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Thursday, December 10, 2020

Remembering Eugene "Goo" Kennedy, 1949-2020

I was saddened to learn today that Eugene "Goo" Kennedy recently passed away. I first met Kennedy at the 2005 ABA Reunion, held in Denver during the NBA All-Star Weekend. Kennedy and several other ABA veterans immediately made me feel welcome after I introduced myself, and the time that I spent with them will forever be one of the highlights of my writing career. Players of his generation are around my parents' age, and those are the players who were in their primes when I was a child first learning about basketball. It is sobering to see an increasing number of people from that generation passing away.

Kennedy was not a star player in the professional ranks, but he starred at Texas Christian University, winning the team MVP and the Southwest Conference Player of the Year award for the 1970-71 season after averaging 20.4 ppg and 16.6 rpg while leading the squad to an NCAA Tournament berth. 

Kennedy averaged 8.2 ppg and 5.6 rpg during his five year professional career, spending his first four seasons in the ABA before finishing his career with the Houston Rockets in 1976-77, the first season after the ABA-NBA merger.

His life--any life--adds up to so much more than just numbers or statistics or accolades. Kennedy spent his post-playing career devoted to education and to helping at-risk kids, and he also raised several foster kids with his wife Mary.

During the 2005 ABA Reunion, I did a one on one interview with Kennedy. I was working on several stories about the ABA and pro basketball history. Looking back through my interview archives, I realize that my interview with Kennedy has never been published, nor did the quotes from that interview appear in subsequent articles. Here is an excerpt from that February 18, 2005 interview:

Friedman: "I'm doing an article about James Silas, who has that great nickname--'Captain Late.' What do you remember about playing with him as a teammate? What made him so special as an offensive player that people really didn't get to see in the NBA after the knee injury?"

Kennedy: "I called him 'Si-Lee.' I remember when he came in as a rookie. He was very quiet, wouldn't say anything."

Friedman: "Really?"

Kennedy: "Yeah. He was very quiet."

Friedman: "He seems talkative now."

Kennedy: "Very quiet. We became very close. We always talked with each other, even when we were with other teams. He's just an all-around good guy."

Friedman: "There was camaraderie in the ABA, even if you were on different teams everyone seemed to really have an 'all for one, one for all' mentality."

Kennedy: "When Fatty [Roland 'Fatty' Taylor, organizer of the 2005 and 2006 ABA Reunions] started getting this (ABA Reunion) together, we said, 'All right, let's get together.' We started talking to other people who Fatty couldn't get in contact with, so we spread the word and it worked well."

Friedman: "What's your favorite memory from your playing days?"

Kennedy: "My rookie year, first coming in and seeing all these guys with gray hair--the veterans. "

Friedman: "You felt like you knew you had a shot, that some of those older guys were on their way out--is that what you were thinking?"

Kennedy: "No, no, no. I'm thinking, 'What am I to do?' You know some of the guys that you meet because you played with them in college, but you didn't know them that well. When I first came in I knew Collis Jones. We were very close because we had played against each other, he at Notre Dame and myself at Texas Christian University. So we hit it off very well and have been together ever since. When I came in he was the number one draft choice [17th pick overall in the 1971 NBA Draft, selected by the Milwaukee Bucks]."

Friedman: "Collis was with the Chaparrals?"

Kennedy: "With the Chaparrals and in the NBA. He decided to come to Dallas. It was tough, it wasn't easy."

Friedman: "What's your best memory of Julius Erving, the best move that you saw him do? I know that everyone says that his best moves aren't on tape, that they happened in the ABA and were not filmed."

Kennedy: "We all came in at the same time. He was a rookie when I was a rookie. In the ABA, Doc went to a lot of cities that did not televise the games nationally. They were only shown in that town. A lot of people did not see him in his prime. They missed it all. He would come into town and people did not know who Dr. J was. They missed a great opportunity."

Friedman: "Also, he came out of a small, unheralded schoo1."

Kennedy: "UMASS."

Friedman: "Right. He came from a small school into a league that was, undeservedly, given second class status in terms of television coverage."

Kennedy: "Right. The ABA was a great league with great players. Look at after the league folded how many guys went into the NBA from the ABA"

Friedman: "Many of the All-NBA guys for the next several years--Erving, Thompson, Gervin, Moses, Maurice Lucas--"

Kennedy: "Moses and I played together at Utah in the ABA and then we played together in Houston."

Friedman: "What did you think of Moses when you first saw him come out of high school at about 210 pounds?"

Kennedy: "Skinny kid who had so much ability."

Friedman: "You could see it even when he was that young?"

Kennedy: "Yeah and everybody was determined to beat up on him. You could beat up on him and it didn't make any difference. Moses was a quick jumper. He could go down and go back up, go down and go back up. For his size, he was unbelievable. He was young, but he could play."

Friedman: "He developed some offensive moves a little later on, but when you were roommates he was mainly scoring off of offensive rebounds, right?"

Kennedy: "Rebounds and put backs. Then he worked on his little turn around jump shot and taking the ball to the basket. He was just a great all around player and a good guy."

