Jalen Rose's Mixed Messages
Jalen Rose often provides insightful commentary and analysis, but he made some baffling statements yesterday on the "Jalen & Jacoby" show. Rose expressed concern and disdain about Michael Jordan's reported role as a mediator between the NBA owners and the NBA players during
the NBA strike. Rose noted that Jordan is the only black person who is a majority owner of an NBA team, and Rose suggested that it seems like white owners are not comfortable talking to a group of predominantly black players so the owners sent Jordan to speak on their behalf.
I am baffled by Rose's criticism, though I am reminded of the
racially charged comments directed toward Grant Hill by Jalen Rose and several of Rose's college teammates. Rose and others consistently assert that there are not enough majority owners who are black in sports where the majority of players are black. Rose and others consistently assert that diversity is important so that players can see owners who look like they do, who have had experiences like they have had, and who can serve as role models for other black people to become owners and executives. We are also told that there are not enough black head coaches, and that only black head coaches can relate to black athletes.
Given those assertions, one would assume that Rose would be thrilled that a majority owner who is black is playing a pivotal role in resolving the strike. If no black owners were involved then it is almost certain that Rose would assert that at a critical time like this there should be a black voice among the owners. Now, there is a black owner, and Rose diminishes Jordan's credibility by asserting that Jordan is taking a major role not because of Jordan's earned status as a great player and successful businessman but rather as a messenger for the white owners. If a white commentator had expressed Rose's take, that white commentator would rightly be accused of racism for judging Jordan not on his merits as a person but rather for the color of his skin.
Rose's take begins with speculation--I have seen no reports suggesting that white owners felt that they could not communicate with black players--and ends with demeaning Jordan (that may not have been Rose's intention, but that is the plain meaning of what Rose said). Also, contrary to Rose's assumption that white owners would not be comfortable speaking with black players, Milwaukee's owners publicly expressed full support for their striking players; that is just one example, and I am sure that there are other examples.
In an ideal world, opportunities to coach, to be an executive, and to be an owner would be available to whoever is most qualified to fill those roles regardless of race, religious preference, political affiliation, or any other categorization that is not related to competency. In an ideal world, a commentator would not assume that a prominent owner who is successfully mediating between the players and the owners was put in position to do so primarily because of his race. When I first heard reports about Jordan serving a mediating role I assumed that he is uniquely qualified not because of his race, but because he is the only person in the room who has experience both as a player and as an owner.
It is bizarre that Rose repeatedly states that there are not enough black coaches, executives, and owners, and then he makes statements that undermine Jordan's status as an important leader who helped resolve the NBA strike.
Rose is wrong about Jordan, and he is also wrong to simply state that we need more blacks in certain roles. We don't need more black coaches, executives, and owners, nor do we need fewer black coaches, executives, and owners. We need to make sure that the playing field is level in terms of opportunity. To the extent that the playing field is not equal, steps need to be taken to level the playing field. Bill Russell, K.C. Jones, and Lenny Wilkens are three examples of black players who received NBA coaching opportunities and rewarded their teams with at least one championship each. Masai Ujiri is arguably the best front office executive in the NBA. Michael Jordan has not been the most successful NBA owner, but he is certainly not the least successful owner, either.
No objective person who has any sense or knowledge doubts that there are black people who can be productive coaches, executives, and owners--but there should not be some arbitrary number to determine that there are "enough" coaches, executives, and owners who are black. It is a slippery slope to say that there are not "enough," as opposed to focusing on removing barriers to equality. How many would be "enough" and how many would be "too many" regarding one racial group or another?
Also, speaking of being a mediator or a leader, Rose did not say anything about LeBron James but it is fascinating to see and hear the reports regarding LeBron James' role in the NBA strike. In contrast to Jordan's productive contribution, it has been reported that James walked out of the initial players' meeting on Wednesday, and then in subsequent meetings he spoke last--after an action plan had already been formed and agreed upon--and talked down to the other players. In the days, weeks, and months to come we will no doubt learn more about exactly what happened, but these descriptions of James' shortcomings as a leader align with
previous reports about James' shortcomings as a leader in the Olympics, with Cleveland, and with Miami. James is extraordinarily talented, and he has accomplished a lot, but the forced narrative about him being a great leader does not withstand even cursory scrutiny.
Labels: Grant Hill, Jalen Rose, LeBron James, Michael Jordan
posted by David Friedman @ 1:10 AM
Thoughts and Observations About the 2018 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Enshrinement Ceremony
In my article Maurice Cheeks, Charlie Scott and Rod Thorn Are Among the Basketball Hall of Fame's Newest Members, I focused on three of the 13 members of the Basketball Hall of Fame's 2018 class. Last night, those men and their classmates were officially enshrined.
