Doug Moe: ABA Champion, Three-Time ABA All-Star, and Successful NBA Coach
Doug Moe, who won an ABA championship and earned three ABA All-Star selections before becoming a successful NBA coach, passed away today at the age of 87. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Moe rose to prominence as a two-time All-America selection at the University of North Carolina, where he formed an enduring friendship with his teammate Larry Brown, who became a three-time ABA All-Star before having a Hall of Fame coaching career. Moe's college career ended after he received $75 to fly to a meeting with point shavers, even though he did not participate in the point shaving scheme.
Moe played basketball in the Italian League before joining Brown with the New Orleans Buccaneers in the ABA's first season, 1967-68. Moe led the Buccaneers in scoring (24.2 ppg, second in the league) and Brown led the league in assists (6.5 apg) as both players made the All-Star team. The Buccaneers finished first in the Western Division with a 48-30 record and they advanced to the ABA Finals, where they lost in seven games to the Pittsburgh Pipers, who were led by the incomparable Connie Hawkins. Moe finished second to Hawkins in the regular season MVP voting.
In the summer of 1968, the Buccaneers traded Brown and Moe to the Oakland Oaks for Ronald Franz, Steve Jones, and Barry Leibowitz. Moe ranked third on the Oaks in scoring (19.0 ppg) during the regular season, trailing league scoring champion Rick Barry (who averaged 34.0 ppg but only played in 35 games) and Warren Jabali (21.5 ppg). Brown led the league in assists again (7.1 apg), and Barry, Moe, and Brown all made the All-Star team while Jabali won the Rookie of the Year award. Jabali won the Playoff MVP as the Oaks routed the Indiana Pacers 4-1 in the ABA Finals. Moe ranked third on the team in playoff scoring (19.8 ppg).
After the 1969 season, the Oaks sent Moe to the Carolina Cougars as part of a three team trade. Moe averaged 17.3 ppg for the 42-42 Cougars, earning his third straight All-Star selection. Prior to the 1970-71 season, the Cougars shipped Moe to the Washington Capitols for Gary Bradds and Ira Harge. This reunited Moe with Brown. The Capitols moved to Virginia and became the Squires. Moe's 32 year old knees were wearing down by this point, but he still averaged 13.0 ppg in 78 games as the Squires went 55-29 to finish first in the Eastern Division before bowing 4-2 to the Kentucky Colonels in the Eastern Division Finals.
Moe finished his playing career averaging 6.8 ppg for the 1971-72 Squires, a team that featured ABA scoring champion Charlie Scott (who jumped to the NBA's Phoenix Suns before the end of the season), and rookie sensation Julius Erving, who averaged 27.3 ppg and 15.7 rpg in the regular season before supersizing those numbers to 33.3 ppg and 20.4 rpg in the playoffs.
Brown and Moe both retired after the 1971-72 season. Brown became Carolina's head coach, and he hired Moe to be his assistant coach. Moe served under Brown for two years in Carolina, and then Moe served under Brown for two years in Denver before being hired to be San Antonio's coach after the 1976 ABA-NBA merger. Moe led the Spurs to Central Division titles in 1978 and 1979. The Spurs lost 4-3 to the Washington Bullets in the 1979 Eastern Conference Finals. The Spurs fired Moe after starting 33-33 in the 1979-80 season.
Moe served as Donnie Walsh's assistant coach in Denver for the 1980-81 season, but then took the helm after the Nuggets started 11-20. They went 26-25 the rest of the way under Moe. Moe's Nuggets led the NBA in scoring for five straight seasons, and his
1981-82 squad still holds the NBA's single season scoring record (126.5 ppg). Moe led the Nuggets to a winning record in seven of his nine full seasons with the team, he guided them to the 1985 Western Conference Finals, and he earned NBA Coach of the Year honors in 1988 after leading the Nuggets to a 54-28 record, which at that time was the team's highest single season win total since joining the NBA. George Gervin won three of his four scoring titles while playing for Moe's Spurs, and Alex English won the 1983 scoring title while playing for Moe's Nuggets. Moe went 19-37 as Philadelphia's coach in the 1992-93 season before the team fired him. Moe rejoined the Nuggets as a coaching consultant in 2002, and he worked as an on the bench assistant coach for the Nuggets from 2005-08 under George Karl. After Moe passed away, Karl tweeted that Moe was his "big brother."
In 1997, Moe was one of 30 players selected to the ABA All-Time Team, and in 2018 he received the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement award, which has been presented annually since 2009 by the National Basketball Coaches Association (NBCA). Moe was always quick with a quip or a soundbite, and he called everyone--including himself--a "stiff." He was a bit of a showman on the sidelines, and his teams were high scoring and fun to watch, but they also won a lot of games: Moe ranks 26th in NBA history with 632 regular season coaching wins.
Anyone who was associated with the ABA in any capacity joined a fraternity that transcends anything else that the person did during his life, and that feeling was palpable when I covered the ABA Ol' School Reunion in Denver in 2005. The ABA not only had all-time great players who are household names--including Erving, Gervin, and Moses Malone--but it also had some great players whose names and accomplishments are not brought up as much as they should be. One such great player is James Silas. Moe shared with me his memories of coaching against prime James Silas and then coaching Silas after Silas injured his knee: "My recollections of when he was really great are from before he got
hurt, when he was playing against us. He was absolutely the best—the
ultimate guy at the end of the game. He was just terrific.
Unfortunately, he hurt his knee and was never quite the same—still a
great player, but there is no telling how great he would have been had
he not gotten hurt. People really didn't get to know the real Silas in
the NBA. That is a shame. He really was 'Captain Late' and he was the
best."
Doug Moe was one of the original ABA players, and he is eternally a part of that fraternity and that legacy.
Labels: ABA, Alex English, Connie Hawkins, Denver Nuggets, Doug Moe, George Gervin, Julius Erving, Larry Brown, NBA, Philadelphia 76ers, San Antonio Spurs
posted by David Friedman @ 11:38 PM
My Second Appearance on Benbo's Podcast: The Chosen Game, Coaching Philosophies, MVP Criteria, Interviewing Techniques, and More
I recently made my second appearance on Benbo's podcast, hosted by Dr. James Ben Guest. Our wide-ranging conversation began with sharing our thoughts about Charley Rosen's book The Chosen Game, which describes the influence that Jewish players and coaches had on the development of basketball in the early 20th century.
Then, we talked about many other subjects, including coaching philosophies (from Nat Holman to Red Holzman to Phil Jackson, with digressions about Larry Brown and Vince Lombardi), MVP selection criteria, and my experiences interviewing various players--including Green Bay's two-time Super Bowl champion safety Tom Brown (who also played outfield and first base for the Washington Senators), six-time NBA champion Scottie Pippen, and 1971 NBA champion Oscar Robertson.
I compared my approach to interviews with the way that some media members slant their coverage based on a person's availability/affability; for example, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar declined to do an interview with me, but that did not change my opinion that he is one of the most underrated great players in pro basketball history.
I also discussed the importance of using one's platform and talents to maximum effect. I have used this website and other platforms to speak out about the NBA's disgraceful treatment of the "Pre-65ers" and also on behalf of underrated individuals such as Artis Gilmore, Mel Daniels, Roger Brown, and Slick Leonard, who each were eventually, belatedly inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. I don't know how much influence my writing had on helping those ABA legends obtain the recognition that they deserve, but the point is that I used my voice to call attention to their greatness. It is disappointing that many people who have been blessed with large platforms/audiences squander the opportunity to, as the saying goes, comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Here is the link to the podcast: Jews, Immigration, and Basketball.
Here is the link to my first appearance on Benbo's podcast: Interview with David Friedman: Great Sportswriting is Great Writing.
Labels: Artis Gilmore, Benbo, Charley Rosen, James Ben Guest, Larry Brown, Mel Daniels, Nat Holman, NBA, Phil Jackson, Red Holzman, Roger Brown, Scottie Pippen, Slick Leonard, Vince Lombardi
posted by David Friedman @ 7:40 PM
Three-Time ABA Executive of the Year Carl Scheer Leaves Behind a Lasting Legacy in Two Leagues
Carl Scheer, a three-time ABA Executive of the Year (1973, 1975-76), passed away on Friday December 13 at the age of 82. In ABA/NBA history, only Jerry Colangelo has won more Executive of the Year awards (four) than Scheer did. Scheer hired future Hall of Famer Larry Brown for Brown's first professional head coaching job with the Carolina Cougars in 1972. In 1980, when Scheer was with the Denver Nuggets after the ABA/NBA merger, he traded for future Hall of Fame player
Alex English.
Perhaps best known for his leading role in adding the Slam Dunk Contest
to the ABA's 1976 All-Star Game festivities--which became the precursor
for the All-Star Weekend extravaganza that now includes the Three Point
Contest, the Legends Brunch, and more--Scheer had a diverse, five decade
career as a sports executive during which he also was involved with
minor league hockey and the construction of a sports arena in
Greenville, S.C.
Scheer was not only the most decorated executive in ABA history, but he also played a major role in the inaugural season of the Charlotte Hornets in 1988-89 as the franchise's first president and general manager. Scheer selected
Dell Curry for Charlotte in the expansion draft. Curry became the franchise's all-time leading scorer (a record since broken by Kemba Walker).
Scheer was a lawyer by training, and he was widely respected and admired. Harold Kaufman, the Hornets' public relations director during the expansion years, said, "Anyone talking to Carl thought they were the most important person in
the world. He made you feel good about yourself. He motivated through positive reinforcement. You just didn't want to let him down."
