Gene Shue's Remarkable NBA Career Should Never be Forgotten
Gene Shue, the only person to make five NBA All-Star teams and win two NBA Coach of the Year awards, passed away on April 3 at the age of 90. Shue's multifaceted NBA career began in 1954 when the Philadelphia Warriors made him the third overall selection in the draft, and continued into the early 1990s when he served as the Philadelphia 76ers' General Manager.
Shue did not immediately become a star NBA player, and he did not even average at least 10 ppg until his third season--but he emerged as a All-Star in his fourth campaign, and then he made the All-Star team five years in a row. In 1960, Shue made the All-NBA First Team alongside Hall of Famers Bob Cousy, Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, and Bob Pettit. Shue ranked sixth in the league in scoring (1712 points, 22.8 ppg) and 11th in assists (295, 5.5 apg) that season. He made the All-NBA Second Team in 1961 behind Cousy and Oscar Robertson but ahead of rookie Jerry West, among others.
Shue scored 10,068 points in his 10 season NBA career at a time when the 10,000 point club was considered a "select circle" of great players listed in the annual official NBA Guide. Shue's playing career ended in 1964, and just two years later his coaching career began as he took the reins for the 4-21 Baltimore Bullets. The Bullets, founded in 1961 as the Chicago Packers, had yet to post a single winning season, but in Shue's second full season the team posted the best record in the league, 57-25. That quick turnaround earned Shue the first of his Coach of the Year awards. The Bullets were swept by the rising New York Knicks--who won two of the next four NBA titles--but in 1971 Shue guided the Bullets to the NBA Finals, where they were swept by the Milwaukee Bucks. Hall of Famers Wes Unseld and Earl Monroe had their most productive individual seasons during Shue's run in Baltimore. The team moved to Washington, D.C. in 1973, but Shue resigned because he did not want to move to Washington, D.C. Instead, Shue became the coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, who had just finished the worst season in NBA history up to that time (9-73). In the next four seasons, Philadelphia's win total increased to 25, 34, 46, and 50. The 76ers added a lot of talented players during that time--including Doug Collins, George McGinnis, and Julius Erving. Shue guided that trio to the 1977 NBA Finals, where the 76ers took a 2-0 lead over the Portland Trail Blazers before losing four straight games to Bill Walton and crew. The 76ers fired Shue after the team started 2-4 during the next season.
Shue then took over his third reclamation project, becoming the coach of the San Diego Clippers in 1978; in the previous two seasons, the Clippers--then known as the Buffalo Braves--won 30 games and then won 27 games. The Clippers won 43 and 35 games during Shue's two years with the team, but did not qualify for the playoffs in either season. Shue then returned to the Bullets franchise, now known as the Washington Bullets. He led the team to the playoffs three times in five full seasons, winning his second Coach of the Year award in 1981. The Bullets fired Shue with 13 games remaining in the 1986 season, and he finished his coaching career with a brief, unsuccessful return to the hapless Clippers, who had relocated to L.A.
Shue's .477 career regular season winning percentage (784-861) is not a fair representation of his coaching skills, because he repeatedly took over bad teams, and he generally made those teams better. He was renowned for his ability to connect with players who had been cast off by other teams, and for his innovative coaching strategies; for example, to alleviate pressure against his guards when he coached Philadelphia he sometimes had his centers bring the ball up the court. Also, he was an early adopter of the three point shot: Shue coached the Clippers during the first season that the NBA used the three point shot (1979-80), and his team led the league in three pointers made (177) and three pointers attempted (543) while ranking second in three point field goal percentage (.326). During the 1979-80 season, the Clippers' Brian Taylor ranked first in three pointers made (90--more than all but three teams that season!), first in three pointers attempted (239), and fifth in three point field goal percentage (.377). Those numbers may seem small in light of the NBA's three point revolution during the past few years, but at that time Shue's Clippers were one of the few NBA teams that attempted three pointers in any situation other than as a desperation heave with the shot clock/game clock expiring or down by three points with time running out.
I am not sure how many people participated in the NBA as a player, coach, or executive in five different decades, but that list must not be very long, and Shue's name is on it.
Labels: Baltimore Bullets, Detroit Pistons, Gene Shue, Julius Erving, Philadelphia 76ers, Washington Bullets, Wes Unseld
posted by David Friedman @ 11:40 PM
MVP/Finals MVP/Rookie of the Year Wes Unseld Passed Away at Age 74
Wes Unseld, selected in 1996 as one of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players, passed away this morning at the age of 74.
Wilt Chamberlain (1960 NBA), Unseld (1969 NBA), and
Spencer Haywood (1970 ABA) are the only players in ABA/NBA history who won the regular season MVP and the Rookie of the Year award in the same year. Unseld, who played for the franchise then known as the Bullets (now known as the Wizards) from 1968-81, led his team to the NBA Finals four times (1971, 1975, and 1978-79). He won the 1978 Finals MVP after the Washington Bullets defeated the Seattle SuperSonics in seven games.
