Vintage articles I found

[ProfessorMurder]

Late last night I posted a Bill Walton article I found in a 1973 Newsweek after he had won the NCAA championship: Wonder-Boy Walton

I've got 5 more basketball related articles that I'll use this thread for. I was going through old Life magazines from 60-71 and typed these up word for word as I found them. The Wilt one is particularly long.

I'll post in descending chronological order.

1. "Instant millionaires from the basketball war"

2. "When happiness used to be a 12-foot set shot - Geriatric memories of a basketballer" (a nostalgia piece but mentions some Knicks players)

3. "Life with Father on the Court - Pete and Press Maravich"

4. "Basketball's Lew Alcindor and his determined quest for privacy"

5. "Just Too Giant" (Wilt beating Boston in '67)

6. "Just Too Giant" Part 2

[ProfessorMurder]

In this article: ABA/NBA beefs, Spencer Haywood decision, Rookie deals, and the Lakers showing how they've always been shitballs

From LIFE April 23 1971

"Instant millionaires from the basketball war"

The eight young men on these pages have all recently become instant millionaires. They are the ever-so-willing pawns in the biggest sports talent war since the National and American Football Leagues were bidding against each other for the likes of Joe Namath in the mid-'60s. Basketball is the game now, and the combatants are the old National Basketball Association and its young rival, the American Basketball Association.

When the ABA first threw up its re-white-and-blue ball four years ago, the NBA's response was: ignore it, and the young league will fade away. The NFL had the same mistaken idea. The ABA has prospered and can flex its financial muscles on equal terms with the NBA, as the approximate contract figures demonstrate.

As with professional football, a merger is the only way to eliminate ruinous bidding and restore stability. But there is a strong group of NBA owners who would rather fight than hitch. If the merger ever does occur, one man will be largely responsible. Sam Schulman, the outspoken, maverick owner of the NBA's Seattle Supersonics, has been prodding his league toward a merger for more than a year. "Sam Schulman is the key," says ABA attorney Fred Furth. "The reason is simple. He's tough enough to see it through, and NBA Commissioner Walter Kennedy is not."

(Pictures of all players in college, Johnny has a girl with him)

Ken Durrett - LaSalle - $1,500,000 - Cincinnati NBA
Johnny Neumann - Mississippi - $2,000,000 - Memphis ABA
Sidney Wicks - UCLA - $1,500,000 - Portland NBA
Jim McDaniels - Western Kentucky - $2,900,000 - Carolina ABA
Artis Gilmore - Jacksonville - $2,200,000 - Kentucky ABA
Howard Porter - Villanova - $1,000,000 - Pittsburgh ABA
Elmore Smith - Kentucky State - $1,800,000 - Buffalo NBA
Austin Carr - Notre Dame - $1,400,000 - Cleveland NBA

Sam Schulman-the key to the merger

"I didn't set out to attack the structure of sports," says Sam Schulman, the soft-spoken 61-year-old conglomerate executive and owner of the Supersonics. "But we're involved in a war. I wasn't going to stand by and watch my franchise disintegrate."

Last November, unhappy with the inability of the other NBA owners to reach agreement with the ABA, Schulman bucked the NBA power structure head-on. He tried to get Commissioner Walter Kennedy fired. "I'm continually frustrated by his weakness when he has to make decisions," Schulman says. "His deportment depends on who the owner is."

When that attempt failed, Schulman challenged the NBA's long-standing four-year rule which orbits teams signing a player until his college class has graduated. Schulman signed a tricky case, 6'9" Spencer Haywood. In 1969, as a sophomore star at Detroit University, Haywood had quit school and signed a contract with Denver of the ABA. Last fall he jumped from Denver to Schulman's Supersonics, and Commissioner Kennedy ruled the contract invalid, citing the four-year rule. Schulman took the matter to court.

At this point, Los Angeles Laker owner Jack Kent Cooke proposed that the NBA determine "the most drastic penalties" that could be taken against Schulman-and by a 15-2 resolution the owners, in effect, threatened to throw Sam out of the league. The courts, on the the other hand, said that Schulman was right, that the four-year rule was illegal, and awarded Haywood to Seattle.