Scheer made an immediate and lasting impact on the ABA. He won the first of his three ABA Executive of the Year awards after his Carolina Cougars posted the ABA's best regular season record (57-27) in 1972-73 before losing in the Eastern Division Finals. During the previous season as the General Manager of the Cougars,
Scheer presented the game ball to Larry Miller after Miller set the ABA's single game scoring record. Scheer won back to back Executive of the Year awards in 1975-76 as his Denver Nuggets posted the second best regular season record in ABA history in 1975 (65-19) and then had a second consecutive 60 win season (60-24) before losing to Julius Erving's New York Nets in the league's
last Finals.
In 1976, the ABA All-Star Game was played in Denver, and Scheer's Nuggets beat a team comprised of the best players from the rest of the league's franchises. This would prove to be the ABA's final season, and Scheer made sure that the season would never be forgotten by spicing up the All-Star festivities with the first official Slam Dunk Contest, featuring eventual winner Julius Erving facing off against David Thompson, Artis Gilmore, George Gervin and Larry Kenon. The footage of Erving soaring from the free throw line on his final dunk will live forever as one of the most iconic images in basketball history. The NBA tried to destroy the ABA and tear apart the league's legacy--over 40 years after the merger, the NBA still stubbornly
refuses to provide official recognition to ABA statistics, in marked contrast to the NFL's official recognition of AFL statistics--but the seed that Scheer planted during the 1976 ABA All-Star Game blossomed into what has now become NBA All-Star Weekend; the NBA did not immediately embrace the concept, but when Denver hosted the NBA All-Star Game in 1984 Scheer--who was still the Nuggets' general manager--helped convince the league to hold a Slam Dunk Contest for the first time, and in the ensuing years the All-Star Weekend's side events became an essential part of the overall event. I had the privilege of covering the NBA All-Star Weekend six times (2005-2010) and I witnessed firsthand how it is a celebration of basketball's past, present and future.
Scheer was an enthusiastic innovator whose ideas and teams brought joy to many fans for several decades.
Labels: ABA, Alex English, Carl Scheer, Charlotte Hornets, Denver Nuggets, Larry Brown, Larry Miller, NBA
posted by David Friedman @ 6:10 PM
Dumars' Peculiar Fascination with Stuckey Stalled the Pistons
The fall of the Detroit Pistons--who at their peak won the 2004 NBA title and advanced to the 2005 NBA Finals--began with the departures of Coach Larry Brown and defensive stalwart Ben Wallace but accelerated dramatically when team President Joe Dumars inexplicably convinced himself that Rodney Stuckey was some kind of star in the making. Stuckey did not show much in his 2007-08 rookie season other than an inconsistent shooting stroke combined with suspect passing skills; Stuckey seemed equally ill-suited to start at shooting guard or point guard but Dumars--utilizing the same type of hallucinatory/delusional vision that imagined that Darko Milicic would be better than Carmelo Anthony--apparently saw a future in which Stuckey would transform into some combination of Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton. Early in the 2008-09 season, Dumars traded 2004 Finals MVP Billups for perennial All-Star Allen Iverson with the idea of installing Stuckey as a starter and forcing either Iverson or Hamilton to come off of the bench, a role neither player had previously filled. Iverson became the convenient fall guy when the 2009 Pistons failed to advance past the first round of the playoffs but, as ESPN's Jeff Van Gundy later
bluntly and correctly put it, "Last year, the Detroit situation with him (Iverson) was mishandled. You don't bring in a guy like that and then tell either Richard Hamilton or Allen Iverson they're coming off the bench. You start Iverson, you start Hamilton, you bring Stuckey off the bench--or you just buy Iverson out when you make the trade. But to ask either one of those guys to come of the bench, to me, doesn't make any sense."
One supposed advantage of trading Billups for Iverson was the possibility of letting Iverson go after one season and then using the resulting cap space to reload Detroit's roster with young talent. Dumars indeed parted ways with Iverson but he transformed the Billups/Iverson cap space into Charlie Villanueva and Ben Gordon, two streak shooters who think that defense is what surrounds "de yard." Michael Curry struggled in his only season as Detroit's head coach--not helped at all by Dumars' Stuckey obsession--but things took a turn for the worse in 2009-10 when Dumars replaced Curry with John Kuester, who many media members had proclaimed to be the de facto "offensive coordinator" of Mike Brown's Cleveland Cavaliers.
Most mainstream media sports commentators understand as much about professional sports coaching as they do about the intricacies of particle physics: nothing at all (three quick examples: during the 1990s many media members loudly and repeatedly asserted that Bill Belichick could not coach his way out of a paper bag, much the same way that media members later belittled
Mike Brown's coaching acumen; purported basketball expert Bill Simmons shamelessly critiqued Doc Rivers--who has forgotten more about NBA strategy than Simmons will ever know--before Rivers brilliantly led Simmons' beloved Boston Celtics to the 2008 NBA championship; many NBA pundits declared that
Flip Saunders' "liberation offense" would prove to be a breath of fresh air for the Pistons in the wake of Larry Brown's departure). Kuester was a solid NBA assistant coach but the idea that he was the mastermind behind Cleveland's success during Mike Brown's tenure never made sense and looks completely ridiculous in the wake of Kuester's disastrous run in Detroit; Curry's 2009 Pistons went 39-43 and lost in the first round of the playoffs but with Kuester at the helm the Pistons went 27-55 in 2010 and 30-52 in 2011. NBA coaches put in long hours and have a much more demanding job than most casual observers realize but as much as I respect NBA coaches in general and Kuester specifically it must be said that Kuester hardly authored many strategic masterpieces during his Detroit career. Kuester also seemed to be completely disconnected from the players he was supposed to be leading and motivating: he benched and then feuded with respected veteran Hamilton for no apparent reason, in the process alienating Hamilton and many of Hamilton's teammates.
The bottom line is that Dumars and the Pistons lost sight of the primary reasons that they had been successful--Larry Brown's coaching/Ben Wallace's toughness and defensive mindset--and that is why they have been experiencing diminishing returns ever since Brown and Wallace departed; it is a long, precipitous drop from Brown to Saunders to Curry to Kuester and it is an equally long, precipitous drop from Wallace to the various players who have attempted to fill the pivot for the Pistons the past few years. Brown rarely stays in one place for long, so maybe he would have left Detroit no matter what, but it certainly seems like Dumars should have made a greater effort to retain Brown's services. Perhaps in Wallace's case Dumars felt that he was following in Bill Walsh's footsteps--getting rid of a player one year too early instead of one year too late--but that philosophy only works if (1) you are correct about how much (or how little) a star player has left in the tank and (2) you find a way to adequately replace that star player.
Even if the losses of Brown and Wallace could not have been avoided or handled any better, Dumars' Stuckey obsession is just baffling. Stuckey has been a 30-plus mpg starter for three seasons now despite only excelling in one category: free throw shooting (he consistently shoots better than .800 and he shot a career-high .866 in 2010-11). Stuckey ranks in the middle of the pack--or worse--among starting point guards in rebounding, assists, steals, field goal percentage and three point field goal percentage (his rankings are not any better if he is instead classified as a shooting guard); he is a productive scorer for a point guard (15.5 ppg in 2010-11) but he is not an efficient or versatile scorer. Stuckey has displayed neither the ability to consistently run a team well from the point guard position nor the ability to be a top notch shooting guard; perhaps he could be a solid third or fourth guard for a playoff team but it seems doubtful that he will ever be a starter for a team that makes much noise in the postseason: he just does not have that kind of skill set, nor has he shown much improvement during his four year career (his per minute productivity in most key categories has not changed substantially since his rookie season, which means that what we have already seen from him is likely what we will see from him in the future).
Joe Dumars did a very good job transforming the Pistons into perennial contenders several years ago and he has already enjoyed more success than most NBA executives ever will but until he abandons his Captain Ahab-like obsession with chasing Stuckey's presumed future greatness the Pistons are most likely doomed to be a mediocre team at best.