He was not a big-time scorer, finishing with a career scoring average of 10.8 ppg while averaging double figures in scoring only six times in 13 seasons, but despite standing just 6-7 he had a huge impact in the paint. Unseld led the NBA in rebounding in 1975 (14.8 rpg) and in field goal percentage in 1976 (.561). Unseld did not post gaudy assist totals, but he was an excellent passer overall, and perhaps the best outlet passer in NBA history, renowned for his ability to snare a defensive rebound and throw a precise full court pass. He set devastating screens to open up the floor for his teammates in the half court set.
Unseld's teammate and fellow All-Star
Phil Chenier told me, "Wes was there for my whole career with the Bullets--a very stable
player, very team oriented and he set a lot of picks to get me open. He was a player who instilled confidence in his teammates
in a very quiet way. You always knew that he supported you. He never
fussed at his players. He was always encouraging and that's what I liked
most about Wes."
Unseld
had nine seasons with at least 1000 rebounds, tied with Bob Pettit for third on the all-time list behind Wilt Chamberlain (13) and Bill Russell (12). Unseld grabbed 1491 rebounds as a rookie, tied with Artis Gilmore for fourth all-time in ABA/NBA history behind Wilt Chamberlain (1941) and Spencer Haywood (1637). Unseld ranks among the top 15 ABA/NBA career leaders in rpg (14.0, seventh), and rebounds (13,769, 13th).
He was a durable performer who played in all 82 regular season games four times, and who played in at least 73 games in 11 of his 13 seasons. Unseld averaged 36.4 mpg during the regular season, and 41.1 mpg during his playoff career.
Unseld was a Bullet/Wizard in five different decades including not only his playing career but also his tenure as head coach (1988-94) and as a team executive (1996-2003).
Labels: Baltimore Bullets, Washington Bullets, Wes Unseld
posted by David Friedman @ 5:32 PM
The NBA in the 1970s: The Dynasty That Never Was; the Opera Isn’t Over Until the Fat Lady Sings
I wrote the chapter about the NBA in the 1970s for the 2005 anthology Basketball in America: From the Playgrounds to Jordan's Game and Beyond. This is the 10th of 12 installments reprinting that chapter in its entirety. I have removed the footnotes that accompanied the original text; direct quotations are now acknowledged in the body of the work and I will post a bibliography at the end of the final installment. I hope that you enjoy my take on one of the most fascinating and eventful decades in NBA history.The Dynasty That Never Was; the Opera Isn’t Over Until the Fat Lady SingsThe 1976-1977 season was a breakthrough for Bill Walton and the Blazers. Injuries cost Walton 47 games in his rookie season and 31 games in his second year but he missed "only" 17 games during Portland’s title run. During his outstanding college career at UCLA he had experienced some knee troubles but it later became clear that Walton had congenital structural problems with his feet. Altering his movements to accommodate his foot injuries led to the knee ailments. Dr. James Nicholas, a New York physician whose clients included Jets' quarterback Joe Namath, once examined Walton and told him simply, "You don’t belong in this league, young man."
During the brief stretch that Walton was relatively healthy he was a dominant player and his Blazers looked like a dynasty in the making. By the 1978 All-Star Break, Portland was 40-8 and had won 44 straight home games. They pushed their record to 50-10 after a 113-92 win over the 76ers on February 28, but Walton badly sprained his left ankle in that game and missed the rest of the regular season. Portland went 8-14 the rest of the way without Walton, but still finished with the best record in the league. Walton's impact was so profound that he won the MVP even though he only appeared in 58 of 82 games. Denver again won the Midwest Division, this time with 48 wins, while Phoenix, Seattle, Los Angeles and Milwaukee completed the playoff field in the Western Conference.
The 1977-1978 season concluded with the closest, most exciting contest for the scoring title in league history. Pete Maravich seemed to be heading for his second straight scoring crown until he was slowed by injuries, culminating in a blown out knee that ended his season before he played enough games or scored enough points to qualify for the title. From then on it was a race between ABA standouts George Gervin and David Thompson. They dueled until the last day of the regular season, April 9, 1978. That afternoon Thompson seemed to clinch the scoring title with a stunning 73 point outburst (tied for third best in NBA history) in a 139-137 loss to the Pistons. He scored a record 32 points in the first quarter, breaking Wilt Chamberlain's mark for points in one period (31), which had been set in his famous 100 point game. Thompson scored 53 points in the first half. Overall, he shot a blistering 28-38 from the field and 17-20 from the free throw line. Gervin's Spurs faced the Jazz in the Superdome that evening. The Iceman broke Thompson's hours-old record by scoring 33 points in the second quarter. He also had 53 points by halftime. Gervin knew that he needed 59 points to pass Thompson and he finished the game with 63. Amazingly, he played only 33 minutes (Thompson logged 43) as the Spurs lost 153-132. Gervin launched 49 shots, making 23, and he matched Thompson by converting 17-20 from the free throw line. Less than two weeks later, Thompson became the highest paid player in NBA history, signing a five year, $750,000 per year contract with the Nuggets. This surpassed the salaries of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar ($650,000 per year) and Maravich ($600,000 per year). Thompson later won the 1979 All-Star MVP (becoming the only player to win All-Star MVPs in the ABA and the NBA), but a drug problem soon diminished his production considerably. His career ended prematurely after he sustained leg injuries falling down a staircase while partying at New York’s Studio 54.
Gervin led the Spurs to the Central Division title with a 52-30 record. Sixers' Coach Gene Shue, already on thin ice after his team's collapse in the 1977 Finals, was fired after Philadelphia stumbled to a 2-4 start. New Coach Billy Cunningham, only recently retired as a player after a severe knee injury, rallied the Sixers, who won their second straight division title with a conference best 55-27 record. The other Eastern Conference playoff teams included the Bullets, Cavaliers, Knicks and Hawks, none of whom won more than 44 games. Julius Erving (20.6 points per game), George McGinnis (20.3 points per game) and Doug Collins (19.7 points per game) seemed to be poised to make a return trip to the Finals. The Sixers easily swept the Knicks in the Eastern Semifinal but had to wait a week while San Antonio and Washington slugged it out in the other Eastern Semifinal. The underdog Bullets eventually prevailed in six games. Bob Dandridge, who won a title playing alongside Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson with the 1970-1971 Bucks, joined Washington as a free agent before the 1977-1978 season and proved to be a key addition, particularly in the playoffs. The Bullets were devastated during the regular season by injuries, hence their mediocre record, but their strong frontline, anchored by Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld, Bob Dandridge and Mitch Kupchak, peaked during the postseason. They took the Sixers' homecourt advantage with a 122-117 game one win and closed out the series in six games.
In the West, Walton got an extra week of rest because Portland earned a first round bye. Then the Blazers faced Seattle in the Western Semifinals. The Sonics started the season 5-17 but closed with a strong 42-18 mark after Coach Bob Hopkins was replaced by Lenny Wilkens. Seattle was an excellent defensive team whose offense was built around the talents of guards Gus Williams, Fred Brown, and Dennis Johnson. The Sonics knocked off Abdul-Jabbar and the Lakers in the first round but Portland beat Seattle three out of four times in the regular season. The big question was whether Walton could perform effectively after being out of action for nearly two months. In game one he scored 17 points and grabbed 16 rebounds in 34 minutes, but Seattle won, 104-95. Although Walton's statistics were not bad, he limped noticeably throughout the game and could not walk without pain the next day, spending most of the time in the whirlpool. Two days later he practiced but did not run. His availability for the second game was questionable at best. Early in his career Walton refused to take painkilling injections, but this time he relented. Walton scored 10 points with six rebounds in 15 first half minutes. He did not play in the second half but the Blazers hung on to win, 96-93. When Walton's foot was x-rayed the next day a fracture was found in the tarsal navicular bone below his left ankle. Blazers' team doctor Robert Cook denied that the injections contributed in any way to the fracture, stating that the painkilling drugs were administered in a part of his foot "completely separated from the area of the break." In the other Western Semifinal the Nuggets took a three games to one lead over the Bucks, but Milwaukee won two straight before losing game seven 116-110 in Denver. The Sonics finished off the Walton-less Blazers, took the home court advantage in the Western Finals with a 121-111 win in game two in Denver and eventually captured the series in six games.
It is unlikely that too many preseason prognosticators selected Washington and Seattle for the 1978 Finals. Washington was built around its veteran frontcourt, while Seattle's strength was its young guards. These differences lent some intrigue to the matchup. Due to scheduling problems, Seattle faced the same disadvantage that the Bullets had dealt with in the 1975 Finals: playing game one at home and then going on the road for the next two. Seattle was not fazed by this, winning the first game 106-102 and taking a three games to two lead in the series. The Bullets faced the prospect of their third final round loss without a single championship but Washington Coach Dick Motta picked an appropriate slogan for his scrappy team: "The opera isn't over until the fat lady sings." The Bullets blew Seattle out 117-82 in game six and the series came down to a seventh game in Seattle. Johnson, who played valiantly in the postseason, went 0-14 from the field and his backcourt mate Williams shot 4-12. The Bullets became only the third NBA team to win a game seven in the Finals on the road. Unseld was awarded the Finals MVP for his rebounding, passing, and bone crushing picks.
Labels: Bill Walton, Elvin Hayes, Seattle Supersonics, Washington Bullets, Wes Unseld
posted by David Friedman @ 1:25 AM
Missed it by that Much: Pro Basketball’s Closest Races for the Rebounding Title
A slightly different version of this article was originally published in the February 2003 issue of Basketball Digest.
