Cleaning out the Inbox: Basketball Passings

The inbox concentrates on recent passings from the basketball world with the first tribute to someone that played a large part in my basketball fandom as a young fan.

Goodbye to Billy Packer at the age of 82.

The long-time voice of the Final Four for both NBC and CBS from 1974-2008, Billy Packer was the point guard in 1962 for the Wake Forest Demon Deacons that reached the Final Four for the only appearance in the program's history.

Packer's Voice was part of the ACC regional network that brought ACC games to networks along the conference's footprint and was such a part of my youth.

Packer with play-by-play man Jim Thacker worked as the top commentary team with Packer often taking the public address microphone to announce the starting lineups for each team with a player at a position meeting at center court to exchange a high five or handshake.

The Thacker/Packer duo on the Jefferson Pilot and later Raycom ACC network brought almost every ACC game to the fans of the league and were for my money the best pairing of the time, even better than Packer's more heralded partners in Dick Enberg and later Jim Nantz.

Packer was known by the national audience for his sometimes crabby disposition concerning the game's issues and for a perceived ACC bias, which made sense considering his playing career and where his broadcasting career began.

I always liked Billy Packer's work, although it could have been that I liked him for the above reasons that many disliked him!

He'll be missed as a bridge to college basketball's past that the game always is in need of.

Goodbye to Terry Holland at the age of 80.

The long-time head basketball coach at Davidson and Virginia as well as serving as athletic director at both schools, is remembered as the coach that gave Virginia its first ACC tournament championship as the 1975-76 Cavaliers swept through the tournament with wins over the top three seeds (North Carolina, Maryland, and N.C. State) after finishing sixth in the regular season in a seven-team league.

Holland also brought Ralph Sampson to Virginia for the best four-season stretch in its history to that date, won the 1980 NIT, and led Virginia to two Final Fours (1981 and 84) with the latter occurring in the first post-Sampson season.

Holland played for Lefty Driesell at Davidson and would replace Driesell as the head coach for the Wildcats when Driesell moved to Maryland in 1969, taking Davidson to the NCAA in 1970.

Holland's 1982 Virginia team may be the team most responsible for the shot clock as in the highly-anticipated ACC final against North Carolina, Dean Smith's Tar Heels held the ball for most of the second half in an attempt to mute the impact of Ralph Sampson in front of a national television audience.

North Carolina won 47-45 but the outcry of so much talent on both teams being forced to play stall ball began the outcry to start college basketball towards adding a shot clock.

Goodbye to Willis Reed at the age of 80.

The center for the last two New York Knick championship teams in 1970 and 1973, Reed was the physical heart and soul of the team and even casual basketball fans remember his dramatic start in game seven of the 1970 Finals when he wasn't expected to play after missing game six due to a severe thigh injury.

Reed started, drilled the first two shots of the game for the Knicks, and played twenty-seven minutes as the Knicks defeated the Lakers to win their first world title.

Reed was voted as the MVP of the playoffs in both of the Knicks title teams during his career, was voted as the league MVP in 1970, and was named to one of the All-NBA teams on five occasions during his ten-year career.

After retirement, Reed served as the head coach at his alma mater, Creighton, and for both the Knicks and Nets along with working in the front office for the Nets and the Hornets.

Goodbye to Billy Hahn at the age of 69.

Hahn was the head coach at Ohio U. and LaSalle for three seasons apiece but is most remembered for his tenures as an assistant coach for Gary Williams at Maryland and Bob Huggins at West Virginia.

It was Hahn's time at Maryland where he was the key recruiter from 1989-2001 where he made much of his reputation as Williams rebuilt the Terrapins program.

Hahn's final year at Maryland saw the Terps reach the first Final Four in program history and when Maryland won the national title the following season with Hahn in his first season at LaSalle, the players that Hahn had recruited to Maryland were the stars of the championship team.

Hahn was given a national championship ring by Maryland for his role in the title season.

Forgotten Superstars: Bob Lanier

  The recent passing of perhaps the most underrated NBA star of the 1970s at 73 years of age made me think that Bob Lanier is a perfect selection for our Forgotten Superstars series.

Bob Lanier never played on an NBA title-winner but he always ranked among the elite centers in basketball during his time in the league with Detroit and Milwaukee and for some fans, Lanier is more remembered for his size 22 shoe (which fans can compare their shoe against Lanier's at the basketball hall of fame.) than his career, which saw his college program (St.Bonaventure) and both of his NBA teams retire his jersey number.

Much like Nate Thurmond, a half-generation ahead of Lanier, Lanier was a Hall of Fame center that sometimes didn't get the attention that he deserved because he was the third-best pivotman of his day.

In the case of Thurmond, Thurmond's peak saw him trail Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain and then Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar before ironically being passed by Lanier for that position.

Lanier's name usually ranked behind Chamberlain and Abdul-Jabbar at first, then after Chamberlain's retirement behind Bill Walton (when Walton was healthy), maybe Artis Gilmore when Gilmore first arrived from the ABA, and later a young Moses Malone but make no mistake about it, Bob Lanier ranked with the best centers of all-time.

It was Lanier's name along with Walton that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar famously references in the film "Airplane" telling a young fan "Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for forty-eight minutes".

Lanier also had a cameo role as an opposing player in the 1979 Julius Erving film "The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh".

I'm not sure which I would select between Lanier and Artis Gilmore in a hypothetical draft but fans narrowly missed seeing the two talented big men hook it up in the 1970 Final Four but late in Lanier-led St.Bonaventure's East Regional title victory, Lanier injured his knee in a collision with future Detroit teammate Chris Ford and would miss the national semi-final in which the Bonnies would lose to Jacksonville and Artis Gilmore.

If you know anything about college basketball and the size of schools, you'll know just what an achievement it was for a school like St.Bonaventure to make the Final Four, and fans in northwest New York still vow that had Lanier not been injured that the Bonnies would have snapped the UCLA national title string in 1970, not in 1974 by N.C. State.