Labels: Allen Iverson, Ben Wallace, Detroit Pistons, Joe Dumars, Larry Brown, Rodney Stuckey
posted by David Friedman @ 4:20 AM
Happy Birthday, Coach Dean Smith
Hall of Fame Coach Dean Smith celebrated his 80th birthday today. I have not interviewed or met Coach Smith and, as the name of this site indicates, I focus more on NBA basketball than college basketball. Coach Smith's influence on college basketball goes without saying but it is also striking how much impact he has had on so many people who have gone on to play and/or coach at the professional level. I am currently tinkering with the right hand sidebar of 20 Second Timeout's main page--organizing some of the archival links thematically to make it easier for readers to find the articles that most interest them--and this little project reminded me of how many people I have interviewed/written about who were mentored by Coach Smith in some fashion; I have created a new sidebar category titled "Carolina Connection" to spotlight those individuals. Here are a few North Carolina-themed interviews/articles:
Bob McAdoo starred for Coach Smith at North Carolina before becoming a three-time NBA scoring champion. I first wrote about the underrated McAdoo for Basketball Digest
and I am really proud of how I summarized McAdoo's greatness (though I am still disappointed about the ridiculous way that editor Brett Ballantini ruined the article's title, which is why I restored the original title when I reprinted the article at 20 Second Timeout):
Bob McAdoo Reconsidered
Less than two years after I wrote that Basketball Digest
piece, I interviewed McAdoo and wrote a longer profile of him for HoopsHype.com:
The Numbers Don't Lie
Bobby Jones embodies everything Coach Smith stands for on and off the court. Jones is most remembered for two things: being a great defensive player and pointing to a teammate to acknowledge a great pass. When I interviewed Jones, he told me that he learned the "point" from Coach Smith:
The Ultimate Team Player
TNT's pregame, halftime and postgame shows contain a lot of humor but when the time comes to really break down the action few people on any platform speak with more intelligence and insight than Kenny Smith; I attribute this to three factors: (1) Smith has the perspective of being a star player in college and then being a nearly All-Star level player in the NBA before finishing his NBA career as a role player (Smith would note that all players are "role players," though some have bigger roles than others), so he sees the game from many angles (unlike someone who was always a star or always a role player); (2) Smith played for Dean Smith in college and clearly soaked up the "Carolina Way" of doing things; (3) Smith absorbed many lessons from his first NBA coach, Bill Russell. I interviewed Kenny Smith four years ago:
Always Ahead of the Game
Larry Brown played for Coach Smith before becoming an ABA All-Star point guard and one of the most successful collegiate/professional coaches ever. Brown's "jump/switch" trapping defense helped him win both an NCAA title (Kansas, 1988) and an NBA title (Detroit, 2004), a dual feat no other coach has accomplished. Joe Caldwell, who Brown coached in the ABA, explained to me the finer points of Brown's defensive scheme:
The Art and Science of NBA Defense
Of course, basketball historians realize that Brown did not invent the "jump/switch" defense but merely adapted it from principles employed by Coach Smith. Hank Egan--the former Air Force coach who later won an NBA championship as Gregg Popovich's assistant in San Antonio--later told me that Coach Smith actually learned this defense from Air Force Coach Bob Spear, who in turn had borrowed the concepts from Hall of Fame Coach Ben Carnevale (Egan's coach at the Naval Academy back in the 1950s). Here is my interview with Egan, a must-read for anyone who loves basketball history and is interested in the evolution of defensive strategies:
Hank Egan InterviewLabels: Bob McAdoo, Bobby Jones, Dean Smith, Kenny Smith, Larry Brown
posted by David Friedman @ 4:59 PM
The Art and Science of NBA Defense
This article was originally published on February 2, 2005 at Suite101.com. The Revolution Will be Televised (and analyzed frame by frame)NBA defense has reached an unprecedented level of sophistication. Former All-Star Hersey Hawkins says, "I can think about my first year in the league and how detailed scouting reports have become about stopping other teams. By the time I retired (in 2001) I was getting books--15-20 pages on the other team, their sets and what my player likes to do." Videotape was just starting to be used as a scouting tool when Hawkins entered the league in 1989, but now coaches scour footage frame by frame, looking for any individual and team tendencies that can provide an edge.
Johnny Bach, Phil Jackson's "defensive coordinator" on the Chicago Bulls' first three championship teams, has seen a lot of changes during his more than 50 years of college and professional coaching: "I think scouting is far better than it ever was...we have it on DVD and we have it edited. I don't think players had as much information as they have now and I think it contributes to playing the scorers better--deciding who are the scorers and really concentrating on how we're going to push them out a little further (away from their favorite areas). You have so much information available--the statistics alone, then you have the pictorial review that I can produce to a team. What we call 'criticals'--out of bounds plays, what they do after a timeout, what they do when the score's tied, what's the last shot of the quarter--all these things are broken down now."
Coaching staffs use the DVD information to adjust their game plans in the same way that chess masters employ prepared sequences of moves to catch their opponents by surprise. Bach adds, "Believe me, every coach is trying to find something that works well for his team--and on the other bench there is a staff saying, 'You're not going to be able to run exactly what you practiced. We're going to take you out of it.'"
Looking back on his three decades in professional basketball, two-time NBA Executive of the Year (1990, 1997) Bob Bass concludes, "There is no question that defense is really so much better now than it was. I mean, you can't even compare it. We didn't have videotape-we had 16 millimeter film. It is really difficult to break down plays with that. We just didn't have the technology that you have today."
Bass mentions another change that happened in the past 15-20 years: "Coaches got a lot more conservative because they're trying to protect their jobs. When they have total control of the game, they can protect their jobs a lot more." He cites a specific example: "I recall one coach--I won't mention his name. He would be down by 10 with two minutes or something to go. He would never allow his team to shoot three pointers because he would rather get beat by six or eight--sometimes when you come down and fire up a bunch of threes when you are down 10 you can end up getting beat by 20 in those last two minutes. I'll never forget that guy. He did that on a consistent basis." This coach was trying to manufacture a statistical justification--such as a good ranking in team point differential or points allowed--to keep his job even if his team had a losing record.
Observations on the 2004 NBA FinalsJoe Caldwell's tough defense against Hall of Fame guards (including Oscar Robertson) and Hall of Fame forwards (including Julius Erving) earned him two All-Star selections in the NBA and two more in the ABA. Caldwell describes the defensive trap that current Detroit Pistons coach Larry Brown implemented when Caldwell played for the ABA's Carolina Cougars: "We let a guy (offensive player) take off by the out of bounds line heading toward his goal, but he's going down the sideline. We had a thing where he'd get to a certain point and then it was up to that guard to make him either turn and come back or go behind his back and when he did that, it was my job--or whoever was in the middle--to shut that position off. They don't do that stuff now. He tried to do it in Detroit. They came close to it, but they're still not fast enough. If L.A. had been playing right they could have beaten them, but they weren't playing right."
Caldwell explains, "L.A. was trying to dribble the ball up. You can't dribble the ball up against that. You have to pass it. They didn't do any of that, right? Fisher wants to dribble it up, right? Kobe wants to dribble it up. I was like, 'What are you doing?'" Caldwell notes that Gary Payton's well documented struggles during the series only compounded the problem for the Lakers: "When he tried to dribble it up, he was dribbling it off his foot or going too fast and he was passing it at the wrong time. That's what the trap does--it makes you do things that you are not supposed to do. So Larry Brown is a master at it. He's been doing it for (over) 25 years."
Caldwell suggests that the Lakers should have countered the trap with quick passes to break down the defense, creating fast break opportunities that would have put a lot of pressure on Piston center Ben Wallace, who served as the last line of defense; Caldwell concludes, "He's not going to block all the shots. He might block (some) in the first half, but in the second half he's going to be too tired."
Speed KillsUsing speed and passing to relentlessly attack the defense is not a new idea. In the 1950s and 1960s the Boston Celtics won championships with a wide open style that encouraged players to adjust to situations on the fly. Hall of Fame point guard Bob Cousy, the maestro conductor of the Celtic fast break, declares, "Basketball is more of a free-flowing game of instinct and reaction to an action...Normally people associate basketball players with height, but in my judgment speed and quickness are what separate the men from the boys...Every time down the floor is a different situation. Your action is a reaction to what the defender is doing. We (the Celtics) relied primarily on transition rather than set plays. There was always constant movement. We were always trying to impose the maximum pressure on the opponent whether it was on defense or offense."
This year the Phoenix Suns, with Steve Nash orchestrating a relentless fast break attack, embody the "free flowing" game that Cousy loves. The 2005 playoffs should be very interesting--will teams trap Nash and force him to give up the ball early, preferring to concede open jump shots instead of fast break dunks? Will teams disable the Suns' fast break by pounding the small Phoenix team on the offensive glass? Will DVD analysis of the Suns reveal some other weakness that can be exploited?
Labels: Bob Bass, Bob Cousy, Detroit Pistons, Hersey Hawkins, Joe Caldwell, Johnny Bach, Larry Brown
posted by David Friedman @ 6:29 PM
Part I of an Interview with Dr. Charles "Chic" Hess, Author of "Prof Blood and the Wonder Teams"
"Life comes to you in a moment...each moment of your life can be perceived by you only if you are equipped imaginatively, equipped to dramatize your own role in it--to see yourself as a protagonist confronted by adversary circumstances"--Jerzy KosinskiThe greatest basketball coach you've never heard of led Passaic (New Jersey) High School to 159 straight victories from 1919-1925. Ernest Blood--better known as Professor Blood or simply Prof--was an innovator who valued the pass over the dribble and who developed a feeder system in the lower grade levels so that his high school squad had a steady supply of enthusiastic, top level talent. Blood won seven state championships at Passaic from 1915-1925 and he could have enjoyed a much longer run of success there but he ran afoul of shortsighted school administrators who were apparently jealous of his popularity. Blood resigned his post at Passaic and then coached at St. Benedict's Preparatory School (in Newark, New Jersey) for 23 seasons, leading them to five prep school state titles. Blood also coached at Clarkson University and the U.S. Military Academy.
Blood was inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1960 but his life story and accomplishments are not widely known. Enter Philadelphia native Dr. Charles "Chic" Hess, a veteran high school and junior college coach who first learned about Blood by reading about the 159 game winning streak in little filler blurbs in the local newspapers. Hess had always wanted to know more about the fantastically successful coach with the eye-catching name, so when he began working on his doctorate in his forties he also started assembling information about Blood's life and times. This turned into a 16 year project that culminated with Hess writing a 455 page book titled "Prof Blood and the Wonder Teams: The True Story of Basketball's First Great Coach." Published in 2003 and currently available for
$29.95 plus $5 shipping and handling, Hess' biography of Blood is truly a labor of love, a thoroughly detailed account of Passaic's epic winning streak and the behind the scenes school politics that ultimately ended Blood's time at the school.
Dr. Hess is a very successful coach in his own right. His 1978 Lebanon (Pennsylvania) high school squad, anchored by future NBA first round draft pick Sam Bowie, made it to the 1978 Class AAA State Finals. Hess won three coach of the year awards in Pennsylvania, captured two NAIA District 29 Coach of the Year awards for his work at Brigham Young University-Hawaii and then earned the 1991 NABC Coach of the Year Award at Arizona Western College (NJCAA).
I recently spoke with Dr. Hess for more than an hour about a variety of subjects ranging from his own humble start in the sport to the time he spent coaching Sam Bowie to his fascination with Prof Blood. Before I could even ask a question, Hess enthusiastically described his passionate interest in Prof Blood's story:
Hess: "This may sound corny but it got to the point that I felt it became my obligation to inform the basketball community that this really took place, because the story had been lost. No one knew what I knew. It sounds egotistical but it’s true. No one knew what I knew. I talked to a number of 90 year old people and they would say to me, 'How do you know that?' and I would say, 'Well, I researched it and I’m getting all of this information.' Some of the stuff is from behind the scenes—like the records from the high school—and I was very privileged to get my hands on those old memos that were written and letters of recommendation and stuff. I just took this subject and expounded on it so the history of this is made known to everybody, for a number of reasons. This is human nature, the psychology and sociology of sports. Not only that, but how he as a coach built winning teams with feeder programs and a philosophy and being ahead of the game with anatomy and physiology of exercise and how training methods and motor learning and all of the things that go into developing skills—he made a science of it, early (in basketball history)."
Friedman: "How did you first learn about Prof Blood?"
Hess: "I got my start in the city of Philadelphia. I’m from southwest Philadelphia, where basketball is the only game besides street touch football, hoseball, stickball and all those games that city kids play. When I was in high school, we moved right outside into the suburbs, into Levittown, and I remember seeing little things in the newspaper (about Prof Blood). Back then, whenever a newspaper story ended and they had another inch or two to fill they some put trivia in there about something and I remember reading about Professor Blood, coach of the Passaic Wonder Teams—and at the time I didn’t know where Passaic, New Jersey was—who won 159 games in a row. I remember thinking, 'What is this? This is incredible. Back in the 20s? Who the hell is Professor Blood?' That stuck with me and from time to time I remember seeing bits and pieces about him. When I went to school to get my doctorate I used to live in libraries doing research and just to maintain my sanity I started looking up this topic and I started to find out more and more. Back then, they used to put people’s addresses in the newspaper, just as a matter of course. So I wrote to all of these former players and I got a response from some of them; I wrote to about 25 former Wonder Team players and I got a response from three or four of them—their sons or daughters responded. They eventually gave me some information. As the story grew, I became more and more fascinated with it. I was still heavily into coaching and I wanted to learn the secrets to winning but then (I became fascinated with) the story itself and the problems that he developed, that came with the winning, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. Eventually, I had to take two and a half weeks, fly back to New Jersey and I locked myself in the Passaic City Library. In fact, they used to let me in and stay there even when the place was closed. I went through the microfiche of all the old newspapers and I got two or three versions of each game from the perspectives of different writers. I thought that I had enough but the following summer I had to go back and do it again—and each time I went I had to extend my stay because I wasn’t finished yet getting everything that I needed.
When I came back to Hawaii and put it all together a picture was forming in my mind of what was going on. Then, from time to time I’d still have questions and I’d have write to the librarians in New Jersey and ask them different things. I’d say that I knew where to find the information but that I didn’t have it—like the photocopies of the newspapers I took, maybe I missed part of the article (when copying it). They’d send me what I needed. I think that there is not a heck of a lot that I missed. A story unfolded and I had to tell the story, because I figured what good is it now that I know it and I’m satisfied—this should be shared with the basketball community. There would be people who would be interested--and not just in New Jersey--and who would find this story beneficial, philosophy-wise, for coaches. That is why I think that this should be mandatory reading for all coaches, male, female, all levels. This actually took place and these are some of the things that can happen.
I coached at a high school where we had Sam Bowie and we won a lot of games. We went five years without losing a home game; that is the only streak of note that we had. We created a monster. People were lining up outside of the school at 3 o’clock when I’m going home—the school day’s over but I had to come back for a game—but they’re lining up to get in the game because our 3500 seat gymnasium wouldn’t hold any more than that. It just builds and builds and builds and then you have a monster on your hands. Of course, there are some people who don’t want you to win and then when the administration changed the hate was starting to be put on me about different picayune things. So, I could relate to this story very much and that is why I felt compelled to tell it; writing the book was a labor of love and I used as many pages as it took to tell the story."
Friedman: "The labor of love aspect that you mentioned very much comes through, not just in how you are talking about it but the way that you wrote the book—the thoroughness of it and the passion with which you describe several of the situations that Prof Blood went through. You mentioned that part of your initial interest stemmed from the fact that Prof Blood had been so successful and at the time you started your research you were still coaching. What aspects of Prof Blood’s methodology did you apply to your own coaching? Obviously, some of the rules were different in his era compared to the modern era, so you could not directly apply everything, but what things did you learn from your research that you applied to your coaching?"
Hess: "I could relate to Prof. We are physical educators. That was my profession. That’s why I went to college; initially I played for Howie Landa at Mercer County Community College but I went to college to play basketball and then after junior college was over I went to East Stroudsburg. I was an average student because all I wanted to do was graduate, get a teaching job and coach. That’s all, but I spent umpteen hours in the library reading books that were of interest to me as a coach, things about how to teach and how individuals learn, whether it be physiology of exercise, how to develop strength so that you can jump higher, studies on shooting, the best ways of shooting—I mean, I was totally, totally submerged in those things and I saw in Prof someone who came along 60-70 years before me as a coach and who was fascinated by the same things. As much as the profession was known, he was right there on the cutting edge learning it as it was just starting to take place. I just fell in love with the guy. That is exactly what you are supposed to do (to train to be a coach)—understand the body, know how the body works, know how to train the body so you can play at an optimum level.
The feeder system—I always believed in that: develop the younger kids so that you have a never ending supply of players. Prof was doing that long before they were doing it in baseball. Branch Rickey was often called the father of the farm system, because he started all of those minor league baseball teams and then his major league team reaped the benefits from it because they had a pool of players to pick from; they didn’t have to scrounge around for players because they were developing players. Develop your own! I did that, in all the schools I was at. My players talk about what I did for them, always developing the younger players, the farm system of kids coming up.
Wherever I was, I attacked the problem of coaching holistically. I just wasn’t a defensive coach or an offensive coach. I was into it totally. Every day was either a game day or a practice day. That was it for 365 days a year, year after year after year. I couldn’t get enough of it. Here I am, 65 years old, and obviously other things have taken me away from it but I hope to get back into it next year. I’ll be retired and all I’ll be able to do is just coach basketball. Like, get the hell off of my cloud, I’m having fun. That’s what I learned from Prof, a reaffirming of what I already had learned as a coach but there he was doing it on the cutting edge when it all started."
Friedman: "It’s been said of Larry Brown—and I think that he has even said this himself—that in certain respects he almost enjoys coaching practice more than he enjoys coaching games, because the practice situation is really a teaching situation, a situation in which he can help players to improve. Whereas in a game situation, his job is almost done in a sense because he’s already prepared the players and either they are up to the task or not. From your standpoint with all of your experiences as a coach, did you have a similar attitude, where you almost enjoyed coaching practice more than coaching games, or did you really get into the competitive aspect of trying to win the game and enjoying the game while the game was going on? Or was it some combination of both for you?"
Hess: "I’ve heard or read a couple different times Larry Brown expressing those thoughts and I agree with him 100%. You can’t lose a game in practice, so to speak, and that’s where I can help my players. That is where I can leave my mark. This is where I am teaching you now and, basically, with very, very few exceptions, the game will be won or lost in practice by what the kids allow you to do and what you are can get into their heads. That’s why it was such a big thing with Allen Iverson when he said it was only practice. S---, I can relate to Larry Brown—being a 76er fan—you want to strangle the kid, because he is handicapping the brilliant mind of Larry Brown if you don’t let him get across what he needs to get across in practice. I thought Larry Brown adjusted rather well to a hopeless situation with Allen Iverson by making the best of the situation and then getting the hell out of there. That was frustrating for him but I think he got the very most out of that situation. He realized that he could not change him, so he squeezed the lemon and got as much as he could out of him but he did not stick around to put up with him for the rest of his career because that would have driven him nuts."
Friedman: "The two of them obviously had different approaches. The one thing that I would say slightly in Iverson’s defense is that I don’t know that he was objecting so much that he did not want to practice but rather the idea of why this entire press conference is being devoted to this subject. I think that the press conference had been called in reference to something else and his frustration—which became a great sound bite that is still played today—is why are we only talking about this when there are so many other things to talk about. That is another issue.
Since you have experience both playing in college and coaching, did you have that same perspective when you were a player? Did you look at practice as a learning situation? Or at the time that you were a player did you have more of an attitude—not that you were against practice—of enjoying the competitive aspect of a game more versus the practice situation?"
Hess: "Basketball is basketball. I just loved being on the court. I knew practice was necessary. Before the season and after the season, I was playing more basketball than I did in the two hours that we had for practice but it was structured and the coach was in charge. I can’t say that I liked the games more than practice, because we had good coaches. I had John Clark, who left my high school and coached in Division I and then coached in the ABA with the Pittsburgh Pipers. So I had good coaches and I liked it all. As a coach, there is no doubt about it: practice is what I lived for, because that is where I could leave my mark. We’re going to go out and win games not because we’re better than the other team but because we’re going to play as a team. Basketball, to me, is a team game. I know Larry Brown would feel that way. It’s a team game and five guys playing together as a team are very difficult to beat."
Friedman: "When you say that, it reminds me of an old clip of George Allen, the Redskins coach. He had his whole team around him before a game in the 1970s and he said, '40 guys together can’t lose.' That is kind of like the spirit you are talking about in terms of basketball—obviously, he was referring to his whole roster because you don’t have 40 guys on the field at one time. To an extent, having five guys playing together can overcome a talent deficit."
Hess: "Especially in high school, when there’s no (shot) clock. That’s a big difference. We can debate the benefits of the clock and the effect that it has had on the game but, in high school, coaching can prevail (over superior talent)."
Friedman: "Sure, because you can control the game, if your players are listening to you, possession by possession. You can control the length of the possessions and how the possessions go. It really is more of a coaches’ game in that regard."