"What bothers me most," Schulman said recently as he sat by the pool of his Beverly Hills home, "is that right before Cooke tried to get me thrown out of the league he asked Kennedy to put Haywood on Los Angeles' negotiating list. I'm not surprised. It's not unlike Mr. Cooke to speak out of both sides of his mouth."

The merger seems to be inevitable, but until it happens Schulman and other owners in both leagues will have to go on paying astronomical figures to untried rookies. Schulman, at least, understand the situation: "If I were an athlete I'd certainly be trying to get as much as I could. Wouldn't you?"

- by Dave Fisher

(Picture of Spender Haywood and Sam Schulman)

Seattle owner Sam Schulman challenged the NBA last year by signing 6'9" Spencer Haywood in violation of a league rule which the courts later invalidated.

[ProfessorMurder]

In this article: Talk about how nobody shot outside of 18 feet unless you wanted to be called a 'heaver', Alcindor, Willis Reed, Jerry West, Walt Frazier, and some general talk about times gone by in NYC.

From LIFE April 9 1971

Life Sports Review

"When happiness used to be a 12-foot set shot - Geriatric memoirs of a basketballer"

The great appeal of certain sports or combative contests such as boxing, bullfighting, basketball or boudoiring is that they can be broken down to their simplest unit-one on one. Boxer against boxer, man against bull, man against man, or man against woman. In short, there is a democracy of action, a one-man-one-vote concept, so to speak.

In some of these endeavors there is an economic democrat as well. One who is poor can always find someone to fight, someone to challenge to a head-on-head half-court basketball game-and, I hope, someone to woo. On the economic level, bullfighting must be dismissed; but little matter, since bullslinging was more renowned in my boyhood Brooklyn than bullfighting. Verbal veronicas drew the oles on the streets in that corner of the world.

Since fighting was reserved for monumental occasions such as slurs on our girls or invasions of our turf, it was basketball, finally, that fascinated us, simply because it requires only a ball, a hoop and another kid.

And, as far as I can tell, the affinity of hid and hoop remains a solid hunk of Americana. The blacks in Harlem and Bed-Stuy still create schoolyard magic. The Irish in Rockaway still play their particular brand of aggressive snub-nosed ball (Mike Riordan of the New York Knicks epitomizes this style). It still is the premiere game of the Jewish kids on the East coast. And across the breadth of the land, a hoop nailed to a garage door is as familiar as an "Honor America" bumper sticker. In its way, the game is one cohesive string, a full-court pass from New York to California, something we have in common in the most uncommon of times.

But if one is to be honest, the fan of my era must admit that there is a problem, a sort of technical foul, between generations. He must, reluctantly, blow the whistle on himself. A particular kind of fantasy forms the diet of sports-that on a God-given day, when our constellations are in order for a moment, we could compete with the very best. Occasionally, the old, the marvelously enduring notion still seizes me: Am I not capable of hitting a Texas League single off a major league pitcher? With the '49ers' offensive line in front of me, might I not uncork a dazzling six-foot screen pass? Couldn't I, in a lucky moment, land a left hook on one of those beer-bellied heavyweights before he smothered me? Probably not. But a gossamer wing in the brain occasionally becomes airborne and the marrow of the ego murmurs "maybe."

But when I get to thinking of challenging one of today's professional basketball players to a nose-to-nose confrontation, the ego gives a reading as sober as a Sears Roebuck catalogue: "No way you could affair it, sonny." To explain such a sensible respond, the dreamer has but to turn back the timekeeper's clock about 15 years and remember how basketball was played in his youth.

I was no dilettante at the game. I spent, or misspent, the better part of my youth playing not pool but basketball. During this mimer months I wore out sneakers by the pair, and in winter I shoveled a path in the snow from the foul line to the basket so that I could practice my lay-up and that classic Cousy maneuver, dribbling behind my back. When it rained, a friend and I practiced in his cellar (which had a seven-foot ceiling), shooting baskets into a homemade hoop adorned with a net made from his aunt's bloomers. What a parlor Freudian could do with that tidbit!

