they could’ve won a title.
After a tumultuous rookie season in Golden State, Webber was traded to Washington. Now, that team hasn’t been a contender for anything since the 1970s, but after acquiring Webber? The then-Bullets had a chance at becoming an absolutely dominant team. I’m serious. Quit laughing.
As with Orlando, it’s all about that front line. Washington could’ve had a front line of Webber, Juwan Howard (then a fringe All-Star caliber player), Rasheed Wallace and Ben Wallace. Rasheed Wallace was traded for Rod Strickland a year before Ben Wallace arrived as a rookie free agent. But if Washington had decided to keep Rasheed Wallace just a little longer (or even trade Howard instead) and if they had a coaching staff who actually realized what it had in Ben Wallace and didn’t glue him to the bench and if Webber and Howard would’ve been a bit more mature than they reportedly were at that stage in their careers, it would barely matter what guards you put on the court with those four as the big man rotation.
Now, Webber did get an opportunity to play for a truly unique team in Sacramento, a team that, despite never making the Finals, will still be remembered for those great series they had with the Lakers and for being one of the best passing teams ever in the modern NBA. But to think about all of the places where Webber very nearly had a chance to be part of something really unique, it just reinforces my belief that he had one of the most interesting careers of any basketball star ever.
And now, I’ve just buzzed through 1,000 words and realized I’ve said precious little about Albom’s book. Seriously, I assume most people have read it or seen the movie, but if you haven’t done both, I highly recommend both. Like them or not, the Fab Five’s cultural impact on the game of basketball is significant, and it’s interesting to hear how they reacted to that influence when they were essentially just kids living it. Albom got incredible access to that team and the book is full of great scenes, two of which stand out to me — Jalen Rose’s failed attempt to talk trash to Muhammad Ali and Webber’s conversation with Michigan football player Shante Peoples, complaining about not having any money even though his No. 4 jersey was for sale right across from where they were eating. That complaint and scene, of course, became funnier with time considering the Martin allegations.
Shameless self promotion: I recently published a short book that ranks the top high school basketball hotbeds in terms of producing NBA talent. It’s called, The HIGH-erarchy: Ranking the top 30 NBA talent producing high schools in history and can be ordered here or as an e-book on Amazon if you’re interested.
Next up: The City Game by Pete Axthelm
Previously:
PistonPowered Book Club: ‘Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association’ by Terry Pluto
Back in 2007, I was working at the Flint Journal, located right downtown Flint, Michigan. The city was abuzz because a movie crew had taken over the downtown, thrown piles of dirt everywhere that were being spray painted white to simulate snow and real life stars like Will Ferrell, Woody Harrelson and Andre Benjamin were hanging out in a city that typically only gets national attention when our local insane people get murderous or start torching buildings in record numbers.
The filming of Semi Pro, which chronicled the life of a fake ABA team, the Flint Tropics, gave Flint a chance to show outsiders that we actually do have some cool things going on, a unique history, fine eateries, etc. It’s too bad the movie was horrible.
And I don’t say that to be a snob. I’m not too good to laugh at a low-brow Ferrell film. The problem was just that the real ABA was so damned interesting, full of crazy stories, that any attempt to do a parody of it in a over-the-top movie doesn’t do the league actual justice.
Terry Pluto’s Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association is a basically an oral history of the short-lived but impactful ABA. It was also comically poorly organized, filled with some of the craziest people imaginable who made decisions so strange that its a wonder the league lasted as long as it did. Here is a small sampling that stood out to me:
• The Pittsburgh Pipers, led by Connie Hawkins, won the inaugural ABA championship. Attendance was a problem for many ABA franchises, but the Pipers, bolstered by Hawkins’ star power, drew a respectable 3,000 or so fans per game in that first season. Then they moved to Minnesota. Why? Because the Minnesota Muskies, who played their inaugural season in Minnesota, decided to move to Miami because of poor attendance that first year. The Pipers suffered a similar fate — Hawkins had injury problems, the team didn’t repeat its first year success and they didn’t draw well in Minnesota. The solution? They moved back to Pittsburgh. Only without Connie Hawkins. Predictably, the team didn’t draw well that season. Then, to be extra confusing? They changed their name to the Pittsburgh Condors for two seasons before folding.