Hess: "I remember looking at the other team and thinking that they have 10 or 11 really good players and I only had four and a half or five, so it was a good thing that I didn’t have to play against their second team, because I will control the game and I will take their bench out of the game because we will be on offense 65-70% of the time. You do whatever you have to do to win. I remember when I was a high school coach, some of the (college) coaches would come around and I would say that I wanted to be a college coach someday and they would tell me to stay right where I was; if you really enjoy teaching basketball, it’s more fun (at the high school level). I had to go out and taste it, so for like 12-13 years I coached different rinky-dink college teams and looking back, they were right: it’s more fun in high school."
Friedman: "Everyone has a different perspective on that. Some people are lifers at various different levels, while other people coach at a certain level for a period of time but to them that is a stepping stone and their goal is always to coach in college, then to coach at a bigger college and then to go to the NBA. I guess it really just depends on what parts of the game you enjoy the most."
Part II of my interview with Dr. Hess will look at some similarities between Prof Blood's coaching philosophy and the coaching philosophies of modern NBA and collegiate coaches like Paul Westhead, George Karl and Mike D'Antoni.
Labels: Allen Iverson, Dr. Charles "Chic" Hess, Howie Landa, Larry Brown, Passaic High School, Prof Blood, Sam Bowie
posted by David Friedman @ 2:42 AM
Cavs Cruise Over Bobcats in Home Opener
LeBron James nearly had a triple double (22 points, nine rebounds, nine assists) in just 30 minutes of action as the Cleveland Cavaliers improved to 1-1 by winning their home opener versus the Charlotte Bobcats, 96-79. Daniel Gibson scored a game-high 25 points, shooting 10-14 from the field; if he had not uncharacteristically missed three straight free throws in the fourth quarter after being fouled on a three point shot then he could have matched or exceeded his regular season career-high of 26 points. Mo Williams contributed 17 points, seven assists and four rebounds while only committing one turnover. Ben Wallace was a major force in the paint with 10 rebounds and five blocked shots. Jason Richardson led Charlotte with 24 points. Adam Morrison was Charlotte's leading scorer in the first half with seven points but he only scored two points in the second half.
As is often the case with Cleveland, rebounding and strong defense played a major part in this victory; the Cavs outrebounded the Bobcats 46-34 while holding them to 33.8% field goal shooting. The Cavs led 25-16 at the end of the first quarter and were up by as many as 19 in the first half en route to a 50-33 halftime lead. One lingering issue for the Cavs is that they often play very sloppily in the third quarter and that was again the case in this contest. Charlotte cut the lead to 62-57 at the 1:58 mark of the third quarter but the Cavs closed the quarter with a 6-2 run and then outscored the Bobcats 28-20 in the final stanza.
Although James shot a respectable 7-15 from the field he again struggled to consistently connect on attempts fired from outside of the paint; he did most of his damage in close with an assortment of excellent drives and dunks plus a few very nice postups. He shot 8-12 from the free throw line, right in line with his typical mediocre percentage. His speed, power and agility in the open court are breathtaking and his ability to fill up a boxscore in multiple categories is most impressive but the next step for James in his quest to lead the Cavs to an NBA title is to shore up his shooting stroke from 15 feet (the free throw line) and beyond (this subject is covered in greater detail in Notes From Courtside).
Cleveland Coach Mike Brown singled Williams out for praise after the game, saying that when Charlotte closed to within five points, "Williams did a nice job of getting our team to believe that we had to get stops in order to get the win." Williams had not been known as a great defender prior to coming to Cleveland, so the fact that he has already bought into Brown's defensive philosophies to the extent that he is an on court leader in that regard is a great sign for the Cavs; defense starts with the point guard position, so Williams can play a crucial role in make Cleveland an even better defensive team than they have been in recent years.
After the game, someone asked James about the value of having a player like Williams who can create his own shot and create shots for other players, particularly in situations when James is on the bench resting or in foul trouble. James made a very shrewd reply, first stating that it is not up to just one player to pick up the slack when he is out of the game but then immediately adding that Williams is "a special player" who plays an important role on the team. The reason that I say that James' answer is shrewd is that he simultaneously gave credit to other players on the team while also acknowledging Williams' worth. Maybe that seems like a simple or obvious thing to do but in a similar situation Donovan McNabb completely blew it a few years ago; after Terrell Owens got hurt, McNabb emphasized that the Eagles could win without the All-Pro receiver, but neglected to mention that Owens is valuable or special--and that slight played a big role in all of the turmoil that later followed, culminating in Owens playing at an All-Pro level for a division rival. I have been present in pregame and postgame media standups with James since his rookie year and I have always been struck by his poise; he is able to make his point without denigrating his teammates or his opponents and without being nasty to reporters, even those who ask questions that he may not appreciate. He just seems to have an innate sense of what to say and how to say it. His answers may not always offer profound insight but that is not his job; his job as a team leader is to make sure that everything he says reflects positively on himself, his teammates and his organization.
Charlotte Coach Larry Brown succinctly broke down why his team lost: "They just killed us on the boards and they got every loose ball and every hustle play. Their guards played great and their whole team is so unselfish. And it starts with their best player (James). He tries to make everybody better and that's a huge factor." Brown added that his team shot too many jumpers and that when his players drove to the hoop they went in too far and got their shots blocked as opposed to collapsing the defense and then passing to open shooters the way that Cleveland's players did. Coach Brown always emphasizes the importance of playing the right way and he obviously has many reasons to be disappointed about just how wrongly his team played on this occasion.
*****************************
Notes From Courtside:
In my
recap of Cleveland's 90-85 opening night loss to Boston, I mentioned a key play that happened near the end of the game:
...the Cavs had a defensive breakdown: after the Celtics broke the initial trap, James rushed up to attempt to foul Pierce near midcourt but that left the hoop unprotected and Pierce passed ahead to Leon Powe, who dunked the ball just as Varejao raced back and fouled him. Without talking to the coaches, I don't know if the breakdown here is the fault of the guards, if James blundered by rushing forward or if Varejao (or someone else) was supposed to be the last defender at the hoop.After Coach Mike Brown completed his pregame media standup and the rest of the media horde had scattered, I approached him and said that since I was not at the first game I did not know if he had already addressed this issue but I am curious to know exactly what went wrong in that sequence and what the Cavs were supposed to do. Coach Brown indicated that no one had asked him about this and then he told me, "It was a mixup in our press defense. We did not get matched up and he got free and got the dunk." I followed up by asking if a certain player was supposed to be protecting the rim and Coach Brown said, "It's not one person's fault; it's all five--whoever is on the court, plus me. You can hold me accountable. It's all my fault. We were trying to deny Ray Allen with two guys--the man guarding the inbounder plus the man who was guarding him. We didn't get matched up, so we didn't know who was guarding who, so we had three guys guarding Allen, which left two guys open plus the inbounder. They made the right pass and got the dunk." I asked Coach Brown if that was something that the players should have known how to handle on their own or if it was an issue that had to be covered in the next practice. Coach Brown answered, "Oh, no, no. That's my fault because I didn't do a good job communicating to the guys the matchups. We went over it the next day."
This exchange points out two things very clearly:
(1) Good defense truly requires having five players acting as one--"on a string," as coaches like to say.
(2) Regardless of what Coach Brown may have said to his players in the huddle or in practice the next day, for public consumption he is very careful to say, essentially, "The buck stops here" and not throw any player or players under the bus for missing an assignment. That fits in with the "no excuse team" culture he has created.
***
After LeBron James' pregame media standup, I went up to him to personally thank him for his part in bringing the Olympic Gold Medal back to the United States--not that he is waiting for me to validate the accomplishment but rather because I feel fortunate to be in a position where I can personally thank him for doing something that I consider to be significant not just for him but for basketball in this country in general. I told James how much I enjoyed watching the team play and how glad I am that Team USA won the gold. James slapped five with me and told me that when he was in Boston a Celtics fan had said something very similar to him. James said that this reaction from a fan on the road "shocked" him but I replied that I hope and expect that fans in every road city will respond to him that way with regard to the Olympics, even if they fervently root against James and the Cavs once the game begins.
***
After talking with the media, James did his pregame shooting routine; when the pregame standup ended earlier than usual, James told us he was happy that he would be able to get some extra shots up. He obviously is aware of his weaknesses--free throw shooting, outside shooting--and he is working hard to improve in those areas. I've watched James shoot before in pregame warmups but never really charted his makes and misses; my general impression has always been that he shoots in practice like he shoots in games: he can get on a roll and make several in a row but he also will miss several in a row, something that great shooters rarely if ever do in warmups. The two best shooters who I have ever seen warm up in person are Reggie Miller and Steve Nash and after you watch them for even a short time you are surprised when they miss and really surprised if they miss two in a row. James started out by shooting jumpers from the right baseline just inside the three point line. He had already begun before I got to the court, so I did not count those shots. Next he went to the free throw line, where he shot 4-9; he grimaced after one of the misses and did not seem happy at all with the overall performance. Then he made 5-8 three point shots from the right wing. He followed that by shooting 5-6 from the free throw line. Then he shot three pointers from the left wing but my count got messed up because several players were shooting at the same time on the same rim. James made a couple threes from the left baseline and shot a couple runners from the left baseline before returning to the free throw line, where he shot 9-11. This seemed to please him and he left the court with a bounce in his step.
Here are the impressions I formed from watching the whole routine:
1) James alternated game shots (three pointers or jumpers) with free throws, which is a good way to simulate game situations; in a game you will have worked up a sweat and then have to calm down, center yourself and shoot free throws. If you just go in a gym with a normal heart rate and shoot free throws you are not really preparing to shoot free throws in a game, though you are at least working on perfecting your form.
2) James shot 18-26 (.692) overall on his free throws. The cliche is that you play like you practice and, unfortunately, that percentage almost exactly matches his free throw percentage from last year. If James is going to become an .800 free throw shooter in games then he obviously needs to be able to shoot .800 in practice; realistically, he needs to shoot .850 or .900 in practice to be an .800 shooter in games.