Their point is well-taken as that Bruins team was the most vulnerable of the seven straight champions as the 1970 team was post-Alcindor/Abdul Jabbar yet before the arrival of Bill Walton with the best players on those teams listing Sidney Wicks, Curtis Rowe, and Henry Bibby as their stars.

If a team such as St. Bonaventure was going to defeat one of the seven consecutive championship teams - 1970 was the one team that could have been vulnerable.

Lanier would be selected as the first pick in the 1971 draft by the Pistons and in his ten seasons with Detroit, Lanier would average a double-double with a scoring average of 22.7 and a rebounding average of 11.8 per outing, despite battling through debilitating knee injuries but Lanier's Pistons never even reached the conference finals as at that time the Pistons were in the Western Conference which was the more balanced of the two conferences.

Lanier played in eight All-Star games and won the game's MVP in the 1974 edition but the Pistons of the late seventies were rebuilding (and desperate to the point of hiring Dick Vitale as their head coach)  and with Lanier's knee continuing to weaken, Detroit traded Lanier to the Milwaukee Bucks, a team that won their division often but couldn't get by Seattle or Portland (Milwaukee also was in the Western Conference) to reach the finals.

Lanier helped to maintain the Bucks at that level but lost to Seattle in his first season and the Bucks last year in the West and couldn't get past Boston or Philadelphia after being moved to the Eastern Conference.

Lanier wasn't the scoring presence as a Buck that he was a Piston (averaging thirteen points a game in five seasons with Milwaukee) but his knees forced him to average ten fewer minutes a game and became a more stationary figure that slowed down any running game that the Bucks would try to use.

Lanier's hook shot wasn't the weapon on the level of Kareem's skyhook but his shorter more rounded hook shot was almost as deadly and Lanier was far from a finesse player on the block with a reputation as an enforcer that ranked him among the elite of the NBA's enforcers as his knockout of Atlanta's Bob Christian and his one-punch left hook that left Detroit's Bill Laimbeer prone on the floor left players smiling long after Lanier's retirement that Laimbeer frustrated throughout Laimbeer's career.

Lanier would serve as an assistant to his Bucks head coach, Don Nelson, with the Warriors and finished the 1994-95 season as Golden State's head coach when Nelson resigned mid-season.

Lanier finished the season winning twelve of thirty-seven games and didn't coach thereafter.

In my opinion, the two most glaring omissions on the NBA's recent 75th-anniversary team roster were Lanier and Bernard King and I have to think that it was held against both players that they never reached an NBA Finals.

It's sad that Bob Lanier never seemed to receive the break that he needed to receive the credit that he truly deserved going back to the knee injury at St. Bonaventure through his early years with the Pistons and his later years with the Bucks playing with teams that were very good but not quite good enough to win a championship.

I certainly think Lanier had a legitimate argument as the most underrated big man of his time and arguably ever and deserves to be remembered as the terrific player that was as we welcome "The Dobber" to the Forgotten Superstars universe.

Cleaning out the Inbox:Basketball Passings

    It's a sad and rare time for a tributes post to be entirely basketball-related, but since I've not exactly been lighting things up here of late, things have built up in the inbox.

Goodbye to Elgin Baylor at the age of 86.

Modern basketball fans may remember Baylor best as the often-inept general manager of the awful Los Angeles Clippers from 1986-2008, but Baylor was far more than that on the court.

As a player, Baylor won almost every accolade that a player can achieve with the exception of a world championship.

Baylor was the first selection by the then-Minneapolis Lakers, Baylor was named to the All-NBA first team on ten occasions and eleven times played in the All-Star game.

It was Baylor's 71 points that held the league record before Wilt Chamberlain's famous 100 point output and Baylor's 61 in game five of the 1962 finals that holds the record to this day for points in a finals game.

Considered the NBA's first "modern" player, it all traces back to Elgin Baylor as the beginning of the modern player that combined athleticism with elite skills of the game with averages over his career of twenty-seven points and thirteen rebounds per game and those numbers dipped due to the final two injury-plagued seasons of his career.

Only Baylor's eight losses in the NBA finals leave any sort of black mark on a Hall of Fame playing career, but there is a definite blight from a coaching career with the New Orleans Jazz that left his record forty-nine games under .500 and leading the Clippers to the playoffs only once in twenty-two years.

Baylor's reign did have bad luck as it seemed the Clippers best players had habits of tearing up knee ligaments such as Danny Manning and Ron Harper, but there were plenty of bad decisions such as winning the 1998 lottery and selecting Michael Olowokandi over players such as Dirk Nowitzki, Vince Carter, Paul Pierce, Antawn Jamison, and Mike Bibby.

Goodbye to Stan Albeck at the age of 89.

Albeck was the head coach for four NBA teams (Cavaliers, Spurs, Nets, and Bulls) and the Bradley Braves in college, but also coached in the ABA as an assistant, notably with the San Diego Conquistadors where Albeck unofficially ran the team with Wilt Chamberlain as the figurehead coach.

Albeck's teams made the playoffs in six of his seven seasons as an NBA head coach and he twice took San Antonio to the conference finals during his tenure in Texas.

Albeck's Spur teams won the Midwest Division in each of his three seasons in San Antonio and in his first season with the New Jersey Nets, Albeck took them to the conference semi-finals, which to this writing is the second-best playoff performance in the Nets history.

Goodbye to Benny Dees at the age of 86.

Dees was the head coach at four schools, but most notably at New Orleans and Wyoming, where he took both teams to the NCAA tournament.

At New Orleans, Dees landed future NBA player Ledell Eackles as the nation's top junior college player in recruiting and took the Privateers to their first NCAA tournament, while he would make the NCAA's tournament with Wyoming as well with future pros Fennis Dembo and Eric Leckner.

Dees was the first head coach ever at Virginia Commonwealth in 1968 as the school started its program from scratch.

Goodbye to Granville Waiters at the age of 60.

The 6'11 center for the Ohio State Buckeyes looked about twenty years older than he was with a badly receding hairline and a face that looked like an NBA veteran rather than a college player.

Waiters averaged ten points and seven rebounds as a senior of Ohio State and he was drafted in the second round of the 1983 draft by Portland before being traded to Indiana on draft night.