Grant Hill was enshrined first. He and 2018 Hall of Fame classmate Jason Kidd will forever be linked not only as co-Rookies of the Year in 1995 but also as unselfish, all-around players who focused first and foremost on team success. Hill alluded to his tendency to be verbose and joked that his wife had urged him to remember the "Five Bs: Be brief, brother, be brief." Turning serious, Hill said that he "fell in love with the game of basketball" by watching Patrick Ewing dominate in both college and the NBA. Hill called Ewing his "basketball hero." Ewing and Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski were Hill's two presenters. Hill thanked Coach Krzyzewski for providing the "blueprint" for success. Next, Hill mentioned Isiah Thomas. Hill seemed uncertain whether or not Thomas was in attendance (perhaps that is why he did not choose Thomas as a presenter as well) but as soon as Hill realized that Thomas was in the building he called him up to the stage and embraced Thomas, who he called a "hero, a friend and an advocate for me." Hill thanked Alonzo Mourning for providing the inspiration for how to come back from health problems/injuries. Hill became emotional when he thanked his parents for how they raised him and when he acknowledged his two daughters and his wife. Hill asked his wife if his speech had been short enough and he promised that the other enshrinees' speeches would be shorter.
Rod Thorn spoke next. He was presented by Jerry West. Thorn thanked the Hall of Fame and Jerry Colangelo in particular. Thorn singled out three Hall of Famers who had a special impact on him: Bob ("Slick") Leonard, Richie Guerin and Lenny Wilkens.
Younger fans may not remember or know that Thorn was a collegiate star at West Virginia who was selected by the Baltimore Bullets with the second overall pick in the 1963 NBA Draft. Thorn played eight seasons in the NBA before becoming a coach, general manager and league executive. After injuries forced him to retire from playing, Thorn considered going to law school before Kevin Loughery offered him a job as an assistant coach with the New York Nets in the ABA. Thorn recalled, "I knew in my heart I wasn't ready to let the game go."
Thorn said that since his career started as a player he wanted to mention three players "who all had a profound impact on my life": Julius Erving, Michael Jordan and Jason Kidd. Thorn said of Erving, "In 1974, my first season with the Nets, we won the league championship, sparked by the incomparable Julius Erving, who led the team in nearly every statistical category. Night after night, he would perform such incredible athletic feats that would have Kevin and I looking at each other and exclaiming, 'I cannot believe he just did that.' As great as Doc was as a player, he was equally good as a teammate. Thank you Doc for proving that superheroes can be humans, too."
These comments reinforce what Thorn told me over a decade ago about Erving: "I think that he was the best teammate of all the players I've been
involved with in 40-plus years of NBA basketball. He was our leading
scorer, our leading rebounder, our leading shot blocker, our leading
assist guy--you name it, he led our team in it, plus he was the leader of
our team. He guarded the best forward every night, whether it was a
small forward or a big forward. He took most of the big shots. Not only
was he a great player, but more importantly he was a great teammate. He had great lateral quickness and he was a tremendous jumper. He was a
tough guy--that is one thing that is not talked about that much when you
talk about Julius, because of his great athleticism, but he was a tough
guy. I mean he would physically get after guys and play hard. He took a
challenge. He played 43-44 minutes a game for us and guarded the best
guy on the other team every night and was our leading scorer, so the
energy that he expended during a game was much more than the average
player did. It was just phenomenal what he did."
As the Chicago Bulls' general manager, Thorn drafted Michael Jordan.
Thorn joked that without Jordan he would not have a Wikipedia page and
he would not have people sending him items to autograph asking for his
signature and "by the way" asking for Jordan's signature as well.
Thorn
won the 2002 NBA Executive of the Year Award after acquiring Kidd and
building the Nets into a championship contender. Thorn recalled that when he rejoined the Nets, "The team had challenges defending, rebounding and passing, which as you know are the ingredients of a 26 win season." After trading for Kidd, Thorn's Nets won 52 games, one of the best one season turnarounds in league history.
Maurice Cheeks followed Thorn. In the video tribute before Cheeks spoke, Erving said, "He had a very, very high basketball IQ. He was a champion, he was an All-Star and I loved playing with him." Erving and Billy Cunningham presented Cheeks. Cheeks is known as a quiet man of few words but he gave the most emotionally gripping speech of the evening. He opened by saying, "This is amazing and Grant, you're right, this will be short." Cheeks credited his experiences growing up on the South Side of Chicago for teaching him to look out for others as others had looked out for him. He said, "My life has been a string of small moments that led to amazing experiences." Cheeks mentioned his high school teammate William Dise, who was a highly recruited player who signed with West Texas State on condition that the school also sign Cheeks, a skinny and lightly recruited prospect. Cheeks said that his career would have gone much differently if not for Dise.