Friedman: "What do you remember of Marvin Barnes, another guy who was a great offensive rebounder?"

Kennedy: "Speaking of Marvin, I was just talking to him out there. We played together in St. Louis--Marvin Barnes, Maurice Lucas, Joe Caldwell, Steve Jones, Fly Williams, Gus Gerard. We had a really good team."

Friedman: "What do you remember of the 1975 ABA playoffs? The Nets were the defending champions and had beaten you something like 13 straight times."

Kennedy: "They had beaten us, but during that playoff we were on a roll. We had come together as a team."

Friedman: "What changed?"

Kennedy: "Everybody started to get to know everybody. Everybody felt real comfortable about what was going on and got to know the system. Everybody liked everybody. We had fun doing it."

Friedman: "For those first couple years, Marvin was an incredible player. He was putting up 25 and 15."

Kennedy: "Marvin was a great offensive rebounder, great defender. He could handle the ball, he could shoot the ball--he could do it all. He had so much ability it was unbelievable."

Friedman: "Did you ever read the book by (David) Halberstam, The Breaks of the Game? Steve Jones was interviewed in that book and he talked about Marvin Barnes. That was the first time I ever read about or heard about Marvin Barnes. That book came out a long time ago, like 25 years ago--I read it as a kid."

Kennedy: "Marvin was the type of guy who did what he wanted to do. He didn't think about what would happen. He just did it and then thought about it afterwards. He's a fun guy, he's a neat guy. He always wants to help somebody."

Friedman: "He has a good heart."

Kennedy: "Good heart, good, tender heart."

Friedman: "After you guys beat the Nets, then you played the Colonels and that's when Freddie Lewis got injured, right?"

Kennedy: "I think that it was an old knee injury from when he played with Indiana. When he went down, he was our main point guard. He was at the top of his game that year. He was scoring, playing good 'D' and running the team. We had other good quality guards, but when he went down it was not the same as having him out there."

Friedman: "I read about a guy you had on the Spirits named Don Adams."

Kennedy: "Don Adams came in from Detroit."

Friedman: "I guess he was a physical player and he frustrated Doc a little bit during the series. What do you remember about that?"

Kennedy: "Well, what frustrated Doc more than anything during that series was Marvin. Marvin was all over Doc. When Marvin played he talked a lot of noise. He was constantly talking on the court, (saying things) like, 'You can't stop me, you can't do this.’"

Friedman: "That was one of the real shocking upsets in basketball history. I actually did an article a while back about some of the greatest upsets based on the difference in won/loss record. They were the defending champs, they had the better record and had beaten you so many times in a row." 

Kennedy was a soft-spoken man, and a fun interview subject. I am glad that I had the opportunity to speak with him about his ABA and NBA memories.

Rest in peace, "Goo."

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posted by David Friedman @ 8:44 PM

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Tuesday, October 18, 2016

In Perpetuity: The Story of the Silna Brothers

When I took the Transactional Drafting class at University of Dayton School of Law in Spring 2015, one of my assignments was to write a brief paper and make a five minute presentation about a real-life transactional drafting issue. I chose to examine the "in perpetuity" clause of the agreement that the Silna brothers signed in exchange for relinquishing the opportunity for their Spirits of St. Louis franchise to participate in the 1976 ABA-NBA merger. Here is the paper as I wrote it, along with some expanded additional notes that I summarized during my oral presentation to the class:

We are going to enter a time machine and go back to before LeBron James, before Kobe Bryant, before Michael Jordan, before Magic Johnson and Larry Bird—and before the National Basketball Association enjoyed multi-billion dollar media rights deals.

From 1967-76, the American Basketball Association (the ABA) operated as a rival professional basketball league to the older, established National Basketball Association (the NBA). The ABA featured a red, white and blue basketball, the three point shot and, at the league’s final All-Star Game, a Slam Dunk contest.

The ABA also had a host of future Hall of Fame players with colorful nicknames, including Julius "Dr. J" Erving, George "Iceman" Gervin, Artis "A-Train" Gilmore and David "Skywalker" Thompson. What the ABA did not have was financial stability or a national television contract.

In 1976, the leagues entered talks to merge operations. The leagues needed to come to terms with each other and also resolve several lawsuits that had been filed against one or both leagues by various parties. As a result of the negotiations, it was decided that four ABA teams--the champion New York Nets and the runner-up Denver Nuggets plus the Indiana Pacers and the San Antonio Spurs--would join the new league, while the remaining two ABA teams--the Kentucky Colonels and the Spirits of St. Louis--would be bought out in a settlement.

The owner of the Kentucky Colonels, John Y. Brown, accepted a cash settlement worth a little more than $3 million.

The NBA had previously had a franchise in St. Louis and that team eventually moved to greener pastures in Atlanta, where they still exist today as the Hawks. The NBA did not see a viable future for a franchise in St. Louis but the owners of the Spirits of St. Louis, Dan and Ozzie Silna, rejected the cash settlement offer. They really wanted to own an NBA team but, failing that, they wanted to remain part of the league in some fashion, hoping to eventually buy a team or be awarded an expansion franchise.

