During his time in Los Angeles, Shaquille O’Neal never developed a relationship with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain. Shaq did, however, become very close with George Mikan—O’Neal paid for Mikan’s funeral—and tweeted a polarizing claim over the weekend about the rank of the greatest Lakers centers of all time.

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Anytime basketball fans discuss the best centers of all-time, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain are always mentioned. There’s very little footage of the two of them going head to head—they were only in the L together for four years, and Wilt was hurt for one of them/wearing down for three—but in this new video that’s been floating around the Internet via the Wilt Chamberlain Archive YouTube channel, NBA fans get several minutes of the two legends battling each other on the hardwood. It’s an absolute must-watch for any and all hoops fans.

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In the second quarter of Saturday’s Lakers-Kings bout, Kobe Bryant hit a jumper that pushed him past Wilt Chamberlain (who had 31,419 career points) on the all-time scoring list. KB now trails only Michael Jordan, Karl Malone and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

(H/T: PBT)

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Inspired by the popular film “Django Unchained” now in theaters, Miami Heat forward Udonis Haslem has given himself a new nickname, based on the hero of the flick. (More interesting basketball news regarding the movie: director Quentin Tarantino says that his mother dated Wilt Chamberlain in the 1970s.) Per ESPN: “From now on, Haslem says no longer wants to be called Udonis or ‘UD’. He said address him in 2013 as Django, FWIW.”

(H/T: TBJ)

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*Active Player – (FT% = Career Percentage, FTA = Attempted Per Game, FTM-A = Career Made-Attempted)

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, Wilt Chamberlain, and now, Kobe Bryant. That’s the Mount Rushmore of NBA scorers, which KB joined last night in New Orleans, becoming the youngest ever to reach 30,000 career points.

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by Christian Mordi / @mordi_thecomeup

For some people, transition is just an easy thing to handle, and Mychal Thompson is one of those people. Thompson was excellent in filling the lanes for the Lakers in the Showtime Era, so when the time came to step off the court, as always, he made the transition to broadcasting look like a thing of ease.

Being smooth in transition may be in the blood, because when inserted into the starting five, Mychal’s son Klay fit perfectly in the run-and-gun Golden State offense last season. Recently, SLAMonline had the chance to site down the former No. 1 pick and discuss his time with L.A. as a player and broadcaster, get his thoughts on his favorite point guard and international player of all time, and more.

SLAM: Many mistake Yao Ming as the first foreign-born player taken first, but you were, really opening the gates for international players to be taken high and considered elite players. If you were to start a team with an international player, which one would you take?

Mychal Thompson: I didn’t really catch any young up-and-coming players in the Olympics this past year that caught my eye. But if I could choose one that wasn’t at the Olympics who I would choose to start my team, it would be Ricky Rubio. I love the way he plays. He knows how to play, be an effective scorer and keep his teammates involved, he is like a European Rajon Rondo.

SLAM: Many don’t know, but the Lakers team you played with had four No. 1 overall picks in Kareem, Magic, James Worthy and yourself. Tell us the dynamic of playing with them during that era, how were practices and playing for Riley?

MT: Well, playing with those three Hall of Famers took my game to another level. It showed me and taught me what Championship basketball and being a professional at the highest level was all about. The way those guys worked on and off the court, the way they conducted themselves and handled their business ventures was top notch. They were strictly professionals, and the only thing that mattered to them was winning. Not who was getting the most attention or most money. They knew that winning trumped everything else. You go out there and do your job, and win and you will be handsomely rewarded.

SLAM: Many say that Kareem is the best center of all time, and Magic the best point guard. Your thoughts on that, do you agree?

MT: Oh yeah, no doubt about it. Now Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell have to be included in the discussion as well for best center—that’s a valid argument by many. I believe Shaq is slightly below with Hakeem Olajuwon, and that rounds out the top-five centers.

But Magic is hands down the best of all time. Without question.

SLAM: So you don’t think the all-time leader in assists and steals John Stockton may not have him?

MT: Well he played a lot longer than Magic, if he played as long as Stockton did, he may have gotten all those records. Stockton is an all-time great and not disrespecting him and his accolades or career in any way, but Magic was unique and we haven’t seen a player like him since.

SLAM: What about Shaq?

MT: I feel he was behind those three greats. When many discuss who was the greatest, many great minds will say Wilt or Kareem. Russell is brought into the convo because he was the ultimate winner.

SLAM: You were brought in to shut down Kevin McHale in matchups. Interestingly enough, many forget you were teammates in college. How was your relationship swayed by being in such an intense rivalry?

MT: Respected Kevin McHale immensely. When I first met him as a freshman at Minnesota, I realized how talented and special a player he was. He was a very confident player and carried that over into the NBA. One of my favorite players to go against because I had so much respect for him and his abilities. He was a great winner, and we will always be good friends off the court. Now on the court, we wanted to kill each other [laughs]. I had a lot of respect for him and he was one of the toughest guys I had to go against.

SLAM: You won back-to-back chips; you have seen so many big Playoff matchups, tell us the most intense game you ever participated in the postseason.

MT: I can’t say an exact game, but I would say our series against the Pistons was very physical. The game back then was just so rugged. It has been cleaned up now and they have stopped a lot of the physical play. The flagrant ones and twos they call were just regular fouls they called in the ’80s.

So when you played against a physical and smart frontline like the Pistons, sometimes I felt like the only thing missing was shoulder pads and helmets.

SLAM: Do you think the change in the rules in regards to how they call the game so close has hurt or helped the game?

MT: In a way it has helped, we don’t want any year-ending injuries. I do feel the less physical play has without a doubt hurt the game, though. It is too many whistles—I feel like we spend too much time watching the refs blow the whistle than enjoying the game. It is too many stops in play. It has slowed the game down so much.

They need to take it back to the ‘80s style game. That is why I love the international game, it is very physical. They let the game be played and allow action to ensue, which makes the game more fluid.

SLAM: You are a well-known commentator for the Lakers. Why did you transition into that field of sports? Did it come naturally to you?

MT: Yeah, I felt like I was always a big mouth and talked a lot to the media when I was a player. I always enjoyed talking to the media and expressing my opinion, so I knew I wanted to be involved in some way once I retired. It was a natural transition for me, very fun. It is truly an honor.

SLAM: Let’s talk a little about your son Klay, who really burst onto the scene for Golden State. Why do you think Klay was able to make the transition to the NBA so easily?

MT: Well, for one, you have to have the talent. He is a very talented young man. He also has a great work ethic. I think the biggest thing is he is willing to take advice and listen to veterans. When you mix those things you will be successful in the NBA as a young player.

SLAM: Your thoughts on their team this year after the move of Monta Ellis and getting Andrew Bogut?

MT: Well, they have a very good team now. I think after the [trade], if they stay healthy, they have a top-eight team in the West. They have depth and shooters at all positions. Adding Bogut, who is a defensive anchor in the middle, will be big for them. He is the second-best center in the West so they will be successful.

SLAM: Players are now forced to do a year of college before declaring for the Draft. Is this good for the game?

MT: No, I think guys should be able to come right out if they are good enough. I think it hurts the college game when you force guys to be there for a year, a lot of the guys don’t want to be there. What happens is they take the place of kids who want to be there for three or four years. Teams don’t have to draft a kid out of high school, they can pass. But if there is a LeBron James or Shabazz Muhammad, then we should let them go. This is America, and if a guy has the qualifications to do a job, let him work.

SLAM: So the Lakers really shook it up this year, first getting Nash, and then making the Blockbuster for Howard. What are your thoughts on how Howard will mesh into the team.

MT: He will mesh greatly because he is a smart guy joining a very intelligent basketball team. They will hit the ground running, I think after a solid training camp with the veterans they will be fine.

SLAM: I feel an under the radar and key addition was Antawn Jamison, he is an X-factor and proven scorer. What are your thoughts on him?

MT: I think he will be great coming off the bench. They will love his experience and scoring ability. To me, the key will be the backup guards. Blake will have to be consistent off the bench to allow Nash to get rest. They will need Nash to have fresh legs for the postseason.

SLAM: Mike Brown went with a defensive approach last year and we saw the Lakers at times struggle to put up points. Now he has bought in Eddie Jordan and the Princeton Offense, do you think this will be a success?

MT: This will be a success because he has such a versatile skill set at many positions on the team. Dwight Howard can score in the post, but is a good passer, and Pau is a willing passer as well. The backcourt is good. Metta World Peace will be a lot more consistent on offense this year, I think. All the pieces are in place, and all they need to make it to the Finals in good health.

SLAM: Let’s talk a little bit about your new venture with RadioFlag social radio and why you feel this is the next wave for your people.

MT: Well, I think RadioFlag is a great new program. If you are a music lover, you will love RadioFlag. It allows you to listen to any type of station you want to, and it really makes me think of social media for radio because it is so interactive with the listeners. You can tap into any station around the world you want to and connect with any listener that enjoys the same type of tastes you have. The interactive part is the most fun part to me, to discuss what you like and share opinions with other fans make this different from many radio experiences.

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Andrew Bynum led the way last night for the Kobe-less Lakers, as he joined elite company by ripping down an incredible 30 rebounds over the San Antonio Spurs (Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, George Mikan and Elgin Baylor are the other Lakers who have ever pulled a similar statistical feat.) From the LA Times: “Andrew Bynum became the first Laker to do it in 34 years, pushing and shoving the San Antonio Spurs out of the way as the Lakers stunned them without Kobe Bryant, 98-84, Wednesday at AT&T Center. ‘They beat us to death,’ was how Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich described it, and you could suddenly sense the rest of the Western Conference slowly turning toward the Lakers. In a little more than two hours, big-picture expectations of the Lakers rose meteorically. They led by 26 against a team that was drafting comfortably off Oklahoma City a game out of first in the West. It made no sense. Bryant skipped a third consecutive game because of a sore left shin and the Spurs allegedly were rested after sitting Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili in their previous game. But Bynum was three rebounds short of the entire San Antonio team, becoming only the fifth player in Lakers history to hit the 30-rebound mark. True to his nature, he cursed and said he didn’t like the way he shot the ball when asked on live TV about his rebounding prowess immediately after the game. He was still miffed at his seven-for-20 shooting effort half an hour later. ‘It’s great to have 30 boards, but my shot’s not working and I’m kind of a little upset about that. For me, I’ll remember me shooting poorly,’ said Bynum, who had 16 points and joined Wilt Chamberlain, George Mikan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Elgin Baylor in the Lakers’ 30-rebound club. Nobody had done it for the Lakers since Abdul-Jabbar took 30 in 1978 against Milwaukee. Bynum’s total was the highest in the NBA this season.”

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Exactly 50 years ago today, Wilt Chamblerlain completed perhaps the greatest single-game NBA feat of all time. Facing off against the New York Knicks in Hershey Sports Arena, Chamberlain—then a member of the Philadelphia Warriors—scored 100 points, a record that will continue to stand for a very long time, if not ever. (Kobe’s 81-point outburst in 2006 sits in second.) Back when SLAM hit its own century mark in ’06, Gary M. Pomerantz—who literally wrote the book on the subject—examined the incredible performance in the feature below. Enjoy.—Ed.

by Gary M. Pomerantz

It happened in a distant era, just 10 days after John Glenn orbited the earth and returned home to say, “I don’t know what you can say about a day in which you have seen four beautiful sunsets.”

The 100-point game looms as the signature moment of Chamberlain’s signature season, in which he averaged 50.4 points per game.

Among sports records, it is Everest.

It is so big that it comes with its own mountain of misinformation. Multitudes claim they were in the Hershey Sports Arena to see the Dipper hit 100. (Truth: about 4,000 people and 4,000 empty seats.) Many insist Wilt’s Philadelphia Warriors lost that night to the Knicks (Philly won, 169-147). Lord only knows how many sneer, “Yeah, Wilt scored 100 points, but he did it with 50 slam dunks.” (He used put-backs, fallaway banks, a jumper from near the top of the circle, layups off dynamic fast breaks, and you bet, some Dipper Dunks.) Some would have you believe the Knicks didn’t play hard or even care that Chamberlain scored 100 points.

Where do people get their facts?

Historian David McCullough has said, “At their core, the lessons of history are largely lessons in appreciation.” Because the game was not televised, and because no New York sportswriters bothered to attend with the Knicks’ season already lost (they would finish the year at 29-51, last in the Eastern Division), Chamberlain’s performance quickly disappeared from conversation and then from sight. Over the decades it became like a sunken galleon resting on the ocean floor, the riches in its hold waiting to be recovered.

It’s long past time to truly appreciate the Dipper’s own four beautiful sunsets that night in Hershey.

I went to see Darrall Imhoff. A Knicks golden boy in ’61-62, the 6-10 Imhoff would become known as the hapless foil of Chamberlain’s theatrics. Not fair. Imhoff fouled out that night in the middle of the fourth quarter, after playing just 20 minutes. Go easy on him.

“Show me how you played Wilt that night,” I asked, and Imhoff demonstrated. At the US Basketball Academy near Eugene, OR, where he serves as a marketing executive, Imhoff moved down low, to the left block, the Dipper’s favorite spot. I portrayed Wilt—at 5-10, a pathetic stand in—with my back to Imhoff. With his feet, he blocked me in, positioning his left foot outside of mine to keep me from turning toward the hoop. He thrust his knee into the back of my left thigh, buckling my leg.

That night, Chamberlain, ball in hand, leaned back into Imhoff with his upper torso. Fearing a giant tree about to fall on him, Imhoff recoiled. “So I did this,” Imhoff said. He jabbed his elbow into my back, a bull’s eye between the shoulder blades. It hurt.

In that fourth quarter in Hershey, the Knicks threw eight players at Chamberlain. Guards Richie Guerin, Donnie Butcher and Al Butler flashed in front. Forwards Willie Naulls, Jumpin’ Johnny Green and Imhoff crept in, stepping on the big fella. The lane was just 12 feet wide then (it was changed a few years later to the current 15, in part to limit the Dipper) and so Knick reserves Cleveland Buckner and Dave Budd moved low to the left side, Wilt’s offensive ground zero, and puffed themselves up. Not that it made any difference. That night, the Dipper bent an entire sport to his will.

As Chamberlain’s point total rose into the 80s and 90s, Guerin’s face became a red mask. The ex-Marine was furious that the Warriors were rubbing it in. Guerin thought the game had devolved into a travesty, but if so, it happened under the massive force of the Dipper’s talent. To keep the ball from Chamberlain in the game’s final minutes, the Knick guards dribbled upcourt slowly, in a Z-pattern, draining the clock. They also fouled the Warriors guards; in return, the Warriors began fouling the Knicks, a chess match played by pawns. The Knicks’ sense of dread intensified. So did the Warriors’ curiosity: they wondered how high Chamberlain’s point total might go.