3) Last year, James worked on his shooting with assistant coach Chris Jent but this time James was on his own, other than having someone (not Jent) retrieve the basketball for him; Jent was working with Ben Wallace and Anderson Varejao. I don't know if there is any significance to Jent not being involved or if this was just a coincidence (I did not get a chance to ask anyone but will try to find out at some point).
4) Without Jent overseeing things, James' routine was a bit haphazard; he did not have the same amount of makes or attempts at each location, so it was not clear to me how he decided to move from one spot to the next. I suspect that James was not even counting at all, but simply going by feel.
5) James' shot release and technique is pretty consistent, though sometimes he fades away and sometimes his shooting elbow flies out slightly. I noticed two possible issues with his free throw shooting: he looks at the ground until right before he releases the shot and he tends to shoot a bit stiff legged instead of bending his knees. I may not be a shooting guru but I can consistently make 8 out of 10 free throws in a practice situation and I was always taught that it is important to focus on the rim throughout the entire shot preparation and it is important to bend your knees to provide the power so the shot does not devolve into a pushing motion.
My conclusion is that until James has a slightly more organized shooting routine in practice and until he tweaks his free throw motion as I described that his shooting percentages from the free throw line and from outside the paint will not improve significantly, though he will still have some games in which he gets hot and makes a very good percentage.
***
While the Bobcats shot around more than an hour before tipoff, Larry Brown sat on the sidelines and schmoozed with various people, several of whom (including Cavs assistant coach John Kuester) have some kind of North Carolina connection. Brown seems so happy to be back on the court again, though of course that may change after a few more losses like this one. Brown is a teacher at heart, one of those coaches who has frankly admitted that he enjoys practices more than games because in practices he has the chance to give out instruction and help players develop. Larry's brother Herb, an assistant coach for Charlotte, was working on post moves with rookie Alexis Ajinca while Larry was shooting the breeze but then all of a sudden Larry stood up and said, "No, Herb, no" and then walked over to Ajinca to correct something that Ajinca was doing with his elbow while he was shooting. Ajinca listened intently, then caught a pass from Herb Brown and executed the move according to Larry Brown's specifications. Larry Brown nodded approvingly and sat back down to resume his conversation. It has been said of Larry Brown that he can watch a play in a game or in practice and instantly recall where all 10 players were and what they did, a kind of athletic photographic memory perhaps akin to the way that a chess grandmaster can process numerous possibilities instantly because he has memorized thousands of standard positions/move orders. If the young Bobcats listen to their teacher and heed his guidance they should improve a lot--eventually.
Labels: Charlotte Bobcats, Cleveland Cavaliers, Daniel Gibson, Jason Richardson, Larry Brown, LeBron James, Mike Brown
posted by David Friedman @ 7:49 AM
Requiem for the Detroit Pistons
The Detroit Pistons' championship contending window slid open six years ago when Rick Carlisle coached them to their first Eastern Conference Finals appearance since the Bad Boys' era and that window probably slammed shut on Friday when the Boston Celtics overcame a 70-60 fourth quarter deficit to beat the Pistons 89-81 in game six of the Eastern Conference Finals. Next year, the Boston Celtics figure to again be a serious contender, Cleveland’s revamped team will have had a full training camp together, the young Orlando Magic and Toronto Raptors will likely be even better than they were this season and rising squads in Philadelphia and Atlanta may be ready to make some postseason noise.
The path back to the Eastern Conference Finals will be more treacherous than ever for Detroit—and after three straight losses in that round of the playoffs it is likely that if the Pistons make it that far in 2009 they will do so with a roster and/or coaching staff that has been altered by team President Joe Dumars. Now is a good time to look back on what these Pistons have accomplished and talk a little bit about why they never quite became the dynasty that they acted like they were.
Before the 2002-03 season, the Pistons signed free agent point guard Chauncey Billups and traded for shooting guard Richard Hamilton, building the All-Star backcourt that would play such an integral role in the team’s success in the next half dozen seasons. Two seasons earlier, the Pistons acquired defensive stalwart/rebounding phenomenon Ben Wallace by trading Grant Hill to Orlando. Those three players were the cornerstones as Carlisle’s 2002-03 squad posted the best record in the Eastern Conference (50-32) and made it to the Eastern Conference Finals before being swept by the defending conference champion New Jersey Nets.
After that season, the Pistons replaced Carlisle with Larry Brown. Under his tutelage, The Pistons improved from 13th to third in the league in defensive field goal percentage. With the midseason acquisition of Rasheed Wallace and the emergence of second year forward Tayshaun Prince, the Pistons now had a starting lineup of five excellent defensive players who played unselfishly on offense. Former Sixth Man of the Year Corliss Williamson and future All-Star Mehmet Okur provided good depth. The Pistons improved to 54-28 and although that was only good enough for the second best record in the East they beat top seeded Indiana 4-2 in the Eastern Conference Finals to earn the right to play the star-studded but injury depleted L.A. Lakers in the NBA Finals. With Karl Malone hobbling, Gary Payton unable to stay in front of Billups or Hamilton on defense and looking completely lost in the Triangle Offense and Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant nearing the end of their partnership, the Pistons beat the Lakers in what was termed a "five game sweep."
Detroit’s top five players were 29 or younger, so it seemed like the Pistons could make a run at winning multiple titles. In 2004-05 the Pistons again won 54 games, finishing five games behind the East-leading Miami Heat, who they beat in seven games in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Pistons led the San Antonio Spurs 95-93 near the end of overtime in game five of the NBA Finals and were about to take a 3-2 series lead when Rasheed Wallace committed a terrible error, leaving Robert Horry wide open for the game-winning three pointer. The Pistons won game six but lost game seven. Coach Brown departed after that season and the Pistons let Ben Wallace sign with the Bulls as a free agent, believing that they could make up for his defensive presence and would be a better offensive team without him, particularly now that new Coach Flip Saunders would run a looser ship than Coach Brown did, implementing what some would later term the "liberation offense."
At first, these changes looked good as the Pistons raced to the best record in the NBA in 2005-06 (64-18). However, serious chinks in the Pistons’ armor became evident during the playoffs. After Detroit took a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals versus an inexperienced Cleveland team, the Cavaliers ripped off three straight wins and very nearly captured game six as well. The Cavs fell apart in a 79-61 game seven loss on the road but it was obvious that the Pistons were not the same team that had made it to the Finals for two consecutive years. Sure enough, the Miami Heat seized home court advantage with a 91-86 victory over Detroit in game one of the Eastern Conference Finals and the Heat eventually won the series in six games.
The mantra for the Pistons in 2006-07 was that they had worn themselves out by winning too many regular season games the previous year so this time they would simply use the regular season to get tuned up for the playoffs. Funny, but winning 72 and 69 games in back to back years did not tire out the Jordan/Pippen Chicago Bulls in 1996 and 1997 and the great Lakers and Celtics teams in the 1980s were able to win 60-plus games a year without flaming out in the postseason. The Pistons dropped to 53-29 but that was still good enough for the best record in the Eastern Conference. They once again took a 2-0 lead over the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals before losing three straight games. This time, the Cavaliers won game six to eliminate the Pistons.
The Pistons improved to 59-23 in 2007-08 but that was only good enough for second in the East behind the resurgent Celtics. Still, many people assumed that the experienced Pistons would be able to beat the Celtics in a seven games series, an impression that was only reinforced by Boston’s road woes in the first two rounds and the fact that both Atlanta and Cleveland extended the Celtics to seventh games. Frankly, I thought that such a superficial “analysis” ignored several technical reasons that Boston would win—rebounding, points in the paint and the tendency of the "liberation offense" to bog down in crucial moments: I predicted that Boston would eliminate Detroit in six games and that is of course exactly what happened, for the very reasons that I listed.
It is impressive that the Pistons have made it to the Eastern Conference Finals for six straight years but a resume of one championship, one other NBA Finals appearance and four losses in that round suggests "Atlanta Braves" more than it does dynasty. Keeping together a stable corps of outstanding veteran players is supposed to be a significant advantage come playoff time but in each of the past three seasons the Pistons have lost to teams that had much less collective playoff experience together than they did. What enabled the Pistons to have their initial championship level success and why have they not been able to duplicate it since then?
Great teams have an identity. The San Antonio Spurs are anchored around Tim Duncan’s presence in the paint at both ends of the court, stingy field goal percentage defense and the dribble penetration capabilities of Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. The Phil Jackson Lakers run the Triangle Offense, play better defense than people think and of course they have Kobe Bryant—as Charles Barkley says, it is nice to be able to detonate a nuclear weapon in the fourth quarter of a close game. The Mike Brown Cleveland Cavaliers rely on rebounding, team defense and the brilliance of LeBron James. The Boston Celtics play suffocating team defense and have three All-Star players who share the offensive load.
The Larry Brown Pistons were known as "The Defenders," as the cover of their 2005 playoff media guide declared. Brown is one of the greatest coaches in basketball history and, except for his brief and unfortunate tenure in New York, his teams have always been known for playing to their maximum potential. What are Flip Saunders’ Pistons most known for doing? Lacking focus, not playing up to their potential and taking off quarters, halves and sometimes complete games.
For a few years now, the Pistons have been living off of the defensive reputation that they built during Brown’s regime--and don’t tell me about their regular season statistics: as we saw in last year’s Eastern Conference Finals when LeBron James drove to the hoop at will—most notably in his epic game five performance--and in this year’s Eastern Conference Finals when the Celtics outscored the Pistons 206-130 in the paint, the Pistons do a poor job of defending the paint against elite playoff teams.