When I played school league ball, I was known for my devastating two-hand set shot from 12 feet out, a shot that today is as useless in the game as a blacksmith in a Mustang factory. But what a shot it was! It took me about 14 seconds to set up for it, with my feet flat apart and my butt sticking out like Groucho Marx's, while my defensive opposite stood six feet away, waving his hands and grunting: "Ah-h-h, Ah-h-h!" If one threw a shot from more than 18 feet out, he was immediately sat down and suffered the scorn of his teammates for being a "heaver." Today, even in schools, a shot from 18 feet is like a conceded putt in golf.

Our professional hero in these days was Bud Palmer, the sportscaster who was then with the Knicks, and who was the innovator of the jump shot. He usually threw this shot from inside the foul line-now it would be considered a leaping lay-up. High school kids today cannonade with deadly accuracy from 25 feet.

But it is the pros who are beyond mere mortal comprehension. Earl "The Pearl" Monroe, with back to the basket, spins in the air, lets go from 35 feet out and starts to break to the opposite end of the court, because he knows the damn thing is going in! Cruel, bloody revisionist without a sup of sympathy for history past.

And imagine trying to clear the boards against Reed or Alcindor! Or the certain humiliation of trying to dribble the ball across mid-court within 10 seconds with Walt Frazier defensing you? Better to try to empty the sea into a sand hole by the cupful.

But rigor mortis finally set in on my fantasy in one of last season's play-offs when Jerry West threw in a 63-foot, one-hand push shot against the Knicks. When West was asked about his audacious luck, he flatly said: "It [the shot] felt good going off my fingers", the equivalent of saying, "I did it in six days and rested on the seventh."

This is not meant to be a crotchety carp. I still love the game and find it the most democratic we have. But it does hurt a little to have to admit that, even on the level of my interior dream machine, I can only participate voyeuristically on the sidelines.

by Joe Flaherty

Mr. Flaherty, a writer on sports and politics, is the author of Managing Mailer.

[moaz]

I always like to read this post from time to time. There are many gems to discover. You are welcome to find the ones related to your team:

[QUOTE]Winners and losers at the '98 draft

by Dan Shanoff
Posted: Thu June 25, 1998

Winner: Roshown McLeod
Go ahead and criticize the Hawks for taking the Dookie small forward far too early, but give McLeod credit for playing his way into first-round guaranteed money

Loser: Nazr Mohammed
After all the cutaways to a visibly dejected Mohammed in the draft's "green room," you were almost rooting for the guy to get picked. Almost. If Mohammed had dropped into the second round, it would have sent a strong message to other underclassmen thinking about jumping to the NBA.

Winner: No. 1 pick Michael Olowokandi
The affable "Kandi Man" can hungrily eye endorsement deals. Mr. Olowokandi? Hershey's, line one. Mars, line two.

Loser: Houston backup point guard Brent Price
From "The Price is Right" to "The Bryce is Right."

Winner: Jessie Mae Carter, Robert Traylor's grandma
No one at the draft was as happy as the Tractor's biggest

[Gotterdammerung]

Bookmarked.

[Calabis]

http://northcarolina.scout.com/2/1125791.html

Interesting article on the discovery of Michael Jordan and his recruitment

[ProfessorMurder]

In this article: A bit about Pete's relationship with his dad as his head coach, including his dad calling him 'a fruit', a bit about his mindset of scoring, his fundamentals and his overall attitude.

From LIFE February 7 1969

Pete and Press Maravich

"Life with Father on the Court"

That worried-looking gentleman nervously munching the towel is Press Maravich, head coach of Louisiana State University's basketball team, who like any coach in the middle of a game has good reason for concern. But his concern happens to be parental as well as professional because he is watching his son. All-America Pete Maravich, LSU's star performer and the most prolific scorer in the history of college basketball, is in the process of scoring no less than 53 points to win a tournament championship. Papa Press began coaching Pete on fundamentals when the boy was 7. Pete teaches his father something new in every game. Press admits he is less of a coach now than a fan of the man who will probably be next year's top pro draft choice. As a sophomore last year Pete broke Frank Selvy's all-season scoring mark by 200 points (1,138) and set an NCAA record by averaging 43.8 points per game.

(Picture of Maravich awkwardly running and passing)

"A superb playmaker, Pete Maravich passes the ball between his legs without breaking stride."

(Picture of a huddle)

"Press Maravich encourages his team and his son (third from left) in the closing seconds of the All-College Tournament. Pete scored 10 of his team's last 12 points in the 94-91 victory over Duquesne."

Pete Maravich shambles onto the floor for a practice session. His body is long and so lean that with his thatch of thick brown hair he seems almost top-heavy. He sees his father and immediately starts faking a limp. He has stuffed a towel under his shirt and it looks like a large lump. Press Maravich notices. "What's wrong, Pete?" the father in him asks first. "You think you ought to practice like that?" the coach in him asks next.

"Oh, I hurt it and it kind of swelled up." Pete tries to be nonchalant. Then he breaks into a broad grin and Press sees it's a joke.

"When are you going to get a haircut?" Press counters-only half hooking.

"What for?" Pete asks.

"You look like a fruit."

"Aw, you're just jealous," Pete says lamely.

"You crazy Serb," Press, the son of a Yugoslavian immigrant, shouts and stalks off the court. He shakes his head and looks angry, but by the time he reaches the bench he stops and looks back toward his son. Pete is bouncing a basketball off his head into the basket. "Sometime he's going to try one of those in a game," Press says to nobody in particular. "He'll probably make it too," he adds, as if he really believed his son could do anything.

Press more than believes in his son's ability. He is clearly in awe of it. "Shoot the ball, Pete. Don't pass it. Shoot," Press yells from the bench when Pete snaps a behind-the-back pass to a teammate closer to the basket. Pete is a slick ball-handler, but his reputation is built on scoring. Press knows you don't get your name in the paper for passing.

The father's eyes seldom leave his son-even when Pete doesn't have the ball. At half-time he tells Pete, "I don't want you to pass off if you're within 15 feet of the basket. You shoot it." Pete usually sits by himself across the locker room away from the rest of the team. He looks at the floor when his father talks.

After the game Pete is down. He scored 45 and LSU beat a previously undefeated team. But Pete made some bad passes and he blew a lay-up late in the game when it could have hurt. "You looked lousy tonight," the coach scowls at Pete. And then, seeing how dejected his son is, the father in Press Maravich takes over. He puts his arm around the boy's shoulder and squeezes gently. "Hey, we won. And you'll look better tomorrow."

Pete is the last player to leave the locker room. He watches Press talking with a newsman about the game and about Pete's exploits. Then father and son, coach and athlete, leave together to sign autographs for the gaggle of youngsters who haunt the doors to all of Pete Maravich's locker rooms.

"Its hard when your father's the coach too. Sometimes you don't know where one leaves off and the other begins, " Pete says. He speaks with real feeling for his father when Press isn't around. When the two are together, though, it's almost as if Pete feels compelled to be flippant-to present an image of what he thinks is cool because he is afraid to let his feelings show truly. "I guess I've popped off a few times when I didn't know the difference. Especially last year. I'm sorry about that." You know Pete is thinking hard about what he is saying, "I'll tell you one thing. I could never be a coach. Too many worries. Too much pressure. I don't know how Dad does it."

The rest of the LSU team doesn't seem to resent Pete's special place with the fans. "We win with Pete," Press explains, winking at his son. "If he gets special treatment, it's because he is special." Pete looks up and runs the tip of his tongue over his lips the way he does in a game when he is driving for a crucial basket. "When you score, you win," Pete says. "That's what everybody cares about. Winning. Not the publicity." He pauses and his eyes flick briefly toward his father who is watching him carefully. He stares hard at the floor before he speaks again. "I guess the team just recognizes that I have a particular talent for scoring. That's all. Press Maravich, father and coach, made it plain to the team in a preseason meeting that they would win only with Pete scoring big. So far he has been right. "Go to bed now," Press says touching Pete's shoulder. "We've got a curfew, you know." "I'll do anything but get a haircut," Pete grins as he leaves.

by Charles Coe

(Picture of Pete Maravich shooting a jumper)

"A twisting, fall-away jump shot means two more points for 'Pistol Pete'"

[HylianNightmare]

Great stuff

[ProfessorMurder]

In this article: Lew Alchindor doesn't like dorm life, doesn't associate with most of his team outside of basketball; basically just wants to learn and be alone. He mentions some non-sports idols and race stuff.

