The Book of Basketball (6 page)

32.
Game 7 of the ’88 Eastern Semis: ’Nique drops 47 but Bird explodes for 20 in the final quarter, including one sequence where they swapped five baskets in a row, saving the game and earning a gushing “You are watching what greatness is all about” line from Brent Musberger.

33.
Bird’s prophetic quote in 1986: “All I know is that people tend to forget how great the older great players were. It’ll happen that way with me, too.”

34.
Eight minutes 30 seconds. That’s longer than “Stairway to Heaven;” Hulk Hogan pinning the Iron Sheik for the WWF title at MSG; the total amount of time it took the Pats to finish their final drive of Super Bowl XXXVI (including stoppages); all of the sex scenes from
Basic Instinct
combined; Stevie Wonder’s longest Grammy acceptance speech; the amount of time that passed before we stopped believing that Ricky Martin was straight; Act One of the first
Chevy Chase Show;
the climactic fight scene from
Rocky;
the amount of time that David Beckham made soccer relevant in America again; and any of Jeff Ross’ roasts on YouTube.

35.
The farewell tour for retiring stars was a goofy tradition in the ’70s and ’80s that peaked with Julius Erving in ’86 and stopped after Kareem retired in ’89. There was a ton of emotion both times—with Doc because we were going to miss him, and with Kareem because we were so happy to see him go.

36.
Note to anyone reading in 2075: Bayless was a TV personality who took extreme positions until he was fired in the summer of 2010 after LeBron dumped Cleveland to sign with the Knicks and a frothing-at-the-mouth Bayless, in his rush to excoriate LeBron for stabbing Cavaliers fans in the back, briefly morphed into a fire-breathing, eight-foot dragon and killed all 17 people in the studio. You can find the clip on YouTube—just search for “Bayless + dragon.”

37.
This is a completely unbiased book except for the ongoing digs at Kareem and Vince. Even someone like Kobe, who could be called a conniving, contrived, unlikable, philandering, socially awkward fraud of a human being in the wrong hands, will be handled with the utmost respect. I promise you.

38.
I missed this one because my high school prom was scheduled the night before in Connecticut and I knew I’d be up all night. My uncle Bob sat in my seat and ended up getting shown numerous times on CBS. Also, I didn’t hook up on prom night or even come close. Number of times I’ve regretted not getting up early that Sunday morning and making the 150-minute drive: 280,975.

39.
Where were the refs? You got me. I watched this game recently and screamed at the refs after one of their 20 awful calls down the stretch, prompting my confused wife (listening from the kitchen) to ask, “Don’t you already know what happens in this game?” Yeah, but still.

40.
Again, no luck on prom night.

41.
In one of the kajillion NBA documentaries made this decade, Worthy admits that he still has nightmares about that shot going in. And he
won
the series.

42.
I would put this shot against any moment in NBA history where a crowd makes two of the loudest noises possible that are completely opposite in the span of two seconds:
hrrraaaaaaaaaaaa-ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh. There was
never
a louder hrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-ohhhhhhhhhhhhh
moment.

43.
You can see me at end of this one, right before James Brown interviews Magic—I’m wearing a blue polo short and kinda look like Kirk Cameron during the second season of
Growing Pains
. Also, I look like a doctor just told me that I have VD.

ONE
THE SECRET

I LEARNED THE
secret of basketball while lounging at a topless pool in Las Vegas. As I learned the secret, someone’s bare breasts were staring at me from just eight feet away. The person explaining the secret was a Hall of Famer who once vowed to beat me up and changed his mind only because Gus Johnson vouched for me.

(Do I tell this story? Yes. I tell this story.)

Come back with me to July 2007. My buddy Hopper was pushing me to accompany him for an impromptu Vegas trip, knowing that I wouldn’t turn him down because of my Donaghy-level gambling problem. I needed permission from my pregnant wife, who was perpetually ornery from (a) carrying our second child during the hot weather months in California and (b) being knocked up because I pulled the goalie on her back
in February.
¹
But here’s why I’m an evil genius: with the NBA Summer League happening at the same time, I somehow convinced her that
ESPN The Magazine
wanted a column about Friday’s quadruple-header featuring my favorite team (the Celtics), my favorite rookie (Kevin Durant), and the two Los Angeles teams (Clippers and Lakers). “I’ll be in and out in thirty-six hours,” I told her.

She signed off and directed her anger at the magazine for making me work on a weekend. (I told you, I’m shrewd.) I quickly called my editor and had the following exchange.

ME:
I don’t have a column idea this week. I’m panicking.

NEIL
(my editor):
Crap. I don’t know what to tell you, it’s a dead month.

(A few seconds of silence ensues.)

ME:
Hey, wait … isn’t the NBA Summer League in Vegas right now?

NEIL:
Yeah, I think it is. What would you write about, though?

ME:
Lemme see what the schedule is for Friday.
[I spend the next 20 seconds pretending to log onto
NBA.com
and look this up.]
Oh my God—Clippers at 3, Celtics at 5, Lakers at 6, Durant and the Sonics at 7! You have to let me go! I can get 1,250 words out of that!
[Neil doesn’t respond.]
Come on—Vegas? The Celtics and Durant? This column will write itself!

NEIL
(after a long sigh):
“Okay, fine, fine.”

Did I care that he sounded like I had just convinced him to donate me a kidney? Of course not! I flew down on Friday, devoured those four games and joined Hopper for drunken blackjack until the wee hours.
²
The following morning, we woke up in time for a Vegas Breakfast (16-ounce
coffee, bagel, large water), then headed down to the Wynn’s lavish outdoor blackjack setup, which includes:

1. Eight blackjack tables surrounding one of those square outdoor bars like the one where Brian Flanagan worked after he fled to Jamaica in
   Cocktail
   . Once you’ve gambled outdoors, your life is never quite the same. It’s like riding in a convertible for the first time.
   