Oh, and why was it so important to have a team in Minnesota anyway? Because that’s where commissioner George Mikan wanted the league office. Why Minnesota and not New York? Because Mikan lived in Minnesota, had his personal business there and didn’t want to move to New York. All of it made perfect sense.
• Former player Charlie Williams recounted a story about going to Memphis owner Charlie Finley’s office to discuss a new contract. Finley, like many owners in the league, seemed to both exaggerate his actual wealth and combined that with being cheap. Finley invited Williams to have lunch with him to discuss the contract. Williams arrived and instead of going to a restaurant, Finley had a hot plate in his office and heated up two cans of soup on it to give the impression that he couldn’t afford to pay Williams what he wanted. The method worked and Williams agreed to less money than he was asking for.
• After playing in the All-Star game, John Brisker (a Detroit native), who had a reputation as one of the meanest, scariest players in the league, wanted his $300 bonus for playing in the game. He wanted it immediately and didn’t want to wait for a check, as any normal person would. After the game, he confronted the terrified commissioner, Jack Dolph, and asked for his money. Rather than explain to him he’d have to wait for a check like everyone else, Dolph took $300 out of his wallet and handed it to Brisker.
Those stories pop up throughout the book, and obviously they stand out. But the other theme is just how revolutionary the league really was. The 3-point shot? Created in the ABA. The dunk contest? ABA. Drafting and signing college underclassmen? ABA. It truly put immense pressure on the NBA to raise player salaries, it ushered in a more athletic, above-the-rim style of basketball and it featured some incredible basketball talent that helped revolutionize the game.
But, as a Pistons fan, the key person I kept following throughout the book was Larry Brown. Brown’s relationship with point guards has been a constant talking point following him during his NBA coaching career. It was particularly prevalent when he was coaching the Pistons and Chauncey Billups, under Brown’s tutelage, was becoming one of the league’s top point guards. Brown’s fixation on the position actually comes from a pretty simple place: he was a great point guard in his own right. He still holds the ABA record for assists in a game with 23 and when he retired as a player, he was the league’s all-time leader in assists (he’s now seventh in ABA history).
Brown never got an opportunity to play in the NBA. NBA teams felt he was too small. He earned a spot in the ABA and became an All-Star player. But, another frequent LB-ism, is his love for “teaching the game.” He retired early as a player (many still thought he was a solid player) to get into coaching and became the head coach of the Carolina Cougars in 1972. Brown’s ABA tenure was interesting. We know him as a slow-the-ball-down, strictly halfcourt offense coach who preached intense defense, and he was certainly that guy in the ABA, at least defensively. But his good friend and assistant coach in Carolina was Doug Moe, who 1980s NBA fans will remember for his high scoring, no-defense Denver teams. Much of the discussion of Brown as a coach in the ABA centers on his relationship with Moe, who served to, at times, reel Brown in when he got too demanding. It was interesting, and it makes me wonder if maybe Brown needed a guy like that on his staff recently in Charlotte, where players tuned him out reportedly because of his constant negativity.
Anyway, a couple key elements of early Brown stood out to me. The first was his defensive innovation:
“No one used the run-and-jump defense in the pros,” Brown said. “When I told people that that was the defense I planned to play, they told me that I would get killed. But I was convinced that if you had a quick team, you could make up for your lack of size with this defense. And using that kind of pressure meant that you had to play a lot of guys, which was good for team morale, since more guys were involved.”