Waiters would play five seasons in the NBA as garbage time big man off the bench with Indiana, Chicago, and Houston with a career average of 2.4 points per game. 

Cleaning out the Inbox-Basketball Passings

It's not often that there are enough basketball tributes to carry its own post, but sadly between the passings themselves and the time that I've been writing of late, this is one time that basketball can carry itself.

Goodbye to Wes Unseld at the age of 74.
Unseld, who should be considered "Mr.Bullet", played, coached, and served as general manager of the Baltimore/Capital/Washington Bullets/Wizards and never worked in basketball for another franchise.
Unseld won the Rookie of the Year and MVP as a rookie in Baltimore, and although it appears in retrospect to be a questionable decision for the MVP, Unseld's impact took the Bullets to the playoffs where they would lose to the eventual champion New York Knicks.
The Bullets would reach four NBA Finals with Unseld, winning the franchise's only league title in 1978 with a seven-game victory over the Seattle SuperSonics with Unseld selected as series MVP.
An undersized center at 6'7, Unseld was never a huge scorer in averaging 10.8 points for his career, but he averaged just under fifteen rebounds and was known as the best outlet passer in the game other than possibly Bill Walton.
Unseld would retire after the 1980-81 season with the team retiring his number 41 as he began the transition into the front office.
Unseld worked in the front office until he was named head coach midway through the 1987-88 season.
It shows how loved Unseld was by his fanbase that they didn't scream for his head after six and a half years of coaching and seven more years as general manager only produced two playoff berths that would result in first-round exits.


Goodbye to Jerry Sloan at the age of 78.
Best known as the long-time coach of the Utah Jazz, Sloan was a hard-nosed player that was selected by the Chicago Bulls in the 1966 expansion draft from Baltimore one year following the Bullets selecting Sloan in the first round of the 1965 draft.
Sloan made two All-Star teams as a Bull before knee problems forced him to retire in 1976 with the Bulls retiring his number in the following season.
Sloan coached the Bulls for parts of three seasons before being fired in 1982.
Sloan's second chance came in Utah in 1988 and despite not winning an NBA title, the Jazz won two conference titles, six division crowns, made nineteen playoff appearances and Sloan became the first coach to win 1,000 games with one team, Gregg Popovich has since joined him in that club.
Sloan ranks fourth in all-time coaching victories behind only Don Nelson, Lenny Wilkens, and Popovich.
An interesting note on Jerry Sloan- After retiring from the Bulls, Sloan was talked into accepting the head coaching job at his alma mater in Evansville by his college coach Branch McCracken.
Sloan decided to step down after five days and the entire Evansville team was killed in a plane crash in December 1977 as the Purple Aces were on their way to Tennessee for a game against Middle Tennessee State.

Goodbye to Eddie Sutton at the age of 84.
Sutton won over 800 games in his college coaching career and brought Arkansas (once) and Oklahoma State (twice) to Final Four spots.
Sutton also coached Kentucky to the Elite Eight and took Creighton to the NCAA's in his first college coaching stop, but despite his success at all of those schools. Sutton might be most remembered for the recruiting scandal that he was involved in at Kentucky that cost him his job with the infamous "Emery Envelope" stuffed with cash to the home of recruit Chris Mills as the tip of the iceberg.
Sutton coached teams to twenty or more wins on twenty-four occasions in his coaching career, but I still think his best job was at Arkansas, where in 1974, Sutton took over a decidedly non-hoops school that had not been to the NCAA tournament since 1958 and within three years had won 26 games, going undefeated in their conference (the now-defunct SWC) and a trip to the NCAA's.
The following season was better with 32 wins and a trip to the Final Four behind future pro's Sidney Moncrief and Ron Brewer.
Arkansas was set as a basketball school thereafter.

Goodbye to Mike Storen at the age of 84.
Storen, the father of ESPN's Hannah Storm, was a key part of the ABA's building process in running three teams during the life of the league and served for a brief time as the league commissioner.
Storen was part of the group that built the Indiana Pacers at the league's inception in 1967, hired coach Slick Leonard and signed the core of the team that would win three ABA titles.
After three seasons in Indiana, Storen would move to Kentucky as GM and a small ownership piece where he would sign Dan Issel and Artis Gilmore and build the base of the 1974-75 league champions.
Storen would become the league commissioner for a year before taking over the operations for the Memphis franchise, which was then named the Tams with Storen immediately changing the name to Sounds, which "sounded" better but didn't show results at the box office or the win column.
After working with the NBA on terms to merge the two leagues, Storen would be involved with the Atlanta Hawks for a short time before spending the remainder of his basketball days as commissioner of minor leagues such as the CBA and GBA.

Curly Neal

The whistles and handclaps drummed through my living room in Ohio in 1970 & 71 on Saturday mornings with the Harlem Globetrotters cartoons on CBS and as I hopped along with the music, the animated Trotters dribbled onto the screen with an animated dog (for some reason, the 70s constantly had talking animals in many of their animated programs).

As I have noted in the past, I was already a sports fan and the Globetrotters cartoon combined the two things I loved most- sports and cartoons.
 My favorite Trotter on the cartoon was the child-friendly shaven-headed Curly Neal, the master dribbler of the team and one that often had the funny wise-crack on the cartoon.
I didn't realize at the time that the voice of Curly wasn't actually Curly's as it was comedian Stu Gilliam that was plugged into the role.
The show ran for two seasons on CBS and for two years following with the same episodes running again before shelving for years until NBC, in a severe cost-cutting mode at the time, began picking up shows that were a decade or so old and using them on Saturday mornings to a fresh audience.

Curly Neal wasn't always a basketball comedian as he was a pretty good player in his time in "legitimate" basketball averaging 23.1 points a game at Johnson C. Smith University from 1959-63.
At that time, almost all college basketball played in the South at the major colleges were still played by all-white teams and some of the best basketball in the nation was being played at the "black" college level with many players from those leagues moving on to NBA stardom such as Earl Monroe.
Averaging 23 points against that competition wasn't shabby, so Neal was far more than just a gimmick player before joining the Globetrotters.
I haven't found any notes about Neal signing with an NBA team or anything about attending a training camp with anyone and Neal's first game with the Globetrotters was in 1963 which syncs with Neal's final season with Johnson C.Smith.