From LIFE February 17 1967

Sports / Basketball's Alcindor and his determined quest for privacy

"Big Lew Measures His Lonely World"

Everything about him-even his clothing-is custom. Lew Alcindor, UCLA's 7-foot 1 3/8-inch center, is hailed as basketball's "ultimate weapon" and is the most celebrated college player since Wilt Chamberlain. By mid-season sophomore Lew had scored 419 points in 14 games, and top-ranked, undefeated UCLA stood to win this year's NCAA championship and the next two as well.

Lew, just 19, has already developed extraordinary gifts-delicate touch and balance, superb agility and grace both as a shot-maker and rebounder. He has also developed some problems. Over-protected by his teachers and coach in New York's Power Memorial Academy (LIFE Jan. 29, 1965), where few of his classmates got to understand him and press interviews were strictly forbidden, Lew today is still a loner-and on the next page he tells why.

(Picture of a tailor measuring Lew)

Lew is fitted for a pair of pants (length, 51") by tailor Frank Cuda. "The only pants longer than these," says the shop manager, "are for redwood tree."

(Picture of Lew scoring)

"In an out-of-town game against Washington State, Lew springs past State's 6-foot-9-inch center Jim McKean and deftly curls in a basket."

(Picture of Lew playing a flute)

"At right, in a more pensive mood, he tries out a flute in a Los Angeles music shop."

He chews gum and gazes into space while they play The Star-Spangled Banner and almost before the music has finished he is out of his warm-up suit and ready to play. Lew Alcindor looks aloof and detached, his emotions concealed and private. When he grabs a rebound or puts a jump shot through the basket he seems totally remote even from his own virtuosity. Because Lew is a genuine loner who covets his self-sufficiency and solitude, even his membership on a team is an anomaly. "Loneliness is good," he says, "because it means privacy which is most important of all to me."

He seems to shun a world which he claims, "wasn't made for people over six foot two." Off the court he is an enigma to most of his fellow UCLA students. "Most of the people I've met out here don't strike me as being for real," he says. "After a while they got the idea that I was doing secret things and so they left me alone, which was good." When Lew got fed up with dormitory life he simply upped and moved off campus. "I found it a very weird atmosphere. People were throwing stuff out windows and having water fights. I didn't want to be part of it so I had to get out."

Though Lew's thirst for education led him to UCLA, he is disarmingly blunt about its fringe benefits. "This isn't much of a campus," Lew says. "It's beautiful but there isn't that much going on. I just kind of avoid it."

The young people who populate it come under even sharper fire: "They say 'Hi. How are you?' and they think they really know you. They're very young people who've never seen anything else that what they've grown up with. They don't know what's going on with the people on the other side of town."

Lew does. Among Lew's heroes, along with Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X, are Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Miles Davis and a lot of other jazz musicians whose faces and flashing instruments adorn the jackets of the 200 or so record albums in his hoard. "I wish I could become a musician," Lew says. "That's the one thing that I would really enjoy." His self-imposed loneliness has led Lew to think a lot about himself and his place in the world. "I want to learn more about what my people have done. Sometimes I think it's being key from me." On social matters he keeps an open mind. "I've dated white girls a few times," he says. "You can carry on a relationship with some people on the basis of saying, 'O.K., I'm a man and you're a woman.' That's good. But sometimes you know that they have something in the back of their minds, some formula for the way things should be. And that's bad!"

by John Riley

(Picture of Lew in a his suit with a girl in a dress, outside)

"A nattily turned-out Lew pauses on campus with his girl of the moment, Jeri Haywood, a sophomore from Los Angeles. "I usually have my way with boys," she says, "but not with Lew." Alcindor is reluctant to go steady because of his preoccupation with basketball and studies-and privacy. "I'd like to see people in other parts of the world," he says. "I've met some nice Africans and Asians and I'd like to get around and see what they're doing and how things are." Of his height he says, "The main problem I have is with doorways-I just don't like them. But being tall is another way to be different. It's a good thing to be different if that's you. That's me. And I appreciate it.""