When the Pistons were in the midst of a coaching search, one of the pipe-dream candidates some nostalgic Pistons fans hoped the team would consider was Brown. I’m doubtful Brown was ever even seriously mentioned by the team as a candidate, but with the Pistons glut of limited guards, maybe the team could’ve channeled 1972 Brown, who handled a similar guard situation well with a Carolina team that ended up being really good (ABA executive Carl Scheer is talking in the quote below):
One day Larry came to me and said, “I’ve got four good guards, but I don’t think any of them can play 40 minutes.”
I waited for what he would say next. I didn’t know if he wanted to trade someone or what. Then Larry said, “I’m going to play all four of them equal time.”
I said, “You’ll never get away with it.”
Larry said, “Wait and see.”
He started the game with Mack (Calvin) and (Steve) Jones. That was his offensive unit. Mack was a great penetrator, streaky shooter and emotional leader. He pushed the ball up and down the court, he went to the basket, got fouled and made the foul shots …
Then Larry would take them out for (Teddy) McClain and (Gene) Littles, and those guys just pressed people off the floor. You couldn’t dribble the ball up against Gene or Teddy. They would just take it away from you. You put all that backcourt together and we were a bitch.
Now, first of all, the way he used Littles and McClain sounds an awful lot like how he used Lindsey Hunter and Mike James in 2004. Who knows if today’s LB would be patient enough to deal with the limitations of the players in the Pistons’ current backcourt (he might demand that they all be traded for Steve Francis or something) while using them in ways that maximize each of their individual talents, but his use of four good but flawed players on that Carolina team shows that with good, innovative coaching, roster deficiencies like what the Pistons are faced with can be masked some by a great system.
Loose Balls is kind of an all over the place book since it’s basically Pluto putting together an oral history of a league that is largely forgotten. But it’s extremely valuable as a tool to understand how the NBA became what it is today, how entertainment and showmanship became a part of basketball, and it’s also a good way to learn about fantastic players who never got much of a shot in the NBA (like Detroit Pershing great Mel Daniels, for example). And you also get to learn about the time Rick Barry told Sports Illustrated that basically everyone in the state of Virginia is a redneck so that the Squires would be forced to trade him.
Pluto’s research for the book was exhaustive. He talks to hundreds of people, including stars and basketball minds like Julius Erving, George Mikan, Brown, Dan Issel, Bill Sharman and many more. As many of the people state throughout the book, without the ABA’s influence, the NBA that we know and love today would be much different and probably more boring.
Next up: Fab Five by Mitch Albom
Previously:
PistonPowered Book Club: ‘Playing for Keeps’ by David Halberstam
I had originally planned on doing these book club posts every other Friday, but we’re going to change things up and start doing them every Saturday. The reasons? First, there’s less going on on the weekends news-wise, so theoretically, more time to discuss a book. But more interestingly, a couple guest bloggers have come forward and asked if they could participate (and if others would like to pitch me ideas, feel free to e-mail patrickhayes13(at)gmail(dot)com), starting with today’s guest host, J.M. Poulard of the TrueHoop Network’s Golden State Warriors blog, Warriors World. You can e-mail J.M. at JM.Poulard(at)Warriorsworld(dot)net. And if you’re on Twitter and not following him @ShyneIV already, you’re missing out. He’s one of the best hoops Tweeters out there. Below is his take on Halberstam’s ‘Playing for Keeps’ from a Pistons perspective. Next Friday, we’ll discuss Terry Pluto’s book ‘Loose Balls.’ — Patrick
The old adage has always been that it takes talent to win in professional basketball. Go back through time and look at any championship team and you will find an amazing amount of talent on that squad. But talent alone does not win in the NBA. Indeed, if such were the case, the 2000 Portland Trail Blazers and 2002 Sacramento Kings would be the proud owners of championship rings.
It takes talent yes, but also equally important is willpower. Often times, a group with a bunch of talented players can want to win, but not do enough to get there.
Going all the way might mean imposing your style of play on your opponent or simply completely taking another team out of what they wish to accomplish.
Hence, when we look at past NBA champions, we see talented teams; but also we see extremely mentally tough teams.
If there is one team that exemplifies these traits best, it has to be the Bad Boys Pistons.
In his book Playing For Keeps, David Halebrstam states: “The singular strength of the Pistons, their mental toughness and their sense of purpose made them the most difficult opponent of all for a team on the ascent. The Pistons had an unerring ability to hone in on the weaknesses, physical or psychological, of their opponents.”
Pistons players were smart, tough and focused on winning. Their identity came directly from Isiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer.
Chuck Daly demanded that his players practice and play hard in order to earn playing time. Furthermore, he would coach a tough team that had fierce practices. Thus, when they played against other teams, they typically had an easier time against them because few teams could match their physicality as well as their intensity, especially in the frontcourt.
Detroit boasted a frontline of Bill Laimbeer, Rick Mahorn and Dennis Rodman. For those unfamiliar with these players, one could argue that they are some of the toughest players the league has ever seen. Consequently, they often won games before the tip off, as coaches and players would try to alert officials to expect hard hits prior to the start of games.
The Pistons were the equivalent of the Horsemen in the WCW (wrestling posse that bullied and intimidated other wrestlers in World Championship Wrestling), and Bill Laimbeer was clearly Ric Flair.
Flair spent most of his wrestling career it seems as the World Heavyweight Champion in the WCW; and he retained his title by any means necessary. Using brass knuckles and throwing powder in the face of his opponents were par for the course for him; and consequently the fans despised him.
Laimbeer played the exact same role in the NBA that Flair played in wrestling. Other players regarded him as the league’s premier cheap-shot artist given his willingness to hit players when they were caught in vulnerable positions. The end result was that the Pistons center often got players to lose their cool and play out of focus.
The combination of an imposing physical defense with an extremely tough minded team meant that more often than not the Bad Boys would come out on top.
This explains why former Pistons PR man Matt Dobek once said that the Bad Boys led the league in five-point blowouts: late in games, when officials typically wanted players to decide games, they would allow for much more pushing, grabbing and hitting to occur. Hence, if the Pistons got up by a mere five points late in the game, it was almost impossible for teams to come back.
Between the physical level of play and the taunting of Pistons players, opposing teams almost always unraveled.
The toughest hurdle that Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen had to clear was not the Los Angeles Lakers or Boston Celtics; it was the Detroit Pistons.
And for all of those who have romanticized the Airness’ career, let’s not forget that the last team to ever beat Michael at full strength in the playoffs was none other than the 1989-1990 Detroit Pistons.
Not only did they defeat Michael’s Bulls, but they nearly broke him.
After Game 7 of 1990 the Eastern Conference Finals, Michael Jordan, much like Isiah Thomas before him (against the Celtics), openly wondered if he would ever be victorious against his nemesis.
What made things particularly hard for Jordan was the way the Pistons attacked him psychologically. The Jordan Rules, the media called it.
Chuck Daly built a defense that challenged the Bulls star both physically and mentally. Every time he would get the ball, the Pistons defense would dare him to take it to the rack and absorb the punishment that came along with it.
For all of his gifts as a basketball player, Michael had an ego that matched his immense basketball skills. Consequently, the Pistons preyed on Jordan’s mind state, knowing he would take the team out of their offense and continually attack a tough defense in an attempt to beat them all by himself.
In doing so, Jordan would get his numbers, but would fail to elevate the level of play of his teammates. So it was no surprise when Chicago players wilted under pressure against Detroit, because that had been the plan all along.
MJ maximized his efforts but ultimately his team came up short in the process. Much like he would eventually do to other teams in the future, the Pistons had cut out his heart and left it exposed to the rest of the basketball world.
At the conclusion of the game, Jack McCloskey (the Pistons’ general manager at the time) spotted Michael Jordan in the parking lot and went over to talk to him. Halberstam shares part of their conversation: “Mr. McCloskey, are we ever going to get past the Pistons? Are we ever going to win?”
The general manager’s answer did not matter as much as the question itself. As Jordan boarded the team bus and wept in the back, it was clear that the man had been defeated and that Detroit was in his head. The three consecutive playoff exits at the hands of the Pistons left him vulnerable in a way we would never see again.