The NBA and ABA owners could not proceed with their plans unless they settled with the Silnas, so the Silnas enjoyed some leverage. The Silnas and their lawyer Donald Schupak negotiated to receive a 1/7th share of each of the surviving ABA teams' visual media revenue in perpetuity.

The Silnas received about $2.2 million in compensation for their former players who were signed by NBA teams. Since the Silnas' deal was supposed to be comparable in value to the settlement that Kentucky Colonels' owner John Y. Brown received, that means that the four ABA team owners that signed the deal with the Silnas valued the visual media rights at about $1 million. That may seem absurdly low in light of the multi-billion dollar TV deals that the NBA has now but during that era the NBA sometimes could not even get the networks to agree to show the championship series live. Magic Johnson's great performance in game six of the 1980 NBA Finals was shown on tape delay.

For the four ABA owners whose teams would be joining the merged league, it seemed like a very meaningless and inconsequential concession to offer the Silnas a small percentage of "visual media" (television) revenues to make the Silnas go away. However, as we have learned in Contracts class and in this class, it is very important to negotiate a definite length of time for a contract. Surely the lawyers involved in the NBA-ABA merger negotiations--including David Stern, who just a few years later became the NBA's Commissioner--knew this as well but they thought that the most important thing was to bring the four ABA teams (and their star players, most notably Julius Erving) into the NBA. The Silna brothers and their colorfully named team just seemed to be a small sideshow. Why not just pay off the Silnas with a small piece of a small TV revenue pie and be done with them?

The exact wording of the key clause is, "The right to receive such revenues shall continue for as long as the NBA or its successors continues in its existence." In other words, the clause lasts "in perpetuity," the words that Ozzie Silna later had stitched on a custom-made Spirits of St. Louis retro cap. Schupak owned a 10% stake in the team and thus he has received 10% of the revenue from this deal.

The deal did not pay off immediately. As part of the NBA-ABA merger, the four former ABA teams did not receive any TV revenue for three years. So, from 1976 to 1978, the Silnas did not earn a dime from the NBA. According to published reports, however, in 1979 the Silnas received their first royalty check in the amount of $200,000. For the 1980-81 season, the Silnas earned $521,749.

By this time, the NBA realized that this deal was a lot better for the Silnas than it was for the league. In 1982, the NBA offered the Silna brothers $5 million spread over an eight year period to cancel the deal. The Silnas proposed that the league pay them $8 million over five years and the NBA refused. At that point, the Silnas had made about $1 million total from the deal. Then, the NBA's popularity exploded.

By the 1986-87 season, the annual payout topped $1 million. By the 1999-2000 season, it was more than $10 million. For the 2010-11 season, the Silnas made $17.5 million. That number increased to over $19 million in 2012-13. Overall, the Silnas received more than $300 million as a result of those little words "in perpetuity."

The Silnas had no overhead costs--no arena to maintain, no player salaries to pay--but every time the TV deals grew larger their profits increased.

That is not all. During the original negotiations, Donald Schupak inserted an intentionally broad definition of visual media revenues, a clause that could make the contract applicable to distribution channels unimaginable in 1976. "I was blunt during these discussions," Schupak explained in 2012. "Rather than narrow the definition of TV revenues, I insisted instead that we add a new sentence [to] emphasize that this was a broad definition that could not be evaded or made obsolete."

Since the contractual language covers all "visual media" revenues, in 2009 the Silnas took the NBA to court over money earned from sources beyond the scope of basic U.S. broadcast TV revenue, including international broadcasts, internet rights and the NBA TV cable network. As a result of that suit, early in 2014 the Silna brothers and the NBA reached a confidential settlement agreement. Reportedly, the Silnas received a $500 million payment from the league in exchange for ending the perpetual payments. The Silnas also will receive additional compensation for various revenue streams not imagined in 1976. The Silnas formed a new partnership with the four former ABA teams. That partnership will supply the Silnas with some TV revenue payments as well, though a buyout clause enables the NBA to end that partnership at any time.

It is not clear why the Silnas agreed to this settlement but the Silnas reportedly lost some money during the Madoff scandal and that could have factored into their decision.

The best practices that we can learn from the Silna brothers' story are (1) Do not agree to a contract that lasts "in perpetuity." The mistake in granting the Silna brothers a share of visual media rights was compounded by the fact that the contract lasted "in perpetuity." (2) Do not rush to make a deal. The four ABA teams that were joining the NBA were so anxious to get things over with that they let the Silnas dictate terms. (3) Clearly specify/define which rights you are signing over and which rights you are keeping and never give away future rights to something that has an unknown value. In this case, the term "visual media" can be interpreted very broadly.

