The Book of Basketball (48 page)

1.
When I’m running ESPN in a few years, I’m going to bring back Roy Firestone’s old half-hour interview show and hire Nancy to host it. The show will be called
Up Close and Uncomfortable with Nancy Lieberman.
You’re gonna love it.

2.
You know how horse racing always has the best postgame interviews because the reporter has to ride next to the winning jockey? Takes a certain amount of skill to juggle two things at once, right? I wish there was a way to incorporate that in the NBA. I also wish we made foreign players live up to the stereotypes of their respective countries. For instance, after Michele Tafoya grabs Tony Parker, he should quickly slip on a beret, start chain-smoking and say rude things to her.

3.
The biggest problem this system solves: you won’t lose your fantasy playoffs because someone suffered a dumb injury in April, or because the other guy’s team had 4 more games than you. How is that skill?

4.
Speaking of failed GMs, a Philly reader named Adam had an awesome idea once: “I saw Sixers GM Billy King in a restaurant in Philly recently and thought, ‘Does he order food the same way he signs NBA players?’ If he ordered the steak, if it’s an okay steak but nothing fantastic, does he offer to pay double or triple the market value for it? Maybe there could be a show where Billy King negotiates car prices for people who stand by dumbfounded as he offers $27,000 for a 1987 Toyota Camry with 167,000 miles.”

5.
Douglas’ tournament gave us some of the funniest moments of the last decade: Douglas high-fiving with a grown-up Haley Joel Osment after big putts. They made Tiger’s high-fives with his caddies look smoother than LeBron and Mo Williams celebrating something.

6.
Riley’s Knicks went overboard with trash-talking MJ’s Bulls, everyone followed their lead, and Team Stern had to step in before we had the first-ever locker room drive-by shooting. Now players can’t talk shit anymore. So sad. Nearly every problem that plagued the NBA in the past two decades, minor or major, can somehow be traced back to Riley’s Knicks. I am convinced.

7.
Interesting note here: when a guy tells a girl, “There’s only two minutes left” (and it’s actually fifteen minutes in real time), that equals the same amount of time as when a girl tells a guy, “I’ll be ready in five minutes” (and it’s really fifteen).

8.
Matt’s response (via email): “We’d only be able to afford a minority share unless there is a foreclosure on the Grizzlies soon. And I’d have to talk Trey into it because he’s more of a football fantatic. Just know that we would be
way worse
than [Mark] Cuban as far as mouthing off about refereeing and other shit and we’d average 400K a week in fines. There is just no way me and Trey can keep our mouths shut. Good for the league, bad for our wallet. So it probably can’t happen.” The good news? I think I just gave them an idea for
BASEketball II.

9.
The Nets used Piscopo as their PA announcer for a 2002 Finals game, leading to my favorite running streak in sports: no NBA team that ever used Joe Piscopo as an announcer in the Finals has gone on to win the title.

10.
Miami should do this, anyway. Imagine Thomas sitting between Mike Dunleavy and Donnie Walsh at the lottery in a white linen suit with a huge smile on his face.

11.
And don’t forget about my Eff You Award. I love that one. The winner of the 2009 Eff You Award was definitely Elton Brand.

12.
I came up with this idea during Tankapalooza 2007 as multiple teams tanked for Durant/Oden.

13.
That wasn’t a joke. One of House’s biggest regrets in life:
not
winning a bid for a Lloyd Daniels game-worn.

14.
That’s a 2-hour drive unless I’m behind the wheel. Ask any of my friends: if they’re 2 hours from a destination, need to arrive in 90 minutes and could pick one friend to drive, they’d pick me. I’m the same guy who once drove from my dad’s old house in Wellesley to my mom’s house in Stamford in 2:04—that’s a 185-mile drive with a toll booth stop and 10 minutes of back roads. I was four minutes away from becoming the Roger Bannister of that drive. By the way, this was my life highlight of 1995 other than sucking face with Lizzie Baker, writing a back-page story for the
Boston Herald
and buying my first bong. Not a strong year.

15.
Before you say “So long to your Springfield book signing,” I am pro-Springfield and my dad’s best friend (superhero lawyer Roy Anderson) lives there. I will always defend Springfield and Worcester. I just think the Hall of Fame needs a fresh start.

16.
And we’re stuck with the WNBA, too.

17.
You know how casinos can only be built in Nevada, in Atlantic City, or on Indian reservations if they’re on land, but you can have gambling as long as there’s water around? In French Lick, they built a casino with a man-made mini lake around it; you go inside by walking over a moat. And you thought people in Indiana were dumb.

18.
We didn’t realize we were inadvertently borrowing Bill James’ plan to redefine Hall of Famers and “weigh them” for importance. Regardless, I’m 100 percent positive that Wally invented the Pyramid concept in that day. I came up with the part where it would look like a mini Luxor. And Gus just did a lot of nodding.

19.
The Luxor pisses me off. How do you turn a sleek Egyptian pyramid into White Trash Central? They had the second-best casino concept (topped only by Caesars Palace) and completely fucked it up. Now it’s called “PH” (for Planet Hollywood), or as my friends and I call it, “Phhhhh.”

20.
This is what pisses me off about Pete Rose’s ban from Cooperstown. It’s a museum. The goal is to teach people about baseball history. Just put on Rose’s HOF plaque: GAMBLED ON BASEBALL WHILE MANAGING THE REDS, DISGRACED OUR SPORT. What’s the big deal?