As the 1970s moved forward, the human Globetrotters became a big deal to see as well as they made regular appearances against their perpetual foil, the Washington Generals, on ABC's Wide World of Sports as well as other appearances such as the "Classic" Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island television movie and a short-lived live-action Saturday morning program "The Harlem Globetrotters Popcorn Machine".
Those "games" were must-see television and even non-basketball fans got laughs from the Trotters performances.
Everyone associated the bouncy Trotters theme song "Sweet Georgia Brown" with basketball and hi-jinks.
My mom was a decided non-hoops fan and she always got a kick out of their antics, so I'm willing to wager that they had that type of effect on others as well.

Neal was the ballhandling master on for the Trotters replacing the great Marquis Haynes in that role, who was the featured co-star to Meadowlark Lemon through the 70s and was the most visible star after Lemon formed his own team in "Meadowlark Lemon's Bucketeers" until Neal's retirement in 1985.
The Globetrotters were never the same after the Lemon/Neal/Geese Tatum era teams retired or left the organization.
They would declare bankruptcy a time or two and today have multiple traveling teams around the country on various tours, but I'm not sure that I could name one player on any of those teams.
I do know that for a time, former Maryland Terrapins Exree Hipp and Johnny Rhodes played for the Trotters, but I'm unsure that either player still plays with the organization.

I'm not sure people under 45 could understand just how big the Harlem Globetrotters were in the 70s and the first part of the 80s.
After all, the entire experience when you boil it down is basketball crossed with pro wrestling with a few comedy bits added to the package, but they were a bigger deal during that time during the NBA to most people.
If you asked the average person about basketball, I would bet that the Globetrotters were the first team mentioned and a decent chunk would believe that if the Globetrotters played the Celtics, 76ers, or Lakers that it would be the Globetrotters coming out on top.
Imagine it this way, it would be the equivalent of believing in 1983 that Hulk Hogan would beat Larry Holmes in a real fight and that's how big the Harlem Globetrotters were- with Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal the biggest of all.

Curly Neal's passing at the age of 77 is another in a list that gets longer as I age as childhood heroes from sports, television, and music continue to pass away.
Aging is about more than learning to be dealing with your body breaking down, it is just as tough watching others walk away from the scene.
"Whistles the Globetrotters theme song", takes the hand of a three-year-old in Globetrotters pajamas, and walks away stage left.

What should have been

Today should have been a great day.
Instead let me tell you why it's not, how little I know, what I missed out on and what I learned about myself in the process.

I've mentioned something new that I was preparing to embark on, but I was hesitant to speak about it because I've learned long ago that until you are in the middle of the stream, you aren't really swimming.

I was asked a few times in the past to help coach basketball with a good friend of mine (I'm not going to name him here without his consent, but if you know me personally, you know him) and it never seemed to work out for various reasons.
Finally, it seemed like things were going to work as he was going to move into high school coaching (Girls) and asked if I'd consider an assistant coaching position with control of the offensive system.
This worked for me on several levels (a higher level of play, some control of the system, being able to concentrate on the game more than dealing with paperwork and administration and being during a time of year where I wasn't involved in baseball) and I agreed to do this, despite never having coached young ladies before and the adjustments that entailed.

We coached through the pre-season and a scrimmage against another team and then the information spigot was turned off.
Everything abruptly ended and I didn't know anything about anything.
I still know very little and I'm not sure how much I'll learn about whatever happened, although it didn't have anything to do with me.

Today was supposed to be the season opener and things would have started on an interesting journey.
So, it's a sad day in a way as I was so looking forward to being part of a team again and all the emotions that the ups and downs of sports and young people bring out of people involved.

What I also learned from stepping out on the floor for that one meaningless scrimmage in a gym that was more converted cafeteria than basketball facility was that I missed the competitive factor.
I wasn't sure how I would react to that, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed being involved even in a lopsided loss.

I enjoyed the experience and I'm a little sad that things didn't work out.
I think I'd like to give this another shot under the right circumstances.
I enjoyed working with the players and my buddy and other than the mysterious end, I can't really think of anything negative from the experience.

Just a little disappointed that I'm not spending the day sketching out a game plan or thinking about personnel, but these things fluctuate sometimes, I suppose.
Keep an old writer in mind down the road, if your local school has a basketball opening-Just make sure to give me some boosting to the powers that be!

I'll be back with more soon- LOTS to get posted today!!!

Connie Hawkins

Sad news from the basketball world as former NBA and ABA star Connie Hawkins passed away at the age of 75.
Hawkins had been in bad health recently and was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2007.

Connie Hawkins was the bridge to how the game was played from era to era.
It was Hawk that connected to Julius Erving that led to Michael Jordan with the showmanship (as shown in the picture to the right) and the high-wire attack through the air that only Elgin Baylor had a game similar of that to Hawkins at the time.
Sadly, we never saw the true best of Connie Hawkins, who was banned from his commitment to Iowa and the NBA for having his name mentioned in a point-shaving scandal in 1961 despite there being no proof of participation or Hawkins even playing in any of the mentioned games.

Banned from the only pro league at the time, Hawkins played for the Harlem Globetrotters before spending time in the short-lived ABL winning the only league championship with the Pittsburgh Rens.
Hawkins would then be the dominant player in the first three seasons of the ABA with the Pittsburgh/Minnesota Pipers, winning the league title and the MVP in the league's first season.
During this time, Hawkins (and others including Roger Brown, who took the settlement, but chose to stay with the ABA ) sued the NBA for their unfair ban and before the case could get to trial, the NBA settled with Hawkins, paying him 1.3 million dollars and assigned him to the Phoenix Suns.
The Suns had won just 16 games before Hawkins in their inaugural season, but with Hawkins in the lineup won 39 games, made the playoffs and pushed the Lakers of Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, and Wilt Chamberlain to a surprising seven-game series before losing.
Hawkins battled knee injuries thereafter and even though he was able to maintain his numbers for the most part in Phoenix, they played a part in Hawkins being traded to the Lakers, where his skills declined before ending his career in 1976 in Atlanta with the Hawks.