********************************************
Notes:

1) You may wonder why the Silnas asked for 1/7th of each of the surviving ABA teams' shares. In December 1975, the ABA owners figured a merger was coming soon and thought that six ABA teams would be allowed and one would be left out. The ABA owners held a meeting and Ozzie Silna wanted to be equitable to the owner who would be excluded from the merger. "The seventh team, I said, should be fully compensated for its players, and they also should receive a share of television money in perpetuity," said Silna. "Everybody was in favor of it, and it was written into the league bylaws at the time. I, of course, had no intention of being that seventh team. I told the owners, 'We're all in this together.' I thought that seventh team deserved the same benefit as the other six. That's how we came up with the one-seventh" figure. However, just a few months later, when the negotiations began, the seventh team had folded and it had also become clear that the Spirits of St. Louis would not be joining the NBA. The Silnas and Schupak applied the parameters they'd set up for the seventh team to themselves. "You try to live by the Golden Rule," Ozzie Silna said. "Some people say it's the best deal ever done. I just looked at it as a way of being fair."

2) Thanks to another bit of foresight by the Silnas and Schupak, they actually received more than 1/7 of each of the former ABA teams' shares of the NBA's TV contract starting in 1995 when the Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies joined the league. The Silnas and Schupak anticipated that expansion would threaten to dilute their revenue and so they capped the split of their share at 28 teams. So the Silnas' share is based on a split among a maximum of 28 teams, not however many teams are actually in the league (which has increased from 22 to 30 since 1976).

3) John Y. Brown later bought the Buffalo Braves (the team now known as the L.A. Clippers) and then swapped teams with the owner of the Boston Celtics. After a brief, unsuccessful run as the Celtics' owner, Brown sold the team and went into politics and was elected as Kentucky's governor.

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posted by David Friedman @ 8:15 PM

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Sunday, May 09, 2010

Pro Basketball's Greatest Playoff Upsets

This article was originally published in the Summer 2002 issue of Basketball Digest.

Basketball fans usually associate upsets with the NCAA Tournament, but Cinderella has also made a few appearances in pro basketball's postseason action. Playoff underdogs are even more unlikely victors than their NCAA counterparts because they have to win a series as opposed to one "win or go home" game. In more than 50 years of NBA playoffs 25 teams have won a playoff series against an opponent that won at least 10 more regular season games; six teams accomplished this during the ABA's nine years of existence.

The 1974-75 Spirits of St. Louis pulled off one of the most unlikely upsets in sports history, defeating the New York Nets 4-1 in the ABA Eastern Division Semifinals. In 1973-74 the Nets went 55-29 in the regular season and won the championship with a 12-2 playoff record despite having the youngest starting lineup in pro basketball (average age: 22.6). Led by superstar Julius Erving, the 1974-75 squad improved to 58-26, including an 11-0 mark versus St. Louis; most of the wins were by double digit margins.

Meanwhile, St. Louis went 4-17 from late January to early March and barely qualified for the playoffs with a 32-52 record. The Nets won game one of the first round series 111-105 despite 41 points by Marvin Barnes, the talented but erratic St. Louis forward. Barnes notched 37 points and 18 rebounds in a 115-97 game two St. Louis victory (he averaged 30.8 ppg and 14.1 rpg in the 1975 playoffs).

The Spirits won the next two games in St. Louis and clinched the series in game five in New York on a jump shot by veteran All-Star guard Freddie Lewis. The Spirits acquired Lewis, a key member of three Indiana Pacers ABA championship teams, early in the season to provide stability and leadership for their talented but undisciplined squad. He averaged 26.2 ppg in the 1975 playoffs and helped keep the Spirits competitive versus the eventual champion Kentucky Colonels in the Eastern Conference Finals before being sidelined with a sprained ankle.

Don Adams, a journeyman forward waived in the middle of the season by the Detroit Pistons, made a significant contribution to the Spirits' playoff run. St. Louis signed him for the ABA minimum of $200 a game. He immediately brought an element of toughness and savvy to the team. His physical defense frustrated Erving in the playoffs and fit right in with the bruising style of young Spirits' forwards Maurice Lucas and Gus Gerard. Rookie Lucas led the Spirits in rebounding (14.7 rpg) and assists (5.0 apg) during the 1975 playoffs. He later became an All-NBA performer with the Portland Trailblazers and teamed with Bill Walton to win the 1977 championship.

Three years earlier Rick Barry's Nets (Erving was then a rookie with the Virginia Squires) achieved the second biggest upset in playoff history, knocking off the powerful Kentucky Colonels in the ABA Eastern Division Semifinals. ABA Rookie of the Year Artis Gilmore (23.8 ppg and a league best 17.8 rpg) and second year standout Dan Issel (30.6 ppg, third in the league) led the Colonels to a 68-16 regular season record, the best ever in the ABA. The Colonels also had two excellent guards in Louie Dampier (15.9 ppg and 36.1% three point shooting, fourth in the ABA) and Darel Carrier, who missed most of the season with a back injury.

During the regular season, Colonels' coach Joe Mullaney installed a defense in which opposing offensive players were funneled to the lane, where they were thwarted by Gilmore, the league's best shot blocker. Kentucky beat New York seven out of eleven games in the regular season but Nets' Coach Lou Carnesecca made some key adjustments for the playoff series. The first change was caused by injury: Bill Melchionni's broken hand led to more minutes and shot attempts for John Roche, who scored 32 ppg in the playoffs versus the Colonels.