[ProfessorMurder]

In this article: A little of the frustration of Wilt, the changing or not changing his game in '67, Beating the Celtics, him and Russell's relationship, and some interesting psychology about how Wilt saw/carried himself

It's too long, have to split it into two parts.

From LIFE March 10 1967

Sports

"Just Too Much Giant"

(2 page picture of Wilt grabbing a rebound over a surprised Russell)

"In Philadelphia's win over Boston in the NBA play-offs, nothing meant more than Wilt Chamberlain's savage supremacy over old nemesis, Bill Russell."

"How Goliath, Typecast To Lose, Finally Didn't"

by Jeremy Larner

The big man lets his jaw fall slack. He throws his head back with a big-toothed grimace. He holds his arms out like railroad gates, enormous palms upturned to heaven. Then he shambles up the floor, wincing and shaken his head, shooting his hands down in disgust, finally wrapping them on his hips as he goes on wincing and shambling and shaking.

As if to say: How long, O Lord, must this go on? As if to say: Just what I expected!

And the fans howl and scream abuse-in every city but Philadelphia-because the big man is Wilt Chamberlain, who has just had a foul called on him, or has watched a teammate botch up a play, or learned that he will have to shoot a free throw.

Marked from the start by his incredible physique, Wilt seems to be hung up on appearances-or, to use the pop word, image. In terms of the modern sport of celebrity-making, his constant gestures and faces are the medium through which he projects the message of innocent perfection too large to go unpunished, of righteous superiority so massive that its very existence threatens the gods. And until this year, the the image-whether through the workings of God or man or Wilt himself-has always turned out fitting. He has been punished. For unlike any other 7-foot-2-inch creature on earth, Wilt is a Giant. And if you know your fairy tales, you know that Giants cannot win, no matter what.

Giants are people who do things mortals cannot do, like Goliath on the battlefield. Or like Wilt Chamberlain averaging over 50 points a game one season, leading the pros year ate year in scoring and rebounding, making a lion's share of the record book his own. Things like that are merely how a Giant gets to be a Giant-as opposed, say, to the 7-foot freaks who can't play like Wilt and are merely tall. When Wilt does what does, the fans say, well, what do you expect? And they wait, because sports fans know their fairy tales.

"Nobody roots for Goliath," Wilt is fond of saying. The script calls for the big man to take a total blow at the end, when a David or a Jack the Giant-Killer comes into his own. Thus, for seven seasons Wilt led barrios bands of Philistines to defeat at the hands of the Boston Celtics, who had won the championship every single year since Wilt came into the National Basketball Association. Most galling of all, the Celts have featured in Bill Russell a 6-foot-9-inch economy-size David who always knew how not to stop Wilt altogether but to chop him down just enough to let his own team win the day.

Russell was able to do this by concentrating ferociously on defense, where he was consistently quicker than Wilt-or anybody. Amazingly, there were three-four-five times a game when he would sail into the air with perfect timing to to block Chamberlain's backhand '"dipper". Or he would force Wilt to take a shot from far out on the side and, if it missed, he would snatch the rebound and fire it with lightning release to the matchless Boston fast-break.

Wilt's defenders could claim with justice that Russell played with a better team, but it was all too apparent that Boston was better partly because Russell played better with them. Russell has been above all a team player-a man of discipline, a self-denial and killer instinct: in shot, a winner, in the best American Calvinist tradition. Whereas Russell has been able to somehow squeeze out his last ounce of ability, Chamberlain's performances have been marked by a seeming nonchalance-as if, recognizing his Giantistic fate, he were more concerned with personal style than with winning. "I never want to set records. The only thing I strive for is perfection," Chamberlain has said. When Wilt goes into his routine, his body proclaims from tip to toe, it's not my fault, folks, honestly-and though I've got to lose, if you just look close, you'll see I'm beautiful through and through!