In a roundabout way, Michael Jordan as well as his teammates can thank the Bad Boys for his six championship rings. The physical and psychological abuse that those teams put on MJ’s Bulls eventually hardened them and made them nearly unbeatable.
Although Playing For Keeps is the story of Michael Jordan’s rise to the top, it shows us that the most important battles of Michael’s career happened with Detroit.
The 1989-1990 Detroit Pistons were the last team to defeat Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen after they had enjoyed a full training camp together.
And the Bad Boys accomplished that given their talent, but also because of their ability to stretch out the limits of willpower.
Previously:
A note on the next Book Club selection
I forgot originally to include the next book I’d feature in PistonPowered book club in Friday’s post. I added it late, but for those who missed it, we’ll discuss Loose Balls, Terry Pluto’s history of the ABA. A couple of recent former Pistons coaches — Larry Brown and George Irvine — are among the many people with ABA ties featured in the book, if you’d like to grab a copy and follow along. Perhaps we’ll even get LB’s explanation for this (photo via SI.com):
PistonPowered Book Club: ‘The Jordan Rules’ by Sam Smith
When I started reading Sam Smith’s The Jordan Rules, which chronicled the Chicago Bulls’ first championship season in 1991, I knew the Pistons would loom large in the background, so I wanted to be vigilant about cool side-stories involving the Pistons I could excerpt and talk about in this post. Well, it turns out, I was putting a dog-ear in about every other page before realizing that the effort would be futile. The book is full of great anecdotes involving the Pistons-Bulls hatred. As a young fan growing up during the rivalry, I obviously digested it purely from a Piston perspective. The Bulls were soft, they were whiny, Jordan got kid-gloves treatment from the officials. More importantly, the Pistons were a team. The Bulls were a group of individuals.
Interestingly, that concept wasn’t lost on the Bulls. Although they certainly hated Detroit, several players throughout the book pointed out that very concept — Detroit won by supporting each other, by having its stars sacrifice numbers for wins. That was the gift the Pistons gave Chicago, teaching them after several disappointing (for Chicago) playoff losses what it actually took to break through and win a championship. It was interesting to relive that rivalry from the other side, to read the negative perceptions of Pistons players after growing up with the glowingly positive reviews of everyone on the Bad Boys that you get in home-state coverage of any team.
It’s hard to pick out just a few sections, but I’ll try below.
First, the title of the book comes from a term Chuck Daly used to describe how the team would defend Jordan:
Chuck Daly, a man who appreciated the arts, was not particularly enamored of Jordan’s work, and after the 1988 game the Pistons instituted ‘the Jordan rules’ and the campaign to allow what the Bulls believes was the legalized assault on Michael Jordan.
The Pistons had two of the league’s best man-to-man defenders, Joe Dumars and Dennis Rodman, to carry out those assignments. Jordan grudgingly accepted Dumars, with whom he’d become somewhat friendly at the 1990 All-Star game; Dumars was quiet and resolute, a gentlemanly professional. But Jordan didn’t care much for Rodman’s play. “He’s a flopper,” Jordan would say disdainfully. “He just falls down and tries to get calls. That’s not good defense.” Rodman once “flopped” so effectively back in the 1988-89 season that Jordan drew six fouls in the fourth quarter to foul out in the last minute of a close loss to the Pistons.
I remember when Rodman was traded to the Bulls before the 1996 season, thinking it was a big deal just because of the rivalry between teams, but this book really goes into detail in parts about how much Jordan actually hated playing against Rodman. It’s interesting, given Jordan’s well-known penchant for holding grudges, that he was cool with the team acquiring a player he hated so much. Actually, it speaks to how much Jordan evolved from a stats-chasing player obsessed with scoring titles to a complete player obsessed with winning.