The Nets countered Mullaney's defensive scheme by pulling up for short jump shots instead of driving all the way to the hoop. The Nets focused most of their defensive pressure on Issel, Gilmore and Dampier while allowing the other Colonels to roam freely. Gilmore performed near his regular season levels (21.8 ppg and 17.7 rpg) but Issel (22.0 ppg, 41.2 FG%) and Dampier (13.2 ppg, 42.0 FG%) posted subpar numbers. The Nets stunned the Colonels by taking the first two games in Kentucky and eventually closed out the series in six games.

Dan Issel has much more pleasant memories of the third biggest upset in playoff history. Who can forget the image of Denver Nuggets' center Dikembe Mutombo lying on the floor holding the basketball after Denver upset the Seattle Supersonics in the first round of the 1993-94 Western Conference Playoffs? All-Stars Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton led Seattle to the Pacific Division championship with a league best 63-19 record. Denver did not have any 1994 All-Stars, but Issel coached the Nuggets to a 42-40 record, good enough for the eighth and final playoff spot.

Seattle won the first two playoff games easily and seemed poised to coast into the second round. The Nuggets saved their season with a blowout win in game three and stunned the basketball world by winning games four and five in overtime thrillers. Mutombo controlled the boards and swatted shots with abandon, while LaPhonso Ellis and Reggie Williams led a very balanced scoring attack. Brian Williams provided scoring and rebounding off the bench, a role he would later reprise on the 1997 Chicago Bulls' championship team. Kemp shot 53.8% from the field during the regular season but misfired versus the Nuggets at a 37.1% clip. Payton was a poor free throw shooter during the regular season (59.5%) and simply awful from the free throw line during the playoffs (42.1%).

The 1974-75 Indiana Pacers are the only other team to upset a playoff opponent that won 20-plus more regular season games. In the early ’70s the Pacers won three ABA titles and became known as the Boston Celtics of the ABA. The dynasty seemed to be over in 1974 when the Pacers traded away veterans Roger Brown, Mel Daniels and Freddie Lewis to rebuild the team around the multi-talented George McGinnis. McGinnis led the league in scoring (29.8 ppg) and shared regular season MVP honors with Julius Erving. McGinnis was even better in the playoffs, averaging 32.3 ppg, 15.9 rpg and over 8 apg.

The 45-39 Pacers defeated George "Iceman" Gervin and the 51-33 San Antonio Spurs 4-2 in a mild upset and squared off against the heavily favored Denver Nuggets in the Western Division Finals. Larry Brown coached the Nuggets to the best record in the ABA (65-19). Denver featured a high scoring backcourt of Ralph Simpson (20.6 ppg) and Mack Calvin (19.5 ppg), excellent defensive forward Bobby Jones and undersized but effective center Mike Green. McGinnis almost single handedly carried the Pacers to a game seven showdown in Denver. With a 40-2 regular season home record the Nuggets surely must have liked their chances, but Indiana prevailed 104-96. The Pacers bowed to the Gilmore-Issel Colonels in the ABA Finals, 4-1.

Any listing of greatest playoff upsets must recount the improbable saga of the 1994-95 Houston Rockets. Houston is the only team to beat four playoff opponents that each won 50-plus regular season games. In the Western Conference Semifinals versus the 59-23 Pacific Division champion Phoenix Suns the Rockets also became only the fifth team to come back from a 3-1 deficit to win a seven game series and only the second to do so without the home court advantage.

While it is true that the Rockets won the 1994 championship, they hardly looked like title contenders during most of the 1995 season. On Valentine's Day Houston traded starting power forward Otis Thorpe to Portland for perennial All-Star guard (and former Houston Cougar) Clyde Drexler. The Rockets had just completed an uninspired stretch of play with a 6-6 record and guard Vernon Maxwell faced a lengthy suspension for going into the stands after a heckling fan.

At the time of the trade many observers criticized the Rockets for dealing away a top rebounder from a team that already struggled on the backboards. The big move certainly did not pay any immediate dividends, as the Rockets went 17-18 to close out the season. However, Olajuwon missed eight of those games due to injury and Drexler averaged 30 ppg and 9.3 rpg during that time.

In the first round of the playoffs Houston faced the 60-22 Utah Jazz and teetered on the brink of elimination after a 95-82 game three loss at the Summit. In game four Olajuwon (40) and Drexler (41) became only the third teammates to score 40-plus points in the same playoff game (Reggie Miller and Jalen Rose joined the club in 2000) as the Rockets won 123-106. Houston's one-two punch scored 33 and 31 respectively as the Rockets beat the Jazz in Utah in game five, 95-91.