I have three personal stories relating to Connie Hawkins.
In the early 70's, Hawkins and author David Wolf, who would later become a boxing manager and agent for Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini worked on his autobiography "FOUL", that ended with some of Hawkins years with the Suns making the book.
I found a used copy of this at a book sale and it was a regular part of my sports book rotation that went to school a lot and tended to satisfy teachers that I was reading (like that was tough to get me to do) much more than magazines did.
I haven't read FOUL in years, but it's in the attic somewhere, battered and beaten, but well loved in its day.

Another Hawkins story was his cameo appearance on early Saturday Night Live, where he "lost" a one on one game to the diminutive singer Paul Simon at a New York schoolyard in a skit for the show.
I must have been seven or eight and hanging out with my dad late night and just was amazed that an NBA player that I watched on tv lost to the little guy that sung "Kodachrome"?
I remember just babbling about this great upset before after a while, Dad explained to me that it wasn't "real" and Hawkins "let" Simon win for the laughs!

A televised one on one game is my final memory of Hawk.
In 1972-73, the NBA's television contract was in its final year with ABC and with ABC being the "third network" in ratings at the time (their time was just a few years away), the NBA often was given prime or at least preferred time games.
At halftime of their games, ABC held a one on one tournament that was taped well before the season and shown during halftime of their games.
I remember faintly seeing Hawkins taking on younger star Spencer Haywood at my old house shortly after moving back here.
As in, I watched it at my old house, they didn't come over play there!
I have never seen that tournament since that day long ago and it's not even on Youtube, which is really amazing to me since about everything is on Youtube it seems!
I don't even remember the winner, I just remember my dad letting me stay up on a school night to watch before trudging up the stairs for bed.

Back tomorrow with Indians-Yankees game five!

Terry Gannon and Wolfpack Hoops

A tough day watching Xavier fall short of the Final Four with an 83-59 loss to Gonzaga in the Western Regional final.
It was the end of a surprising run for the battered Musketeers, but one can only think of the possibilities had Edmund Sumner not been injured...

The tournament often brings me back to those days as the hardest-core basketball fan that I knew and some of the players and teams that I loved so dearly.

I was always a Maryland fan (until they left for Big 10 with my interest waning) and I've written before of those years (70's and 80's) rooting for Memphis State (Keith Lee years) and UNLV (lots of late night watching on school nights on ESPN) being the top-notch team of the small conferences (think like a really flashy Gonzaga),but one team was the team that I rooted for most other than against Maryland-the North Carolina State Wolfpack.

Many forget that there was a time that Dean Smith and his North Carolina powerhouse weren't even in the top two teams in the league and the only time window that Lefty Driesell's Terrapins could consistently defeat Carolina, the Terps could not get by Norm Sloan and the Wolfpack.
Those Pack teams were looked at as the team to beat, so I didn't really start rooting for them until a few years later when the Tar Heels had returned to assert their presence as the league's titan.
Then it was because of one player that I liked at the end of the Sloan years-Charles "Hawkeye" Whitney (hmmm,perhaps a future Forgotten Superstar?), a 6-4 forward that reminded me size wise of Charles Barkley,who was a better college offensive player than Barkley,but not better off the glass.
Whitney had the appearance of a player that would appeal to kids and he came out of DeMatha high, which was the place for high school stars in the Washington D.C. area.

I liked Whitney and he moved State up my list, but the real appeal was the arrival of Jim Valvano from Iona.
Valvano was fun to watch, quick with the quip and I instantly was a fan.
I liked his teams and rooted hard for them (except against Maryland) and the 1983 national title team that is so fondly remembered was one that I followed from beginning to end of their stunning drive.
I have almost every game of their tournament run (I think I'm missing one or two games) on DVD and I watch them more than any college game (non-Terrapin) in my collection.
The best players on those teams were future pro (and noted singer from the Roy Firestone Sports Look show) Thurl Bailey, point guard Sidney Lowe and shooting guard Derreck Whittenburg, but my favorite was one that I could relate to.

Terry Gannon was a shooting guard that came off the bench and entered N.C.State when I was in eighth grade.
Gannon shot the ball well from long range was often used as instant offense with a sweet jumper.
Gannon instantly became my favorite Wolfpack player and I loved seeing him on the 30 for 30 featuring Valvano and the 1983 Wolfpack recalling a rare attempt at defense as he took a charge against a flying Clyde Drexler in the NCAA finals.
With Gannon's shooting range and top-notch free throw shooting, he reminded you of Mark Price of Georgia Tech (later of the Cavaliers) without the playmaking ability of Price.
Gannon's game was one that you could approximate playing in games and feel like you could somewhat play like him.
I sure wasn't going to be flying high with dunks and alley-oops, but firing away from the outside-every once in a while, I could feel like a player.
Part of the fun being an ACC fan was being to imitate some of the shooting forms.
To this day, I'll shoot around with Adrian Branch's side-saddle lean-in jumper (I remember Branch's shot to beat #1 Virginia better than I remember a game I saw yesterday!).
Gannon's shot was more of a straight up and follow through jumper that I liked to use, but there was one guy on Wake Forest that was a forward that had an unusual little tic when he shot that I liked.
His name was Alvis Rogers and he would catch the ball and roll his wrists in a circle just before releasing the ball.
My Rogers-like shot was not exactly on the money very often and I was amazed that he made as many shots as he did!

When Jim Valvano left the school and a few years later when Hagerstown's Rodney Monroe was finished with his career at State, I lost interest.
The teams weren't as good, the style of play was slow, the old tartan floor was covered-it wasn't the same.
It never has been at State since then, State was always much better than Duke growing up, but Duke blew past the Pack like they were standing still.
N.C.State is still a sleeping giant waiting to be raised out of slumber with the right coach and who knows how Duke will adapt when Coach K. finally retires?
Duke is a tougher place to win than one thinks and it doesn't take long to slide as State found out.