The George Gervin-David Thompson last day duel for the 1978 NBA scoring title will never be forgotten, but it was not pro basketball's closest battle for statistical supremacy. There have been three races for the rebounding championship that were decided by an even slimmer margin than that legendary contest (including one tie), but rebounding has never attracted the glory or acclaim that scoring does.
Wes Unseld of the Washington Bullets claimed the 1974-75 NBA rebounding crown over the Boston Celtics' Dave Cowens by .01496 rpg--equivalent to one rebound over the course of an 82 game season. Unseld clinched his only rebounding title by snaring a season-high 30 boards in a 119-103 home victory over the New Orleans Jazz in the Bullets' final game of the season on April 6, 1975. Prior to that he finished second in rebounding four straight seasons (1968-69--1971-72). In 1969-70 future teammate Elvin Hayes (then a San Diego Rocket) nipped Unseld by .19506 rpg, equal to 16 rebounds over 82 games.
The 1969-70 season is the first year that the NBA decided rebounding, scoring and assists championships by average instead of totals (the ABA ranked league leaders by average in each of its nine seasons, 1967-68--1975-76). During this period (hereafter referred to as the modern era) 10 rebounding titles have been won by less than .5 rpg; in the eleventh closest race (1979-80), the San Diego Clippers' Swen Nater edged Moses Malone of the Houston Rockets by just a shade over .5 rpg.
Michael Cage of the Los Angeles Clippers won the 1987-88 rebounding title by the second closest differential of the modern era, edging the Chicago Bulls' Charles Oakley by .02778 rpg. Cage needed 29 rebounds in the last game of the season to pass Oakley and he got 30 in a 109-100 home loss versus the Seattle Supersonics on April 24, 1988.
These razor thin margins bring up the interesting question of how rebounds--and basketball statistics in general--are recorded; note that Unseld and Cage both clinched their narrow victories in home games. Some cynics contend that the only "pure" basketball statistics are free throw percentages and scoring averages. Every other category has some degree of subjectivity to it. For example, field goal percentage seems to be a cut and dried number, but it can be boosted (or decreased) depending on how diligently missed tip attempts are recorded. An assist is only supposed to be awarded when a player makes an immediate scoring move after catching a pass, but "immediate" is open to the interpretation of the scorekeeper. It is frequently not clear whether or not a shot has been partially blocked (or, in some cases, who got a piece of the ball). Should a turnover be assigned to someone who throws an errant pass or the player who failed to catch it? Similarly, who gets credit for a steal when one player flicks a ball away from an opponent and his teammate swoops in and gains control of the loose ball?
In a slow paced game like baseball an official scorer carefully mulls over similar choices and publicly announces his/her ruling. In basketball the home scorekeeper makes these decisions on the fly and they are generally only subject to review in egregious cases when a player seems to have been unjustly awarded or denied a tenth rebound or assist to obtain a triple double.
The subjectivity in rebounding comes into play with the recording of tip-in attempts or even taps on the defensive board by a player trying to gain control of the ball. Technically, a tip-in or follow-up attempt should be recorded as an offensive rebound and a field goal attempt. In practice it seems that home scorekeepers sometimes have a very liberal definition of offensive rebound in these cases. For instance, some observers felt that Unseld padded his numbers--particularly in the final game of the 1975 season--by tapping the ball to himself and/or missing close shots only to grab the rebound and then convert. This criticism has been leveled at many great offensive rebounders, including Moses Malone and Dennis Rodman. Whether or not Unseld was deliberately doing this, it is obvious that this "technique" only augments one's statistics if the scorekeeper cooperates.
Rodman--one of the shortest and probably the lightest rebounding champion ever--sometimes tipped the ball to take advantage of his uncanny ability to jump to the same height several times in rapid succession; if he could not immediately grab a rebound he would repeatedly jump up and tip the ball away from the opposition until he maneuvered himself into position to catch the ball. Whether or not scorekeepers were crediting him with "extra" rebounds, he was clearly doing this to get rebounds that otherwise would have gone to bigger but less agile opponents if Rodman had not steered the ball away from them until he could secure it with two hands. He won seven rebounding titles, second all-time to Wilt Chamberlain's 11. He earned his only second place finish in 1990-91, trailing David Robinson by .45122 rpg, the eighth closest margin of the modern era.
These observations about the limitations of statistical accuracy are not meant to detract from the achievements of Unseld, Cage or anyone else; whatever inconsistencies may exist in the recording of rebounds more than likely evened out over the course of those seasons. Still, if the rebounding title is within reach (so to speak), it clearly doesn't hurt to have one's final game of the season at home.
The third closest rebounding race of the modern era happened in 1974-75 in the ABA. Swen Nater of the San Antonio Spurs beat Artis Gilmore of the Kentucky Colonels by .19506 rpg, preventing the "A Train" from winning five straight rebounding titles (Gilmore led the ABA from 1971-72--1973-74 and again in 1975-76). Nater is the only player to win a rebounding crown in the ABA and the NBA.