Then came the stunning comeback versus the Phoenix Suns and a 4-2 triumph versus the Spurs in the Western Conference Finals. Hakeem Olajuwon's induction video for the Basketball Hall of Fame could easily be filled just with his highlights versus 1995 regular season MVP David Robinson (Olajuwon averaged 35.3 ppg, 12.5 rpg and 4.2 bpg versus the Spurs). The Rockets finished off their playoff run by sweeping the 57-25 Orlando Magic in the NBA Finals.

Pro Basketball's Greatest Playoff Upsets

Year Team Record Opponent Record Diff.






1974-75 Spirits of St. Louis 32-52 New York Nets 58-26 26
1971-72 New York Nets 44-40 Kentucky Colonels 68-16 24
1993-94 Denver Nuggets 42-40 Seattle Supersonics 63-19 21
1974-75 Indiana Pacers 45-39 Denver Nuggets 65-19 20
1975-76 Phoenix Suns 42-40 Golden St. Warriors 59-23 17
1980-81 Kansas City Kings 40-42 Phoenix Suns 57-25 17
1958-59 Minneapolis Lakers 33-39 St. Louis Hawks 49-23 16
1986-87 Seattle Supersonics 39-43 Dallas Mavericks 55-27 16
1994-95 Houston Rockets 47-35 San Antonio Spurs 62-20 15
1980-81 Houston Rockets 40-42 Los Angeles Lakers 54-28 14


Playoff Round Score



1974-75 ABA Eastern Div. Semifinals 4-1
1971-72 ABA Eastern Div. Semifinals 4-2
1993-94 NBA Western Conf. First Round 3-2
1974-75 ABA Western Div. Finals 4-3
1975-76 NBA Western Conf. Finals 4-3
1980-81 NBA Western Conf. Semifinals 4-3
1958-59 NBA Western Div. Finals 4-2
1986-87 NBA West. Conf. First Round 3-1
1994-95 NBA Western Conf. Finals 4-2
1980-81 NBA West. Conf. First Round 2-1


Note: This chart lists the 10 greatest upsets in NBA/ABA playoff
history based on regular season won/loss differential.

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posted by David Friedman @ 11:27 PM

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Thursday, August 16, 2007

Joe Caldwell: Banned from Basketball

Joe Caldwell starred at Arizona State University and he has been inducted in both the ASU Hall of Fame and the PAC-10 Hall of Fame. He won an Olympic gold medal in 1964 and became an All-Star in the NBA and the ABA before his pro career abruptly ended. Three decades later, he still seeks the money and respect that he believes he is owed. Here is a link to my HoopsHype.com article about the player whose amazing jumping ability earned him the nickname "Pogo Joe" (10/4/15 edit: the link to HoopsHype.com no longer works, so I have posted the original article below):

It is said that there are two sides to every story--and then there is the truth. Joe Caldwell's story involves lawsuits and disputes about contracts. All that drama makes it too easy to forget just how good of a player he was.

Caldwell played for Arizona State from 1961-64, setting the Sun Devils career scoring record with 1515 points; he still ranks seventh on the school's scoring list and second in career scoring average (18.2 ppg). His tremendous leaping ability earned him the nickname "Pogo Joe" and enabled the 6-5 swingman to grab 929 rebounds, which is still the second best total in school history. He led Arizona State to the NCAA Tournament in each of his three varsity seasons and a 65-18 overall record. In 1975 he became a charter member of the school's Hall of Fame and in 2004-05 Caldwell joined the Pac-10 Hall of Fame, a special honor since ASU was not a member of the Pac-10 (or, to be precise, the Athletic Association of Western Universities, as it was then known) during Caldwell's college career. Caldwell is very proud that the Pac-10 chose to remember his contributions even though ASU was a Western Athletic Conference member during his career; he contrasts this with how the NBA ignores ABA history and statistics.

"Pogo Joe" Caldwell was the fourth leading scorer on the 1964 U.S. Olympic basketball team that went 9-0. Caldwell scored 14 points in the 73-59 gold medal game win over the Soviet Union. "It was such an honor when I was chosen to be one of the 100 players to go to Kentucky to train and to be chosen out of those 100 players to be one of the 12 members of the Olympic team," Caldwell says. "When we got together we trained and we learned from each other. To this day my fondest memory is standing on that podium and saying that I am the best in the world."

The Detroit Pistons selected Caldwell with the second overall pick in the 1964 NBA draft. Caldwell earned a place on the 1964-65 All-Rookie Team by averaging 10.7 ppg and 6.7 rpg. Midway through his second season, the Pistons traded Caldwell to the St. Louis Hawks. Caldwell's numbers steadily improved and the Hawks' record soared as well. In 1967-68, he averaged 16.4 ppg and St. Louis finished first in the Western Division with a 56-26 record.

In 1968-69, Caldwell averaged 15.8 ppg and made the All-Star team for the first time. The Hawks moved to Atlanta prior to the season but were still located in the Western Conference. They knocked off Elvin Hayes and the San Diego Rockets in the first round of the playoffs before falling 4-1 to the powerful Wilt Chamberlain-Jerry West-Elgin Baylor L.A. Lakers. In 1969-70 Caldwell made the All-Star team again, ranking 18th in the league in scoring at 21.1 ppg. The Hawks won the Western Division with a 48-34 record. Atlanta defeated Chicago 4-1 but in the Western Division Finals the Hawks were no match for the Lakers, who swept them. Caldwell averaged a team-high 25.0 ppg in the playoffs, the sixth highest postseason scoring average in the NBA in 1970.