In the final six minutes, the Warriors had one purpose: Get the ball to the Dipper. Forward Tom Meschery would recall it as the only time in his 10-year NBA career that he passed the ball and…watched. No cutting or moving. He simply watched the 25-year-old Dipper challenge an entire team, and take 21 shots in the fourth quarter to score the 31 points necessary to reach 100.

It was comic book superhero stuff. Until Kobe Bryant scored 81 earlier this season, the next highest total in NBA history was 73 points by Denver’s David Thompson. Michael Jordan once reached 69 points and needed overtime to get that.

When I contacted Richie Guerin more than 40 years later, he told me he didn’t want to talk about Wilt’s 100-point game.

Is Richie Guerin mad still? Let’s get this much straight, then: The Knicks played hard that night. They cared.

—

Again, David McCullough: “Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude. It’s a form of ingratitude.”

Here’s another lie: Chamberlain’s 100-point game didn’t mean anything. Talk about ingratitude!

Chamberlain’s 100-point performance carried rich symbolism: It was a hyperbolic announcement of the ascendancy of the black superstar in the NBA, proof that the League would be a white man’s enclave no more. It signaled loudly the pro game had changed both in the way it would be played and the men who would play it. It would be a game performed at a greater speed, from in close and above the rim. Along with Bill Russell, Elgin Baylor, Oscar Robertson and others, the Dipper changed the geometry of his sport, taking a horizontal game vertical. You had to watch him; athletically, he was that compelling. Even Red Auerbach, upon seeing the Dipper for the first time in high school, had felt compelled to stare as Chamberlain walked by. Incredible, Auerbach thought.

In 1962, the Dipper didn’t have his own shoe deal (the Warriors wore Converse high-tops) or his own posse, though he’d bought into a celebrated Harlem nightclub, the suitably renamed Big Wilt’s Smalls Paradise, and as the likes of Redd Foxx, Etta James and Cannonball Adderly performed, he moved famously through his club as if he owned all of Harlem, perhaps all of New York.

Years later, Oscar Robertson would say of the Dipper, “Almost by himself, he made the League a curiosity, made it interesting… People heard about Wilt scoring a hundred, averaging 50 a night, and they wanted to see the guy do it. I believe Wilt Chamberlain single-handedly saved the League.”

Chamberlain was fast becoming the most striking symbol of basketball’s new age of self-expression and egotism—a development slightly ahead of the overall popular culture—and his 100-point game gave him an imprimatur to continue being, boldly and unashamedly, the Dipper. (Never call him “Wilt the Stilt.” He said it reminded him of a crane standing in water. He preferred Big Dipper.)

And let us not forget the quota. In the 1950s, NBA owners abided by a quota limiting the number of African-American players to one or two per team, and in the early ’60s three or four per team. This quota was a tacit understanding that was systemic in American culture. The joke among NBA writers then: “You can start only one black player at home, two on the road, and three if you need to win.”

Chamberlain was never a civil rights activist. “I’m not crusading for anyone. I’m no Jackie Robinson,” he said in 1960. “Some persons are meant to be that way…others aren’t.” But his public passivity about race stood in contrast to the way he crushed any race-based impediments to his self-definition. He dated white women, discreetly; drove his Cadillac convertible at high speeds; and made more money than anyone else in the League ($75,000 that year). By averaging 50 points per game in ’61-62, he proved his physical superiority and made a mockery of the League, its racial quotas, and the notion that his white opponents were the best players in the world.

Then, in Hershey, he took the quota and symbolically blew it to smithereens.

Chamberlain’s scoring breakdown in Hershey: 23 points in the first quarter, 18 in the second, 28 in the third and 31 in the fourth. He made 36 of 63 field goal attempts and 28 of 32 free throws. He was a wretched free throw shooter, making barely half of nearly 12,000 free throws during his 14-year NBA career.

That was the real miracle of Hershey—Chamberlain made 88 percent of his free throws. He shot them underhanded, bending low with knees flared wide, like an adult sitting in a kindergartner’s chair, his least athletic-looking move on the court. The Knicks complained that the rims in Hershey were flimsy and, at least about this point, they were right. The circus visited Hershey each year and, as part of the act, clowns used red-varnished springboards. A few Hershey boys snuck into the arena during off-hours, bringing a basketball with them. Borrowing the clowns’ springboards, these scamps flew like mini-Dippers and slam-dunked the ball through the baskets. The boys clung to the rims—bending them—before dropping cat-like to the floor.

The Dipper surpassed 50 points in a game 45 times that season. Once he scored 73 points against the Chicago Packers’ rookie sensation, Walt Bellamy, and in a triple overtime game against the Lakers, he scored 78. In 10 games that season against the Celtics’ Bill Russell, the greatest defensive center in NBA history, the Dipper averaged nearly 40 points per game.

Chamberlain was a physical marvel, not yet muscled up from weight lifting, his body in perfect proportion: 7-1, 260. Running the floor, he covered nearly nine feet with each stride. On the break, there he was out on the right side, with guard Al Attles on the left, and the ball-handling wizard Guy Rodgers in the middle. NBA players of that era remember the way the young Dipper ran the floor and speak of it with a hushed awe and reverence. Among those precious few signature images that qualify among the defining best in NBA history—Russell’s shot block, Cousy’s dribbling, Jabbar’s sky hook, Erving’s swooping dunk, Magic’s no-look pass, Jordan’s midair majesty—is the Dipper at 25, out on the right, filling the lane.

—

Chamberlain used to say that half the planet told him they saw the game in Hershey that night. The announced crowd of 4,124 was inflated. The PA announcer, Dave Zinkoff, a genuine original, gave fans free cigars and salamis at halftime. At the moment the Dipper reached 100 points, the teammate who passed him the ball, little-used reserve center Joe Ruklick, didn’t rush to congratulate Chamberlain. Instead, he ran straight to the scorer’s table to make certain that he got credit for the famous assist. (He did.)

Don’t confuse today’s NBA with the NBA of ’61-62. Two-thirds of the players were white then, and a few set-shooters were still around, relics whose shooting form dated to Naismith’s peach baskets of the 1890s. Most big-city sports columnists then considered the NBA a stepchild to the more established college game. Stanley Woodward, sports editor of The New York Herald Tribune, once said, “I have strong reservations about the masculinity of any man who plays the game in short pants.” The NBA wasn’t truly national then, either, since it had just nine teams, and only one west of St. Louis (the Los Angeles Lakers). Crowds were so small that, as the joke went, PA announcers at NBA games first introduced the players, and then they introduced the fans.

That’s why this famous game was played in Milton Hershey’s little chocolate town in Pennsylvania Dutch country. Each NBA team played several games that season outside of the big cities in hopes of creating new fans. The sons of chocolate factory workers, pressed close to the court, swept onto it the moment Chamberlain hit 100 on a Dipper Dunk. The first to reach him, 14-year-old Kerry Ryman, shook Wilt’s hand. Then, as Chamberlain nonchalantly bounced the ball, Ryman did an impulsive, Huck Finn thing—he stole the ball and ran. He zigzagged across the court, lunged up the arena’s cement steps, burst out of the building into the cold night as his heavy breath rose like smoke. Ryman ran through the amusement park, past the bumper cars and the Ferris Wheel, over a nearby hill and on to his house on West Chocolate Avenue.

—

Nearly seven years ago, Wilt Chamberlain died of a heart attack at the age of 63, alone in bed at his Bel Air mansion known as Ursa Major. Here was a frightening prospect, for if the mighty Dipper had died, it made every NBA player of that generation vulnerable. Remarkably, among the League’s greatest 50 players from the NBA’s first half-century, Chamberlain was only the second to die; the first, dead of heart failure at 40 while playing a pickup game in 1988, was “Pistol” Pete Maravich.

The Dipper’s dominance in ’61-62 can be seen comparatively: No other NBA player ever has averaged as many as 40 points per game in a full season. The second best—Jordan’s 37.1-point average in ’86-87—would need to be pumped up by 36 percent to equal Wilt’s 50.4-point average. By comparison, to rise 36 percent above Ted Williams’s revered .406 batting average in 1941, a batter would need to hit .552 for an entire season.

On the macadam back alleys of Hershey, Kerry Ryman played for years with the basketball he stole at the game, a ball he took not for its memorabilia value (there was no sports memorabilia market in 1962) but to play with. Then he put it away, in his bedroom closet, and went on with his life. Soon after the Dipper died, though, Ryman, a crane operator still living near Hershey, put the ball up for auction in New York. It sold for over $550,000, the third-largest sale in sports memorabilia history; some in Hershey cynically said the sale of Ryman’s basketball proved that crime paid.

But almost at once, a controversy broke out. Two former Warriors officials insisted that when the Dipper scored the 100-point basket, referee Willie Smith took the ball out of play, to save for posterity; they insisted Ryman must’ve taken a replacement ball. Ryman was aghast as the auction sale was suspended. The auction house researched the matter over the next six months and then put the ball on the block again, saying in its catalogue that it still believed Ryman’s ball was the true 100-point ball. This time, the ball sold for considerably less, $67,791. Ryman’s dad told him he should’ve just burned that ball, anyway.

The players from that famous night went their different ways: Philly’s Paul Arizin went to work at IBM; Willie Naulls became a businessman, and is now a minister; Attles and Guerin became NBA coaches, Meschery a high school teacher and poet, Ruklick a writer who, for a time, served as the only white reporter on the staff of the historic black newspaper, The Chicago Defender. With great humor, Darrall Imhoff says that each year on March 1, thinking of Hershey, he breaks out in a rash.

Not until near the end of his life did the Dipper embrace his 100-point game. For decades, he had insisted that he was more proud of his record 55 rebounds in a 1960 game against Bill Russell. But in 1993, Chamberlain admitted, “People who know nothing about basketball or nothing about sports will see me and they will point to their little kid and say, ‘See that guy right there? He scored one hundred in a game.’ I know that it has been my tag. I am definitely proud of it.”

His words had the feeling of a father professing devotion to his long-lost son.

But he was still the Dipper, after all, and so he also said that if the Knicks hadn’t concentrated entirely on stopping him, he might’ve scored 150.

—

Gary M. Pomerantz is the author of WILT, 1962: The Night of 100 Points & the Dawn of a New Era, out in paperback on Three Rivers Press.

The post 100 Grand appeared first on SLAM.

From our friends at NBA TV:

On the 50th anniversary of arguably the greatest individual performance in sports history – Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point scoring night on March 2, 1962 – NBA TV will retell the story of this mythical feat and the larger than life man who accomplished it.  Wilt 100, an NBA TV original film narrated by Chamberlain’s chief rival and good friend, Hall of Famer Bill Russell, premieres on Friday, March 2, at 7:00 p.m. ET.

Utilizing rarely-seen interviews with Chamberlain, the hour-long documentary, which can only be seen exclusively on NBA TV, will take viewers back to the night in Hershey, Pa., that will live forever in history, when The Big Dipper led his Philadelphia Warriors in a 169-147 victory over the New York Knicks. With no existing footage from the game and only about 4,000 witnesses to the event, NBA TV has woven Chamberlain’s own recollections, fresh interviews with Hershey natives in attendance that night and stories from Warriors employees and Chamberlain’s NBA contemporaries to bring the performance back to life.

To help further paint the picture of this legendary performance, NBA TV adds depth to many of the long-told tales of the night – ranging from non-fiction to fable and everything in between.  Subjects include the four-time NBA MVP’s can’t-miss pre-game performance at the rifle arcade at Hershey Arena and as lore has it, his ride back home to New York City in the backseat of a car driven by members of the Knicks team he just defeated. The documentary also gives viewers a new appreciation for something that is decided fact:  Chamberlain’s incredible 1962 season – in which he averaged an astounding 50.4 points and 25.7 rebounds – and Wilt’s role in revolutionizing the NBA game.

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Wilt Chamberlain will be forever connected to two numbers: 100 and 20,000. One hundred for his performance in Hershey, PA, on the night of March 2, 1962 and the second for his famous sexual conquests. In a sense, these two numbers fit Wilt perfectly—he was a larger than life figure who did everything in mammoth proportions. But, 100 and 20,000 also serve as a disservice to the legacy of the Dipper and diminish his overall accomplishment and contributions to the game of basketball.

Standing at a chiseled 7-1 and weighing 260 pounds, Wilt Chamberlain was the prototypical NBA center. It was as if a mad scientist built a superhuman in his lab to wreak havoc on the hardwood. His stature and athletic ability cannot go unnoticed; Wilt, in his prime, was undoubtedly one of the greatest pure athletes to ever grace the Earth.  “The young Dipper at 7-1, 260 pounds,” begins Gary Pomerantz, author of the highly recommended book Wilt, 1962, “a decathlete, a basketball scorer of unprecedented skill may have been the greatest pure athlete of the 20th century. If not, he deserves to be in the conversation along the likes of Jim Thorpe, Muhammad Ali and Jim Brown amongst others. He was a remarkable physical specimen…He ran the floor like a train, he covered eight feet of hardwood with each elongated stride…Wilt’s body was a miracle.”

Wilt single handedly changed the game of basketball. Physically and stylistically, he was a revolutionary figure. Never before had the League seen a player who was so imposing physically and so gifted athletically. He transformed the game at a time when the NBA needed it most.

Prior to Wilt’s entrance into the Association, basketball had become stale, fans had lost interest and they needed a spark to reignite curiosity: Enter the Dipper. “When he entered the game in ’59, it was still pretty much a feet on the floor, horizontal game,” says Pomerantz. “Wilt took the game above the rim and made it uniquely his…Wilt became the must see main act. Oscar Robertson has said, and I would agree, that ‘Wilt single handedly saved the League.’ People wanted to see the man who scored 100 points in a game. Physically, aesthetically, he was worth seeing…When Wilt got there (to the League), they were still playing in high school gyms. He was the guy who would transform it.”

Wilt was a larger than life figure; a man who was talked about as if he was mythological figure—something straight out of The Odyssey. “I interviewed a number of players who played against the young Wilt Chamberlain,” begins Pomerantz, “and they spoke of him with a hushed reverence. It was almost as if, I would imagine, what it would be like interviewing the Plains Indians about their first sighting of the locomotive. He was that unprecedented physically for his time.”

Despite being 7-1, he felt the need to prove he was even bigger than that. He was the first basketball player to achieve celebrity status; Wilt was recognized everywhere he went and lived a lavish lifestyle. “Wilt was unabashedly and unapologetically the ‘Dipper,’” says Pomerantz. “He was a celebrity of the highest order. At 25, he owned a racehorse, which never won. He co-owned a Harlem nightclub named, ‘Big Wilt’s Smalls Paradise’…He lived in an oriental motif apartment off of Central Park in New York and commuted to Philadelphia for games—Philly wasn’t big enough for Wilt.”