Cheeks thanked Coach Cunningham and said that he was the kind of coach that you never wanted to let down. Cheeks praised Erving for teaching him how to be a pro and Cheeks also thanked his veteran teammates Andrew Toney, Moses Malone, Bobby Jones, Caldwell Jones, and Henry Bibby. Cheeks said, "Over the years I have had many reasons to thank the Lord and two of them are my beautiful kids...I'm proud to be your dad and I love you both." Cheeks thanked his three brothers, one of whom was murdered in 1991. Cheeks started to get emotional at that point and mentioned that Charles Barkley told him not to cry but Cheeks broke down when he talked about "my very first coach, Mama Cheeks" and all that she did for him and their family--including calling out Maurice's name and his brothers' names so that they would come inside when it got dark. Mama Cheeks attended the ceremony and she looked very proud. As Cheeks wept, Erving walked over, gently grabbed his shoulders and said softly, "Come on Mo, you can do it," lending a helping hand much like Cheeks had lent a helping hand to National Anthem singer Natalie Gilbert years ago. I felt as a kid that the 76ers were a special team with special people and moments like this just confirm that. I am so blessed to have watched that team and then to have had the opportunity to interview Erving, Cunningham, Jones and Pat Williams. Cheeks concluded by thanking the Hall of Fame for "thinking enough of my contributions to the sport to select me for such an honor. I cannot think of a better way to celebrate my 40 years in the NBA and my 62nd birthday (on Saturday). Thank you and God bless."
Later in the program, Charlie Scott was presented by Jerry Colangelo, Dave Cowens, Julius Erving, Spencer Haywood and Roy Williams. During the video tribute to Scott, Erving noted, "He broke the color barrier very much like Jackie Robinson did (in baseball), except it was getting a basketball scholarship to the University of North Carolina and integrating the school. Charlie Scott was a monster on the basketball court. He could score inside, he could score outside."
Scott began by explaining how he selected his presenters. He said that they were each friends of his for over 40 years. Scott joked that his wife said if they have known him for 40 years and still speak to him then they all deserve to be on the stage with him. "This is an honor that I always dreamed of but could never imagine happening," Scott declared. He called Dean Smith "My mentor and the person who I admire the most in my life." Scott thanked his North Carolina teammates, including Larry Miller, for standing beside him during the sometimes difficult racial integration process. He individually thanked each of his presenters. Regarding Erving and Cowens, the never hesitant to shoot Scott quipped that he helped each of them become great rebounders.
Scott concluded by thanking his wife and children. He said that he once asked a friend to describe him honestly, good and bad. Scott asked his family to raise their hands if they disagreed with this characterization: "People sometimes might take your aloofness as arrogance. You can become very demanding in getting your way. You don't know when to let things go. You never give compliments. You think you're always right....The shocker was his next sentence: Let me tell you about your bad points!" Scott paused after each point and noted that no one in his family raised their hands. He laughed and said, "This was the individual you had to deal with. Your unconditional love and understanding have been my North Star."
In 2015, I wondered if Julius Erving had been a Hall of Fame presenter more than anyone else. At that time, Erving had been selected as a presenter nine times. Now, including last night, he has been a presenter 14 times (9/11/21 note: I just added Alex English to this list after confirming that Erving was English's presenter):
1995: Presented Cheryl Miller
1996: None
1997: Alex English
1998-2000: None
2001: Presented Moses Malone
2002-2003: None
2004: Presented Clyde Drexler
2005: None
2006: Presented Dominique Wilkins
2007-2010: None
2011: Presented Artis Gilmore
2012: Presented Katrina McClain, Ralph Sampson and the All-American Red Heads
2013-2014: None
2015: Presented John Calipari
2016: Presented Allen Iverson and Shaquille O'Neal
2017: None
2018: Presented Maurice Cheeks and Charlie Scott
That list of names spans multiple generations and includes teammates, opponents and players who grew up idolizing Erving. What a tribute to Erving's deep and continuing impact on the sport!
There is a lot of depth to Ray Allen beyond his basketball accomplishments. When you read his words or listen to him speak you understand that he is a remarkable person, not just a great basketball player. Allen spoke repeatedly of the dedication, discipline, perfectionism and sacrifice that it takes to become a great individual player and to become a two-time NBA champion. Those words resonate and are true but what resonated the most is when he talked about his children. Allen was the only enshrinee who talked to/about each of his children specifically and described why each child is so special to him. Allen emphatically declared, "All of you kids are my greatest legacy. I learned in life that our kids pay attention to everything we do, everything we say and everything we don't say and everything we don't do. So I have to be an example to these young people at all times and we got to make sure that we are an example to the kids in our lives at all times, because we do set the tone and the example in all of our communities."
Allen also said, "I don't believe in talent. I'm here because I worked hard my whole life. Without that work, no one in this room would know who I am except my family. So to all the kids around the world watching, paying attention and aspiring to be like us or even on this stage, put the work in and watch the magical ride you go on."
Labels: Basketball Hall of Fame, Charlie Scott, Grant Hill, Isiah Thomas, Julius Erving, Maurice Cheeks, Mike Krzyzewski, Patrick Ewing, Ray Allen, Rod Thorn
posted by David Friedman @ 10:15 PM
Hill, Kidd Retirements Mark End of an Era
Grant Hill and Jason Kidd entered the NBA together 19 years ago, they shared the 1994-95 Rookie of the Year award and now they have retired just a few days apart, with Grant Hill making his announcement Saturday night on TNT and Jason Kidd issuing a press release today.
Hill was a durable player early in his career--missing just five games from 1995-99--but a severe ankle injury and resulting surgical complications kept him out of all but 47 games from 2000-2003. He bounced back in 2005 to earn his seventh and final All-Star selection before enjoying several productive seasons as a role player in Phoenix, missing only three games from 2009-2011. Hill averaged at least 20 ppg for five straight seasons and he finished third in MVP voting in 1996-97 when he averaged 21.4 ppg, 9.0 rpg and 7.3 apg; that season he earned his only All-NBA First Team selection but he also made the All-NBA Second Team four times. He was the leading vote getter for the All-Star Game in 1995 and 1996, one of just 10 players to receive the most votes in at least two seasons.
In addition to his tremendous on court skills/accomplishments, Hill has represented himself well off of the court and
he very eloquently responded to the unfortunate comments Jalen Rose made during the "Fab Five" documentary.
Grant Hill averaged 16.7 ppg, 6.0 rpg and 4.1 apg in his 1026 game NBA career; that sustained productivity, combined with his great college career at Duke, should earn him induction in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Jason Kidd posted some great statistics during his career--he ranks second on the career list for both assists and steals and the player once known as "ason" (because he had no "J") ranks third on the career list for three pointers made--but his impact could never be solely defined by numbers: Kidd is a
winner and a champion and--from high school to college to the NBA to Team USA--every squad that he joined became better and every squad that he left became worse. Kidd played an important role for the
2011 NBA Champion Dallas Mavericks and he posted a 46-0 record in FIBA play, no small feat during an era when Team USA often faltered during international competition.
The Nets have a glorious ABA heritage but they were a sad sack NBA franchise until Kidd arrived in the 2001-02 season and promptly led them to back to back NBA Finals appearances; Kidd finished second in the 2002 MVP voting and even though Tim Duncan is a bigger--and therefore more dominant--player one could argue that few players in history have meant more to their particular team than Kidd meant to those 2002 Nets.
Kidd led the NBA in assists five times during a six year run in the late 1990s/early 2000s and he ranked in the top 10 in that category for 17 straight seasons. He made the All-NBA First Team five times and he earned four All-Defensive First Team selections. He ranks third in regular season triple doubles (107) behind Magic Johnson and Oscar Robertson and he ranks second in playoff triple doubles (11) behind Magic Johnson; in 2007 Kidd posted one of the most exceptional postseason triple doubles ever:
16 points, 19 assists, 16 rebounds, just the third 15-15-15 triple double in NBA playoff history. Kidd twice averaged a triple double for an entire playoff series; Wilt Chamberlain (twice) and Magic Johnson (four times) are the only other players who averaged a triple double for more than one playoff series.
Kidd averaged 12.6 ppg, 8.7 apg and 6.3 rpg in 1291 games but it must be emphasized again that his impact was far greater than those numbers might suggest; Kidd was the best point guard in the NBA for an extended period of time--and a top five player overall--so he should be a first ballot Basketball Hall of Famer.
Labels: Grant Hill, Jason Kidd
posted by David Friedman @ 4:02 PM
Should Fans Select the All-Star Starters?
Every year around this time, the NBA All-Star starters are announced and someone--often it is Charles Barkley--delivers a rant about how terrible it is that the fans choose the All-Star starters. The All-Star voting process is obviously subjective even during a normal season--balloting begins shortly after the season starts and long before a significant sample of games have been played--and that process is even more subjective during this season because of the
truncated yet overstuffed 2011-12 NBA schedule. Many fans no doubt vote for their favorite players as opposed to objectively choosing the two best forwards, two best guards and the best center in each conference but even granting the inherent limitations and fallibility of this process the actual results were hardly terrible: LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, Derrick Rose and Dwyane Wade will start for the East, while Kevin Durant, Blake Griffin, Andrew Bynum, Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul will start for the West. One could quibble that Chris Bosh and Kevin Love should have been chosen over Anthony and Griffin respectively but starting in an All-Star Game is a subjective honor (unlike, for instance, the distinction between making the All-NBA First Team and the All-NBA Second Team or the All-NBA Third Team) and when we look back at a player's career we do not consider how many times he started in an All-Star Game but merely how many times he was selected overall; as long as the fans choose five players who are worthy of being ranked among the top 12 players in each conference there is not a problem, because the league's coaches will fill out the roster by selecting the other seven All-Stars.