Defense was always one of Caldwell's strong suits and in 1969-70 he earned All-Defensive Second Team honors. He believes that superior conditioning is an essential part of being a great defensive player. "When I was playing I thought that I was in the best shape possible," Caldwell explains. "I thought that I could run all night long." Caldwell honed his defensive skills in part by practicing against Hawks player-coach Richie Guerin, a former All-Star, and Lenny Wilkens, who later was selected as a member of the NBA’s 50 Greatest Players List.

"That's where I trained my mind for speed and size," Caldwell says. "Richie Guerin was an extremely good right-handed player and he was an excellent coach. I would play in practice against him. Then I would play in practice one-on-one against Lenny Wilkens. Then I would switch up the next day and play Paul Silas and Jim Davis, the big guys who were fast. That's why I was able to guard Dr. J (a few years later), because I had trained myself against different sized players and where they were going to go. When you train yourself like that and then you get involved in it, it becomes a part of you."

Caldwell's best NBA season also turned out to be his last one. He felt that the Hawks were not paying him his true market value. His agent Marshall Boyer negotiated a better deal with the ABA's Carolina Cougars, so Caldwell signed with them. A few years earlier when Rick Barry jumped leagues, a court ordered him to sit out one season because of the option clause that was then a standard part of every NBA contract. But in Caldwell's case, a court ruled that he did not have to sit out because the Hawks' offer was less than 75 percent of the value of his previous deal with the team; thus, Caldwell was a free agent and the Hawks had no right to invoke the option clause. Caldwell fervently believes that the NBA never forgave him for this ruling.

Caldwell averaged 23.3 ppg for the Cougars in 1970-71, ranking seventh in the ABA. He made the All-Star team and the All-ABA Second Team but Carolina did not qualify for the playoffs. A knee injury forced Caldwell to miss 23 games in 1971-72 but he returned to form the next season, making the All-Star team and the All-Defensive Team. The Cougars were now coached by Larry Brown, who was in his first season as a professional coach. Brown won the first of his three ABA Coach of the Year awards after leading Carolina to a 57-25 record, the best mark in the Eastern Division. The Cougars lost 4-3 in the Eastern Division Finals to the Kentucky Colonels.

While coaching Carolina, Brown employed a lot of the principles that later became his trademarks. On offense he emphasized team play and quick ball movement, while on defense he utilized the jump-and-switch defense that his mentor Dean Smith used at North Carolina; this system had previously been developed by Ben Carnevale at the Naval Academy and Bob Spear later used it at Air Force, where Smith got his first job as an assistant coach. The jump-and-switch tactics worked perfectly for the Cougars, who had several quick guards and forwards. Caldwell ranked fourth in the ABA in steals in 1972-73, the first year that totals were kept in that category in either league. He had 10 steals in one game, setting an ABA record in that category.

Caldwell also ranked fourth in the ABA in steals in 1973-74, as the Cougars placed three players in the top ten. Carolina's record slipped a bit, though, and the Cougars met the Colonels a round earlier. Carolina's one weakness was at center, while Kentucky had the best center in the league, Artis Gilmore, who dominated play as Kentucky swept Carolina.

Prior to the 1974-75 season, the Carolina franchise fell apart due to financial problems. A new ownership group bought the team and relocated what was left of it to St. Louis, renaming the franchise the Spirits of St. Louis after Charles Lindbergh's famous plane. Several of the team's top players departed and Brown left to coach the Denver Nuggets. St. Louis' roster was filled with young, talented and outlandish players, with rookie Marvin Barnes by far the most talented and outlandish of the bunch.

Barnes averaged 24.0 ppg and 15.6 rpg in 1974-75 but not without going through some controversy that ultimately ended Caldwell's career. Barnes was constantly feuding with the coaching staff and management due to his undisciplined habits on and off the court. At one point during the season he disappeared entirely. The team's management claimed that Caldwell had led Barnes "astray."

Bob Costas, then a young broadcaster for the team, later noted, "Marvin spent much of his life 'astray.' He didn't need a map or someone to take him there." Nevertheless, the team used the Barnes situation as a pretext to suspend Caldwell, who was then 33 years old and still a very productive player (14.6 ppg, 5.1 apg, 4.4 rpg in 25 games prior to the suspension). He testified in court that he had nothing to do with Barnes briefly leaving the team but Caldwell never played another pro basketball game.