Take for example his faraway jump-picot-an intricate shot which no other player has mastered-but which voluntarily neutralizes his height advantage! Wilt used to hit a good percentage of fadeaways, but when he missed, what could the devilish Russell say except you're beautiful, baby! Because Wilt's team was left wide open for the Celtic fast-break.

Also, there was the embarrassment of Wilt's free-throwing, which in eight seasons has averaged out less that 54%, strikingly low in a league where nearly everyone hits seven of 10, and incredibly low for a man of Wilt's coordination. Russell, too, has had trouble at the foul line, but in the clutch, in the playoffs, he is grimly accurate, while Wilt misses foul after foul at the same plodding pace, making it a percentage play for the opposition to grab and shove him at will-whereupon he exhibits his most elaborate disgust.

Through eight seasons Wilt has played the role offended nobility, self-conscious up and down and off the court, consumes by aristocratic agonies whenever any agent, force, power, referee or teammate queers the act. In contrast to Russell-who, with is grim visage and tense, spare physique, never makes a move that isn't purposive-Chamberlain blossoms with excessive gestures and dysfunctional contortions, sitting up atop himself almost apologetically as he powers for point after point.

Last year might have been different. Wilt was playing with a Philadelphia team that took first place from Boston during the regular season. But i the playoffs, where it really counts, Boston whipped Philly four out of five. The rap was that Wilt was a loser: that he didn't come through for his team: that even in college he had not played on a champion ballclub.

"It's a lie. I have won championships in high school, in the Y.M.C.A."

This year the 76ers came back stronger than ever, setting an N.B.A. season victory record-though they lost their season series to Boston, 5-4. Personally, Wilt was playing the best basketball of his life. Philly's new coach. Alex Hannum, had cajoled him into changing his style and eliminating the fadeaway shot. He-

(Picture of Wilt pissed off/in shock)

"In the forecourt in the fourth game, Wilt acts the Aggrieved Giant: the referee, perhaps, or one of his teammates has goofed."

-convinced him to pass off more-so that with his gifted teammates handling the shooting, Wilt could charge the backboards for his overwhelming follow-ins. Then, too, Wilt worked harder than ever at blocking shots, playing well on both ends of the court and looking at his best like Chamberlain and Russell put together. But he insisted. "I'm not doing anything different."

The gestures were still there-but restrained, controlled, cut down. Wilt was slower this year to yell at his teammates, perhaps because he respected them more, perhaps because he knew full well what detractors were saying, knew that this was his last chance to catch up with Russell and the aging Celtics before all glory was gone from the catching. Next year K.C. Jones will have departed-and Russell and Sam Jones are already a step slower. So this years divisional playoff with Boston had to be the showdown for Chamberlain, who had bitterly resented the tag of "loser."

Before the season was half over, the wise money was inuring how he was going to blow it despite himself-or maybe on account of himself. The reasoning was that Russell has had Chamberlain "psyched" ever since Wilt's rookie year. After a few difficult games, Russell devised the strategy of meeting Wilt at the Boston airport, driving him home for steaks-and letting him play with his electric trains and wear his engineer's hat! Thereafter, the story goes (and it is not improbable in the world where big men play boys' games for high stakes)m Wilt could not bring himself to hurt his sharklike firmed. After all, the Giant never looks good as a killer. So year after year the Giant lost to Boston-while the sportswriters needled and Russell chuckled up his lengthy sleeve.

But on March 31, in their first game of this year's playoffs, the Celts look old and cold, and the 76ers take the lead and hold it, with Wilt passing off and pacing himself beautifully to make the big plays. Finally, in the fourth quarter the Celts come charging back in one of their patented rallies-and the Philly crowd is angry, nervous, expecting the worst, the old pattern. But at the critical moment Wilt blocks Russell's shot, violently, and passes out for a fast-break basket. The Celts bring the ball back and work it to Havlicek at the top of the key where he never misses. The shot is up-but halfway to the basket Wilt rises like a wall and the ball appears in his huge pale palm like a marble in the hand of a conjurer. He fires a floor-length pass with the accuracy of a quarterback and the 76ers have one game of the four they need for the series.