It is interesting to look back at the history of fan All-Star voting, specifically in terms of the players who have most often been the leading vote getters since the fans began selecting the All-Star starters in 1975. A total of 10 players have been the leading All-Star vote getter at least twice:
Michael Jordan: 9 (1987-93, 1997-98)
Julius Erving: 4 (1978, 1981-83)
Vince Carter: 4 (2000-2002, 2004)
George Gervin: 2 (1979-80)
Magic Johnson: 2 (1985-86)
Grant Hill: 2 (1995-96)
Kobe Bryant: 2 (2003, 2011)
Yao Ming: 2 (2005-2006)
LeBron James: 2 (2007, 2010)
Dwight Howard: 2 (2009, 2012)
Looking at that list, it is clear that the fans really have not done that badly at all. Being the leading vote getter is not just merely a product of popularity nor does it necessarily mean that the fans considered that player to be the best player in the league at the time; one must also consider the competition (or lack thereof) in a given season at a particular position: Dwight Howard won the overall 2012 vote in a landslide because the Eastern Conference is almost totally devoid of legit All-Star caliber centers. The same is true to an even greater extent regarding Andrew Bynum in the Western Conference; Bynum has performed solidly--and actually stayed healthy--so far this season but his numbers (and, more importantly, his impact on the game) do not measure up to standards set by the great players who have been All-Star starters back when the NBA actually had several legit back to the basket centers roaming the paint.
Most of the leading vote getters listed above were truly elite players during the years they received the most votes. Jordan's credentials do not even need to be mentioned. Erving won the 1981 regular season MVP and he made the All-NBA First Team each of the four seasons that he topped the fan voting. Carter's popularity as an exciting dunker clearly helped him in the balloting but he also made the All-NBA Third Team in 2000 and the All-NBA Second Team in 2001. Carter likely would have made the All-NBA Team again in 2002 if injuries had not limited him drastically in the second half of the season (i.e., after the All-Star balloting had taken place); it was more than a bit of a stretch for Carter to be the top vote getter in 2004 but he still deserved a spot on the squad. The high scoring George Gervin was undoubtedly a fan favorite but there was also a lot of substance to his game: he made the All-NBA First Team in both 1979 and 1980 and during that era he was a perennial MVP contender, finishing second in MVP voting in both 1978 and 1979 and ranking third in MVP voting in 1980. Like Jordan, Magic Johnson's credentials do not need to be explained to even a casual fan. Grant Hill's popularity undoubtedly helped him gain votes in 1995 as a rookie but he also proved to be an excellent player that season, setting the stage for his All-NBA Second Team selection in 1996. Kobe Bryant was an All-NBA First Team member and top five MVP candidate both of the years that he led the fan voting. Yao Ming is widely regarded as a beneficiary of the Chinese vote via the internet but by 2005 the West was largely devoid of legit All-Star caliber centers (Shaquille O'Neal had just been traded from the L.A. Lakers to the Miami Heat and the remaining top West bigs were really power forwards, not true centers); in 2006, Yao was one of the league's few 20 ppg-10 rpg performers and he made the All-NBA Third Team. Both LeBron James and Dwight Howard have been fixtures on the All-NBA First Team for several years.
The All-Star selection process is not perfect--no system designed by humans is perfect--but it works pretty well: fans are provided the opportunity to vote for the All-Star starters not with the expectation that they will provide definitive rankings of the top five players in each conference but rather with the expectation that they will select the five top players in each conference that they most want to see perform in the All-Star Game; it is then up to the coaches to fill out the rosters with the remaining top seven players in each conference.
Labels: Dwight Howard, George Gervin, Grant Hill, Julius Erving, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, NBA All-Star Game, Vince Carter, Yao Ming
posted by David Friedman @ 5:22 AM
Echoes from Laettner's Shot Still Reverberate 20 Years Later
Gene Wojciechowski's new book
The Last Great Game: Duke vs. Kentucky and the 2.1 Seconds That Changed Basketball meticulously details the circumstances and aftermath of Christian Laettner's game-winning shot against Kentucky in the 1992 NCAA East Regional Final. Wojciechowski begins with the most strategically surprising aspect of that play--Kentucky Coach Rick Pitino did not deploy a defender to contest Grant Hill's inbounds pass--before providing tremendous historical context about a great game that culminated with one of the most indelible moments in sports history.
After hooking the reader with a brief account of the astonishment that basketball observers--including Dick Vitale, Jalen Rose and P.J. Carlesimo--felt about Pitino's defensive strategy on the final play of the game, Wojciechowski circles back in time to describe how Pitino and Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski first arrived at their respective schools and how they both rebuilt programs that had fallen on hard times.
Krzyzewski recently set the all-time NCAA record for career wins (breaking the mark held by Bobby Knight, who coached Krzyzewski at West Point), a feat that seemed unimaginable in the early 1980s when Duke alumni and fans demanded that Athletic Director Tom Butters fire Krzyzewski. The Krzyzewski era at Duke hardly got off to a rousing start; in his first three years, the Blue Devils failed to qualify for the NCAA Tournament and set the school's single season loss record. Krzyzewski's 1-6 head to head record against Tobacco Road rival North Carolina during this period exasperated Duke partisans.