The past three seasons have featured three of the ten closest rebounding races in the modern era. Just last year the Detroit Pistons' Ben Wallace edged the San Antonio Spurs' Tim Duncan by .28018 rpg (fifth closest). In 2000-01 Wallace lost to Dikembe Mutombo of the Philadelphia 76ers by .38333 rpg (seventh closest). Mutombo claimed his first rebounding title in 1999-00 by .46419 rpg (ninth closest) over Shaquille O'Neal of the Los Angeles Lakers. O'Neal has three second place rebounding finishes to go along with four such rankings in the scoring race; he is the only player in NBA-ABA history to place second at least three times in each category. While he has won two scoring titles O’Neal has not yet led the NBA in rebounding.
In 1951-52 the NBA had the closest rebounding race possible: Larry Foust of the Fort Wayne Pistons and Mel Hutchins of the Milwaukee Hawks each grabbed 880 rebounds in 66 games (13.3 rpg) to share the title. Runner-up George Mikan of the Minneapolis Lakers trailed the co-champions by only 14 rebounds; under modern era rules he would have won the crown with a 13.5 rpg average in 64 games. The only other major statistical race in NBA history to end in a tie occurred in 1959-60 when Chamberlain (then a rookie with the Philadelphia Warriors) and Detroit Pistons' guard Gene Shue each logged exactly 3338 minutes of playing time (there have been several ties in disqualifications over the years, most recently in 2000-01, when three players each fouled out of ten games).
Mikan was again involved in a tight rebounding race in 1952-53. This time he beat Neil Johnston of the Philadelphia Warriors by 31 to seize his only rebounding crown. Mikan lost by 70 to Harry Gallatin of the New York Knicks in 1953-54 and also trailed the Syracuse Nationals' Dolph Schayes by 122 (seventh closest pre-modern era race) in 1950-51, the first year that the NBA recorded rebounds. Mikan, the dominant center of his time, may very well have claimed several more rebounding titles if the statistics had been kept throughout his career.
Mikan's three runner-up finishes tie him with Bob Pettit, Dave Cowens, Mel Daniels and O'Neal on the all-time list, trailing only Bill Russell (six) and Unseld (four). In addition, seven players finished second in rebounding twice: Chamberlain, Moses Malone, Buck Williams, Oakley, David Robinson, Mutombo and Charles Barkley. Daniels, the stalwart center on three Indiana Pacers' ABA championship teams, deserves special mention. He is too often forgotten because he spent all but the last 11 games of his career in the ABA but he won three ABA rebounding titles and his 1608 postseason rebounds rank twelfth in NBA/ABA postseason history; to put this in perspective, it took Hakeem Olajuwon 145 games in 15 playoff appearances to recently surpass the numbers that Daniels posted in 109 games in eight playoff seasons.
Bill Russell played the bridesmaid role to Chamberlain six times in an eight year span. Overall, Chamberlain won eight rebounding titles during Russell's career and three more after the Celtic legend retired. The only year that Chamberlain failed to finish at least second was 1969-70, when a knee injury limited him to 12 games. Russell won two rebounding titles ahead of Chamberlain and two others before Chamberlain entered the league.
High flying scorers and smooth jump shooters attract a lot of attention but, as Pat Riley has noted more than once, rebounds are the stuff from which championship rings are forged. While it is fun to follow the race for the scoring title, the battle for the rebounding crown is just as important--and frequently decided by a closer margin.