Both on and off the court Wilt was in a league of his own, he did things his own way and paid no attention to the societal norms of the day. “He had goliath like skills on the court and goliath like appetites off the basketball court,” Pomerantz continues. “He drove fancy cars, he dated White women, if discreetly—this at a time when interracial marriage was still illegal in 16 states. Night after night, he dropped 50 or 60 or 78, even a 100 once on the best White players in the League. He made $75,000 a year, more than any other NBA player…This was a different time and it was Wilt’s time.”

Due to the tumultuous state of race relations during Wilt’s first years in the League, he was completely removed from his teammates—most of whom were White. “The truth of the matter was Wilt’s teammates barely knew him,” says Pomerantz. “They were disquieted by his presence, some of them in terms of racial prejudice and others because, I think, of ego. It was as if when Wilt was in the locker room, they weren’t. When Wilt was on the floor, they weren’t It was a hard pill for them to swallow.”

Despite his stature and influence, he surprisingly did not embrace a leadership role in the Civil Rights movement. “He said in 1960, ‘I’m no Jackie Robinson. Some people are meant to be that way and others aren’t,’” reports Pomerantz. Wilt’s decision to stay far removed from the Civil Rights Movement was heavily scrutinized by both players and leading activists. But, Chamberlain remained true to himself and instead let his play on the court do the talking.

Wilt may have taken a backseat when it came to Civil Rights issues off the court, but on the hardwood, he was breaking barriers and evolving the game into its current landscape. “When Wilt entered the League in ’59, it was still largely a White man’s enclave,” explains Pomerantz. “There was a quota amongst the owners that limited the amount of Black players. By ’62, it was three or four per team…In ’62, Wilt’s third season, when averaged 50 points per game against the League’s best White players and threw down that 100-point thunderbolt against the Knicks, he was symbolically blowing the quota to bits.” Though it may have not been realized at the time, Wilt’s sheer domination of his white counterparts during the ’62 season was, in fact, a groundbreaking performance and a key part in the transformation of the NBA which Wilt was pioneering.

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The media loves to ask old-timers how they’d fare against today’s players, and the legends (competitive as ever, still) never seem to give an inch. Oscar Robertson tells the Miami Herald that his contemporaries from the 1960s and 1970s would wipe the floor with arguably the greatest basketball team ever assembled: “On the quality of play in today’s NBA: ‘I think the athletes have gotten better, but that doesn’t make you a better basketball player. The only play most teams run is the high pick with the center. Is that really basketball? There are no reverses, no backdoors, double-screens, weakside cuts from the strong side. They don’t have any of that anymore.’ On the celebrated 1992 Dream Team, which won gold at the Barcelona Olympics: ‘If we would have put myself and Jerry [West] in the backcourt, with Wilt [Chamberlain] and Bill [Russell] inside with Elgin Baylor, they never would have beat us. How could they?’”

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While the NBA’s international communications officers have been busy drumming up new season support and making a collective fuss about 2011 being Kobe Bryant’s record setting 14th Christmas Day appearance (a rather unusual record that’ll see him surpass Dolph Schayes, Earl Monroe and Shaquille O’Neal—if such a mark even matters), we can’t help but wonder whether or not it’ll lead to the Black Mamba serving up a superbly cooked banquet of stats now that the Lakers’ Head Chef is using an unfamiliar Mike Brown recipe.

Since 1947, December 25 has grown into a marquee staple on the annual pro hoops schedule. The NBA basically owns Christmas Day the way the NFL owns Thanksgiving, or the NCAA rents out the second half of March; hence why the Commissioner and his cohorts rushed for a late December start (over a more sensible New Year opening).

The Portland Trail Blazers may own the leading Christmas Day win/loss record (14-3) but as we’ve come to expect from blockbuster regular season showings, it’s often not the teams but the individual subplots, statements and athlete stat-lines which matter most.

With the next NBA season tipping off on December 25, what better time is there to unwrap a ranking of the Top 10 Christmas Day performances? They are:

10. (tie) Christmas 2010
Miami Heat vs. Los Angeles Lakers
LeBron James – 27 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists
Despite the much-hyped Christmas Day-themed NIKE sneakers trying to steal the limelight, King James’ inaugural visit to the Staples Center with his new Miami friends in tow reminded fans everywhere that his all-court brilliance can be trouble-free. Notching his 31st career triple-double—which included a season-high 5 treys—LeBron led the commanding team display as the Heatles trounced the two-time defending champion Lakers, 96-80 on national television.

10. (tie) Christmas 1993
Houston Rockets vs. Phoenix Suns
Charles Barkley – 38 points, 18 rebounds, 4 assists
After being named League MVP (during the latter stages of the ‘93 postseason), Barkley, brimming with confidence, showed everyone why he was the best out west as he gave Hakeem Olajuwon and his Rockets nightmares during the Suns’ 111-91 Christmas Day victory.

9. Christmas 1994
Chicago Bulls vs. New York Knicks
Scottie Pippen – 36 points, 16 rebounds, 5 steals
After losing to the bruising Knicks in the ’94 Playoffs, Pip extracted his revenge when his Bulls (remember: Michael was swinging and missing at pitches then) danced with Pat Riley’s men on Christmas night. Hubert Davis’ miracle make may have forced an extra session, but it was all Scottie from there as the Swiss-army knife not only scored all seven of Chicago’s OT points, but also blocked consecutive trey attempts at the death to complete his reprisal, 107-104.

8. Christmas 1987
Atlanta Hawks vs. Philadelphia 76ers
Dominique Wilkins – 45 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists
In a December classic, ‘Nique showed Charles Barkley and Co. what happens when you try to cage a Bird of Prey. The 106-100 end score gave the Hawks an early-season W against one of their most formidable Eastern Conference foes. ‘Nique then carried his red-hot Christmas Day form into 1988, where he finished the season tallying a career-high 30.7 ppg.

7. Christmas 2006
Los Angeles Lakers vs. Miami Heat
Dwyane Wade – 40 points, 11 assists, 4 steals, 4 blocks
Billed as a Mexican stand-off between the Next (Wade) and the Now (Kobe), only one player remembered to load their revolver. Thanks to his XL, Wade helped the Heat walk away with an emphatic 101-85 triumph. Bryant, meanwhile, could only manage 16 points.

6. Christmas 2002
Detroit Pistons vs. Orlando Magic
Tracy McGrady – 46 points, 6 rebounds, 3 steals
What makes this outing so memorable is the fact that T-Mac wasn’t supposed to participate, and as late as Christmas Eve his availability remained uncertain. Instead of a quiet dinner with the family, McGrady showed us why he was the game’s most entertaining player as he produced 46 points using a variety of classic T-Mac shots. During an era in which McGrady couldn’t be contained, the Magic only won 104-99 because their star was overcome with Christmas spirit.

5. Christmas 1992
Chicago Bulls vs. New York Knicks
Michael Jordan – 42 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals
No NBA list would be complete without an appearance from his Airness. Following his dual NBA titles and ’92 Olympic Gold, Jordan upped the ante and set about defending his crown, in style, for a second straight time. His 42 points against Patrick Ewing and the Knicks was capped off by a 89-77 Bulls victory.

4. Christmas 1966
San Francisco Warriors vs. Cincinnati Royals
Rick Barry – 50 points
One of basketball’s most prolific scorers, Rick Barry poured in a League leading (and career high) 35.6 ppg during his second pro season. On Christmas Day, during that same campaign, Barry took it straight to Oscar Robertson and the Royals, finishing with a half-a-dollar’s worth of points; but what impresses us most about his stellar night was the fact it happened during an away game. In short, Barry wasn’t just an a-hole. He was also a Grinch.

3. Christmas 1972
Milwaukee Bucks vs. Kansas City Kings
Nate Archibald – 18 assists
During the 1972-73 season, the man nicknamed Tiny became the first NBA player to lead the League in both scoring (34 ppg) and assist averages (11.4 apg). More so, Archibald was clearly in a festive season mood when he gift-wrapped a heap of points to the tune of 18 dimes (a Christmas Day record that still stands) when his Kings locked horns with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the Bucks.

2. Christmas 1961
Philadelphia Warriors vs. New York Knicks
Wilt Chamberlain – 59 points, 36 rebounds
During a season in which Wilt averaged 50 ppg and 25.7 rpg—remember, those were his averages—his December 25 output doesn’t look all that spectacular (by comparison), but that shouldn’t detract from a distinction that would’ve otherwise been most’s greatest performance ever. The upside of course is that Wilt still holds the Christmas Day record for pulling down the most rebounds in a single Dec. 25 contest with 36.

1. Christmas 1984
New Jersey Nets vs. New York Knicks
Gift by: Bernard King – 60 points
The 6-7 forward set the standard for festive season feats when he tried valiantly to guide his Knickerbockers to a holy holiday victory. Despite dropping an hours worth of points, Buck Williams and the Nets still prevailed, walking away 120-114 victors. Since that memorable King of New York showing, Kobe Bryant’s 61 point in Madison Square Garden (Feb. 2, 2009—fourth highest of his career) may have eclipsed the long-standing benchmark. But never fear Knicks fans, King’s 60 remains the highest single-game Christmas Day scoring total.

So there you have it, the top 10 (err, 11) Christmas Day performances. Looks like all the 2011 hopefuls will have their work cut out for them if they wish to best the offerings made by the Three Wise Hoopers: King (60 points), Chamberlain (36 boards) and Archibald (18 assists).

The 2011-12 NBA season opens on Christmas Day with five contests:
Game 1: Boston at New York (TNT)
Game 2: Miami at Dallas (ABC)
Game 3: Chicago at L.A Lakers (ABC)
Game 4: Orlando at Oklahoma City (ESPN)
Game 5: L.A. Clippers at Golden State (ESPN)

Brad Graham is the Editor / Art Director of the independently published basketball journal, BUCKETS Magazine—the second edition of which can be enjoyed for free here. Pre-ordering for the 2012 BUCKETS: Yearbook—featuring a massive 24 page career spotlight (and interview) with Kevin Durant; the best of 2011/all you need to know about 2012; and a riveting look at basketball’s greatest Heroes and Villains of the past 20 years—has commenced here.

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by Alan Paul

I wanted to interview Wilt Chamberlain in the worst way. I called his agent dozens of times over a period of several years. I sent him packages filled with SLAMs on more that one occasion. I read his fourth book, the somewhat whacky Who’s Running the Asylum? Inside the Insane World of Sports Today, and groveled with the publisher’s publicist to hook something up. He said he was working on it, and hope flared for several weeks. At one point, I was told an interview was imminent and began preparing questions, but nothing ever happened. I even dragged my 90-something grandparents into the Big Dipper’s Boca Raton, FL restaurant searching for the elusive proprietor, only to be told by the bartender that Wilt stops by “two or three times a year.”

Now, Wilt is gone well before his time, dead at 63, and SLAM never did get a proper sit-down with the biggest of all big men. It’s a crying shame. And the thing is, Wilt, all we wanted to do was give you love. You once said, “No one loves Goliath,” but it’s not true. We loved you. We wanted to shower you with praise, drop to our knew in awe, bow to you like the hoops God you were. And so we will. But it feels all wrong. It should have been a celebration. Instead, it’s a eulogy.

No one ever dominated hoops like Wilt, and no one ever will. You probably know that he once scored 100 points in a game, but dig this: In the 1961-62 season, he averaged 50.4 ppg. Let me write that sentence again in case it didn’t sink it. Wilt Chamberlain averaged 50.4 ppg over an 80-game season. And it’s not like all he was doing was scoring. No one ever heard of triple doubles in Wilt’s day, but they were a regular occurrence for him—and quadruple doubles weren’t all that rare either. Or wouldn’t have been if anyone bothered recording how many shots he blocked; it wasn’t even an official statistic until the year after he retired. When people said all Chamberlain did was shoot, never a fair criticism, he bragged before the ’68 season that he would be the first non-guard to lead the League in assists. Then he went out and did it, averaging 8.6 a game, edging out Hall of Fame guards Dave Bing, Oscar Robertson and Lenny Wilkens.

Wilt once called this his proudest achievement, but it’s just the tip of his statistical iceberg. Certainly, people overuse numbers when assessing players, but in Wilt’s case, the numbers are so astounding that they have to mean something, maybe even everything. As Oscar Robertson told a newspaper after Wilt’s death, “The book’s don’t lie.” 

The 7-1, 275-pound Wilt was MVP four times in an era when greats like Robertson, Jerry West, Willis Reed, Rick Barry, Elgin Baylor and Bill Russell were in their primes. Early in his career, he competed against pioneering NBA stars such as Bob Petit, Dolph Schayes and Bob Cousy. Despite the tough comp, Chamberlain once made 35 straight baskets; he played in 1,045 games as a defensive force and never fouled out; and in ’62, he averaged 48.5 minutes per game—for the season. For his career, Wilt averaged a remarkable 45.8 mpg. This despite being hacked so badly and frequently that he was considering retirement after his rookie year.

And there’s more: Wilt scored 60 or more points 32 times (by comparison, Michael Jordan did it five times) and owns five of the top six and 20 of the 30 scoring games in NBA history, and 25 of the top 45 rebounding totals. During his first 10 seasons, Wilt never averaged less than 21 rpg. For his entire career, he averaged 30.1 ppg and 22.9 rpg. For most players 30 and 20 is a career game—Wilt averaged it over 14 years. In his final season, ’72-’73, he shot a career-best 73 percent from the field. If he could have matched it from the free throw line—Chamberlain’s career 51 percent foul shooting was his only weak spot—his numbers would have been all that more remarkable. “He would have scored 65 a night if he could have made free throws,” notes former Knicks’ center Willis Reed.

The Dipper also set a record for rebounds in a game—55—and he did it against Russell, his great rival and the greatest defensive center in NBA history. Not that playing Russell was unusual—they met 142 times. The NBA only had nine teams then, and they played each other at least 12 times a season. In other words, Chamberlain matched up against Russell almost weekly and seemingly every year in the Playoffs. Wilt played much of his career in the Eastern Conference at a time when the Russell-led Celtics were in the midst of the greatest winning streak in moderns sports history Boston knocked Wit’s squad out in the Eastern Conference Finals five times. He lost twice more to Russell and the Celtics in the Finals.

In a statement released after Wilt’s death, Russell said, “We didn’t have a rivalry; we had a genuinely fierce competition that was based on friendship and respect. The fierceness of the competition bonded us as friends for eternity. We just loved playing against each other. Because his talents and skills were superhuman, his play forced me to play at my highest level. If I didn’t, I’d risk embarrassment, and our team would likely lose.”