While James ran wild in the Eastern Conference Finals against the 2007 Pistons, truly elite defensive teams San Antonio and Boston held him down in the 2007 NBA Finals (.356 field goal shooting, 5.8 turnovers per game) and 2008 Eastern Conference Finals (.355 field goal shooting, 5.3 turnovers per game) respectively. Coach Brown instilled a defensive mindset in the Pistons and he made sure that there was no slippage in that department. Also, Ben Wallace’s presence as a shotblocker alongside Rasheed Wallace made it very, very difficult for teams to score in the paint against Detroit. Until the Suns lost to the Spurs in this year’s playoffs, the last three times that Shaquille O’Neal-led teams lost in the playoffs Ben Wallace anchored the opposing team’s defense (the 2004 Pistons beat the Lakers in the NBA Finals, the 2005 Pistons beat the Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals and the 2007 Bulls swept the Heat in the first round of the playoffs). Ben Wallace’s game did not markedly drop off until this year and the Pistons have never adequately replaced him, so it certainly looks like the Pistons let him walk at least two years too soon.
Labels: Ben Wallace, Chauncey Billups, Detroit Pistons, Larry Brown, Richard Hamilton
posted by David Friedman @ 5:15 AM
Larry Miller: The ABA’s All-Time Single-Game Scoring Leader and an ACC Legend
In an article that originally appeared in the July 29, 2005 issue of
Sports Collectors Digest, I told the story of Larry Miller, a two-time ACC Player of the Year at North Carolina who set the all-time ABA single-game scoring record; the picture to the right shows Carolina Cougars President Carl Scheer presenting the game ball to Miller after Miller's 67 point outburst. Here is the complete text of the
SCD article, including quotes about Miller from Larry Brown, Woody Paige and Joe Caldwell (it should be noted that the online auction mentioned in the article is over and that Kobe Bryant now holds the record for most points scored by a pro guard in a single game, 81):
Revisiting Larry Miller's Permanent Record: Most Records are Made to be Broken, but This One Will Last for an Eternity
Ask this question of your favorite know-it-all hoops fan: who holds the ABA regular season single-game scoring record? When he is stumped after listing Hall of Famers like Rick Barry, Julius Erving and George Gervin, you can tell him that the answer is Larry Miller, a 6’4” Carolina Cougars guard who scored 67 points versus the Memphis Pros on March 18, 1972. The 67 points were not only an ABA record, but also the most points that a pro basketball guard had ever scored, a mark later broken by Pete Maravich, who totaled 68 points against Walt Frazier’s New York Knicks on February 25, 1977. David Thompson (73) and Michael Jordan (69) are the only other pro guards to score more in a single game than Miller did.
Woody Paige, who appears on ESPN’s Around the Horn and Cold Pizza, covered Larry Miller’s 67 point game as a young beat writer for the Memphis Commercial-Appeal: “Johnny Neumann was guarding Miller for a lot of the game and he came by press row. I said something to him—I don’t remember what—and he said, ‘The guy is really hot.’ That’s what I always remember and I quoted him saying that in my article. Of course, Neumann was about the worst defensive player in basketball.”
Miller’s teammate Joe Caldwell had seven assists in the contest: “That was a fun game for me because (on 2/5/71 against Kentucky) I had scored 56. So when Larry Miller got hot I made sure that the ball stayed in his hands. I was so happy that he set a new ABA record. It was one of the most exciting moments for me to be involved in a game when a guy gets hot like that. Somebody has to keep the ball in his hands.”
Paige recalls, “He did a lot of one-two pump fakes. He was a guy who would go up and go up again and eventually put a guy in the air.” Miller adds, “I was always a great driver to the basket. So if I took off like I was going to drive and then stopped I could easily get a jump shot.” Miller shot 25 of 39 from the field, missing his lone three point attempt, and used his pump fakes to draw a lot of fouls, connecting on 17 of 23 free throw attempts. He also had eight rebounds and four assists while playing 46 of a possible 48 minutes. Miller’s point totals by quarter were 21, 17, 20 and nine. Miller concludes, “It’s kind of nice to have a record that will never be broken (since the
ABA no longer exists).”
The aftermath of the 67 point game is at least as dramatic as the game itself. Miller recalls, “I lived in a house by a lake (near
Greensboro) at that time. The night I broke the record was a Saturday night. Two days later my house burned down. The night before that Wendell (Ladner) was at my house for dinner. It was just an amazing series of events. (At first) We thought that (the fire had been caused) because his wife was smoking. We had a sand ashtray that everyone put their cigarettes in.” The blaze was actually started by a lightning strike. “It started where the TV was plugged in and it burned out from there. It was about four o’clock in the morning. I had to run across the lake in my underwear to my nearest neighbor. I had a big gash in my left hand, my shooting hand. I lost two dogs under the bed and all the belongings in the house. I didn’t even have a uniform. We had a game in
New York that night against the Nets in
Long Island. We were in the running for the playoffs. The insurance man got a uniform and got it cleaned. I went to the hospital. They sewed up my left hand with 11 stitches. We found me some clothes. The team went up to
New York. I caught a later plane in the afternoon and took a limo to the arena. I played that night with 11 stitches in my shooting hand…and we won the game.”
Miller adds, “I still have scars from it. It goes from about that first line on the ring finger to the tip. It was a strange story. If that had happened today it would be all over the news.”
Despite his record setting game—and a solid season in which he averaged a career high 18.4 ppg—the Cougars did not keep Miller: “I was traded from the Carolina Cougars after I was (team) MVP that season. I wasn’t under contract and they let me go because I wouldn’t agree to play for the same contract that I had the previous season. I was threatened that they would let me go if I wouldn’t sign a contract for $45,000 and I wanted $60,000, which I did (eventually) get. I mean, could you imagine that happening today? After that happened, 250 people canceled their season tickets. Even at that point if they (season tickets) were only $100, they lost $25,000.”
Miller averaged 13.6 ppg, 5.0 rpg and 2.4 apg in 486 games over seven
ABA seasons. He averaged 7.7 rpg as a rookie, a remarkable accomplishment for a 6’4” guard. He averaged more rebounds per minute in his career than All-Star guards Jerry West, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Steve Francis. Despite his solid numbers, Miller played for five teams and nine head coaches during his
ABA career. Miller feels that he never had the opportunity to stay in one system long enough to show what he was really capable of doing: “It was proven at levels before that—and even at that level—that I could score and I could play defense--and I could pass and I could dribble. I wasn’t the fastest guy in the world, but I wasn’t a guy who was going to get beat on defense and nobody was going to steal the ball from me.”
ACC Memories
Detroit Pistons Coach Larry Brown remembers the impact that Miller had at the University of North Carolina: “I was a coach when he was a freshman at
Carolina. I coached him one year. Coach Smith, when he signed Bobby Lewis and then Larry Miller back to back, that changed our program and got us back to where we had been. He had as much to do with the success at
Carolina as anybody. He was a phenomenal college player. I thought he was a great pro. He just got banged up a little bit. I just thought that he was a great competitor and a great player. I loved the guy. He was fun to be around. He had great strength and quickness and he could handle the ball. He was a great all-around player.”
Miller fondly remembers his Tar Heel days: “The biggest deal in that part of the country was winning the ACC Tournament, because (otherwise) you didn’t get in the NCAAs. That was even bigger than the Final Four. Those ACC Tournaments were probably my greatest college moments, because we won both of them. I had really good tournaments in both of them and I was the MVP of both of them.”
Miller led UNC to the NCAA Final Four in 1967 and 1968, earning First Team All-American honors and the ACC Player of the Year Award after both seasons. In the 1967 ACC Tournament Finals he made 13 of 14 field goals, scoring 32 points in an 82-73 win over Duke. He is one of only two players to win two ACC Player of the Year Awards and two ACC Tournament MVPs. Miller made the 1968 All-Final Four Team and averaged 21.8 ppg and 9.2 rpg in his Tar Heel career.
Memories and Memorabilia
Miller is selling over 1000 pieces of memorabilia from his high school, college and ABA career, with a portion of the proceeds going to his hometown Catasauqua (
Pennsylvania) Public Library. Listed items include jerseys, basketballs, various ACC trophies and awards, recruiting letters (including one from South Carolina’s Frank McGuire), and photographs documenting highlights of Miller’s career, including the 67 point game. Miller explains why he is selling these items now: “All that stuff was in my family home in
Pennsylvania. My father passed away a little over ten years ago and my mother just passed away a year ago. All that stuff was there in the house in a trophy case and being stored away. It wasn’t doing any good. A lot of the stuff is letters and so forth. Some of the coaches have passed away now. People collect that stuff. It doesn’t do any good being in boxes.”
Miller looked into various options before deciding to auction the memorabilia on Ebay. Before the items go up for bidding they can be viewed at Omillaja.com. Miller says, “Using a website to promote the Ebay sale is what I’m trying to do. If it works out OK then I may do some other things along those lines. I’m basically just working on the format.” Miller does not go to sports collector shows or do appearances to sign autographs: “No, I haven’t done any of that. Matter of fact, I’m even out of the reunion business—going back to the reunions and stuff like that. I’m just kind of relaxing.” The last time he set foot on a basketball court was several years ago: “I went out to
L.A. for a UNC versus UCLA alumni game. That was the last time I had a uniform on. That was in the early ‘90s. One time I played in a reunion at
North Carolina about six years after I played (retired from pro ball). I didn’t think I was going to play at all. I hadn’t picked up a basketball in those years and then I played the most of anybody on the team. I was so sore I couldn’t even climb the stairs.”