Pro Basketball's Closest Rebounding Races | Most NBA/ABA 2nd Place Finishes |
|
|
|
| Player | Total |
|
|
|
|
| Bill Russell | 6 |
|
| Wes Unseld | 4 |
|
| George Mikan | 3 |
|
| Bob Pettit | 3 |
|
| Dave Cowens | 3 |
|
| Mel Daniels | 3 |
|
| Shaquille O'Neal | 3 |
|
| Closest NBA Races, 1951-1969 |
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|
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| Player/Season | Margin | Winner/Total Rebounds |
|
|
|
| George Mikan/1952 | -14 | Larry Foust & Mel |
|
| Hutchins/880 |
| Neil Johnston/1953 | -31 | George Mikan/1007 |
| George Mikan/1954 | -70 | Harry Gallatin/1098 |
| Maurice Stokes/1956 | -70 | Bob Pettit/1164 |
| Harry Gallatin/1955 | -90 | Neil Johnston/1085 |
| Bill Russell/1963 | -103 | Wilt Chamberlain/1946 |
| George Mikan/1951 | -122 | Dolph Schayes/1080 |
| Wilt Chamberlain/1964 | -143 | Bill Russell/1930 |
| Bill Russell/1960 | -163 | Wilt Chamberlain/1941 |
| Bill Russell/1966 | -164 | Wilt Chamberlain/1943 |
| Closest RPG Races--ABA, 1968-1976; NBA, 1970-2002 |
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|
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| Player/Season | Margin | Winner/RPG |
|
|
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| Dave Cowens/1975 | .01496 RPG | Wes Unseld/14.75343 |
|
|
|
| Charles Oakley/1988 | .02778 RPG | Michael Cage/13.02778 |
|
|
|
| Artis Gilmore/1975 ABA | .19506 RPG | Swen Nater/16.39744 |
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|
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| Wes Unseld/1970 | .19510 RPG | Elvin Hayes/16.90244 |
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|
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| Tim Duncan/2002 | .28018 RPG | Ben Wallace/12.98750 |
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|
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| Charles Barkley/1986 | .28476 RPG | Bill Laimbeer/13.10976 |
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|
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| Ben Wallace/2001 | .38333 RPG | Dik. Mutombo/13.53333 |
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|
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| Dennis Rodman/1991 | .45122 RPG | David Robinson/12.96341 |
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|
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| Shaquille O'Neal/2000 | .46419 RPG | Dik. Mutombo/14.10976 |
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|
|
| Julius Keye/1971 ABA | .46973 RPG | Mel Daniels/17.98780 |
Labels: Artis Gilmore, Ben Wallace, Bill Russell, Charles Barkley, Charles Oakley, Dave Cowens, Dennis Rodman, George Mikan, Tim Duncan, Wes Unseld, Wilt Chamberlain
posted by David Friedman @ 1:36 AM
Phil Chenier: A Straight Shooter
Phil Chenier was one of the best guards in the NBA in the mid-1970s before beginning a 20-plus year career as a color commentator for the Washington Wizards. He made the All-Star team three times in a four year period before suffering a back injury that essentially ended his career. Here is the link to my HoopsHype.com article about Chenier (10/7/15 edit: the links to HoopsHype.com no longer work, so I have posted the original article below):
Winning a championship is the ultimate goal for most NBA players, but for Phil Chenier the Washington Bullets' 1978 title was bittersweet. "It was certainly great for the organization, but I have mixed feelings about that because I was hurt during that time," Chenier recalls. "I had back problems and was unable to play for the rest of the year. So I missed out on that experience."
Chenier had established himself as one of the top guards in the NBA, making the All-Star team in three of the previous four seasons (1974-75, 1977), so not being able to actively participate in the championship run was extremely frustrating.
Chenier has been with the Bullets/Wizards organization for more than three decades--first as a player and currently as a broadcaster--but he was born, raised and attended college in California. Growing up he admired Jerry West. "When I watched him on TV he looked lean like me," Chenier says. "I wasn't as thick as Oscar Robertson and some of the other guards that played in the league. Plus, West was in L.A. and I got to see him a little bit more being on the West Coast."
Chenier averaged 16.8 ppg in his junior season at California in 1971, earning First Team All-Pac 8 honors. After that season, he became one of the first early entry players, which at the time was known as going hardship;
Spencer Haywood's Supreme Court case had just paved the way for players to enter the NBA draft before their college classes graduated.
Chenier was selected by the Baltimore Bullets and averaged 12.3 ppg to earn a spot on the All-Rookie Team. The New York Knicks bounced the Bullets out of the playoffs in six games.
Before the 1972-73 season, Baltimore acquired Elvin Hayes from the Houston Rockets in exchange for Jack Marin and future considerations. "It was just absolutely amazing sometimes to watch him hit that turnaround jump shot and dominate games with his shot blocking and rebounding and scoring," Chenier says of Hayes. "I don't think that there is any denying or disagreeing with the fact that he is one of the greatest--if not the greatest--power forwards of all time."
Hayes teamed with center Wes Unseld to form a powerful frontcourt duo and the Bullets won their third straight Central Division title.
"Wes was there for my whole career with the Bullets--a very stable player, very team oriented and he set a lot of picks to get me open," Chenier says. "He was a player who instilled confidence in his teammates in a very quiet way. You always knew that he supported you. He never fussed at his players. He was always encouraging and that's what I liked most about Wes."
Chenier averaged 19.7 ppg, second on the team. He scored a career-high 53 points versus Portland on December 6, 1972, the best single-game scoring effort in the NBA that season. He still holds the franchise record for most points in a non-overtime game. The Bullets again lost to the Knicks in the playoffs, this time by a 4-1 tally. New York went on to win the championship.
The Bullets moved to Washington DC for the 1973-74 season and were renamed the Capital Bullets. Chenier earned his first All-Star selection by leading the Bullets in scoring (21.9 ppg, 13th in the NBA) and steals (2.04 spg, sixth in the NBA in the first year that this was an official statistic). The Bullets again won the Central Division title and again lost to the Knicks in the playoffs, this time falling 91-81 in the seventh game in Madison Square Garden.