Some have suggested that Wilt was not the greatest player even because he only won two titles, as opposed to Jordan’s six. This is simply unfair. If it weren’t for the Celtics’ dynasty, Wilt likely would have ended up with nine rings. Jordan had no true rival. If you think this is an unfair comparison, consider this: How many titles would Larry Bird (three) and Magic Johnson (five) had won if they hadn’t had to deal with each other? And Wilt’s two championship teams, the ’66-67 Sixers and ’71-72 Lakers, both rank in the top-10 of all-time great squads.

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Cover images and inset photo by NBAE/Getty Images

Even if watching a basketball game is a lot more exciting than watching a baseball game, I have to admit I care almost as much about the latter sport, in part because of the way it embraces its history (insane nights like Wednesday don’t hurt either). The NBA, in my opinion, generally doesn’t do a great job of honoring its history. Ironically, this depressing, lockout-dictated offseason has seen NBA TV unleash an orgy of aged programming, but that’s by default. We’ll see if the League goes back to semi-ignoring its history when the current players are back in action.

As much as SLAM is concerned with unveiling what’s new in the game, from hot shoes to hot rookies to the next big high school sensation, I’d like to think we balance that by honoring the game’s past, with all our Old School stories and consistent nods to history. Given both my and SLAM’s interest in the game’s past greats, we absolutely love what the NBA 2K franchise did with its game this year (pre-order now!). Incorporating legendary teams and players that you can use with or against today’s stars is a brilliant idea that gets to the crux of what people like about the history of a sport: the chance to compare the past with the present. With NBA 2K12’s financial and creative support, we decided to do an entire issue dedicated to this awesome concept. What if Shaq had gotten to battle Wilt? What if an in-his-prime MJ went up against a seasoned Kobe? How about Bill Russell’s 1965 Celtics taking on Doc, Moses and the ’83 Sixers? We settled on these and 17 other matchups, featuring amazing players and teams, all of which are incredibly fun to imagine. And then we analyzed the battle and chose a “winner.”

Some quick words on how we (basically just the full-time staff; much like our Top 500 issue, this came together quickly and there was no time to properly get feedback from all of our great writers) chose winners…

For the players, we took guys who ostensibly play the same type of role on their respective teams, and envisioned them guarding one another in a five-on-five game played when each was at the peak of his powers. For current players, their peak might be right now. In other words, we did not imagine what guys like LeBron James or Kevin Durant could be capable of in three years; we went off of what has really happened in their careers. For the team battles, we only considered teams that had the best regular-season record and won a title, then picked what we think would be the most entertaining cross-era matchups possible. And then, with intelligence, wit and awesome photos (but zero science!), we had a lot of fun with this.

We may decide to post online in the future but for the next couple of months this will be a newsstand-only operation. And without giving you all an annoying, “save print” lecture, that’s how it should be. The photos are honestly tremendous, and the layout is sick, too. Sure, some of you may rush through a write-up to see who we pick as the winner, and we certainly anticipate some serious arguments amongst friends who either agree or disagree with our choices, but this issue is about more than that. This is a chance to take the history of the game you love from your television screen, your computer and your imagination and hold it in your hands. Look for it in New York this weekend and nationally next week!

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With or without the real NBA season, NBA 2K12 will be in stores October 4th. Built off the success of The Jordan Challenge from 2K11, the game’s developers have added NBA’s Greatest mode, paying tribute to 15 of the most influential and game-defining players in the history of the NBA. Painstakingly re-created, the players, teams, and, even the presentation elements were built with no detail left behind. Above is a slideshow of the 15 players 2K sports chose for its newest game mode. Be sure to check SLAMonline in the coming weeks for more coverage of NBA 2K12.

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According to the Philly Inquirer, the US Postal Service is considering putting Wilt the Stilt on a stamp, which would be awesome: “A Philadelphia-based campaign to get Wilt Chamberlain on a U.S. stamp has gotten to the right place. According to a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service, the Chamberlain-on-postage idea definitely ‘is under consideration.’ That’s no small thing. A committee sends 20 to 25 suggestions each year to the postmaster general, from “thousands of suggestions annually,” said Roy Betts, manager of community relations for the Postal Service. According to Betts, stamp selections will be announced in August, but the committee, which meets four times a year, also is talking about possibilities for the next few years. A campaign started by Philadelphia Tribune sports editor Donald Hunt resulted in a steady steam of Wilt supporters, including NBA officials, contacting the Postal Service. Why hasn’t Wilt been on a stamp already? Turns out you have to be dead five years to be eligible. The Overbrook High great, considered by many to be the greatest basketball talent in the game’s history, died in 1999.”

(H/T: BDL)

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by Gregory Dole

The date was March 2, 1962. The city was Hershey, PA. We all know the story: Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points against the New York Knickerbockers. One of Wilt’s Philadelphia Warriors teammates that night was a rookie named Tom Meschery.

“That was the most profound moment in my career,” says Meschery today. “I don’t think anything could top that moment. I remember it clearly. I didn’t know at the time much about East Coast basketball, nor professional basketball. Our coach, Frank Maguire, had predicted that he would score 100 points. I had already seen Chamberlain in practice but I would never have imagined.”

To be playing alongside the best player in the world was a long way from where he started. Meschery was a Russian, born in China, making him in fact both the first Russian and Chinese-born player in the NBA. In 1938, Tomislav Nikolayevich Mescheryakov, aka Tom Meschery,was born to Russian exiles living in the Manchurian city of Harbin, in what is now called China. His parents were members of the Russian elite, or White  Russians, who fled Russia’s Bolshevik revolution.

“It is true, I was born in China, but being born to Russian parents had a deep effect on me. Russia is in my blood,” recalls Meschery from his home in Truckee, CA. “I obviously immigrated and became American, but my family is Russian. My mother was Russian aristocracy and her father was a member of the senate, a strong supporter of the Czar and a head figure in the Russian Orthodox Church.”

With communism sweeping through Russia, the elite classes were on the run. Yet Manchuria would not offer much refuge to the Mescherys or the other White Russians. World War II would bring the invading Japanese Imperial Army. Meschery, his mother and sister were sent to a concentration camp in Japan. Meschery’s father had already immigrated to the United States and it was only after the war that they would reunite. Growing up in the camp, the world of professional sports could not have crossed the young Meschery’s mind.

When Meschery finally arrived in San Francisco, he had a difficult time integrating into American life; he was an outsider. Basketball helped greatly. “Sports made my transition to America much easier,” Meschery recalls. “I tried so hard to play, almost in an effort to prove that I was a real American. The better I would play, the more I would be considered American. It became a passion. I was obsessed by basketball. There was not a minute that I did not enjoy it, practicing or otherwise. Basketball combines the team game and the individual game in such a profound way. The individual talent can be absorbed into the team.”

Following a successful career at nearby St. Mary’s University, well beyond the spotlight of the NBA’s East Coast teams, Meschery thought of becoming a diplomat in the US State Department. Those plans were cast aside when, after a standout performance for the US Olympic team at an AAU tournament in Denver, NBA teams came calling. In the footsteps of West Coast college stars like Bill Russell and KC Jones, Meschery was drafted by the Philadelphia Warriors in the NBA’s first round.

“We were on a basketball tour in Kansas City and Warriors GM Eddie Goldberg came into my room and kicked my roommate out, sat me down and started negotiating. Eddie offered me something and I accepted. No agent, no negotiations!”

Meschery’s rookie year was one of the most memorable seasons in NBA history. His Warriors, led by Chamberlain, made it to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they lost in seven games to the mighty Boston Celtics. The 6-6 Meschery would go on to play 10 years in the NBA, with per-game averages of 12.7 points and 8.6 rebounds for his career.

“I saw myself as an all-around player. I tried my damnedest. My role changed when the Warriors drafted Rick Barry. Prior to him, I was an offensive player. I made the All-Star team [in 1963] as an offensive player. With the new players, while I didn’t pass up good shots, a lot of the offense went through Nate Thurmond and Rick Barry. We also had good shooting guards. So I learned how to be a good offensive rebounder.”

Clifford Ray, current Boston Celtics assistant coach and former Warrior remembers Meschery: “He was a player that went all out. Non-stop, giving it his all. From what I was told, he flat out went off against his competition. I had worn the number 14 in Chicago, but when I went to the Warriors I had to change because that had been Tom’s number. He was a legend with the Warriors. But Tom was more than that. He was a renaissance man. We all knew that he left the game to write poetry and open a bookstore up in Northern California.”

The game of basketball was going through a period of great development and innovation, with Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson and Jerry West pushing the quality of play to new heights. “The minute I stepped on the court and I had to play against West and Robinson, I knew that these were special players,” says Meschery. “That generation of draft choices from 1960 onward really changed the way that the League was perceived. There was great change. Those guys in George Mikan’s era couldn’t compete today, but my era saw players who transcended all eras, bringing the game to a level it had not known before.”

Without the benefit of televised coverage and replays, players could get away with a great deal more. The man they called the “Mad Manchurian” played close to the edge. “I think there was a different mindset. In those days, if guards went into the key, they would get elbowed. They would get thrown to the ground,” recalls Meschery. “A guard like West was one of the few guys who could get to the key and he would earn it. Robertson had his pull-up jump shot to avoid getting hit. There were no easy layups. I would have knocked Kobe or any guard on his ass 20 times a game if they had gone into the key.”

Meschery became the first pick of the Seattle SuperSonics in the 1967 expansion draft. It was in Seattle that he would begin pursuing off-court interests that would eventually become his second career. “I didn’t see myself as an academic at that point in my life,” he says. “I realized that I read more books than most of my teammates and on the team plane rides, I would read poetry and that sort of thing instead of playing poker. Actually, I would only play poker when Wilt Chamberlain was playing because he was a horrible player. It was easy money!”

A chance encounter with University of Washington poetry chair Mark Strand—who would later become the poet laureate of the United States—set Meschery on the course toward becoming a poet. “I never grew up thinking poetry was effeminate. My father was 6-3, a great bear of a man, and he would read poetry and weep. He would cry over it. From a young age I appreciated poetry,” says Meschery. “My teammates found my interest in poetry to be odd, however, I had a strong temper so they didn’t push it.”

Having set a goal of retiring when he would no longer be considered a starter, it became time to hang up his sneakers. After flirting with the idea of joining the Peace Corps to teach basketball in South America, Meschery instead became head coach of the ABA’s Carolina Cougars. “I hated coaching,” he admits. “I was a bad coach. I had no patience whatsoever. I did not see the big picture. I was a single-minded player. I knew my position well but I had never had that Lenny Wilkens ability to see the whole court. I was a terrible coach and I hated it. I don’t like failing at anything.”

After a Cougars game in New Jersey, Meschery went for drinks with the poet Strand, who convinced him to pack in the coaching gig and pursue poetry writing at the University of Iowa. And that was it.

Meschery would go on to write a poem about his former teammate Chamberlain. While the two were very different types—Meschery a socialist and Chamberlain a conservative—they maintained contact throughout their lives.

“Wilt had a small coterie of friends. We were also friends,” says Meschery. “He was misunderstood by the media and fans. He was not an arrogant guy. He was a wonderful guy. When I was in Seattle, I had a summer league tournament event for the inner-city kids. I wanted a superstar for the event. I called up one great center and he refused me. I called up Wilt, and he came up on his own dime from Los Angeles. He stayed for three days and even refereed the whole tournament. He never did a lot of stuff for media. Much of his good works he did not do for publicity. He was always doing good things for the public. He was a very private guy. He was a sweet guy. I just never understood how he could vote for Richard Nixon, and I told him that.”

As a player from a simpler time in the NBA, you would expect Meschery to have a dim view of the League and its scandals. Not true. “The major leagues combined wouldn’t hold a candle to what evil corporate types have done to society—the Enrons or a George Bush and a Dick Cheney,” Meschery says. “I suspect that there are much greater thieves in the corporate world. The root of it is greed and there will always be problems in the NBA. It is the job of the commissioner to keep on top of it, however no one will ever be able to eliminate human transgressions.”

Meschery remains a basketball fan to this day. During his battle and recovery from cancer a few years ago, Meschery’s son bought him the NBA League Pass, just as the Warriors were embarking on their magical run in 2007.

“I will always be a Golden State Warrior. My son is even part of the Warriors blog Fear the Beard. You could say I left it in San Francisco. I became hooked again on the NBA during my recovery. Once the ball goes up, the game is still the best game in the world.”

The post Original Old School: The Dude Abides appeared first on SLAM.

by Joe Ruklick

Half a century ago, Wilt Chamberlain left college basketball, which he had transformed as a star at Kansas University, to play pro basketball, which he would transform as the most spectacular NBA player ever. A giant of menacing strength, his arrival in the League in 1959 challenged the pro establishment, especially some players who would put him at risk of violent conflict.

Wilt and I had first met on the KU campus in ’56, when we sat down on folding chairs behind a table set up in the student union. Wires streamed from mikes in front of us and snaked over a space formed by a half-circle of 15 or 20 reporters. We were sophomores and the occasion was a press conference the night before his first college game. (Freshmen were ineligible to play varsity ball then.)

He was touted as an all-around athlete, and I was duly intimidated. My right hand disappeared when we shook. His shoulders were so big it looked as if he had football pads on. He wore a beige sweater decorated with images of snowflakes, deer and evergreen trees. I thought, “My God, this guy skis, too.”

At the start of the press conference, reporters were shouting at us, but Wilt took his time. He wanted to chat with me before he allowed questions. He said, “How do you feel, my man?” I was bewildered and didn’t answer directly. Instead, I went into a rehearsed speech.

“I want to apologize, Wilt,” I began. In June, ’55, following our senior year in high school, I had been picked as the nation’s All-American prep center in the North-South all star game in Murray, KY. Although Wilt was famous and the game was the only noticeable high school all-star game in the U.S. back then, Wilt had not been invited to play; promoters had never invited a black player to suit up for the so-called classic.

“I stood in your place after the game and picked up a trophy that’s yours,” I said.

“You had a good game, my man. Don’t give it a thought. You deserved it,” he said.

The next night, to the amazement of the sports world and a rocking Phog Allen Fieldhouse, KU walloped my Northwestern squad behind Wilt’s 52 points. I scored 22, most of them on hook shots, which to his amazement, Wilt couldn’t block.

Before the start of the second half, he walked up to me and tugged on my jersey. “Hey, man,” he said, “teach me that hook shot.”

That encounter personified Wilt’s attitude toward sports. Here was a mighty athlete who competed with the force of a 767’s takeoff who loved jesting and irony. He played the game with pleasure, especially in front of partisan fans, his high spirit and sense of humor making it a kind of mock war, the battle intended as a celebration of skill and swiftness, a friendly test between brotherly antagonists. In all his playing years, grade school through pro ball, he never fouled out of a game.

