Remembering Earl "The Twirl" Cureton
Earl "The Twirl" Cureton passed away unexpectedly yesterday at the age of 66. The Detroit native had just substituted for Rick Mahorn on the Detroit Pistons radio network on Friday night, and Cureton was scheduled to call Sunday's game versus Orlando as well.
Cureton enjoyed a 12 season NBA career. Like many NBA role players, he was a star in college, averaging 16.2 ppg and 9.5 rpg in 81 games for Robert Morris and Detroit Mercy. Cureton scored 16 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in Detroit's 95-87 loss to Lamar in the 1979 NCAA Tournament. Cureton began his NBA career with the Philadelphia 76ers in 1980 and he played three seasons with the 76ers. Cureton was a teammate of Julius Erving's on Philadelphia's 1983 NBA championship team before playing for his hometown Detroit Pistons from 1983-1986. Cureton was Michael Jordan's teammate with the Chicago Bulls in 1986-87, and he also played for the L.A. Clippers, Charlotte Hornets, Houston Rockets, and Toronto Raptors in addition to playing pro ball in Italy, France, Venezuela, Mexico, and Argentina. Cureton only played in two regular season games for the 1994 Houston Rockets, but he served as an effective rotation player in 10 playoff games as they won the NBA title.
Most recently, Cureton worked as the Community Ambassador of the Detroit Pistons. His Pistons teammate Isiah Thomas issued this statement: "All of us are hurting. He was a tremendous teammate, tough competitor, a champion and a great human being. Earl always held the Detroit community close to his heart and worked tirelessly to make a difference for the city he loved. He will be greatly missed."
You can get a sense of Cureton's upbeat demeanor in this video during which he reminisces about his NBA career:
Cureton recalled that when he was growing up he had Julius Erving's posters on his wall, never dreaming that one day he would be Dr. J's teammate and play on a championship team with him. Cureton called Erving the "ambassador for the NBA. I think he was that player who set the standard for the league. A class act. He had a certain air about him. When he walked into a room, you knew Doc was in that room...Always gave 110% out there on the basketball court. You can't have a better role model than that..I think that he was the best at going to the basket. No other player that played in the league went to the basket like that."
The 1983 76ers--featuring Hall of Famers Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Maurice Cheeks, and Bobby Jones plus Hall of Fame caliber guard Andrew Toney--will always be my favorite team of all-time. They set the all-time record (since broken in the expanded playoff format) by going 12-1 in the playoffs, culminating in a 4-0 sweep of the defending champion L.A. Lakers. If you loved the 1983 76ers, you remember Cureton hitting a skyhook over Kareem Abdul-Jabbar after Malone got in foul trouble in game two of the 1983 NBA Finals. In the commemorative championship video, Erving good-naturedly joked to the post-game media scrum that Cureton will now become so famous that he won't be able to walk the streets of Detroit without being recognized, while Cheeks said Cureton had seen Abdul-Jabbar shoot the skyhook against him so many times that he probably figured he might as well do it once. The 76ers had fun along the way, but they never lost sight of their mission to get Erving his first NBA championship ring to go alongside his two ABA championship rings. Bruce Newman covered the series for Sports Illustrated during a golden era for the league (and the magazine).
Cureton is the third member of that squad to pass away. Mark McNamara passed away on April 27, 2020, and Moses Malone passed away on September 13, 2015. The 1983 76ers brought a lot of joy not just to Philadelphia but to the basketball world with their teamwork, their unselfishness, and their determined focus to complete their journey; in the three seasons prior to acquiring Malone, the 76ers lost to the L.A. Lakers in the NBA Finals in 1980 and 1982, and they lost in the 1981 Eastern Conference Finals after building a 3-1 lead versus the Boston Celtics.
The passage of time and the passages of life are sobering reminders of how important it is to cherish every moment of the journey.
Labels: Detroit Pistons, Earl Cureton, Hakeem Olajuwon, Houston Rockets, Isiah Thomas, Julius Erving, Michael Jordan, Philadelphia 76ers
posted by David Friedman @ 4:32 PM
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