2. Overhead mist machines blowing cool spray so nobody overheats, a crucial wrinkle during the scorching Vegas summer, when it’s frequently over 110 degrees outside and 170 degrees in every guy’s crotch.
   

3. A beautiful European pool tucked right behind the tables. Just so you know, “European” is a fancy way of saying, “It’s okay to go topless there.”
   ³
   

If there’s a better male bonding experience, I can’t think of one. For our yearly guys’ trip one month earlier, we arrived right before the outdoor area opened (11:00 a.m.) and played through dinner. For the first three hours, none of the sunbathers was willing to pull a Jackie Robinson and break the topless barrier, so we decided the Wynn should hire six strippers to go topless every day at noon (just to break the ice) and have their DJ play techno songs with titles like “Take Your Tops Off,” “Come On, Nobody’s Looking,” “We’re All Friends Here,” “Unleash the Hounds,” and “What Do You Have to Lose? You’re Already Divorced.” By midafternoon, as soon as everyone had a few drinks in them, the ladies started flinging their tops off like Frisbees. Okay, not really. But two dozen women made the plunge over the next few hours, including one heavyset woman who nearly caused a riot by wading into the pool with her 75DDDDDDDDDDs. It was like being there when the Baby Ruth bar landed in the Bushwood pool; people were scurrying for their lives in every direction.
⁴

So between seedy guys making runs at topless girls in the pool, horny
blackjack dealers getting constantly distracted, aforementioned moments like the Baby Ruth
multi-D episode, the tropical feel of outdoors and the Mardi Gras
beads element of a Euro pool, ten weeks of entertainment and comedy were jam-packed into eight hours. Things peaked around 6:00 p.m. when an attractive blonde wearing a bikini joined our table, complained to the dealer, “I haven’t had a blackjack in three days,” then told us confidently, “If I get a blackjack, I’m going topless.” The pit boss declared that she couldn’t go topless, so they negotiated for a little bit, ultimately deciding that she could flash everyone instead. Yes, this conversation actually happened. Suddenly we were embroiled in the most exciting blackjack shoe of all time. Every time she got an ace or a 10 as her first card, the tension was more unbearable than the last five minutes of the final
Sopranos
episode. When she finally nailed her blackjack, our side of the blackjack section erupted like Fenway after the Roberts steal.
⁵
She followed through with her vow, departed a few minutes later, and left us spending the rest of the night wondering how I could write about that entire sequence for
ESPN The Magazine
without coming off like a pig. Well, you know what? These are the things that happen in Vegas. I’m not condoning them, defending them, or judging them. Just understand that we don’t keep going because some bimbo might flash everyone at her blackjack table, we keep going for the twenty minutes afterward, when we’re rehashing the story and making every possible joke.
⁶

Needless to say, wild horses couldn’t have dragged Hopper and me from the outdoor blackjack section during summer league. We treaded water for a few hours when I ran into an old acquaintance who handled PR from the Knicks, as well as Gus Johnson, the much-adored March Madness and Knicks announcer who loves me mainly because I love him. Gus and I successfully executed a bear hug and a five-step handshake, and just as I was ready to make Gus announce a few of my blackjack hands (“Here’s the double-down card
… Ohhhhhhhh! it’s a ten!”)
, he implored me to come over and meet his buddy Isiah Thomas.

Gulp.

Of any sports figure that I could have possibly met at any time in my life, getting introduced to Isiah that summer would have been my number one draft pick for the Holy Shit, Is This Gonna Be Awkward draft. Isiah doubled as the beleaguered GM of the Knicks and a frequent column target, someone who once threatened “trouble” if we ever crossed paths.
⁷
This particular moment seemed to qualify. After the PR guy and I explained to Gus why a Simmons-Isiah introduction would be a stupifyingly horrific idea, Gus confidently countered, “Hold on, I got this, I got this, I’ll fix this.” And he wandered off as our terrified PR buddy said, “I’m getting out of here—good luck!”
⁸

I played a few hands of rattled blackjack while wondering how to defend myself if Isiah came charging at me with a piña colada. After all, I
killed
this guy in my column over the years. I killed him for some of the cheap shots he took as a player, for freezing out MJ in the ’85 All-Star Game, for leading the classless walkout at the tail end of the Bulls-Pistons sweep in ’91. I killed him for pushing Bird under the bus by backing up Rodman’s foolish “he’d be just another good player if he weren’t white” comments after the ’87 playoffs, then pretending like he was kidding afterward. (He wasn’t.) I killed him for bombing as a TV announcer, for sucking as Toronto’s GM, for running the CBA into the ground, and most of all, for his incomprehensibly ineffective performance running the Knicks. As I kept lobbing (totally justified) grenades at him, Isiah went on Stephen A. Smith’s radio show and threatened “trouble” if we ever met on the street. Like this was all my fault. Somewhere along the line, Isiah probably decided that I had a personal grudge against him, which simply wasn’t true—I had written many times that he was the best pure point guard I’d ever seen, as well as the most underappreciated star of his era. I even defended his draft record and praised him for standing up for his
players right before the ugly Nuggets-Knicks brawl that featured Carmelo Anthony’s infamous bitch-slap/backpedal. It’s not like I was obsessed with ripping the guy. He just happened to be an easy target, a floundering NBA GM who didn’t understand the luxury tax, cap space, or how to plan ahead. For what I did for a living, Isiah jokes were easier than making fun of Flavor Flav at a celebrity roast. The degree of difficulty was a 0.0.