But former Pistons were actually close to joining the Bulls when the Pistons-Bulls rivalry was still near its peak, way before Rodman had ended up in Chicago. Rick Mahorn, who went to Minnesota in the expansion draft, was a Bulls’ target until the team became concerned about his bad back and balked at giving up a first round pick for him. Another player who the Bulls kicked the tires on during that season was Adrian Dantley, who was then a free agent. Phil Jackson didn’t feel like Dantley’s ball-stopping ways would work in the triangle offense, so the team eventually passed on signing him. But there was one name that was far more surprising than the others. Smith doesn’t go into a lot of detail on this, but check out this passage:
Meanwhile, the Bulls also wanted to add a big guard. All of their guards other than Jordan were 6-2 or under — that’s why Chicago rejected the overtures of Detroit free agent Vinnie Johnson — and a big guard playing alongside Jordan would give Detroit matchup problems the way Milwaukee did with Jay Humphries, Alvin Robertson and Ricky Pierce.
The thought of a player as beloved and important as Johnson possibly leaving the Pistons for the Bulls is hard to fathom. It certainly would’ve weakened the Pistons and probably made that rivalry even more intense, even if the Pistons were at about the end of the line as a dominant team heading into the 90-91 season.
There are also some great background instances in the hatred between Jordan and Isiah Thomas. The All-Star freeze-out allegedly orchestrated by Thomas was obviously a big motivator in the feud for Jordan, but Smith points out that Thomas had jealousies of Jordan as a result of Jordan attaining superstardom in Isiah’s hometown of Chicago. When a desperately impatient Jordan was putting more and more pressure on the team to trade players, team owner Jerry Reinsdorf hit MJ with what, to Jordan, was about the worst insult possible in response to Jordan’s public complaints about the roster:
“Well,” Reinsdorf pointed out to Jordan, “you’re not helping any. We’re working on several deals, but every time you come out criticizing the general manager, it makes it look like Jerry (Krause) has to do something and that makes it harder on us. People start thinking we’re desperate and want to take advantage of us.”
…
(Jordan) wanted Horace Grant out, among others. He was going to start going public with his complaints. “Do you want people to start thinking about you like they do Isiah Thomas?” Reinsdorf said. It stopped Jordan in his tracks.
The Pistons-Bulls interactions were obviously the draw for me, but the book is a great behind-the-scenes look at the NBA in general — basically, all of the things executives and coaches have to worry about, how playing time/stats equate to money in the minds of players, how delicate it is to try and massage so many egos. Jordan’s verbal assaults on Jerry Krause (or, as Jordan called him in the book, ‘Crumbs’, because of all of the donut crumbs that were allegedly always on Krause’s lapel), the way Pippen perennially felt under-appreciated, what it took Grant to grow and become the tough force on the boards the Bulls needed him to be, the impact of veterans like Paxson, Cartwright and Craig Hodges, it’s all fascinating to anyone who was a NBA fan in that era and it’s a great way to learn about teams that helped lay the groundwork for what the league has evolved into today.
Next book club post will discuss Loose Balls, Terry Pluto’s history of the ABA.
Previously:
PistonPowered Book Club: Breaks of the Game by David Halberstam
Who knows how long the NBA lockout will last, but my plan lockout or otherwise was to spend the summer catching up on some basketball reading. Since the news grind will probably slow way down, I figured I might as well give some book recommendations and hopefully start some discussions in the comments for those who have read the books we’re featuring or encourage others to pick it up for those who haven’t.
I’m starting the series today with a book that should be required reading for any NBA fan, David Halberstam’s Breaks of the Game. The book is centered on the late 1970s Portland Trail Blazers, just after their NBA championship and trade of franchise center Bill Walton. But the book delves into way more issues than just the Blazers, and there are a couple reasons I hope people either read it if they haven’t or revisit it if they have. The first is to simply look at how some of the balance of power finger pointing between owners and players is almost identical today to what was going on in the era that Halberstam wrote Breaks. Even beyond that, the alleged perception issues the league was dealing with at the time sound so familiar to the tired talking points trotted out by NBA critics today. I wrote about this issue in a review of the book for HoopSpeak earlier this year, in comparison to a Buzz Bissinger column in the Daily Beast that was critical of the league and its perception:
The brilliance of David Halberstam’s Breaks of the Game isn’t simply that he chronicles one of the most interesting teams in NBA history, the late 1970s Portland Trail Blazers, but that he also provides a firsthand account that shows the arguments for why the NBA would fail were exactly the same in 1979 as they are in 2011.