As for Terry Gannon, I still see him during the course of the year as he is the voice of the LPGA, which I watch quite often, on the Golf Channel.
(I still need to do that promised piece on the LPGA, although there is an old archived podcast on it)
Gannon has done other sports over the years since leaving State and a brief pro career in Europe and he's really solid.
You always have a special place for the players that you root for when young, Terry Gannon is one of those players among others and I just talked to my dad today about this weekend's games and I asked him about him remembering me practicing shooting in the backyard and the abandoned schoolyard all the time.
His response was more than I expected- "Yes, I remember trying to get you to shoot like you instead of that white guy from N.C.State and the other guy that had the funny thing that he did with his hands".
That's about a thousand times more memory than I thought Dad had on a topic like this and makes me again think about what sports can do-give people with limited things in common something to connect with.

I'll be back later with a cleaning out the inbox with a non-sports edition.

Cavaliers reportedly to trade for Kyle Korver

It's not official yet,but it appears that the Cleveland Cavaliers are far from finished with tinkering with their roster as the Cavaliers are reported to have added sharpshooter Kyle Korver from the Atlanta Hawks.

The cost is some type of combination of the cap number from the retired Mo Williams, Mike Dunleavy,who hasn't worked out since being acquired from the Chicago Bulls and the Cleveland 2019 first rounder,which will have the typical 20 stipulations that most NBA trades for draft picks have for various scenarios.
The pick is the guaranteed part that the Hawks would keep with the Williams expiring contract and Dunleavy with high possibilities of being moved along to another team either in this deal or a side deal that the Hawks could make before the trade deadline.

In order for the Cavaliers to comply with the NBA rule of not trading first round picks,Cleveland needed to get their 2018 first rounder back,which they had sent to Portland in the Anderson Varejao trade last season.so Cleveland sent their 2017 1st rounder to the Blazers for the 2018 pick,so they could then trade the 2019 pick to Atlanta.
I think I'm dizzy now...

For Cleveland,this deal for the 35 year old Korver not only brings what was expected from Dunleavy,it also is a temporary fix for the absence of JR Smith ,who will miss a total of three months after breaking his thumb.
Korver is one of the best three point shooters in the league and his consistency (40 percent shooting from the distance) brings a shooter to a team that needs it.
Have to love this deal with what Kyle Korver brings to Cleveland.

The trade for Korver is just one of a few moves that the Cavaliers need to do in order to tune up for the playoff drive.
A lack of a backup veteran point guard has been a glaring need since the team allowed Matthew Dellavedova to leave via free agency and a reserve big man is a target with the season ending injury to backup Chris "Birdman" Anderson.

I'll be back to edit this in case there are any substantial changes to the trade...

Forgotten Superstars: Keith Lee

We return to the Forgotten Superstars universe with a look back at my favorite college basketball player of the 1980s who didn't play in the ACC.

Remember, as a die-hard Big 10 fan that I am now (and was still so as far as football back then), I was that big of an ACC basketball fan.
However, two teams were from smaller conferences that I always tried to watch and was a fan of- Memphis State of the Metro and later the Great Midwest Conference, and UNLV of various conferences in the western US.

My favorite player was a 6'10 forward, whose game was more of a small forward than a power one in Keith Lee, shown to the left with apparently the world's largest basketball trophy!
Lee's game was an unusual one for its time- a finesse player who played the "4" only because of his height, often giving him an advantage over opposing defenders, along with an outside shooting skill that was ahead of its time, as noted.
Lee could post up and often did, but he had another skill that went beyond being an inside scorer and rebounder.

Lee had arguably the best set of hands that I ever saw on a big man, and he was a terrific passer and catcher.
All too often, catching the basketball is a skill taken for granted, but good ones manage to corral off-kilter passes, and the really good ones can catch the ball by the seams and have the ball in position to shoot quicker than other players.
Lee always seemed to be in a position to get his shot off quickly, and for a big man, Lee had such passing skills that you would expect to see from a much smaller player.

If you haven't heard of Keith Lee, I'm sure you are thinking, what couldn't he do?
Well, he had an unusual running gait, so he didn't always look like he was going all out, although I believe that was just his style of play, and sometimes it looked like he was bothered by physical play from players trying to guard him.
Other than that, as a Memphis State (Now known as Memphis) player, there wasn't much to criticize him for.
Lee took Memphis State to a Final Four. was a three-time All-American (2 first teams and a second), is still the leader in all-time scoring at Memphis, and has had his 24 retired by the Tigers.

All that, and you can see why I was excited and hoped that Lee would be the first-round pick of the Cavaliers in the 1985 draft.
I didn't have the USA network, which showed the draft then, but I remember hearing on the radio that Lee had been picked by the Chicago Bulls after the Cavaliers had passed over him for Charles Oakley of Virginia Union -A NAIA school!
I was unhappy until I heard the Cavaliers had traded Oakley and their 2nd round pick (Calvin Duncan) to the Bulls for Lee and their young point guard, Ennis Whatley, who had been the Bulls' first-round pick the season before.
I was thrilled, and getting Whatley made this trade look like a huge steal for Cleveland.

What I didn't know was the extent of Keith Lee's knee problems.
Lee would miss the first 24 games of his rookie year and never seemed to catch up.
Lee would miss more time in his second year in Cleveland and only played 13 minutes a game under rookie coach George Karl.

Looking at Karl's career in the league in the 30 years since, Keith Lee was never going to be a George Karl type of player, even before his injury problems- the health issues only made those worse.
Lee would miss the entire 87-88 season before being traded to the Nets, where he hobbled through 57 games in the final season of his career.

There are so few pictures of Lee as a Cavalier that this one from Getty Images is the only color or action shot I could find!
Keith Lee played in the era without a mainstream basketball card contract, so you can collect Keith Lee cards very easily- the 1989-90 Hoops set has his only card, a short print with the Nets.

Never a loud player, Keith Lee spent his college career being a great player who didn't have much to say, and he's continued that in his retirement.
Lee is currently a high school basketball coach in Memphis, giving back to the players and the town he represented so well.
We welcome Keith Lee to the Forgotten Superstars universe! 