Duke started out 8-0 in 1984 and posted a 15-1 overall mark before losing four straight ACC games. Butters arranged a meeting with Krzyzewski and said, "Mike, we've got a problem. The problem is we've got a public that doesn't know how good you are. We've got a press that's too damn dumb to tell them how good you are. But my greatest problem is that I've got a coach who I'm not sure knows how good he is." Butters then offered Krzyzewski a five year contract extension. The Blue Devils earned their first NCAA Tournament berth of the Krzyzewski era with a 24-10 record and two years later they advanced to the NCAA Championship Game. It is easy to focus on the "lead actor" when telling the story of a famous person's life but without the encouragement of a "supporting actor" like Butters the world may never have had the opportunity to see Krzyzewski's greatness fully blossom.
Pitino arrived at Kentucky right after the program narrowly avoided the so-called death penalty in the wake of 18 violations committed during the Eddie Sutton regime (Sutton was not directly implicated, though it is difficult to believe that he had no idea what was going on under his watch, including the fact that his assistant Dwane Casey--who is now the coach of the Toronto Raptors--sent $1000 to the father of recruit Chris Mills). Pitino, after a quick rise through the collegiate ranks, had recently turned the New York Knicks into a legitimate contender but he was locked in a power struggle with General Manager Al Bianchi. At first Pitino was not sure if he wanted to relocate his family from New York to Kentucky and Kentucky Athletic Director C.M. Newton turned his attention to P.J. Carlesimo, who had just led Seton Hall to an NCAA Championship Game loss to Michigan. It seemed like Kentucky was on the verge of hiring Carlesimo when a funny thing happened: someone decided that Carlesimo's beard was weird and that it would not work to have a bearded Northerner helming the Wildcats. Suddenly, Carlesimo stated that he never really had been interested in leaving Seton Hall and the Wildcats were back to square one. Pitino had turned down the job the first time Newton offered it but upon further consideration Pitino accepted the offer and boldly promised to lead the disgraced program to a national title.
Krzyzewski coached Duke to runner-up finishes in the NCAA Tournament in 1986 and 1990 before capturing his first NCAA title in 1991. Pitino's first Kentucky squad went 14-14 in 1990 but his 1991 team improved to 22-6. Both teams entered the 1992 season with legitimate championship aspirations and those aspirations collided on March 29, 1992 in the NCAA East Regional Final as the teams battled to earn a Final Four berth.
Duke was led by Christian Laettner, who was perceived as a sneering rich kid who played with an edge, the kind of player who you hated if he was on the other team and might have still found irritating at times even if he was on your own team. Laettner actually did not come from a wealthy family and the first time he made it to the Final Four with Duke his parents skipped that month's mortgage payment in order to travel to Seattle to watch him play in person. Although Laettner was wrongly viewed by some as a kid who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, the perception of his edginess was quite correct; Laettner grew up playing against older and bigger opponents, so he quickly learned how to take (and give) blows and he would not back down from anyone. Jamal Mashburn, a dynamic offensive player who could both score in the paint and nail the three point shot, led Kentucky. Both Laettner and Mashburn would later make the NBA All-Star team; several other players from both teams eventually played in the NBA, including Duke's Grant Hill, who made the All-Star team seven times and has recovered from a serious ankle injury to still be a productive player in 2012 at the age of 39.
Duke entered the 1992 East Regional Final as a solid favorite against Kentucky but Pitino thought that his team had a good chance to pull off the upset based on three factors: (1) Even though Duke had the more talented team, Pitino believed that Mashburn would prove to be the single best player on the court; (2) Kentucky's unique style--based on applying intense defensive pressure and shooting a lot of three pointers--would pose problems for Duke; (3) Duke had not played in many close games, so if Kentucky stayed in contact and gained confidence then the Wildcats could go on a game-winning run in the closing minutes. Pitino felt that if he employed the pressure defense too early in the game then Duke's starters would have enough energy to fight through it--thus gaining confidence while also deflating Kentucky's confidence--but if Kentucky could keep the score close without the pressure defense and then apply pressure in the final 10 minutes the Blue Devils might get rattled and/or fatigued.
The game unfolded according to Pitino's plan. Kentucky took an early 20-12 lead and only trailed 50-45 at halftime. Duke pulled ahead 67-55 by the 11:08 mark of the second half and at that point Pitino called a timeout in order to instruct his players to apply the pressure defense the rest of the way. Kentucky sliced Duke's lead to 67-63 in a little over a minute. Two minutes later, momentum could have--and should have--swung Kentucky's way after Laettner stepped on fallen Kentucky player Aminu Timberlake, an action that was worthy of ejection; however, the game officials elected to simply hit Laettner with a technical foul. Kentucky's players neither appreciated that ruling nor the fact that Laettner seemed to have singled out the one player--a skinny, well-mannered freshman--who would not respond confrontationally (that is the kind of move that Kevin Garnett and Kenyon Martin later became well known for in the NBA, taking a verbal and/or physical shot at a younger, smaller opponent while studiously avoiding confrontations with tough guys who would not tolerate such conduct).