Chenier's versatility--in 1973-74 he averaged 5.1 rpg, 3.1 apg and blocked 67 shots, second on the team to Hayes and more than any other guard in the league--led some to compare Chenier to Walt Frazier, the best all-around guard in the NBA at the time. "He was thicker and stronger than I was and I think that I was quicker than he was," Chenier notes (Frazier was listed at 6-4, 205, while Chenier was listed at 6-3, 180). "He was very methodical in everything that he did. He would just wear you down, boom, boom. When you made a mistake he was right in position and always on balance to capitalize on it. He wasn't a David Thompson kind of jumper. He very rarely used his left hand, but he could. He was just very basic and fundamentally sound."
Chenier modestly suggests that, while they shared superficial similarities in physical appearance--height, skin color and eyes--their games were different. "I just think that we looked a lot alike," he concludes with a laugh. "He certainly had a much livelier career than I did."
The Bullets tied with the Boston Celtics for the best record in the NBA in 1974-75 (60-22). Chenier ranked 11th in scoring (21.8 ppg) and sixth in steals (2.29 spg). In addition to making the All-Star team for the second consecutive year, Chenier earned All-NBA Second Team honors and finished eighth in MVP voting; Hayes placed third and Unseld was ninth.
When the Bullets downed the Celtics 4-2 in the Eastern Conference Finals, it seemed like the NBA Finals versus Golden State would just be a formality. Rick Barry led the Warriors to the best record in the Western Conference (48-34) but on paper they seemed to be no match for the Bullets.
Washington had home-court advantage for the Finals, but it would not be possible to use the normal 2-2-1-1-1 format due to scheduling conflicts with the Warriors' arena, so the NBA presented two options to Bullets' coach KC Jones: play Game One on the road and the next three at home or play game one at home and then the next two on the road. Jones did not want his team to fall behind early, so he chose to have Game One at home. This backfired when the Warriors beat the Bullets in Washington, 101-95.
Barry scored 36 points to lead Golden State to a 92-91 victory in Game Two at the Cow Palace.
Barry had 38 points in the next contest as the Warriors took a 3-0 lead. Undersized rookie forward Jamaal Wilkes (6-6, 190) held Hayes to 29 points in the first three games. Golden State completed the sweep with a 96-95 win, producing one of the most improbable upsets in sports history. Chenier played marvelously throughout the postseason, averaging 24.2 ppg and ranking first in the playoffs in free throws made.
He says that, despite losing, playing in the 1975 NBA Finals is the most memorable moment from his NBA career: "That is where I am from, the Bay Area, so my family and friends got to see me play in the Finals, even though it wasn't a happy result."
Washington slipped to 48-34 in 1975-76 and failed to win the division title for the first time in Chenier's career. He ranked 16th in the NBA scoring (19.9 ppg, .1 ppg better than Hayes) and seventh in steals (1.98 spg). The Cleveland Cavaliers edged out the Bullets by one game for the Central Division title and they beat Washington by one basket in game seven of the Eastern Conference semifinals, a contest forever known in Northeastern Ohio as the "Miracle of Richfield." Chenier's jumper tied the game with 24 seconds left, but Dick Snyder's runner put the Cavaliers up 87-85 and Chenier's final shot missed at the buzzer.
In many ways, the Bullets' 1976-77 season was a rerun of the previous campaign: they went 48-34, lost the division title by one game (this time to the Houston Rockets) and were eliminated in the Eastern Conference semifinals by the Central Division champion. Chenier fell out of the top 20 in scoring for the first time since 1972-73 despite increasing his average slightly to 20.2 ppg.
Some people blamed Hayes for the Bullets' inability to win a title and thought that he should be traded. But instead of subtracting Hayes, general manager Bob Ferry added free agent forward Bob Dandridge, who played an important role on the Milwaukee Bucks' 1971 championship team. Dandridge proved to be the perfect frontcourt complement to Hayes and Unseld.
"Bobby was the glue that put it all together in the end," Chenier recalls. "When he came to Washington, he had to guard Julius (Erving) in one series and he had to guard George Gervin in another one."
Chenier missed the preseason because of a back injury. His back flared up again during the season and instead of traveling with the team for a West Coast road trip he was hospitalized on January 19. He had a ruptured L5-S1 disk that required surgery. "Actually, I also had a problem on the other side of the vertebrae at L4-L5 but what they said was if they went in and saw a lot of damage (at L5-S1) then they'd take that as being the cause of my problem," Chenier explains. "The next year the other side went out and I had to have a second surgery. So that was pretty tough to take."
Chenier was replaced by Charles Johnson, who had been cut by the Warriors earlier in the month. The Bullets suffered so many injuries that at one point they only had seven healthy players but, through all of the adversity, coach Dick Motta kept repeating a simple mantra: "The opera ain't over 'til the fat lady sings."
The Bullets limped to their worst record since Chenier's rookie season (44-38) but defeated Atlanta and San Antonio to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals. They faced the Philadelphia 76ers, the number one seed and defending Eastern Conference champions. Unseld's late putback layup in game six sent the Bullets back to the NBA Finals.