Tim Duncan

Finally,making time to write about the retirement of one of my favorite basketball players of all-time as Tim Duncan retired from the San Antonio Spurs.

Some argue that Tim Duncan wasn't a true power forward and rate him as a center and therefore use that as a reason to keep Duncan off the all-time NBA starting lineup.
I wouldn't argue against people that wish to rate him as a center,but I'll take him at power forward.
For the record,my all-time starting five is Magic Johnson at the point,Michael Jordan at shooting guard,LeBron James at small forward,Duncan at power forward and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the pivot.

Tim Duncan has been a favorite of mine going back to his days at Wake Forest,when he wasn't a polished and finished product,but you could see the potential.
At that time,I was watching tons of college basketball and the stars in the ACC were all the same age-North Carolina's Rasheed Wallace and Jerry Stackhouse and Maryland's Joe Smith with Duncan showing promise,but not playing at that level at that time.
Duncan wasn't even the star of those Demon Deacon teams as that honor went to guard Randolph Childress,who led Wake to the 1995 ACC Tournament championship.
You could clearly see that Duncan had raw ability,but I would hardly say I figured at that time that he'd be an all-time great.
Where Duncan showed his maturity was realizing that he needed development time and unlike Smith and Wallace for example,he stayed and improved his game and would far surpass the pair in the pro game,where both would be good not great players that traveled around the league playing for multiple teams.

Duncan going to the Spurs was another one of those flukes that happen in sports.
Similar to the Colts being a top team under Peyton Manning,having a bad year with Manning lost to injury which enabled the team to stumble into Andrew Luck,the Spurs did the same with a awful season caused by an injury to David Robinson,which led to a lottery win and the resulting selection of Duncan.
Duncan's loyalty to San Antonio was very similar to staying at Wake Forest when he had NBA opportunities.
Duncan could have made more money elsewhere and could have went to bigger markets for other options both on and off the court.
Duncan didn't have a ton of endorsements and simply spent his career as a quiet superstar-one that eschewed the spotlight in order to be as close as a normal person as an NBA star can be.
I always have held a soft spot for San Antonio as a former ABA team and Duncan certainly made the Spurs an easy team to root for-as long as they didn't play the Cavaliers!

Duncan's game didn't have a ton of flash,but had the consistent record of dependability.
Duncan wasn't a three point bomber like so many of the big men of today,he was effective with the short jumper and could play on the block and post up defenders as big men should.
It was a reasonably simple,yet devastatingly effective,particularly in today's game with Duncan playing against one dimensional players that were useful only from inside the free throw line on defense and being able bring them out a bit on the offensive end.

I'm sure that we may see another player with Tim Duncan's skills in my lifetime,but I'm not sure that we will see one with his skills combined with the team first persona and the lack of ego in my time.
Tim Duncan was easily my favorite player for his era and as sad as I am to see him leave the game,it seems to be the right time.
I'd rather see him leave now than pushing things one sad year too late.

Tim Duncan will be missed....

Goodbye to the Pearl and the golden age of Big East Basketball

It's been a big news day.
The Cavaliers winning their playoff game and of course the Browns trading down in the first round with Philadelphia,but another news item brought back memories.

Dwayne "Pearl" Washington passed away at the age of 52.
Washington had announced last summer that he had a brain tumor and was undergoing surgery in an attempt to remove it.
Washington was known for his ankle breaking crossover move and was one of the early stars of the Big East conference in the early to middle 1980's,
I remember those days as almost every team had a star player and the games were so physical and demanding that each game had an almost draining feel to them.

Washington was a three time All-American and three time all-Big East and his showmanship and skills made the most emulated on playgrounds and gyms around not only the conference footprint,but also country wide as a result of an up and coming network known as ESPN,which showcased the Big East constantly.
Pearl wasn't exactly a great shooter (which would come back to haunt him in the NBA) or a plus defender,but his ballhandling skills brought to mind about any great dribbler of the past.
Washington was more of a pure point guard than a scoring guard,but could penetrate to the hoop with the best guards as his stocky build allowed him to bull by defenders when he couldn't outspeed them (Washington wasn't known as a burner) to drive the lane and lay it up and in.
Pearl's game didn't lend itself to the NBA,too slow to defend and the players were better suited to defend him off the dribble,forcing his always erratic outside shot and taking away his offense.
Washington was through after two years as a New Jersey Net (13th overall pick) and a season with Miami after being picked in the Heat's expansion draft.

Growing up during this time as a basketball fan was a great time.
This area was a crossover area as we saw all the games from the ACC syndicated network because of Maryland,but we also received the Big East slate of matchups too because of Georgetown.
Those teams in the Big East had their shares of players that became great pros in Patrick Ewing and Chris Mullin but they also had players that were excellent college players that were just professional role players like Villanova's Ed Pinckney or even players that weren't able to reach that modest height like Washington and St.John's Walter Berry,a transcendent college player that didn't have the athletic ability to be the same player in the NBA.
Still,as I noted above,every game had this inner city mentality that featured a physical game that the more gentlemanly ACC never could match in sheer intensity,
I never truly had a favorite team in the Big East,although I suppose in hindsight,I probably rooted for Seton Hall and St.John's more than anyone else,but I always had time to watch their games and their stars.

I truly loved college basketball back then,a game not populated by one year players or polluted by bloated conferences put together by finances rather than for regional pride.
I'm not sure I'll ever get that love back.It's like a special love that was so torrid that it never again can be the same.
But,the memories are always there and it's always fun to look back at players from that age-like the flashy game from a point guard from Syracuse.....

Podcast:Different thoughts on guns and one and dones..

We offer some different thoughts and theories on a mobile mini-cast.

I offer some thoughts on guns and the people that use them without discussing gun control legislation in the aftermath of the death of former Buckeye Will Smith.

I also look at a not thought of theory of how being a 18 or 19 year old NBA player can affect a players career longevity and peak along with how this could affect the Cavaliers...