Halberstam: “Just as the camera had caught and transmitted the true intensity of old-fashioned rivalries in the earlier days of the league, so it now caught with equal fidelity the increasing lethargy and indifference of many players in regular season games, a lethargy and indifference now seen by a largely white audience as at least partially racial in origin.”
Bissinger: “When I wrote the book Friday Night Lights about high-school football in Texas, I saw the racial stereotypes of some whites up close—their firm belief that white athletes admirably succeeded because of hustle and hard work and brains, and black athletes succeeded solely on the basis of pure athletic skill. In other words, white athletes virtuously worked their tails off whereas black athletes simply coasted because they can.”
Halberstam: “It was not just that they had won, but the way they had won, unselfish in a selfish world and selfish profession. … There were hundreds of telegrams and letters thanking the coach and the players for helping their programs and making it easier to coach basketball the right way.”
Bissinger: “Although basketball is supposed to be a team game, it has become more one-on-one in the NBA than a boxing match. The style has changed and it is a definite turnoff.”
Halberstam also touches on a still common point that Bissinger doesn’t deal with in his column: that fans were being turned off by escalating salaries, guaranteed contracts that crippled teams if the player didn’t provide production commensurate with his salary and bitter player-team disputes that often led to star players changing teams.
The beauty of Breaks is just the timelessness of it. There are so many names you’ll recognize (Lionel Hollins, Geoff Petrie, Jack McCloskey, Lenny Wilkens, the list goes on) associated with that decade in Portland hoops who went on to become long-term coaches or executives in the league. The book is full of short anecdotes and random stories that will blow your mind. It’s one of the best researched books in any genre that I’ve ever read with the level of detail included.
And the second reason I wanted to start off with this book in the series here is because there is a great story about a young Isiah Thomas when he was a hotshot high school player in Chicago trying to decide on a college:
(Wayne) Embry had thought Thomas a truly remarkable young man of great human promise as well as athletic ability and he thought the worst thing that could happen to him as to go to a school where he would be catered to. Bobby Knight, whatever else, catered to no one. Embry not only helped in the recruiting himself, but he brought in Quinn Buckner, now a Milwaukee guard and former Indiana star who had fashioned a rare ongoing four-year love-hate relationship with Knight while at Bloomington.
With all that heavy weaponry brought in, Indiana seemed to be ahead in the bidding. Then in a dramatic last-minute confrontation, Gregory Thomas, one of Isiah’s older and more volatile brothers, had appeared, and there had been a series of charges and countercharges, threats and counterthreats about Isiah’s future with Bobby Knight. Gregory included Embry and Buckner among the potential exploiters of his brother. Knight, enraged, had finally blown up. “You’re an asshole and you’re a failure, and the worst thing about you is that you want Isiah to fail the way you did.” He turned to Isiah and got up. “If you stay near him you’re going to be ruined. I’m getting out of here. I’m sorry we lost you.” Then he walked out. The next day Isiah Thomas, in tears, had come to see Knight and had pleaded for a chance to go to Indiana. There he had gone and soon he too was fashioning a love-hate relationship with Knight worthy of that between Buckner and Knight.
There are other great books out there with more about the Thomas-Knight relationship that we’ll hopefully (or not hopefully, if it means the lockout ends quickly) get into this summer.
I’m going to try for two or three of these posts a month (depending on how fast I can read the books on my list). Next book I’m working on is The Jordan Rules by Sam Smith if anyone wants to read it before the next post.