Woody Paige will never sell his only collectible from his days covering the ABA because it has special meaning for him: “Charlie Finley owned the Memphis team toward the end and my Dad was very ill. He had his leg amputated and Charlie Finley was very nice to him. For my Dad’s birthday the Memphis team signed a ball to him, personalized it. I kept that. I can’t think of anything else that I have. I had press guides from the very beginning, which would probably be worth something. I had all the media guides from the beginning to the end…because I was going to write the definitive history of the league. Well, I ended up giving them away to two brothers who collect ABA memorabilia.”Labels: ABA, Joe Caldwell, Larry Brown, Larry Miller, Woody Paige
posted by David Friedman @ 1:49 AM
Bobby Jones: The Ultimate Team Player
Many athletes try to make sure that the cameras are always focused on them, but Bobby Jones took the opposite approach, deflecting attention away from himself and toward his teammates. Jones filled whatever role his team needed without regard to his individual statistics. He made the All-Defensive Team in 11 of his 12 ABA/NBA seasons (including eight consecutive selections to the NBA All-Defensive First Team), cementing his legacy as the ultimate team player. Jones used a combination of athletic ability and good shot selection to win three field goal percentage titles. Check out my article about Jones here (8/31/15 edit: the link to HoopsHype.com no longer works, so I have posted the original article below):
Bobby Jones' signature move was not a spectacular dunk or a sensational blocked shot, although he had plenty of both during his career. His trademark was the "point"--whenever a teammate gave him a great pass, Jones acknowledged the assist by pointing to him.
Jones recalls, "We learned that at North Carolina, to thank the guy for the pass. I took it one extra step; even if I missed the layup, I still thanked the guy--it wasn't his fault that I missed the shot. You’re not an island by yourself out there. It's a five man game and if you can encourage somebody--just a gesture to let the crowd or the coach know that I scored but this guy should get some credit because he allowed me to score by getting me the ball at the right time--that helps everybody."
Jones averaged 15.0 rpg and 9.8 rpg while shooting .600 from the field at North Carolina. During his
sophomore year the Tar Heels, led by senior Bob McAdoo's 19.5 ppg and 10.1 rpg, finished third in the NCAA Tournament. North Carolina ranked in the top 12 in the final regular season poll each of the next two seasons, but played in the NIT both times because the Tar Heels did not win the ACC Tournament and until 1975 the NCAA Tournament only took one team from each conference.
Jones began his pro career in 1974-75 in the ABA with the Denver Nuggets, who were coached by former Tar Heel Larry Brown. Jones says, "Larry is always looking to be aggressive on the defensive end. He had the same kind of mindset that Coach (Dean) Smith had when I was in college. He looks for players who are not worried about scoring the ball. His teams really try to hold the other team down as much as possible. That was a big factor in me going to Denver--the fact that Larry was there. All that I learned during those four years at North Carolina, he just continued that on." Jones set the ABA single season field goal percentage record (.605) while ranking fifth in the league in blocked shots and eighth in the league in steals. He was selected to the All-Rookie Team and the All-Defensive Team. The Nuggets raced to a 65-19 record, the best mark in the ABA, but lost in seven games to the Indiana Pacers in the Western Division finals. Mel Daniels, the center on those great Pacers teams who currently serves as that franchise's Director of Player Personnel, says of Jones, "He was long, a very good athlete, he ran well. He understood how to play. His biggest attribute was the fact that he knew how to play basketball effectively and efficiently."
The Nuggets added rookie David Thompson and veteran All-Star center Dan Issel in 1975-76 and the two future Hall of Famers combined with Jones to form an impressive frontcourt trio. Jones again led the ABA in field goal percentage (.581) while ranking among the leaders in blocked shots (fifth) and steals (fifth). The Nuggets finished with the league's best record, 60-24, and faced the New York Nets in the ABA Finals. Denver had the better, deeper team on paper; that season's ABA All-Star Game consisted of the Nuggets versus All-Stars from the rest of the league's teams--and Denver won 144-138, with Thompson earning MVP honors. What Denver didn't have was a way to stop the incomparable Julius Erving, who carried the Nets to a six game triumph with one of the greatest performances in basketball history. Erving led both teams in scoring (37.7 ppg), rebounding (14.2 rpg), assists (5.3 apg), steals (3.0 spg) and blocked shots (2.2 bpg)--and he did a lot of the damage versus Jones, who was probably the best defensive forward in pro basketball.
Al Albert, a Nuggets broadcaster at the time, says, "Julius had a terrific series. It was really pretty
surprising to see somebody able to score that easily against Bobby Jones and it just represented how great Julius Erving was." Jones remembers the challenge of guarding Erving: "Playing against him as a young rookie and a kid, he had that wild Afro and it looked like he had a scowl on his face. He was a little bit intimidating with his physical presence and what he could do on the court. Julius was really a true triple threat kind of player. He could pass, he could shoot and he could drive to the basket."
The NBA-ABA merger occurred after that season and the Nuggets continued to be successful in the combined league, going 50-32 in 1976-77, winning the Midwest Division and tying Erving's new team, the Philadelphia 76ers, for the second best record in the NBA. Jones ranked third in field goal percentage (.570), sixth in steals and just missed the top ten in blocked shots. Denver's playoff run was again ended by a superstar on a mission--Bill Walton's Portland Trailblazers defeated the Nuggets en route to winning the NBA title.
Denver won the Midwest Division again in 1977-78 and made it to the Western Conference finals. Jones led the NBA in field goal percentage and continued to be a premier defender. Albert says, "He played the way Larry Brown says--play the game the right way, that was Bobby Jones. He was among the greatest teammates that you could ever have and everything revolved around him on the defensive end. The Nuggets were a fast breaking team because they could go on the break after he either made a stop or came up with a rebound." Asked recently about Jones' impact defensively at that time, Brown says, "He had a pretty good beginning being with Coach Smith and understanding the importance of defending and doing your job and realizing that you win games by doing those things...Every year everybody would say that there was nobody better in the league (defensively) other than the centers, having an impact on the game."
Jones seemed to be a perfect fit in Denver, which made the August 1978 trade that sent him to the 76ers for George McGinnis very puzzling on the surface. What outside observers did not know is how close a combination of medical conditions came to ending Jones' career. Jones has battled epilepsy his whole life, but that was not the main problem he faced at the time: "That illness is a brain disorder that really didn't affect me as far as my playing, except for the medication that I had to take. When I was playing for Denver I was also taking another medication because of a rapid heartbeat that I developed during my first year with the Nuggets. The combination of those two drugs really had an adverse effect on my lifestyle, not just my performance. It made me really drowsy and sluggish and it really caused me to get traded"
The Nuggets had serious concerns about the long term implications of his physical maladies, Jones says: "They felt like my career was pretty much over and I kind of questioned it, too. I didn't think that I could play like that. There wasn't an idea of waiting to see how I would do the next year. It was, 'Here's an opportunity to trade for George McGinnis, so let's go ahead and do that.' I don't blame them for that at all. I probably would have done the same thing. You just didn't know what was going to happen (with his medical condition)."
The trade revitalized Jones’ career: "As it ended up, when I got to Philly, the heart thing went away. I think that maybe it was the altitude or something in Denver. I don't know. I've never had that problem again. So I was able to handle the epilepsy medicine, which was phenobarbital. I could take that--I still take it today--and it didn't really affect me that badly, so I was able to perform at the level that I had been." Playing for the 76ers meant teaming up with his old ABA rival Julius Erving and Jones found that it was much more enjoyable playing with Dr. J than against him: "He was a great teammate, was a great encourager of his teammates. He never put anybody down because they couldn't rise to his level. He would always just encourage everybody to do what they could do and wouldn't get on them because they couldn't do what he could do. I remember that at the end of games guys might throw the ball away or miss the last shot or whatever and feel like they lost the game. He would be the first one in the locker room to put an arm around a guy and say, 'Don't worry, we'll get them next time.' I always really appreciated that about him."
The 76ers made it to the Eastern Conference finals five times in Jones' seven years with the team, winning three Eastern titles. Philadelphia won an NBA championship in 1983 and the Sixers' 12-1 playoff dominance was unmatched until the 2000-01 Lakers went 15-1 in the postseason. Erving and newly acquired center Moses Malone were the 1983 team's headliners and guards Maurice Cheeks and Andrew Toney also made the All-Star team that year. Jones failed to average double figures in scoring for the first time in his career, trading All-Star status for an opportunity to win an elusive ring; his sacrifice was honored when he was selected as the winner of the NBA's inaugural Sixth Man Award, recognizing him as the best non-starter in the league.
The 76ers retained the same core players in 1983-84 but their bid for back to back titles ended in a shocking first round playoff loss to the New Jersey Nets. Jones explains how the 76ers fell so far so fast: "I think it was a couple things. One, when you're the champion you're the target for the other teams and I think that was a motivation for a lot of teams. That hurt us a little bit. Two, we weren't as prepared to defend our title and I don't think that we had the same motivation as a team to play unselfishly and to play together. I think that there were some guys who were more concerned about their minutes, their points, their contracts than they were about what they could do to help the team. That was disappointing to me. That was one of the most disappointing parts of my career, really, that 1984 season--especially the playoffs, losing in the first round to New Jersey."
Philadelphia added rookie Charles Barkley in 1984-85 and returned to the Eastern Conference finals, but Boston dispatched the 76ers four games to one. Jones retired after the 1985-86 campaign.
Jones made the All-Defensive Team in 11 of his 12 seasons, missing out only in his last year. He never averaged 20 ppg in a season, but athleticism and good shot selection enabled him to shoot .560 from the field during his ABA/NBA career and win three field goal percentage titles. Perhaps Albert best explains Jones' impact: "Some guys are 'glue' players. You don't see it in the boxscore but the team would fall apart without them. They really held the team together. If there are 'glue' players, then I would call Bobby Jones 'Super-Glue.'"
Labels: Bobby Jones, Denver Nuggets, George McGinnis, Julius Erving, Larry Brown, New York Nets, Philadelphia 76ers
posted by David Friedman @ 9:59 PM