In an odd repeat of what happened in 1975, the Bullets once again had to deal with an unusual playoff format. A previously scheduled mobile-home show forced the NBA to use a 1-2-2-1-1 schedule. Just like in 1975, the Bullets squandered home-court advantage. This time they blew a 19 point lead in Game One and lost 106-102. Seattle's "Downtown" Freddie Brown exploded for 16 points in the last nine minutes of the fourth quarter. The teams traded wins after that. Game Seven was a nightmare for Seattle's star guard Dennis Johnson, who shot 0-14 from the field as the Bullets won 105-99 to claim the franchise's first and only title.
Washington and Seattle faced each other again in the 1979 NBA Finals, but the second back surgery limited Chenier's role severely; he averaged 5.8 ppg in 27 regular season games and 2.8 ppg while appearing in just nine of the Bullets' 19 playoff games. Dennis Johnson ultimately avenged his seventh game disaster from 1978 by leading Seattle to the championship in five games and winning the 1979 Finals MVP.
Chenier was never the same player after his back surgeries.
He played three more seasons, but never appeared in more than 43 games or averaged more than 7.6 ppg. "This is what I tell people: when you have guys who are out for six, seven months or for a whole season, it's not so much physically that you can't get back but mentally," Chenier explains. "You don't have that same mental edge that you had when you were playing with all the guys and going through practice and the routine of working out. I think that mentally as well as physically I just wasn’t the same person."
He retired in 1981 with 9,931 points and a career scoring average of 17.2 ppg. Chenier has been a color commentator for the Wizards organization since 1986.
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Here are some "DVD Extras" about Chenier:
***Chenier's most vivid memories of his first taste of NBA playoff action as a rookie in 1972 focus on the tremendous battles in the paint between Knicks' power forward Dave DeBusschere and his counterpart on the Bullets, Gus Johnson. They had faced each other for the previous several years and, although Johnson was nearing the end of the line, he still asked no quarter and gave none either. "Gus would just manhandle DeBusschere and DeBusschere would come back on the very next play and just manhandle Gus," Chenier says. "They would go at it but never complain. That is the one thing that I will always remember about them. And I remember DeBusschere talking about Gus after the funeral or after he passed and you could tell that they had mutual admiration and mutual respect."
By 1972-73, Johnson had moved on to the ABA's Indiana Pacers, helping them win a title before he retired, but that did not mean that there was peace and tranquility in the paint when the Knicks and Bullets played--not with Knicks' center Willis Reed and the Bullets' Wes Unseld fighting for position. "Willis was in and out of the lineup because of his injuries," Chenier remembers. "When he was in there, because of his knee, Willis had to be even more physical. So he and Wes were banging and I said to myself, 'Man, I don't want to have anything to do with that! I'll stay out here and shoot jump shots.'"
***Chenier mentions an often overlooked factor that hurt the Bullets in their stunning 4-0 loss to the underdog Golden State Warriors in the 1975 NBA Finals. "Jimmy Jones didn't start but he was a player who could fill in anywhere and he was our first man off the bench. He was averaging about 20 minutes and he could play with me or he could play with Kevin Porter or he could play with both of us by being the '3.' So he was a top notch player who gave us a lot of flexibility. He got hurt during the Boston series. So, that hurt us. But give a lot of credit to Golden State and the timing of their players kind of coming together."
***Chenier lists Pete Maravich, Earl Monroe, Walt Frazier, Nate Archibald and Jo Jo White as some of the toughest players that he faced. Chenier comments, "Pete could embarrass you. He could go for 50 on you and make it look as easy as possible. Earl could do the same thing. Earl didn't jump that high. You thought that you had him stopped, you thought that you had his shot blocked and he'd still fade back a little bit and loft that soft shot over you. That New York team had Earl and Frazier in the backcourt and then they had DeBusschere, Bradley and Lucas--that team was phenomenal. We played them three consecutive years in the playoffs and they beat us each time."
***It is well known that entertainers want to be athletes and vice versa. This is not just a recent phenomenon. Chenier recalls playing in a celebrity three on three tournament in Las Vegas in which the teams consisted of an active NBA player, a retired NBA player and an entertainer. Chenier was paired with the retired Zelmo Beaty and legendary singer Marvin Gaye and they played against David Thompson, Jerry Lucas and Pat Boone, the famous singer who less famously was once a part owner of the ABA's Oakland Oaks. Chenier didn't say who won, but noted that Gaye was a big sports fan. Of course, Gaye later did a soulful rendition of the National Anthem at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game less than a year before he was shot and killed by his father.
Labels: Bob Dandridge, Dave DeBusschere, Earl Monroe, Elvin Hayes, Golden State Warriors, Gus Johnson, New York Knicks, Pete Maravich, Phil Chenier, Rick Barry, Walt Frazier, Washington Bullets, Wes Unseld
posted by David Friedman @ 4:32 AM