Dilapidated Memories

We all get nostalgic at times, some more than others.
Some times, I think back to the happiest part of my childhood and most of them were up until I was 11 or 12-the elementary school years.
I've mentioned Fountain Rock school before but living in a rural area that occasionally saw a bad element (the mean streets of Fairplay/Tilghmanton had nothing on NYC! LOL) there were occasional good things that mixed with bad things.

It truly was a sign of the times that at eight years old, I was walking along the Sharpsburg Pike and walking to various places to play.
I played pickup baseball through those years at the District 12 Ruritan and faced players like future major league pitcher Mike Draper, played tackle football at the "beautiful" Fairplay Carnival grounds which was had to be the local equivalent of this lovely facility,but of the local pickup games,what I enjoyed most was basketball.
Basketball was played at the abandoned Fairplay Elementary school against people that aren't household names outside their households and often shoved off the court.
Have you ever noticed that sometimes when we read books, we insert backgrounds from our own lives for the environment around the story?
Well, anytime that I read about inner-city basketball-the backdrop is usually this tossed aside schoolyard (it was already vacant even by my childhood).

It was this court that had an astonishing lean from left to right that saw many a ball roll off the court that was my childhood home base (Other than a hot attic to hunker away and read or play with figures).
Practicing jumpers as my favorite college or pro players of the time and especially Pistol Pete Maravich, I usually fared very well against extremely limited competition until the older kids arrived.
And when I mean older kids, I mean high schoolers and guys outside of school age.
I used to really despise this one kid that was just two years older than I that was always allowed to play because he had an older brother in this bunch.
He was one of these guys that thought he could play, but it really was because he was "hands-off" because of the brother.
Between that and an elitist attitude, I never changed my opinion of this guy throughout school...

I thought about those days one day last March and snapped these pictures on the court.
Decayed, with one goal completely removed and the other with the same backboard that I played on standing, but beyond repair, the court still looked much the same.
Grass growing in between the blacktop and an increasing sun bleached surface wasn't much different than all those years ago, but it's odd returning to a ghost town.
I can't imagine having my kids go places alone at the age I did and considering how kids have so many activities these days,I have no problem believing how this rural court has fallen in such disrepair.

It's funny and sad when you look back at the places of your youth and how time marches on.
The place I grew up is similar yet different.
The snack bar (the only place you could get ice cream locally and a future post) has fallen victim to a more mobile society and only a gas station and liquor store a mile up the road in our "bitter rival" Lappans remains of the places that I went to pass the time as a kid.
You remember the things that you miss when they are there.
I remember looking across the street from my grandmothers' porch and seeing a long gone billboard advertising Pepsi and the snack bar and the Coke scoreboard at District 12 was small little nuggets of a time gone by.
I guess it's people like me that keep the nostalgia merchandise business rolling!

It's funny looking back at those days on the playground that is no more.
I guess the kids in the area now are in the higher priced new homes that have basketball hoops in their driveways and have no need to play and it does seem that there are fewer children living in the older homes in the neighborhood that need places to play.
The Fairplay school closed before I was in school, but for kids of my age, it still was the little focus of the area and I guess sooner or later, someone will just tear the building itself down.
But until then, the school and the court will stand steadfast through the seasons as it stands guard with all the ghosts and memories.....

Darryl Dawkins

My buddy Lefty sent me a note about the passing of Darryl Dawkins at the age of 58.
Usually,this would be held for a cleaning of the inbox with a few different passings,but something struck me about Dawkins and I wanted to do a post on Dawkins and maybe more importantly,how influential he was in the sports world in his time,just as the sports media world was changing.

In many ways,Darryl Dawkins was the Forrest Gump of 70's and 80's pro basketball and he understood the importance of being media friendly as well.
Dawkins was the first player to come straight from high school to the NBA (Moses Malone came from the high school ranks a year before with his signing with the ABA Utah Stars) and it affected his game.
Dawkins had some productive seasons with the 76ers and Nets,but he never developed a game with anything resembling a shot as he depended on a few postup moves and of course-the array of power dunks.

Dawkins was so known for his dunks that you rarely saw Dawkins doing anything on his various basketball cards or posters of the day (Check EBAY,you'll see).
Dawkins also named his dunks which brought him even more attention.
That made Dawkins a popular player,but not one that lived up to what his potential could have been,
Dawkins and his slams broke two backboards,which led to the NBA rule against that and his resulting raps about the destruction were far ahead of his time.
Those descriptions made good copy for the writers and great stuff for the fans of a league that often was struggling for print lines and broadcast attention in the pre-cable days.
Dawkins made a lot of fans and sold a lot of posters in the days when endorsement opportunities were limited in the league for all but an elite few.

It wouldn't be a Dawkins story without talking about his "Home Planet" Lovetron (and surrounding suburb Chocolate Paradise) and his self-assigned nickname Chocolate Thunder.
It was one of the better nicknames and the Lovetron stuff was admittedly weird,but at least it was entertainingly so.
For the 1970's.it kinda fit in and Dawkins was one of the more remembered players of the day without being one of the better players.

Dawkins was there for the Sixers developing into the league's big three and was there as two of the biggest stars of ABA in George McGinnis and Julius Erving began their transition into the NBA with the Sixers making the NBA Finals in 1977.
Philadelphia won the first two games of that series before being brushed aside by Bill Walton and Portland in the next four games as Portland won their only title with peak Walton before the foot injuries robbed him of his prime.
Dawkins set more precedent in that series for his fight with powerhouse Maurice Lucas (ironically shown above being dunked on Dawkins) of the Blazers.
It was that fight (on national television no less) that began the NBA thinking about tightening rules that saw basketball almost to the level of hockey (small fines,sometimes no ejections) as far as fights go.
The league finally began to realize that men of that size throwing bad intentions punches with their bare fists could cause devastating results-a foreshadowing of just a few months later with the Kermit Washington punch onto Rudy Tomjanovich.

Darryl Dawkins might not have lived up to his potential,but he was still a pretty solid NBA player and was far from a bust.
Nine straight years in double digit scoring doesn't come from a bust,but one also couldn't say that he was a star with those numbers either,especially considering the attention that he received for those stats.
In the end,in so many ways,Darryl Dawkins was truly ahead of his time.....