The game was tightly contested the rest of the way and the outcome would not be decided until the final 2.1 seconds of overtime. If you are a true basketball fan then you have already seen Grant Hill's full court pass followed by Christian Laettner's game-winning shot many times but Wojciechowski's
The Last Great Game does an excellent job of not only recreating one of the seminal moments in college basketball but also giving the reader an understanding of the thoughts, emotions and motivations of the participants from both sides of this dramatic contest.
Although Laettner's shot ended the game, it did not end that season and does not end the book; the Blue Devils still needed to win two more games to complete their run of back to back titles and Duke accomplished this by knocking off Indiana and the upstart, Fab Five-led Michigan Wolverines. Wojciechowski takes the reader behind the scenes of both of those games as well.
Should Pitino have put a defender on Hill to contest that fateful inbounds pass? Wojciechowski exaggerates a bit when he deems this "the eternal basketball question" but he is right this question is not easy to answer. Pitino's thinking at the time was that if he put a defender on Hill then Hill might run the baseline and Duke could employ an old strategy of Dean Smith's, placing a screener in the defender's path to try to draw a foul. Pitino considered the long pass to be a low percentage play whether or not it was contested and thus preferred to sandwich Laettner with two defenders; unfortunately for Kentucky, those defenders--concerned about being called for a foul--played very tentatively and gave Laettner plenty of room to catch the ball, take a rhythm dribble and launch a very controlled shot.
Pitino, who led Kentucky to a National Championship in 1996, casually dismisses the strategic question: "People make too much of it."
Errata1) On page 61, the text states that Christian Laettner "made his official Duke playing debut November 19, 1998, at the Tipoff Classic in Springfield, Massachusetts." Laettner's freshman year began in 1988, not 1998.
2) There are multiple references to a 1988-89 Duke senior named "Smith" but his first name is not directly mentioned in the text (it is indirectly referred to in a quote) nor is he listed in the book's Index (John Smith is the full name of the player in question).
3) On page 114, the 6-8 Billy Owens is referred to as a guard. While Owens did handle the ball like a guard, he played forward at Syracuse and should thus have been described as a forward (in the NBA, Owens played both forward and guard but the book is referring to his college career).
Labels: Christian Laettner, Duke, Gene Wojciechowski, Grant Hill, Jamal Mashburn, Kentucky, Mike Krzyzewski, Rick Pitino
posted by David Friedman @ 2:45 AM
Grant Hill's Open Letter About ESPN's Fab Five Film Speaks Volumes
ESPN's "Fab Five" documentary examined the impact that Michigan's 1991 freshman class had not only on college basketball but society in general. During the film, the four members of the Fab Five who participated in the project* graphically described how they felt about the Duke basketball program and some of Duke's players. The opinions that the Michigan players expressed--specifically that the Duke players lacked toughness and that the black Duke players were "Uncle Toms" (a powerfully negative allegation for one black person to hurl against another black person)--are ignorant; the Duke players proved their toughness by beating the Fab Five every time Duke faced Michigan (including the 1992 NCAA Championship Game) and the "Uncle Tom" slur is ridiculous: less than four decades ago, Civil Rights leaders marched and died precisely for the purpose of ensuring that blacks would have equal opportunities in the educational system and the work force, so it is foolish to belittle anyone who correctly took advantage of opportunities to create a better life for himself and his family. Duke star Grant Hill was singled out for a lot of verbal abuse by the Fab Five players and he authored an eloquent response that refuted everything they said without personally attacking them; frankly, if I were in Hill's shoes I am not sure I would have made such a measured response. Here is a brief selection from Hill's essay:
I come from a strong legacy of black Americans. My namesake, Henry Hill, my father’s father, was a day laborer in Baltimore. He could not read or write until he was taught to do so by my grandmother. His first present to my dad was a set of encyclopedias, which I now have to remind me of the importance of education. He wanted his only child, my father, to have a good education, so he made numerous sacrifices to see that he got an education, including attending Yale. This is part of our great tradition as black Americans. We aspire for the best or better for our children and work hard to make that happen for them. Jalen’s mother is part of our great, black tradition and made the same sacrifices for him.
It is unbeknownst to me what Jalen meant by his convoluted reference to black players at Duke considering how little he knows about any of them. My teammates—all of them, black and white—were a band of brothers who came together to play at the highest level for the best coach in basketball...My mother always says, “You can live without Chaucer and you can live without calculus, but you cannot make it in the wide, wide world without common sense.” As we get older, we understand the importance of these words. Adulthood is nothing but a series of choices: you can say yes or no, but you cannot avoid saying one or the other. In the end, those who are successful are those who adjust and adapt to the decisions they have made and make the best of them.You can read Hill's complete rebuttal
here.While Hill focused specifically on the slurs that the Fab Five directed toward him and his teammates, Jason Whitlock
declares that the "Fab Five" film rewrites history:
The legacy of the Fab Five is that they were on the cutting edge of America’s unashamed embrace of style over substance... The Fab Five are taking credit for the real accomplishments of John Thompson’s and Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown Hoyas.It was Thompson’s all-black, Ewing-led teams a decade before the Fab Five that shook the foundation of college basketball, changed the complexion of starting lineups across the country, opened coaching doors that had previously been closed to blacks and paved the way for black sportswriters at major newspapers.It's easy to forgive Rose for his lack of self-awareness. It's America. In this country, self-awareness and common sense are our most rare commodities.What's not easy to excuse is the clueless robbery of what Thompson, Ewing, Bill Martin, Reggie Williams, Horace Broadnax and David Wingate accomplished.They won championships--conference and national. They scared and intimidated the establishment. They were the inner-city black kids who left a legacy of jobs and playing opportunities for other impoverished minorities that exposes the lack of substance in the fads popularized by the Fab Five."Hoya Paranoia" is the story that deserves celebration and should serve as a teaching tool. Fab Five is a safe, harmless story celebrating black kids for choosing style over substance.-----
*Chris Webber, who later pleaded guilty to a criminal contempt charge relating to his false testimony about hundreds of thousands of dollars that he received from booster Ed Martin, declined to be associated in any way with the film. The court fined Webber $100,000 and ordered him to perform 300 hours of community service; the NBA suspended Webber for three games without pay after Webber pleaded guilty.
Labels: Chris Webber, Duke, Fab Five, Grant Hill, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, Michigan, Ray Jackson
posted by David Friedman @ 4:48 AM
Great Players Can Never Play in Fear of Turnovers
The Phoenix Suns beat the Chicago Bulls 112-102 in fairly routine fashion: they pushed the ball up the court, they made a lot of three pointers (10), they built a big lead (15 points), they squandered the entire lead in the second half and then they put the Bulls away with a barrage of jumpers and backdoor cuts. The Suns are a hard team to handle in the regular season, particularly in Phoenix; the Bulls outrebounded them by seven and still lost by 10 points. The eternal question is can the Suns beat the Spurs in a seven game series and the answer so far has been, "No." Leandro Barbosa had a game-high 25 points, while Grant Hill scored a season-high 24 points and Shawn Marion had 21 points and nine rebounds. Steve Nash shot just 3-11 from the field but finished with 10 points, 15 assists and four steals. Ben Gordon led Chicago with 24 points.
Chicago is a very puzzling team this year because the Bulls play well in stretches and then go through periods in which they look completely clueless. Anyone who thinks that Kobe Bryant could not help this team is delusional--the Bulls go through major scoring droughts in nearly every game and he would be the perfect antidote to that, not to mention the fact that his defense would also make the Bulls much better. The problem for the Bulls now is that the Lakers' bench has played very well in the early part of the season, so Bryant is not likely to accept a trade to a team that plays as lethargically as Chicago does. I still think that there is too much talent on this Bulls team to play like this all season but I am less convinced of that now than I was a week ago. Ben Wallace has clearly aged, while Luol Deng and Ben Gordon may be preoccupied with their contract situations.
This game had a real air of inevitability about it: the Suns' running game wears down most teams during the regular season and the Bulls hardly seem like a mentally strong enough group to overcome that kind of pressure right now. The most interesting thing about this contest is something that TNT's Doug Collins said late in the game after Nash threw the ball away. Referring to Nash and New Jersey's Jason Kidd, Collins declared, "There are two point guards in the league who never fear a turnover...They're going to thread the needle and trust their teammates. They never fear the consequences of a mistake, especially under pressure." This dovetails with my view that it is not a big deal if a great player--particularly one who handles the ball a lot--averages three or four turnovers a game. Obviously, careless turnovers should be minimized and throwing the ball away in a crucial late game situation is bad but the point is that players who are responsible for creating a sizable portion of their team's offense will inevitably have a few turnovers. What you don't want is to have a player who has few ballhandling duties but commits several turnovers a game; if one player handles the ball most of the time and commits three to four turnovers a game it is likely that the rest of the team will commit very few turnovers, so the team total will fall within acceptable levels. Does anyone think that Kidd or Nash hurt their teams by committing too many turnovers? There may be one or two games a year in which they have eight or 10 turnovers--but those games are more than offset by their positive contributions in most other games.
Labels: Ben Gordon, Chicago Bulls, Grant Hill, Leandro Barbosa, Luol Deng, Phoenix Suns, Steve Nash
posted by David Friedman @ 6:58 AM