More than three decades later, Caldwell still insists that the Barnes situation was just a convenient excuse to mask the real issue. "Marvin Barnes, I was trying to stop that young man," Caldwell says. "I was trying to stop all the young basketball players. I told them that there are three things that you have to do before you get to the pros: eat right, get your rest and be on time. Those are the only three things that you have to do. If the man says practice is at 6:00, he doesn't mean 6:01. He doesn't mean 6:02. He means 6:00 sharp. That's what I was training them (the young players). I was trying to train them, when they (Spirits management) told me that I was bad for their business, so they kicked me out of basketball. I really had nothing to do with Marvin Barnes other than trying to tell that young man to get himself together. Stop having 35 telephones or 15 telephones in his house and all that silly mess. They chose to do what they did because of my pension--and that's an ongoing fight for 25 years now."

Caldwell's original contract with the Cougars included provisions for a very generous pension plan. Caldwell adds that this came in the form of an "irrevocable guarantee" that could not be amended by any party but that almost immediately after signing this deal the team tried to change it, offering to give him a bigger salary in exchange for agreeing to reduce the pension. He declares that his adamant stance that he is entitled to this pension poisoned his relationship with the team's management and is the real reason behind not only his sudden banishment but the fact that no team in either league signed him. Caldwell says that the ABA--and later the NBA after the leagues merged in 1976--kept him suspended to make sure that he will never receive his pension.

"A man who was in great physical condition like myself, who prided himself on defense--and you know how hard it is to play defense--you have to keep the drugs out of your system, keep the alcohol out of your system, you have to come to play every night because there is a good offensive player on every team," Caldwell says.

"Every team we played, that was the guy I was assigned to--I don't care if he was 6-9 or 4-1 I had him. So, why would a guy like that never play after he turned 33? The NBA said I was too old. They've been playing guys who are 41, 42 and I probably could still outplay them now. It's crazy what they tried to say that I was, but I'm not that person. I'm a basketball player. I've always loved the game and I will always love it. I'll go away from here loving it. I was going to play until I was 40. I was going to play 20 years. I had trained my body to play 20 years and then I was going to retire. I was going to be the first 20-year man instead of Robert Parish. That was my dream."

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Joe Caldwell's story is fascinating on many levels; he had an excellent college career, he treasures his Olympic experiences above all of his basketball accomplishments, he starred in two leagues and, last but not least, he has been engaged in various legal battles with the ABA and the NBA for well over 30 years. He won some--unlike many players who jumped leagues, Caldwell did not have to sit out a season--and lost others. I touch on some of those legal battles in my article but it really would take a book to do them justice. For those who are interested to read Joe Caldwell's entire story in his own words, his autobiography, titled Banned from Basketball, can be ordered here. Caldwell levels some pretty serious charges, both in conversations that I have had with him and in his book. I don't necessarily agree with everything that he says but other people have taken advantage of opportunities to express themselves about Caldwell over the years so he certainly has the right to give his version of events--and he deserves to be remembered as an outstanding player.

Returning to the more pleasant subject of Caldwell's on-court achievements, here are some "DVD extras" to accompany my article about Caldwell:

Caldwell has special memories of his matchups with Jerry West and Oscar Robertson. "Jerry West was an excellent player. He was right handed; everybody knew from jump street that he was going to the right," Caldwell says. "But Jerry West's ace in the hole, because he was an excellent offensive player, his shot was (taken) going back to the left. He would take two steps back to the left and shoot the jumper. That's why he was so awesome. Then if you guarded him wrong, he would go all the way (to the hoop) with the left hand. Oscar Robertson was a physical guy. I would pick Oscar up (in the backcourt) and make him throw it to someone else to bring it up. He and Wes Unseld had the wide body. I called them big butt guys back in those days. They could use those hips to knock you around. Oscar was round--had big hips, big thighs--but he could move. He'd throw those hips at you, you stumble, and that was all he needed--that one step you take backward. He'd step back and shoot that little one handed jumper. He was good at it."

Caldwell played against Roger Brown in the ABA but actually first met him when they were both in high school. "I met Roger Brown and Connie Hawkins back in the late 50s at a high school All-American game in New York," Caldwell says. "I always thought that Roger Brown could have been one of the greatest forwards of all-time if he had not been delayed from playing pro basketball. Roger was about 6-5, extremely fast and had a good jump shot. I kind of missed part of his career because I was in the NBA at that time. The ABA has fond memories of all the good guys who came through--Moses Malone, Dr. J, we had an entourage of great players who ended up in the NBA."

I've spoken to many ABA players and to a man they talk about the special bond that exists between them. Caldwell is no exception to that: "Back in those days, when I went over there people were saying that it was not a real basketball league. When you insult great players like Dr. J and George McGinnis that automatically brings the players closer together. When I got there I got involved with a lot of the guys and became head of the union and got to know them pretty well. We had an understanding amongst each other and we hung out together and we talked. We had some of that kind of stuff when I was in the NBA, but more so in the ABA. So it’s a good family unit."

The first time that I spoke with Caldwell we discussed the jump and switch defense that Coach Larry Brown has been using throughout his career. I used those quotes in my article titled The Art and Science of NBA Defense.

For more information about the evolution of defensive theory in pro basketball and the history of the jump and switch defense, check out my Hank Egan interview.

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posted by David Friedman @ 3:47 AM

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