Wilt, whose recorded phone greeting ended with “Love and peace…” avoided fistfights on the court or anywhere else. “I’m too dangerous,” was his reasoning. But one night during a 1964 Playoff game in Boston, Wilt finally had enough of the rough stuff from long-time NBA bully Clyde Lovellette, and Wilt unloaded a haymaker that put the Celtics’ hulking, 6-9 center on his knees. Dazed, Clyde knelt on the storied parquet floor of Boston Garden, humbled in view of the packed house.

On the night of the fracas, Lovellette was in his 11th and final NBA season. Like Wilt, he was a terrific scoring center and former All-American at KU, but unlike Wilt, he played basketball as if it were a form of rugby.

Usually, it was Clyde who was the aggressor. Recalls retired Philadelphia Bulletin sportswriter Jim Heffernan about Boston’s former tough guy, “(Chamberlain’s coach and former All-Star) Neil Johnston told me Lovellette would sucker punch you or kick you, then help you up off the floor.”

Since I, too, had played against Wilt, I knew better than to rub him the wrong way. After our college matchup, Wilt and I met again at the Philadelphia Warriors training camp in September before the ’59-60 season, our rookie year. I’d graduated from Northwestern in June, while Wilt had spent the previous season playing for the Harlem Globetrotters.

I would spend the year warming the bench as Wilt’s backup center, and it was from that vantage point that I saw him take a catastrophic blow to his jaw during a game against the Hawks in St. Louis. The shot thrust his front teeth upward into his lower facial bones and started a bloodstream infection that was to plague him for the rest of his life.

Over the years, Wilt spent more time in the hospital than was reported. Many people who knew him best said it was related to that bloodstream infection. In ’05, Seymour Goldberg, Wilt’s lawyer, told me Wilt’s health problems resulted from ruined teeth and, ultimately, from the debilitating effects of a heart sac infection.

Only weeks before he died, Wilt had undergone dental surgery “to remove teeth knocked aside during his basketball career,” his sister, Barbara Lewis, said in an ESPN The Magazine story. “He dropped about 50 pounds in the last month,” Lewis said. He told her it was the worst pain he had ever experienced and, she said, it was the first time she had heard him complain about pain.

The post Original Old School: Tragic Hero appeared first on SLAM.

by Russ Bengtson

There will never be another Michael Jordan. Sometimes it’s best to get the obvious out of the way right out front, and this feels like one of those times. So, there. “The Best there Ever Was, The Best there Ever Will Be”? Yep. It’s right there on his statue in front of the United Center, literally carved in literal stone, and thus inarguable. So that’s that. Right?

Maybe. Michael Jordan wasn’t the best at everything, and he didn’t do everything first. Bill Russell finished with double fistfuls of rings, Wilt Chamberlain averaged 50 points a game, Dr. J dunked from the free-throw line. In a sense, Jordan was the ultimate aggregator-he took the best of everyone who came before and rolled it up into a ready-for-prime-time package. He threw down ridiculous dunks, scored bucketloads of points and won championships. Even played defense and practiced. And fortunately for him (and for us), his rise coincided with the NBA’s. They lifted each other to heights never before reached. Jordan was the right player at the right time, and the world conspired to make him a god.

Not to say it was all manufactured. Far from it. Jordan’s unedited NBA career spooled out like the most implausible of movies, from dropping 63 points on the 1986 Celtics (in their house, no less) to that last, hanging jumper over Bryon Russell. Even the Wizards epilogue, jarring in its entirety, provided moments to savor. Scoring 50 as a gimpy 40-year-old? Who does that? Not to mention two more All-Star Games and the priceless gift of allowing countless more fans to say they saw him play live. In the meantime-even while the real Jordan was still in his prime-a fruitless search for the next Jordan went on.

Paradoxically, there has been no next Jordan, there can be no next Jordan, for the simple reason that there was a first Jordan. “If I could be like Mike”? No chance. His career was structured in such a way that it can never be duplicated, only imitated. It wasn’t perfect-after all, his teams did get taken to two Game 7s (which they, um, won)-but it was so close that it may as well have been. The comparisons will always be there, and everyone who strives will always fall short. Fall too short, and you’re Harold Miner. Come too close, and you’re Kobe Bryant. The greatest tragedy of Kobe’s career-if you can find tragedy in a five-times-and-counting NBA Champion and certain first-ballot Hall of Famer-is that it cannot be viewed except through the Jordan filter. (It doesn’t help that his championships were all won playing for Michael’s old coach.) Five rings? Sure, but he’s only been Finals MVP twice. And he was only regular-season MVP once. Better than Jordan? Yeah, right.

Here’s the thing: Jordan built his career on the foundation laid down by those who came before him; Dr. J and David Thompson among them. This is how it always worked. Others who came after were expected to do the same. But Jordan didn’t leave much room for future players to build a legacy of their own. While those he emulated had fallen short or left things unfinished, Jordan didn’t. How do you build on a mansion? The game itself changed, and Jordan was the one who changed it. It’s hard to believe that any one player will ever usher in that sort of change again. Jordan defeated all the archetypes, expanded the game, created an archetype of his own (the basketball Terminator-a relentless cyborg covered in a thin human shell). It’s not even a question of whether anyone can equal his greatness-rather, is his greatness even one that can be equalled?

It might not be possible to follow in his footsteps at all. The fragmentation of the media has taken away the chance of having that mythology built up. The fragmentation of the NBA (and the apparent willingness of even the biggest stars to leave their teams) has taken away the chance to battle and battle before overcoming a particular challenge. And the battles aren’t the same anyway-teams like the Bad Boy Pistons and the Riley Knicks are as much of an anachronism as set shots and underhanded free-throws. Beat a team now, and another rises to take its place. There are no clear-cut heroes, no unmistakable villains, just an ever-changing pool of challengers. It’s hard to be king of the mountain when the mountain itself is gone.

It goes both ways, of course. In a way, Jordan was fortunate to have played when he did. We don’t know what the effect of a 24-hour news cycle would have been on MJ’s career, how he would have been seen filtered through the eyes of hungry bloggers, pop-culture-addled columnists and Rachel Nichols. When Sam Smith wrote The Jordan Rules, it was a radical act-the unmasking of a superhero. Now? Re-reading it 20 years later, what are the shocks? That he was vulgar? That he was competitive? His Hall of Fame speech was more damning. But for the first six years of his career, the public perception of Michael Jordan was shaped by fawning beatwriters, Sports Illustrated profiles, the NBA on NBC, and Nike’s ad agencies. By the time The Jordan Rules went to press, his perceived personality was more or less set in stone.

Compare that to someone like LeBron James, who’s been a highly scrutinized public property since he was in high school. Unlike Jordan, he wasn’t allowed to grow within that protective umbrella, to just play basketball while the rest was taken care of. Now? Controlled access has become a thing of the past, what with the emergence of Flipcams and camera phones and Twitter accounts. No longer do we need to wait on the Curry Kirkpatrick stories and the Walter Iooss photos and the Wieden + Kennedy campaigns to get the filtered truthiness. Like HBO Sports says, nothing is out of bounds.

So what happens? Let’s say LeBron averages a triple-double for a season (although it seems highly unlikely), or 40 points a game, or wins eight NBA titles (forgetting for the moment that just equaling Jordan would require him to win at least one Finals game, then-appropriately enough-23 more). Would he be viewed as Jordan’s better then? Maybe not. Leaving Cleveland and teaming with Dwyane Wade in Miami took him off the One True Path-and all it takes is a single misstep to fall. Not to mention being just like Mike, only better, simply doesn’t cut it. You have to change the game.

But who knows? Maybe things will be viewed differently in the future. Maybe the LeBron/Wade/Chris Bosh Heat team does change the game in some fundamental way. Maybe 100 years from now, when the topic of the greatest is debated by people who never saw Michael or Kobe or LeBron play live, there will be a sense of objectivity that doesn’t-that can’t-exist in our time. After all, historians love to revise. Maybe when emotion is stripped away and careers are judged simply by the numbers, someone else will be viewed as the best there ever was, the best that ever will be.

But probably not.

The post The Blueprint appeared first on SLAM.

by Alan Paul

Nathaniel Archibald stands on the searing blacktop playground of Harlem’s PS 175. School kids on their lunch break fill the air with the sound of play, running all around him as he stands with his hands in the pockets of his sweats, eyes hidden behind dark shades, body trim in a dark polo shirt. At first glance, Archibald could be any gym teacher in America. That is, until he starts talking about playground moves and shifting his weight from one leg to another, rolling his shoulders and flipping his hands with a grace that’s anything but average. A grace which made Tiny Archibald one of the greatest point guards ever to play the game.

The 6-1, 160-pound Archibald is the only player to lead the league in assists and scoring the same year. He did it in ’73, his third NBA season, when he scored 34 ppg and dished out 11.4 apg. He also averaged 46 minutes that season, typical of the full-tilt effort he gave through six seasons with the Cincinnati/Omaha/Kansas City Kings [Don’t ask.–Ed.], over which he averaged 25 ppg and did it all. He missed the entire ’77-78 season with a torn Achilles tendon, then moved on to the Celtics, where his numbers went down but his efficiency went up. In ’81 he led the team to their first Bird-era title. He retired in ’84 and was a no-brainer selection to the Hall of Fame (’90) and to the 50-Greatest team selected in ’96.

But Archibald’s stellar NBA career is only the tip of his very deep iceberg. He was a New York playground legend before he entered the league, and even more of one after, returning to his hometown to play summer ball every year. Even at the height of his pro career, Tiny dazzled the fans at the Rucker tournament, often bringing with him NBA teammates like Dave Cowens. “I’ll never forget watching Tiny go off up there,” recalls Dr. J. “He was incredible to watch, scoring at will.”

Whether the venue was a slab of asphalt or the Boston Garden, Archibald’s game was marked by lightning quickness and a fearless ability to penetrate, taking it right at the heart of the opponent’s defense, where he could finish or dish with equal aplomb. His moves were legendary and he played with extreme flavor, even though he never dunked in the NBA—proving that there’s more than one way to keep it real.

Since the end of his playing days, Archibald’s star has only shone brighter, even if many fewer can see it. After serving as an assistant coach for three years, two at his alma mater, the University of Texas El Paso, where he worked with Tim Hardaway, Archibald returned home to the Bronx. He got a master’s degree from Fordham University and is currently working on his doctorate. He has continued to work with the community, running boys and girls clubs, serving as recreation director for a homeless shelter and for the past several years teaching at PS 175, which is where you must go to find him. Tiny Archibald does not seek the spotlight, so the spotlight must seek him.

“Tiny is the best,” says New York Post and NBC commentator Peter Vecsey. “He is very dedicated to the kids and the community, and he asks nothing from nobody, expects no privileges. He has never changed one iota from the moment I’ve met him. He’s just a great human being, and as straight and real as anyone you’ll ever meet.”

SLAM: You grew up in New York in the midst of many, many great players. Who did you pattern your game after?

ARCHIBALD: My idols were Lenny Wilkens and Bob Cousy, but the greatest ballhandler I ever saw did not play professional ball. His name was Ed “Czar” Simmons, and he was a guy from Brooklyn who played on the Brooklyn USA team with Connie Hawkins and Roger Brown—two ABA players—and Jackie Jackson. He was a chubby guy who always wore a hat. Back then, when you played ball, you didn’t wear jewelry or watches or anything other than a uniform. But here was this grown man with a cap on, taking command of a fabulous team—passing the ball anywhere, telling guys what to do. I loved watching him play in the Rucker, but there were so many great players. Earl Manigault, Helicopter, Pablo Robertson—a great ballhandler and assist man.

Two really great ones, who were more or less my contemporaries, were Pee Wee Kirkland and Joe Hammond. They both could have been pros, especially Pee Wee. His potential was unlimited, and he could adapt to a structured game. He wasn’t some all-flash guy. He went to Norfolk State, was the CIAA MVP and All American, [got] drafted by the Chicago Bulls, and he walked out on them. There are lots of stories about what he did—the bags full of money and the drugs. Well, I only knew Pee Wee when it came to basketball, and he could play. Joe Hammond was maybe not on the same level, but he was also a great player. He got drafted by the Lakers but never went to camp.

SLAM: What about big guys?

ARCHIBALD: No secrets there. Kareem was awesome from the first time I ever saw him play, when we were kids. I played with Wilt and I saw him play against the Brooklyn Pros, when he was in the Baker league [from Philadelphia]. Of course, Wilt was great and so were others, but Kareem was so fluid in motion and did so many things. I never saw another big guy who could move like him.

I’ll never forget watching him in Morningside Park, scrimmaging against pros when he was a high school kid. He went to Power and I went to Dewitt Clinton and we played each other, but I didn’t get to play too much. He was ahead of me, and I was a bench player until my senior year. But just sitting and watching him was a beautiful thing. He just dominated in college—they had to change the rules and outlaw the dunk when he got to college, and when he left, they put it back. It’s just amazing to me that I came through the same [Rucker] program as that guy.

SLAM: You played in the Rucker growing up and kept playing after you were an NBA star. What did you like about it so much?

ARCHIBALD: Everything—the competition, the fans, the crowd. A lot of guys don’t play at all in the offseason. After their season is over they go around and talk highlights: “I did this, I did that.” Us guys didn’t have to talk about it. We just said, “You did what? Fine. Get on the court, and show me again.” I loved that. You take the competitiveness of a professional league and bring that flavor outdoors, and suddenly you’ve got a whole new game. You’ve got the music booming, you’ve got the crazy fans screaming and betting. I think that type of atmosphere is great. I loved the Rucker, and when I wasn’t playing in it, after my playing days were over, I was coaching.

SLAM: Once you were established as an NBA star, did other guys really come after you?

ARCHIBALD: Sure. They’re not impressed. Guys that did not play in the NBA lived and died for the summer to play against established guys. You was on the most wanted list, because you made it to the NBA and they didn’t. They didn’t care if you were an all-star, an all-pro, whatever—they were out to get you.

And I knew where they were coming from; when I was coming up, I lived and died for the summer so I could come in and play against established guys like Connie Hawkins and them on Brooklyn USA. Oh, just to step on the court and say, “Yeah, I played against the Hawk!” And he was tremendous up there. Just unreal, as good as anything you’ve ever heard. He could do it all, and his whole team was phenomenal.

SLAM: Did you feel like it was important for you to just come back and be a presence in the community?

ARCHIBALD: I’ve always come back to New York, whether I was playing or coaching or running programs in the South Bronx. Probably one of my biggest downfalls is that I can’t seem to get out of here. It’s like a wall is around me. But I’ve been fortunate, and New York has been good to me in a lot of ways, in life and in basketball—I got to play with and against so many great players coming up.