21.
A few of these players also crack the Pyramid as true Hall of Famers. Stay tuned.

22.
Haley created the Overjoyed and Oversupportive High-Fiving Twelfth Man role that became a staple on NBA benches in the 1990s and 2000s, leading to someone deciding that it would be a good idea to make Mark Madsen and Brian Scalabrine multimillionaires. Keep an eye on Boston’s Billy Walker, aka “Black Haley,” the most supportive, gregarious, happy-to-be-there 12th man in Celtic history. During the ’09 playoffs, he would have chest-bumped Ray Allen after a big three even if Allen were covered in radioactive chemicals and raw sewage.

23.
I love this idea: anytime a star player or troubled draft pick is suffering from personal problems, we could make “The only way they’re making the Hall of Fame is the Comets section” jokes.

24.
I also want dorky teenage video clerks like the ones that work in Blockbuster, only they’ll all be six foot four with oversized appendages, as if they just had a growth spurt the night before. And we’ll make them wear referee uniforms like they’re working at Foot Locker. That’s an essential.

25.
Extending the Pantheon to a twelve-man roster and leaving it open means we can add LeBron someday and kick out one of the original twelve like it’s a
Bachelor
episode.

26.
The NBA won’t sell sponsorship banners on my Pyramid because it’s in bad taste. In real life? You’d be visiting the Volkswagen Touareg NBA Pyramid or something. Just shoot me.

27.
One good thing about pipe dreams: there’s always a 0.0003 percent chance they can come true. In the late ’90s, I forget what sparked this—maybe it was a
Friends
episode—but every couple in America made their top-five lists for Celebs You’d Let Me Sleep with if I Had the Chance. Tiffani Amber-Thiessen was number one on my list. We moved to L.A. a few years later and my wife befriended a friend of T.A.T’s. For our five-year anniversary, she got me a signed T.A.T. photo that read, “I heard I’m on your list, too bad you’re married.” I called T.A.T. to thank her, one thing led to another and we ended up banging in the back room at Mel’s Diner because it was the closest thing to the Peach Pit. Okay, I made that last part up. The point is, you never know with pipe dreams.

28.
Kiseda was the first great NBA writer; he covered the league for its first 20 years before becoming sports editor for the
L.A. Times.
Tragically, he never wrote an all-encompassing NBA book. Even weirder, the next great NBA writer (Bob Ryan) hasn’t written a great one either. But hey, when you can spend your Sundays arguing with Mitch Albom and Mike Lupica in HD instead of writing a book, I guess you have to do it.

29.
Grumpy Old Editor (GOE): “Walt Bellamy had the smallest head of any seven-footer ever. He was built like the Washingon Monument. And played that way.”

30.
That should have read “best girl.” Wanted to make sure you were paying attention.

31.
Other reasons: he only had 7 double-double seasons; he couldn’t pass, run, jump, or dribble; and again, he was a douche bag. With that said, I would have loved him if he’d played for the Celtics.

32.
GOE claims, “Today, Wilt would be like one of those hapless Georgetown centers throwing up bricks and racking up dumb fouls (except, of course when he got four and went to sleep). Without an offensive game more than five feet from the hoop, he’d be lucky to rack up 12 and 9.” Yeesh.

33.
Trust me, I watched the tape. Every “big” Knick looked like a prehistoric version of Brian Scalabrine. Do you think Dwight Howard could score 73 points in one game if offensive goaltending was allowed, if he shot 50 times, and if he was being guarded by prehistoric Scalabrines? I say yes. Also, I’m naming my next fantasy team the Prehistoric Scalabrines.

34.
The ten toughest cuts: Walter Davis, Laimbeer, Hudson, Chet Walker, Tom Gola, Alonzo Mourning, Tim Hardaway, Jack Sikma, Paul Silas, Gus Williams. Toughest cut: Sikma. Easiest cut: Chuck Nevitt.

35.
Can’t stick Greg Oden in here. I just can’t. When I handed in this book in April ’09, Oden was averaging 9.0 fouls per 48 minutes (the highest total since Stanley Roberts in ’91), couldn’t stay healthy and walked like Fred Sanford. I don’t think that’s a good thing. Unless he’s aging backward like Benjamin Button. I wouldn’t rule this out.

SEVEN
THE PYRAMID: LEVEL 1

96. TOM CHAMBERS

Resume: 16 years, 10 quality, 4 All-Stars … top 10 (’89, ’90) … ’87 All-Star MVP … 2-year peak: 26–8–3 … 2-year Playoffs peak: 24–9–3 (28 G) … played for 1 runner-up (’93 Suns) … 20K Club

YET ANOTHER THING
that bugs me about Hall of Fames: they refuse to weigh the impact of each inductee, so there’s never a cutoff guy for each position—aka the guy who barely made it, the “wall” everyone else needs to climb—so you can’t evaluate a power forward’s candidacy simply by asking, “Was he better than Tom Chambers?” Along with the next four guys for their respective positions, we’re using Chambers to create the line
for power forwards. Even though his eighties hairdo (blondish brown hair parted in the middle with some girth in the back) made him look like a cross between Paul “Mr. Wonderful” Orndorff and every women’s softball player from 1985 to 1989, and even though he was so bland that he never earned himself a nickname,
¹
Chambers filled the wing splendidly on fast breaks, scored effectively in the half-court, and shone during the single most competitive stretch in NBA history (’86 to ’93, an era that included twelve of the top twenty-four guys on this list and nineteen of the top fifty) as the go-to guy on three conference finalists (’87 Sonics, ’89 Suns, ’90 Suns). Even on his last legs, he played crunch time for the ’93 Suns, quite possibly the best single-season team that didn’t win a title postmerger. Despite his notoriously uninspired defense,
²
Chambers deserves bonus points for two things: