The Book of Basketball (83 page)

By now, the Garnett vs. Duncan argument was in full swing and centered around a hypothetical, impossible-to-prove argument: “If Duncan had Garnett’s teammates from 1998 to 2007 and vice versa, wouldn’t KG be the guy with four rings?” I thought that was bullshit—what set Duncan apart was his ability to raise his game to another level in big moments. Just as selfless and competitive as Garnett, Duncan channeled his intensity and saved peak performances for when they mattered most. He knew there was a crucial difference between a ho-hum January game in Atlanta and a must-win playoff game in L.A. He developed reliable mental alerts like “Unless I grab 20 rebounds tonight, we’re going to lose” or “If I don’t take over this game right now and score every time down the floor, we’re cooked.” Meanwhile, Garnett never wavered from how he played—ever—even if it meant passing the game-winning shot because some untalented doofus like Troy Hudson had a better look.
²²
Once Pierce and Allen were flanking him in Boston, that freed him to do Garnett things (protect the rim, make high-percentage decisions, control the boards, draw centers away from the hoop with his killer 18-footer, throw up a 20–12 every
night and raise everyone else’s play with his unparalleled intensity) without dealing with the pressure of making big shots. After 25 up-and-down playoff games fueled the “Is KG clutch?” debate yet again,
²³
Garnett stood near Boston’s bench before Game 6 of the 2008 Finals, muttered a few things to psyche himself up and head-butted the basket support as hard as he could. Watching from about fifty feet away, my dad and I raced to make the “Uh-oh, I think we’re getting killer KG” comment. The signature moment: a three-point play when KG got knocked down and flung a line drive that banked in, then lay on the floor with his arms raised, screaming at the ceiling as the crowd went bonkers. We were like 18,000 people pouring Red Bull down his throat that night. He finished with a 26–14, played his usual terrific defense and found his swagger: a level of passion and intensity unique to him and only him. Let the record show that KG played one of his better games to clinch a championship. It’s something Elvin Hayes can’t say, or Karl Malone, or Patrick Ewing, or Chris Webber, or anyone else from the not-so-clutch group that Garnett escaped.

What Garnett did for the ’08 Celtics can’t be measured by statistics; it would belittle what happened. He transformed the culture of a perennial doormat. He taught teammates to care about defense, practice, professionalism, and leaving everything they had on the court. He taught them to stop caring about stats and start caring about wins. He single-handedly transformed the careers of three youngsters (Rajon Rondo, Leon Powe and Kendrick Perkins), one veteran (Pierce), and one embattled coach (Doc Rivers). He played every exhibition game like it was the seventh game of the Finals. During blowouts, he cheered on his teammates like it was a tight game; because of that, the bench guys did the same and turned into a bunch of giddy March Madness scrubs. I have never watched a more contagious, selfless, team-oriented player on a daily basis. By Thanksgiving, the entire team followed his lead. Every time a young player went for his own stats or snapped at the coach, KG set him straight. Every time one of his teammates was intimidated, KG had his back. Every time one of his teammates got knocked down, KG rushed over to pick him
up; eventually, four teammates were rushing over to help that fifth guy up. Every time an opponent kept going for a shot after a whistle, KG defiantly blocked the shot just out of principle.
²⁴
Eventually, everyone started doing it. No shots after the whistle against the Celtics. That was the rule.

So it was a series of little things, baby steps if you will, but they added up to something much bigger and built the backbone of an eventual championship. A wonderful all-around player, ultimately Kevin Garnett was only as good as his teammates. And I’m fine with that. We’ll remember him like Jimmy Page or Keith Richards, a gifted guitarist who needed an equally gifted band to make a memorable album … and any solo album would ultimately be forgettable.
²⁵
That was our answer. Unlike with Deep Throat, I’m glad we know the truth.

21. BOB COUSY

Resume: 13 years, 13 quality, 13 All-Stars … ’57 MVP … Top 5 (’52, ’53, ’54, ’55, ’56, ’57, ’58, ’59, ’60, ’61), Top 10 (’62, ’63) … two All-Star MVPs … records: most assists in one half (19), most playoff FTs made (30) … leader: assists (8x) … 2nd-best player on 6 champs (Boston) … 3-year Playoffs peak: 20–6–9 (32 G) … career: 18–8–5, 38% FG, 80% FT

The Cooz should start fading historically soon—if it hasn’t happened already—which is one of the reasons I wanted to write this book. We can’t let that happen to a beloved Holy Cross grad. Future generations will point to his field goal shooting and say, “By any statistical calculation, Nash and Stockton were decidedly better.” Fortunately, I’m here. Allow me to make the case for Cooz in four parts:

1. His poor shooting (37.5 percent for his career) was deceivingly abysmal because he peaked in the fifties, an unglorious decade for field goal percentages and scoring. Of the 66 players who played at least 300 games from 1951 to 1960, Ken Sears led everyone (45 percent), Freddie Scolari brought up the bottom (33 percent) and Cousy ranked forty-second (37 percent). Stretch that to a 500-game minimum and twenty-two players qualify: Neil Johnston leads the way (44 percent), Jack McMahon brings up the rear (34 percent) and Cousy ranks fifteenth (just three spots behind alleged deadeye Dolph Schayes). Comparing him to his point guard rivals from 1951 to 1963 (400-game minimum), Gene Shue shot 39.9 percent, Dick McGuire shot 39.6 percent, Bobby Wanzer shot 39.2 percent, Cousy shot 37 percent, Andy Phillip shot 36.8 percent, Slater Martin shot 36.5 percent … and Cousy’s teams consistently averaged more shots and points than anyone else.
   ²⁶
   Fast-forward to the high-scoring eighties: of the 124 players who played 500 games or more from 1981 to 1990, Artis Gilmore led the way at 63 percent, Elston Turner brought up the back at 43 percent and Isiah Thomas ranked 105th (46 percent). If you narrow the list to point guards (twenty-three in all), Mo Cheeks ranks first (53 percent), Darnell Valentine ranks last (43 percent) and Isiah ranks fifteenth. In other words, Isiah was actually a
   worse
   shooter for his era than Cousy. J-Kidd sucked more than both of them combined, the seventh-worst shooter from 1995 to 2008 of anyone who played 500 games or more (40 percent). While we’re on the subject, Baron Davis (41 percent career), Kenny Anderson (42 percent), Iverson (42.6 percent) and Tim Hardaway (43 percent) were poorer shooters for their respective eras. So you can’t penalize the Cooz for peaking during a quantity-over-quality era of shot selection.
   

2. You know how everyone makes a fuss about that stupid Tiny Archibald record? Cousy finished second in points and first in assists in ’54 and ’55; unlike Tiny’s Royals, the Celtics made the playoffs both times. He cracked the top four in scoring four straight times (’52–’55), finished in the top ten in scoring four other times, never finished lower than third in assists in thirteen seasons and won eight straight assist titles. Let’s say we assigned points for every top ten finish in scoring or assists per game—10 points for first place, 9 for second and so on, with 0 points for anything outside the top ten—then tallied up the combined points for each player’s career.
   ²⁷
   Here’s how the top point guards of all-time finish with that scoring system: Oscar, 181; Cousy, 164; Stockton, 139; West, 102;
   ²⁸
   Kidd, 96; Magic, 94; Wilkens, 89; Tiny, 87; Isiah, 64; Payton, 51. Just for kicks, a second list with the same scoring system, only first-team All-NBA’s are worth 10 and second-team All-NBA’s worth 5: Oscar, 281; Cousy, 274; West, 212; Magic, 189; Stockton, 189; Kidd, 151; Tiny, 127; Isiah, 104; Payton, 96; Wilkens, 89.
   

   I hate the phrase “devil’s advocate” because it makes me think of that excruciating Keanu Reeves/Al Pacino movie that couldn’t even get the Charlize Theron nude scene right, but screw it: can you think of a valid reason why West (one title) and Oscar (one title) have endured historically as all-timers, but everyone has been so anxious to dump Cousy (six titles)? You can’t play the “he couldn’t have hacked it once the game sped up” card (like we used with Mikan earlier) because Cooz and Bob Pettit were the only NBA superstars who thrived pre-Russell and post-Russell. (If anything, Cooz was better off in a run-and-gun era—he led the league in assists as late as 1959 and 1960 and made second-team All-NBA in the final two years of his career.) You can’t play the “he couldn’t shoot” card because that’s untrue. You can’t play the “Russell made his career” card because he was better statistically pre-Russell and made just as many All-NBA teams without him. As recently as 1980, Cousy made the NBA’s 35th Anniversary twelve-man team. So what happened?
   

3. Cousy got screwed historically by his first four years (the pre-shot-clock era, when nobody scored more than 75–85 points a game) and the last five years (when they started counting assists differently). Cousy averaged 8.9 assists for a ’59 Celtics team that averaged 116.4 points per game; John Stockton averaged 12.4 assists for a ’94 Jazz team that averaged 101.9 points per game. How am I supposed to make sense of that?
   ²⁹
   How do we know Cousy wasn’t averaging 15–16 assists per game if we applied the current criteria? By all accounts, nobody ran a better fast break and the stats reflect it: eight straight titles and four times where he finished with at least 30 percent more dimes than the number two guy. Cousy finished his career in 1963 with 6,945 assists; the next-highest guy (Dick McGuire) had 4,205. So it’s not like he was a little bit better than his peers, or a tad better, or even just better. He was
   significantly
   better.
   

4. Like fellow pioneers Erving, Russell and Baylor, Cousy deserves credit for pushing basketball in a more entertaining, fan-friendly direction. Here’s how
   SI
   ’
   s
   Herbert Warren Wind
   ³⁰
   described his impact in January ’56:
   

Cousy is regarded by most experts as nothing less than the greatest all-round player in the 64-year history of basketball…. In recent years, when the game was coming very close to developing into a race-horse shooting match between men who had developed unstoppable shots and who could do very little else, Bob Cousy, above and beyond anyone else, has blazed the trail back to good basketball. Cousy has, in truth, gone much further: he has opened the road to better basketball. Perhaps no player or coach in the game’s history has understood the true breath of basketball as well as he. He has shown, in what has amounted to an enlightened revolution, that basketball offers a hundred and one possibilities of maneuvers no one ever dreamed of before. Reversing your dribble or passing behind your back and so on—those stunts had been done for years, but if you combine those moves with a sense of basketball, then you are going some place. Increase your repertoire of moves, and the man
playing you, by guarding against one, gives you the opening you need to move into another. It is not unlike learning to speak a new language. The larger your vocabulary, the better you will speak it, as long as you are building on a sound foundation.

To repeat:
Cousy opened the door for Magic, Nash, the ABA guys and everyone else. Until he started doing his thing in college and professionally, white players hadn’t even considered the notion “Wait, while we’re trying to win the game, what if we tried to entertain the fans as well?” And it’s not like Cousy was playing like some reckless “and-1” tour scrub; every move had a purpose, every decision stayed true to the player he was. Watch Nash running the show now and that’s what Cousy was like back then, only better. There’s a reason he became the NBA’s first iconic guard, the league’s answer to Unitas, Mays and Mantle. People loved watching him. People loved playing with him. His teams usually won. What more do you want?
³¹
As then Knicks coach Joe Lapchick extolled, “I’ve seen Johnny Beckman, Nat Holman, that wonderful player Hank Luisetti, Bob Davies, George Mikan, the best of the big men—to name just a few. Bob Cousy, though, is the best I’ve ever seen. He does so many things. He’s regularly one of the league’s top five scorers. [He’s] been a top leader in assists for the last five seasons. He’s become a very capable defensive player, a tremendous pass stealer. He always shows you something new, something you’ve never seen before. Any mistake against him and you pay the full price. One step and he’s past the defense. He’s quick, he’s smart, he’s tireless, he has spirit, and he is probably the best finisher in sports today.”

That just about covers it. And if you’re worried about his ability in the clutch, check out those six rings, or his famous 50-point playoff game against Syracuse (25-for-25 from the line). The Cooz did everything. Beyond the statistics and testimonials, Cousy deserves credit for forming the Players Association and empathizing with blacks during an era when few whites stuck up for them. My second-favorite Cousy moment happened
when he broke down during Bill Russell’s
SportsCentury
documentary, despondent that he didn’t fully realize how much Russell was suffering at the time. It was the most emotional moment in ESPN history that didn’t involve Jim Valvano or Chris Connelly, and if you don’t think it gets a little dusty in the Sports Guy Mansion every time it comes on, you’re crazy. Of course, that doesn’t top the all-time greatest Cousy moment: when he filmed the free throw shooting scene in
Blue Chips
with Nick Nolte and made twenty-one in a row for the take they ended up using … even though he was sixty-five at the time.
³²
Now that, my friends, is a Level Four guy. Let’s see John Stockton top that feat with a 75-person movie crew silently watching in 2025.