SLAM: Are you still working on your Ph.D.?

ARCHIBALD: Yeah. It’s been good, but it’s not as big a deal as people make it out to be. After my basketball playing days were over, I was kind of in a gray area, and I wanted to go back to school to pursue my education. Because I really wanted to do something with my life. I coached for three years—as an assistant at Georgia, then for two years at UTEP—but I felt something was missing. I came back to New York and enrolled at Fordham and got my masters in adult education supervision and administration. Then I got my professional degree, and now I’m just trying to do another degree. That’s all a Ph.D. is—the next degree.

SLAM: Did you have any particular role models in life rather than basketball?

ARCHIBALD: Sure, I had a lot of good mentors and role models. There was Floyd Lane, Hilton White, my high school coaches Hank Jacobson and Bob Buckner, who all taught me how to behave as well as how to play ball. But if I wanted to model myself after anyone, it was probably my dad. He was quiet, tough, determined, and he got things done. No, he never played basketball, but that’s the way he was, and that’s the way I am. And I like to help pass that on. That’s one of the reasons I want to be involved in the school system; you have to give these youngsters an opportunity to learn life skills as well get an education.

The post Original Old School: The Professor appeared first on SLAM.

The Junior Knicks League’s playoffs tipped off Saturday at the infamous “Soul in the Hole” Park in Brooklyn. Action included an overtime thriller in the 13-and-under finals, as well as playoff games for the 15-and-under and 18-and-under divisions (championship games for those leagues will be held next weekend). But, for many of the park’s visitors,  the day’s most exciting moment came when a familiar gentleman entered the park, walking peacefully as if he was strolling along the beach. The man was Knicks alum and broadcaster Walt “Clyde” Frazier, who couldn’t manage four or five steps without being swarmed for autographs, pictures and handshakes. Former Knicks player and TV analyst Cal Ramsey also came out, and I was able to snag a couple of minutes with each for a pair of quick interviews.

———–

SLAM: So what brings you to the park?
Walt “Clyde” Frazier: Just checking out the youth program by the Knicks. We always try to lend our support to younger kids, and try to inspire them, not only on the court but off the court. Education, as you know, is a big factor, [as is] abstinence from drugs. I just feel compelled to try to give back. I haven’t played in 30 years, but as you can see…

SLAM: You get a lot of love.
WF: Yeah, so I try to give it back. I’m reciprocating.

SLAM: How do you stay busy all summer?
WF: Mostly in the Virgin Islands; I have a house there, and rented properties that I rent out. So occasionally the Knicks will call me to come into the City for a function like this, and I come back. But usually around October is back when I’m based in New York.

SLAM: You seem to be very relaxed, laid back. Do you maintain this all season, or is it just a summer thing?
WF: (Laughs.) All season. That’s one of the advantages of playing in New York, you get used to the attention and the exposure. So I guess over the years I’ve mellowed. I’ve learned to just go with the flow, and just take it all in.

SLAM: Any early opinions on the Knicks’ off-season moves?
WF: Yeah, I like them. Obviously if they didn’t lose LeBron, everybody would be very excited, so that’s the only stigma that’s overshadowing what they’ve done thus far. I think the acquisitions from Golden State should help us get better defensively. [Ronny] Turiaf, [Anthony] Randolph, these guys can intimidate inside. And of course Stoudemire. [Ray] Felton, I think, is an upgrade over [Chris] Duhon. He’s strong, he gets in the paint, he can shoot. So I think there’s a good nucleus they have going, [but] you know they’ve had a good nucleus. Now it’s our time to step up. They’ve got to make the playoffs this year.

SLAM: The main criticism of Coach D’Antoni, which you touched upon, has always been a lack of focus on defense. Do you think that’ll change?
WF: I hope so. These guys can play D, we know that. So he has to hold them accountable. He’s gotta get on them and make sure they do what they’re supposed to do, because as far as shooting—you know the Knicks are saying we need another shooter, that’s true too—but what if you held a team to four less points? You know, that’s defense. Looking at just one aspect, that we need another shooter, we also need some intensity on the defense. That would help as well.

SLAM: What were your thoughts on LeBron’s Decision?
WF: I was shocked, man. How could he turn on New York? I thought, man, this guy wanted this challenge. Because when these guys come to the Garden, you see how they play?

SLAM: Yeah, always better.
WF: Right, you’d think this guy wants it every night. I couldn’t believe it.

SLAM: You didn’t see it coming?
WF: Nah, I didn’t.

[I look up and notice the growing line of people waiting for an autograph.]

SLAM: OK, last question. You’ve gained quite a reputation for your vocabulary and the rhyming phrases. Which phrase do you think you’ll be using to describe this year’s Knicks team?
WF: [pumps fist] Tenacity and sagacity! Yeah, they’ve got to bring the tenacity on the D, and play smart. They’ve got to play smart, team ball. And hey, there’s a lot of talent there, man.

———–

SLAM: What brings you to the park today?
Cal Ramsey: Well I’m here because this program was sponsored by the New York Knicks, as you know. It’s the Junior Knick League, and I’ve been supporting this event since its inception. As a matter of fact it started back in 1991, when we attempted to get every youngster in New York City involved with the Knicks summer basketball program. And there are other aspects of this program: Some of these kids get to come to play at the Garden at halftime and we have player visits to their faculties occasionally at Boys Clubs and YMCAs. When I was a kid I played in a program similar to this, so I’ve been a part of this all my life.

SLAM. How else do you stay involved with the Knicks?
CR: [I’m involved] very well; I go to every game, I go to Liberty games on Sundays, and I go to every NYU game. I’m an assistant coach at NYU and I’m director of community relations and a goodwill ambassador for the Knicks. So I’m at every home game, I work with the players and I come to events like this. I’m totally involved with the Knicks.

SLAM: What do you think of the team’s moves this off-season?
CR:  They’re good so far. I’m curious about the big German kid [Anthony Randolph]—they say he’s a pretty good player, a good athlete. I love Stoudemire, obviously. We have a pretty good core to build around. [We have] Wilson Chandler, Billy Walker, and the draft pick they had, I haven’t seen him play yet but I hear he’s pretty good. So I’m optimistic.

SLAM: Do you think the team’s defensive mindset will improve?
CR: Well, you need athletes to play good defense, and I think we have some pretty good athletes now. [They have] the German kid. Hopefully Stoudemire will make a pretty big difference in the middle. They should be better defensively.

SLAM: So when are you suiting up and getting out there?
CR: (Laughs.) I’ve done my part. I talk to the kids, I sign autographs for the people, whatever they want me to do, I do. You know when I played, when I was 19, I averaged 20 rebounds a game in my sophomore year at NYU. And that was more than Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor.

SLAM: They played the same year as you?
CR: The same year, 1956, my sophomore year. Elgin averaged 18.3, Wilt averaged 18.0, and [I averaged] 19.6. (Laughs.) So print that!

Yes sir!

The post Ex-Knicks Show Support For Junior League appeared first on SLAM.

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by Scoop Jackson

History never repeats itself. Never. The truth always hurts. Always. To be blunt—not Phillie but brutally—none of us know. Somehow history got by us all. Fooled us. Made us believe the hype that only a chosen few ruled, dominated, changed the way the game was played. Too much video games, Inside Stuff. Not enough substance, never enough truth.

The history of basketball tells us to love, respect and honor the past. Wilt, Cap, Doc, Cousy and Russell. West and Robertson. The legacy packaged so nicely. So neatly. We simply accept it. Never sweating the deeper essence of hoopology that established Marvin Barnes, Billy Ray Bates and Gus Williams as prodigies of the game, true pioneers.

NYC. Harlem Globetrotters. Fly Williams. The roots run deep. (Not just) knee deep.

Unseen in this game was a young brotha of evolution. An NYC schoolyard legend who, after Elgin Baylor, turned basketball into art. From the fences to the fiberglass, he un-televised the revolution by making basketball as important to black socialism as Huey P. Newton.

Cornelius “Connie” Hawkins was a one-man revolution. He changed the game of basketball by doin’ it, doin’ it and doin’ it well. On the dl. He played the game so well that without him, Jordan, Iceman, and Dr. J would have never known who to pattern their skills after. But we never hear this.

In the midst of becoming a legend, Hawk had his story told in Foul, a book that became standard reading in inner city classrooms in the ‘70s. His life transcended the world of basketball by bringing NYC basketball and “negro” childhood out of the pj’s and into the country clubs. His life, his game. This is what history is all about.

From Brooklyn’s Boys & Girls HS to Iowa University to Pittsburgh to Minneapolis to Phoenix to Los Angeles and finally, to Atlanta. His career was marked—but never defined—by the gambling scandals at Iowa, which caused him to leave after one season. It took him years to finally make the NBA, but when he did, people knew the stories about Hawk from Brooklyn were true.

Anonymity. Pain. Honesty. The Truth. It never hurts the ones who made it, only the ones that want to hear it.

Chillin’ in Phoenix, workin’ for the Suns, the Hawk still loves to get down and tell his story. With the coolness of Clyde Frazier and the honesty of Charles Barkley, Hawk reminds us: 1) Elgin was “The Man” before Doc. 2) He, not George Gervin, invented the finger roll. And 3) Don’t ever call him old-school.

SLAM: Who got you started?

HAWK: I was so young when I started. But I’ll have to say that going down to Madison Square Garden, I used to watch Elgin Baylor. I watched him play, and I think he was the first guy I’d ever seen who had that certain flair for the game. I adapted my game after his. See, once you learn to play in the schoolyard, you can almost adapt your game to anything. So naturally, with Elgin having that type of skills, I adapted my game to what he was doing on the court.

SLAM: From the old school, uh?

HAWK: We don’t like old school. Don’t call me old school [laughs]. We like the term “legends.” “Old” makes me feel like I can’t do anything anymore, and I’d like to think that I still have a bit left.

SLAM: A Hall-of-Famer can say that. I’m with you. Respect due. But you originated your “legendary” game on the streets in the playgrounds in New York…

HAWK: Some of the best games I’ve ever played were probably in the schoolyard in NYC. All of your best players played in the schoolyard. Wilt played in the schoolyards, Jabbar played in the schoolyards. As a matter of fact, some of the best games I’ve ever seen were in the schoolyards. Most of us who played there understood that you had to win. It was very competitive…

The post Original Old School: New York Undercover appeared first on SLAM.

by Alan Paul

Jerry West once described his basketball career as having been “on the tragic side of things.” It’s a harsh appraisal of 14 years which yielded regular-season averages of 27 points, 5.8 rebounds and 6.7 assists per game; 13 All-Star game appearances; one NBA championship; nine trips to the Finals, and a career playoff scoring average of 29.1 ppg, second in league history to Michael Jordan.

What sticks in the craw of the man known as “Mr. Clutch” are those eight championship losses, six to the Bill Russell-led Boston Celtics. Of course, seeing one’s championship dreams smashed by Red Auerbach’s dominating squads-who won nine of the ’60’s 10 titles-is no crime: just ask Elgin Baylor, Oscar Robertson and Dave Bing. But no one else ever came quite as close or performed quite as valiantly in a losing cause as West, who seemed to leave his still-beating heart on the floor of Boston Garden every spring.

In ’65, West averaged over 40 points through 11 playoff games-only to lose to the Celts in five. In ’69, he was named Series MVP, the only player on a losing team ever so honored. To him, the award felt like salt being rubbed into a very fresh wound. Then there was ’70, when the opponent was the New York Knicks-and the result was the same, as injured Knicks center Willis Reed limped onto the Madison Square Garden floor and inspired his underdog team to victory.

“I don’t think people fully appreciate the trauma associated with losing,” says West. “It takes a lot out of you, year after year.”

West, whose silhouette is the basis of the NBA logo, finally got his title in ’72 with the help of Wilt Chamberlain. West retired in ’74, despite averaging over 20 points per game his final season. “It was clear to me that I was never going to be the same kind of player I had been,” West says. “It was time to quit.”

A brilliant career ended in acrimony thanks to a bitter contract dispute, and West stayed away from the Lakers for two years before being lured back to the organization. He has remained affiliated with the Lakers ever since. He coached for three years, before spending another three (’79-82) as a special consultant-convincing owner Jerry Buss to hire then-broadcaster Pat Riley as coach-then 14 as general manager and the last two as executive vice president. He has been able to drink from the championship cup five times, the fruits of victory hopefully sweet enough to overshadow the bitter “tragedy” that lingers over a playing career everyone else saw as sweet in its own right.

SLAM: You’ve played with, coached or worked with some of the greatest players in basketball history, including Elgin Baylor, Magic Johnson, Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Is there anything they all have in common?

JERRY WEST: They were all great competitors with a fierce desire to win. And most of them were extremely self-critical, so that if they were off one night, you could be almost positive that they would be back the next game with a vengeance. They simply would not tolerate failure from themselves, and if they had a bad night, the next opponent would pay the price.

SLAM: Would you include yourself as someone with those traits?

JW: I’d probably put myself at the very top of that list.

SLAM: Where does such intensity come from?

JW: Who knows why some people have a fierce desire to compete and win? This country is based on competitiveness and winning. There’s not a lot of consolation for losers in our culture. But where that intensity comes from, I can’t really say. It’s a very private thing. You can look right into someone’s eyes and not know what’s burning within them, but that unfailing desire and self-awareness is in all the great ones in our sport. Probably the truly great people in any profession have it, too.

SLAM: You really pushed to make Pat Riley coach of the Lakers when he was just a broadcaster. You obviously saw something in him that others missed. Though he was not a great player, was that same type of intensity always evident in him?

JW: Sure. Pat was always an extremely intense guy. You could tell what he had inside of him by the way he practiced. No one wanted to practice against him, because he was so intense and every day he competed as if it were a game. Guys got mad at how hard he practiced against them.

SLAM: Do you think that, in general, great coaches have the same traits as great players?

JW: They’re competitive just like the players, but they have to have a different feel. They have to be able to understand and have a feel for more than one ego and more than one person’s strengths and weaknesses. As a player all you can do is play within yourself, even in the context of a team sport. But to have harmony on a team, you need a coach who can get inside the head of every player and get them all pulling in one direction.

SLAM: You played alongside Elgin Baylor for the first nine years of your career. What made him so great?

JW: He was a total package-and it was an unbelievable package. He had strength, smarts, quickness, great instincts and unbelievable competitiveness. He could drive, he could shoot, he could pass, he could rebound and he played great D. He was unreal. He was a wonderfully-gifted player and an absolute joy to watch and play with.

SLAM: Are there any performances of his which really stand out in your mind, like when he scored 61 points in Game Five of the ’62 finals?

JW: That was phenomenal, but I saw tons of nights when he was just absolutely incredible. And when you watch that night in and night out, you can’t help but be in awe and be inspired. Playing next to him couldn’t help but elevate my game. It’s like watching Michael Jordan. He makes everyone around him so much better. There’s really no way to describe playing with someone like that.

SLAM: Yet, ironically, you guys started your record 33-game winning streak the night Elgin announced his retirement early in the ’71-72 season.

JW: Well, he was injured and was no longer the same player. He had only played a few games the year before and was struggling to come back. Health issues are something that no athlete can contend with. They ruin careers and have some terrible consequences.

SLAM: What did it feel like during that streak?

JW: It felt like we’d never lose again. Every once in a while, you have the opportunity to play on a team that is special; the players just have the ingredients to endure. They seem to get every break in the book, and they win games when they appear to be lost. You can’t imagine how much good luck is involved in winning, but all of a sudden, you get in a situation where every break goes your way, every call goes your way, every ball that rolls around drops in instead of out. It feels magical. But we were a very well-rounded team, and everyone knew their place and did their job. There was no question of who should be doing what or who should be where when. We just went out there and played, and operated like a well-oiled machine.

SLAM: The great Bill Russell-led Celtics teams seemed to have that quality. What do you think made Russell so great and so successful?

JW: He had the right amount of desire, know-how and skills, and he played on a team that was very well put together and put together to play to his strengths, and to everyone’s strengths. It’s very true that everyone on those Celtics teams knew their roles and executed them to perfection.

SLAM: You lost six championships to them. Did you develop hostility toward Russell or any of the players?

JW: Not at all. I have nothing but the greatest respect for those teams and I greatly admire many of those players, but there was such a hurt at not being able to defeat them that I can’t really even describe it. No matter how well I played, it never seemed to be good enough.

SLAM: In ’72, you finally won a championship, beating the Knicks. Did you feel redeemed at all?

JW: A little bit, but I played so terribly that it took some of the joy away. It was probably the first time that I played poorly in a final and the first time we won. I was absolutely delighted for the team, for the city and the fans, for my teammates, but I think I was sort of emotionally drained by then from all the losing.

SLAM: Basketball seems to have caused you a lot of pain. Was there ever a time when it was just a sheer joy, because you were playing so well and feeling so good?

JW: I don’t know if it was ever really a joy because it was such hard work, but I loved to compete. The passion to win games, the incredible, focused energy and also the the camaraderie of the team were all things that I really loved.

SLAM: In Game Three of the ’70 Series against the Knicks, you hit a 63-foot shot at the buzzer to send the game into overtime. What do you remember about that shot, which is considered one of the greatest moments in NBA history?

JW: I was so tired that I don’t even remember the shot. I was just so worn out at the end of that game. And it wasn’t a great moment to me. I hit a lucky shot in a game we should have won, but lost. We should have beaten the Knicks in that series. They had a wonderful team, and they really played well together, but we were better. Losing that series was one of the most devastating moments of my career. I think that it hurt worse than the others, because I really thought we should have won. Also, as you get older, every chance to win a championship is more crucial, because you are going to have less and less of them.

SLAM: The Knicks won Game Seven after Willis Reed limped out onto the court and played despite a torn thigh muscle. That is viewed as one of the great inspirational moments in sports history, something that rallied the team and the home fans. What was that like from the other side of the court?

JW: I thought it was great, because I thought [Reed] playing would help us win. I thought we had such a huge advantage simply because he was hurt; I was glad he was out there limping around.

SLAM: But you too were seriously injured, requiring injections in both hands just to be able to play, and no one even knew it.

JW: I had two really sore thumbs, and obviously that hampered me, but you have to do the best you can with what you have.

SLAM: Wilt Chamberlain came to the Lakers in ’69, and you two played several seasons together. What kind of teammate was he?

JW: At that point in my career, I certainly needed something different, and he provided it. He’s someone I greatly admire and appreciate, because he helped me achieve one of my goals. I had an incredible working relationship with him and really look back on it fondly.

SLAM: Wilt hasn’t always been the most popular public figure. Do you think he’s misunderstood?

JW: Wilt says things sometimes that a lot of us would like to say but don’t, and I’ve always admired him for that. He’s always been extremely candid in a way that not many of us are. I see him or talk to him once or twice a year, and I really enjoy it every time.

SLAM: At the University of West Virginia, you averaged almost 25 points as a 6-2 forward and were a two-time All-American. Did playing down low help you become a well-rounded player?

JW: It really wasn’t a good thing for me. In a lot of ways, it didn’t make me realize what I had to do play guard in the NBA. It took me several years of on-the-job learning to be a good player.

SLAM: Several years? You averaged almost 18 points your first year-and 31 your second.

JW: I could score, sure, but there’s a lot of difference between being a scorer and being a player. I had to learn the nuances of playing guard: knowing your opponent and your teammates, getting them the ball where they could score, knowing when to shoot and when to pass. As a point guard, you’re the first line of your offense and the first line of your defense, and you better know what you’re doing. It’s a learning process.

SLAM: What was your biggest deficiency coming out of school, and what did you do to overcome it?

JW: I was not a great ballhandler. I just worked very hard at it, and I got to be a good ballhandler-a competent ballhandler-but never a great ballhandler.

SLAM: Who was the toughest opponent you ever faced?

JW: Oscar Robertson was a player I greatly admired, and I learned a lot from playing against him-something new each game. He was just marvelous, and very, very smart. I also played with him in the ’60 Olympics game, which was really a high point in my career.

SLAM: That was a great squad, which some have called the original Dream team. Why was it so satisfying?

JW: The opportunity to compete as an amateur embodied everything that an athlete could want. I’ve been fortunate to play on a lot of good teams, but I lost in the NCAA Championship game as a junior, and my professional career was filled with frustrations because of championship losses, so the best moment for me was accepting the gold medal in the Olympics and having the opportunity to play with those guys.

SLAM: Your nickname was Mr. Clutch. Do you ever remember being nervous at crunch time-or not wanting the ball in your hands?

JW: I think you’re always nervous, or have a nervous energy which you feed off of. So it’s not accurate to say I was never nervous, but I was not afraid to fail. I always wanted the ball in my hands with a game on the line, as I think any real competitor does. I was disappointed if I didn’t have a chance to win a game, and if I had the chance and didn’t do it…I guess disappointed would describe how I felt.

SLAM: Are there any specific games that stand out in your mind as milestones, that you look back on most fondly? Maybe when you scored 63 against the Knicks in ’62, or Game One of the ’69 Finals when you scored 53 against the Celtics?

JW: No. Those were just things I did. I don’t dwell on them. I don’t live in the past. And besides, there are too many times in my career to remember specific events, because I played so many games. I will say that there were nights I felt I couldn’t miss.

SLAM: You had a very acrimonious contract situation with the Lakers right before you retired, which led you to sue the team and be estranged from them for two years-the only time you’ve not been associated with them since ’60. Did you apply anything that you learned from that experience to being a general manager?

JW: You better believe it. I would never, ever intentionally hurt a player contractually. He should be paid the going rate. I don’t really want to go into my problems with the team at the time except to say that no one’s ever had to pay me to play basketball. My problems weren’t with feeling like I wasn’t getting enough, but with feeling like I was deceived and lied to. I just felt so hurt that you play for so long and give it everything you have; you play with needles in you, and when you’re bleeding and when you feel like you can’t walk. And when it came down to it, you had no rights. That hurt, and I try to make sure that our players never feel that way.

SLAM: The Lakers have always seemed to foster something of a family atmosphere, epitomized by your lengthy involvement, as well as Magic’s and a few others’. Is it sill possible to maintain that type of organization these days?

JW: We still seem to have a close-knit organization, with a somewhat more relaxed atmosphere than you find elsewhere. But it certainly is much more difficult to maintain today. The difference is the expansion of the league, and more importantly, the incredible amount of pressure now felt by everyone from players to front-office officials to marketing people, because of the financial resources that are now out there. [The NBA] used to be a small band of basketball groupies. Now there are a lot more corporate-type people working in the league.

But some things don’t essentially change. I don’t care how many lawyers and brilliant people are involved in the league, it’s still a sport and it’s still a team game, which means it’s about bringing people together to pull for a common good. So we’re constantly trying to create an atmosphere that’s positive and conducive to true teamwork. And we’re trying to do that in an atmosphere that is promoting the individual to a huge extent. An insane extent.

SLAM: That promotion of the individual-regardless of the talent involved-seems to be one of the biggest changes. It must irritate you sometimes.

JW: It’s really mind boggling. At one time, you really had to earn your spurs in this league, and you don’t have to do that anymore. There are some wonderful players in this league, and also some players who are not so wonderful who are marketed to the hilt, and it gets to the point where it’s ridiculous and people believe their own hype. The marketing of players has created untold wealth for many sports stars. You can’t blame them or the company that covets the relationship with them, but that doesn’t mean the player is good. There are many players who don’t measure up to their marketability.

Personalities seem in many cases to dominate the lucrative endorsement market. But that doesn’t upset me. What upsets me is when not enough attention is paid to the product-the game. But, despite what you hear, I see an awful lot of nice kids out there. Almost every kid in this league, if left alone and encouraged, will be a great player and a great citizen too. Frankly, I think a lot of these guys are getting a bad rap.

SLAM: One of the people often singled out for criticism of his whole generation is your star, Shaquille O’Neal.

JW: Yes, and that’s the worst. He’s one of the greatest kids I’ve ever met. This is a wonderful person who was raised right by his mother and his stepfather, Mr. Harrison. I don’t know where the negative stuff about him comes from, but I can only assume that jealousy is a big factor. People resent the money these kids are making, but they didn’t create the system.

SLAM: I think racism plays a big part in that sort of criticism.

JW: I would hope that racism is something that just does not work in this day and age, but I know otherwise. I get horrible mail from people who, among other things, call me a racist because we don’t have any white players on this team, which is patently absurd.

SLAM: You were involved in drafting Magic Johnson. When did it first strike you just how great he was? Can you try to scout intangibles such as leadership and desire to win?

JW: In Magic’s case, it was an absolute no-brainer. What you’re talking about is someone who plays the game with personality and confidence and control. If you can’t see someone’s got a game with great personality, you shouldn’t be out there looking.

At the same time, as I said, you can’t ever totally know what’s inside of someone else, or see the kind of will someone like Magic has. You have to rely on your instincts to find people who hate losing and know how to win.

The post Original Old School: Mr. Clutch appeared first on SLAM.

In Oakland, the press sits about halfway up the bleachers, just in front of the luxury boxes and overlooking the benches. Each of the three rectangular media tables, with live box score monitors and power strips for laptops, is bracketed by a small bay with two seats inside a low plexiglass enclosure.

One of those bays is always reserved for Alvin Attles, now in his 50th year with the club that drafted him. He arrived as a fifth-round pick in 1960, a 6-foot-nothing point guard with so little chance of making the roster that he almost didn’t bother showing up. He eventually became the Warriors’ captain, one of the most successful NBA coaches of all time, the team’s GM, and over the past couple decades an ambassador to the local community. The man they used to call “The Destroyer” has never worked for another professional franchise.

He looks pretty much the same every game. Attles wears a lightly starched, solid-colored dress shirt with dark slacks, and leaves his blazer sitting in the seat beside him.

Before tipoff he is all smiles as fans walk by and wave to him, many of whom he knows by name. But if left by himself while the Warriors struggle, he rocks uncomfortably, the same way he did as a coach, and can’t restrain a cringe when they turn it over or have a defensive breakdown. If things are going very poorly, he sometimes has the bearing of a man who is about to crack heads.

If this is how intense he is at 73, what was he like when he was younger?

“He was a hard-nosed defensive specialist, and nobody messed with him.” says Jim Barnett, former NBA player and current Warriors broadcaster.

Later in his career, Barnett was traded to the Warriors and played for Attles the coach. “As a coach, he hardly ever raised his voice,” Barnett says. “But when he did, it scared the hell out of you. Literally sent chills down your spine.”

I spent a game with Attles in his perch, and that voice is one of the first things you notice. Rising above the crowd noise it’s a cross between Tom Waits and Teddy Pendergrass.

The conversation started light — we discussed his beginnings in Newark, NJ; how he was drafted in large part because his college teammate at North Carolina A&T had been a high school teammate of Warriors’ star Wilt Chamberlain; and the formation of the NBA player’s union. Attles, whose first salary was $5,500 annually, was an early player’s rep.

“We were looking for two more dollars on our meal money,” he said in his trademark rumble. “We were getting five dollars, and we ended up getting seven.”

I’d approached Attles a couple weeks previously, but it hadn’t gone well. An oldster friend had told me about his favorite player, Cy Kasselman, who dominated in the 1920s and 30s for a Philadelphia team that was a precursor of the Warriors. He held the all-time single-game scoring record for a few years thanks to a 28-point night. Kasselman’s coach was Eddie Gottlieb, who later became the owner of the Philadelphia Warriors, the team that drafted Attles two years before moving to the San Francisco Bay area. I couldn’t find much on Kasselman in the history books, so I asked Attles.

His face twisted up into a shape that made it clear he wasn’t comfortable. “I remember him,” Attles said. “He used to come to some of our games, but I didn’t really know him.” Usually old players are happy to talk about older players, and I’d taken every precaution – approached carefully, called him Mr. Attles, and asked if he minded answering a question about the Philadelphia days. The most I got out of him was that Kasselman was friends with Gottlieb. I didn’t realize until I’d walked away why a question like that would stir ancient emotions.

Gottlieb, a Hall-of-Famer who later worked in the League offices, enforced the NBA’s unwritten quota system. During the game we watched together, Attles cleared the air early in the second quarter.

“My first year we had four black players on the Warriors, and my second year we only had three. Some teams only had two. I don’t know the reasons why, but I do know there were players out there who could have played.

“Years later Eddie Gottlieb apologized to me. He said that if he had known that people would pay to see players who weren’t Caucasian, he would have done it (integrated the roster).”

Attles arrived in a San Francisco Bay Area that was a melting pot unlike any other in America. He settled in a working-class neighborhood called Haight-Ashbury, which would soon become the capital of the hippies.

“We lived right on Haight Street,” he said. “One summer we went back to New Jersey, and that following fall, it had changed completely. We lived at the top of a hill, and we had a hard time getting home. They had hippies and the whole City of Love and all of that, and we had to go through some road blocks and things like that to get up to our house.

“A few years later, it ended almost as suddenly. I guess they all moved to the suburbs.”

Attles got the Destroyer moniker as a rookie, after he and Hall-of-Fame big man Dolph Schayes went for a loose ball. Attles wound up with the ball, and Schayes wound up with a broken jaw. Attles, however, doesn’t like to play up his “Destroyer” past.

“It wasn’t anything … I didn’t punch him … his teammate started all that business about, ‘he’s a destroyer.’”

Already having broached one sensitive topic, it didn’t seem worth mentioning other incidents, such as the time he picked up and body-slammed future Bullets GM Bob Ferry WWF style.

At halftime Attles invited me to follow him as he went to meet a group of fans in a luxury suite. They were business partners of the man who rented the suite. As a goodwill ambassador for the team, Attles makes appearances like this on a regular basis.

When we walked in a man approached and said his daughter was inside. She was a pretty good grade-school player and loved the game. Could Attles give her some encouragement?

The group inside surrounded him in a semi-cricle. The girl, tall for her age, stood in the front with her arms folded.

The businessman introduced him: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Alvin Attles, Hall of Famer and former coach of the Golden State Warriors…”

“I think you have the wrong guy,” Attles said, embarrassed. The group laughed, and most probably still thought he was in the Hall of Fame. Attles didn’t bother trying to dissuade them further, and launched into his talk.

“OK, raise your hand if you’re a Warriors fan.”

A thin majority of hands went up. Then Attles asked everyone in the room to close their eyes, and told them again to raise their hands if they were Warriors fans. More hands went up than before.

He talked sincerely about wearing the team colors proudly, and paged back through his career. The night Wilt scored 100 points. Two trips to the Finals as a player – one as point guard to Wilt, and another on a Rick Barry-led team that lost to Wilt’s 76ers.

The subject of Chamberlain is unavoidable wherever Attles goes, and his story is the same whether he’s in private or polite company. Wilt was a gamer and focused during the season. The most carousing they did together was the occasional midnight movie. Wilt was also generous with his friends – when he got traded to the Sixers, he offered to let Attles drive his custom Rolls for the rest of the season.

He touched on his winning seasons as a coach in the 1970s, including the 1975 NBA Championship team that pulled one of the biggest Finals upsets ever. Throughout, Attles downplayed his role and talked about the stars, but it was still red meat for fans that have had one Playoff appearance in 15 years.

Suddenly he stopped and looked down at the girl.

“You don’t believe anything I’m saying, do you?”

Without changing expression, she shook her head.

As we walked out, Attles explained how he used a similar motivational tactic with his players after tough losses. He’d tell them to close their eyes, and then ask them to raise their hands if they left everything on the court. Regardless of their response, it had the desired effect.

We were nearly to the elevator when a woman who was inside the luxury suite chased Attles down. She looked to be in her late 20s.

“I just called my father and he is so jazzed about this. Thank you so much. It made my dad’s day.”

Attles’ undying loyalty to the Warriors was fostered by Franklin Mieuli, the owner who moved the team west.

It was Mieuli who fully integrated the team, who made Attles just the third black head coach in NBA history (after Bill Russell and Lenny Wilkens), and who yelled at Attles when Attles let him know that he was going to carry more black players on the roster than the season before.

To this day, Attles invariably calls his former boss Mr. Mieuli.

“Mr. Mieuli said, ‘just take the best players you can get.’ I didn’t care what they looked like, and neither did Mr. Meuli.”

After 13 ½ seasons behind the bench Attles was one of the 10 winningest coaches ever, with more than 550 regular-season victories.

As the GM, he helped build the foundation of the Warriors’ last winning era, drafting future Dream-Teamer Chris Mullin. But when Mieuli sold the team, Attles moved into the background.

Finally, with about 4 1/2 minutes left in the game and another Warriors loss all but in the books, the truth about The Destroyer came out. By the time he was pushed aside, Attles was burned out.

“See, I do have a bad temper,” he confessed. “I know that. And when you have a bad temper you have to watch yourself so you don’t get out of control. Because if I really get upset, I could be a very bad person. Either I’m going to get hurt or somebody else is going to get hurt. And with these guys being as big as they are, I’ll probably get hurt…

“It affected my family when everything started going bad. Where I live, I have a room where I keep all my music. When things were going badly, I would hole myself up in there and just play music – with my family still in the house. They knew when things weren’t going well. It was time.”

At the buzzer I thanked Attles for sharing his seats.

“Call me Al,” he said, smiling as he shook my hand. He was gripping it so hard, I nearly called him Mr. Attles again.

Fans started to filter up the aisle for a moment with the impenetrably gregarious Attles. It was a typical Bay Area socialocracy – they were male and female; gay and straight; black, white, Asian, and combinations thereof. A crowd that would not have been possible when Attles was drafted. Attles loved them all, and they loved him back.

Most of them probably couldn’t imagine that anybody would call him The Destroyer.

GAME NOTES

If you want to hear Alvin Attles for yourself (and decide if I was right about his voice), check out this excellent interview with him:

The post The Destroyer in Winter appeared first on SLAM.

It was, oh so quietly, a spectacular decade for basketball books. Definitive biographies of Wilt Chamberlain and Pete Maravich came our way; former greats put pen to paper (Bill Russell, Oscar Robertson, two lads named Magic and Bird); immortal teams, such as the ’67 Sixers, the ’69 Celtics, and the ’72 Lakers, all were eulogized in print; light was shed on the most damaging fight (Rudy T and Kermit) and the most incomprehensible individual achievement (Wilt’s 100) as both had entire books dedicated to them; the greatest of them all was a victim of excellent writing in a negative light; and one SI writer spent an entire season as an honorary “assistant” on the decade’s most viewable and enjoyable team – the 2006 Suns. So, yes, we’re in a good spot.

Yet, for all that we got out of the decade, no one book adequately captured today’s era. Sure, The Last Season chronicled the modern-day egos, Seven Seconds or Less painted (from the inside) a picture of the style of game that was cultivated and became the norm, and even Macrophenomenal showed how the game’s coverage has diversified, but no one book captured all of the elements. No, not even The Book of Basketball, which, as this site suggests, would be better consumed as a second edition.

One book that perhaps symbolized the potential of the era, with its personalities and closer-than-ever coverage, was Only the Strong Survive – Larry Platt’s book on Allen Iverson. AI is obviously layered with interest: Culturally, racially, basketball-wise, right down to the tremendous odds he overcame. But you feel shortchanged because it was written too early in Iverson’s career (2003) and the book is, shall I say, on the short side. Was a great opportunity missed? Ultimately, yes. The late David Halberstam, apparently, couldn’t write every relevant pro basketball book. The point is, perhaps a great basketball book can’t be written as the subject is current. Perhaps we need time, we need a chance to find perspective, let a little dust settle, before it can be properly summed up in book form. Basketball has never just been about the game – so why write a book on just “the game?” In the end, the best books of this decade were written with strong historical context.

So it seems appropriate that the best basketball book of the decade be overlooked in many ways. This publication had everything great in a sports book: A topic that has never been written about yet one that is well-known, a wider perspective is delved into (not enough authors look “around” their subject), it was exhaustively researched, and was excellently written. The Rivalry – Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and the Golden Age of Basketball, by John Taylor.

The title may leave you feeling warm and fuzzy, but in reality, the book isn’t just the documentation of the greatest rivalry this sport has seen – it examines the impact that two iconic black players had in an era where race and politics became tangled in professional basketball and probably meant more than they should have. It also outlines the tribulations that a still-somewhat-young NBA had; this was an NBA still surviving on double-headers, teams that had five employees, coaches that smoked on the sidelines, and a schedule that was made by a team owner. The author takes Russell vs. Chamberlain and gives us the broader perspective – the best books don’t just give us the facts, they put things in perspective. Taylor does that.

The Rivalry doesn’t shy away from issues that plagued both men during a difficult time in society.

It refers to Russell’s distaste for dealing with what he called “white thinking,” and his relationship with the Boston public, despite carting home a banner darn near every spring, was never a strong one. Yet, despite that relationship, the book also entails how Russell felt about being a Celtic: About the bond he shared with Red Auerbach, a bond that went deeper than player-coach, and about his deep affinity for his teammates. He bled green. Just like when they played, Russell and Chamberlain may appear as equals, but Russ is (in this book) the dominant figure.

The author notes in the acknowledgments that he was drawn to “the psychology of conflict.” Making sense of the complex relationship shared by William Felton and Wilton Norman was no small feat; they were friendly when they played, yet didn’t speak for the ensuing 20 years after their last on-court meeting. One was driven by unity, by chemistry, by winning, the other by numbers that would define him as great. The book indicates that Russell may have been driven by the fact nothing came easy to him at first – in the game of basketball, and, in the game of life. He was this close to landing a job as an apprentice at a sheet-metal company before going to college. Chamberlain, on the other hand, was perhaps softened by his elite status even as a high school prospect; the expectations and potential, the hype before we knew what hype was, always left us wanting more despite statistics of gargantuan proportions.

Bottom line is that The Rivalry is the definitive – the only – book on the Russell-Chamberlain joust. It’s a book that explains the surroundings just as much as the focal points, is more than just a tabulating strengths and weaknesses, and one that captures an era that in many ways shaped the game. The ultimate message of the book: If Magic and Bird saved the NBA, then Russell and Wilt made it a league worth saving. Read it.

***

For more Decade Awards, check out the archive.

The post Decade’s Best: Basketball Book appeared first on SLAM.

Fri-day! OK, it’s actually Thursday, but I’m traveling tomorrow and out of the office, so this is my last post for the week here. And we’ve got something very cool to give away…

• I went to a charity benefit thing last night and got to see an advance screening of Inglourious Basterds, which was really, really, really good. Check it out this weekend.

(And FWIW, Omar promises we’re going to get his blockbuster summer movie review tomorrow. Gangsta!)

• Yesterday I was thinking ahead to the SLAM NBA Preview, and I tweeted my initial Top 5 teams to get some reaction. I went with, in order, the Lakers, the Cavs, the Magic, Denver and Boston.

A lot of people thought Denver should be replaced with San Antonio, and maybe they should be. I just thought Denver became such a tenacious defensive team late last season, like they all finally bought into defense winning games, and I suspect that will carry over into this season. I know they lost Dahntay Jones and Linas Kleiza, who were important for them last year, but I don’t think those guys were irreplaceable. And that Kenyon/Nene/Birdman rotation in the post is for real.

The other question I got a lot of was how I could drop Orlando behind Cleveland, considering Orlando picked up Vince Carter, Brandon Bass and Jason Williams, which will seriously upgrade their bench. As I noted, yes, Orlando added better players. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they became a better team. I think that’s still up in the air. My man Kelly Dwyer said, “Name a team that added better players that didn’t improve? Don’t say 2000-01 Blazers, because they didn’t add better players.”

It’s a good point, but I have seen it happen, multiple times, even with my own Atlanta Hawks. When they added JR Rider? Didn’t get better. Moses Malone and Reggie Theus? Nope. In ’03-04, the Hawks added Stephen Jackson, who ended up leading the team in scoring, but they lost seven more games than the year before.

Yes, Orlando’s roster is unquestionably better than it was a year ago. But has Dwight Howard learned to shoot? Will Vince be able to fill in for Turkoglu? My other thought about Orlando is that it’s going to be really hard for them to improve. They won 59 games last year and went to the Finals. The only way they improve on that is by winning at least 60 games in an arguably better Conference, or by winning a championship. That’s it. And that, to me, seems like a pretty slim margin for improvement.

• I don’t know much about him, but it seems Nets CEO Brett Yormark could sell water to a well. (Or a whale, for you olski wolski LInkstigators.)

Not only are the Nets retaining all their sponsors from last season, but they also have 10 new sponsors? Imagine if the Nets were good!

• Here’s a funny video clip from the Howard Stern Show that Jimmy Traina ran today on Hot Clicks…

• And the guys from FreeDarko found this mesmerizing clip of 8 mm NBA footage from the ‘70s.

Some great Wilt Chamberlain footage about a third of the way in. It’s well worth watching on full screen mode.

• And finally, we have a contest. You may recall a few years ago, in Kicks 9, Kevin Garnett outed himself as a soccer fan. I’d heard that on a recent trip to Asia, KG had brought along his Xbox 360 and played FIFA the entire time. “I’m into Zidane with France, I’m a big Raul fan,” KG said. “Deco! Those are my guys.”

At the time, KG was more of a fan of FIFA than actual soccer (he was stumped when I asked him about Fernando Torres), but since then he’s apparently become a real futbol fan, and one of his favorite clubs is Chelsea FC. (I am trying really hard to not make a joke right here about how being a Chelsea fan reflects on KG’s taste. But I digress.)

To honor KG’s love for Chelski, adidas is dropping the adidas TS Commander LT x KG x CFC pack. It comes with a Chelsea version of the adidas TS Commander, a Chelsea jersey with Garnett 5 on the back (in the official EPL font, which is kinda fresh) and a Chelsea scarf. It will be mad limited and will only be available in Boston at Bodega.

That is, unless you’re a SLAMonline reader. I’ve got a Chelsea/Garnett jersey as well as one of the shoes autographed by KG sitting here on my desk.

Do you want ‘em? You can have ‘em. Seriously. Here’s how: Drop a comment down below and tell us why you deserve this KG swag.

That’s it. You’ve got until noon on Monday, when I’ll close the comments and pick a winner.

Have at it…

The post Links: Win Signed KG Stuff! appeared first on SLAM.

For the record I actually do enjoy watching him play and when we counted down the best players in the L, my post had Kobe at number 1 and I meant every word I said then and now.

Amidst all the March Madness, uh Madness, I know you noticed how he dropped back-to-back 50 plus games. He’ll have another before the season’s over, we all know that. I’ve already decided and converted others in saying Kobe is top 20. But now I’m thinking maybe higher than that. I’m thinking there are only 9 players who I would rather have on my team if everything depended on it. Not a measly 5 dollar bet with your boys. No, I mean say for instance in some weird situation (it will never happen but lets say it did okay?) your family was kidnapped and you could only win them back by winning a game of basketball. I mean, you could get them back with a battle plan and a sawed off but as Pun said, you ain’t a killa, so lets just nix that.

So its you and 3 people who aren’t players and for the 5th spot you could pick any one player in history. Are you saying that Kobe Bryant would not make that list? For me its Jordan, Shaq, Wilt, Magic, Dream, Kobe, Moses, Bird, Kareem and Dr. J. And i’m not even sure in what order. You wanna go big and just get Shaq first but what if they start hacking and he’s at the foul line. He says he won’t miss them when it counts, but I don’t know. I’d have to take MJ first and I guess Magic although if you need excess scoring you might consider Wilt then Kobe. Plus you’d need a defender against the other team too. So, still MJ comes up, then Dream. But the fact is that Kobe would be on your list. Don’t front. We ‘re not talking about hanging out after the game and worrying about if this guy is anti-social or not. I’m talking about winning.

The post Kobe Is Top 10 ALL-TIME. Accept it. appeared first on SLAM.