[ProfessorMurder]

Part 2

Later on, Wilt stands in the locker room in a swarm of reporters, patiently giving stock answers as he pulls on his black silk underwear, lucky rubber band snug to his wrist, big sloe eyes darting suspiciously over the heads of his questioners, doing his royal duty but with never an open answer, never a look of trust or equality.

At last he spies a ferret-faces fellow half his size and wearing a maroon blazer just like his. "I counted 13 blocks!" yips the obsequious ferret. "I counted 19 1/2!" booms Wilt, poking the little man. The little man is honored. He seems to swell-as if Wilt's poke has dubbed him real. And Wilt himself now deigns to smile.

But when he's asked what he said to Russell at the tapoff, his wife mouth freezes, and his eyes glare sideways in a parody of outrage. "That's personal," he mutters, keeping the big man's cardboard integrity.


Over in the Celtics' dressing room that haggard Russell manages to grin: "He told me I'd done a nice job of coaching. Then he told me he was going to break that up tonight." Russell pauses. "And he did."

Two mornings later Wilt's bass voice rumbles through a Boston restaurant, delivering authoritative opinions on harness racing, on basketball, on other players. Yet for all its loudness the voice is strangely inarticulate, strangled, surprised at itself. The voice seems to know that others are listening, that they can't help but look and listen: and the voice announces that the man must be himself, no matter who's staring, no matter whether the question is ever raised in any mind but his own.

That afternoon the Giant and his troupe fall 11 behind at Boston Garden, but they will not fold. At a crucial moment the Giant sweeps in a running follow-up from two feet about the basket. In the stretch the Giant is fouled with his team leading 103-102. He squats on the line like a praying mantis, loops up his shot as his mouth gapes and the viscous fans shriek piercingly. He misses and pulls the sour tooth, to the flight of all. But he manages to hit the second shot, and moments later brings down the clinching rebound.

In last-second desperation Boston heaves a floor-length pass, but Wilt is waiting underneath and meets it with a mighty fist. Truly it is a beautiful gesture. Turning slowly, the ball rises one hundred feet into the bluish air, round and brown as the head of Muhammad Ali. "You Big BUm!" shouts a front-row winner.

In the locker room the reporters pop the big question: will this series prove he's the greatest? Wilt denies it: "If iI'm the greatest player ever, I'm the greatest win or lose." It is something he has said before. But does he know, deep down, that when you want something-really want it-you must admit to yourself exactly what it costs?

His actions say he does. His third game is stupendous: he hauls in a record-breaking 41 rebounds as three different 76ers drive through Russell to devastate the rough Boston press. At one point Wilt is tied up by K.C. Jones and lifts the ball off the floor with Jones still attached to it, only his Giant courtesy preventing him from passing them both downcourt.

Afterward Russell drags off sad-eyed to don his gray opera cape and stride off alone into the night. Wilt meanwhile tries a little psychology of his own. "Bill played his best game in years," he tells reporters. "I never remember moving so much."

Back in boston-and out if they lose again-the Celtics outplay the 76ers all the way, as Wilt inexplicably tries five fadeaways and missed them all, is called three times for goal-tending and has one of his dippers blasted by Russell a yard above the rim. Yet even now the 76ers do not do not fold to order. Grimly they hang on despite their worst game, and in the final quarter Wilt steals the ball and passes off for a one-point lead. Never mind that the lead doesn't hold, the 76ers and Wilt have shown they can take the worst Boston can throw at them and nearly win anyway. Wilt misses free throws and shakes hi head more than ever, but he does not lose his cool.

After the game Russell gets in a final psych. "No, Wilt hasn't had a bad game yet," he says trill, "but we'd like for him to have one next game." His words are duly written down. And why did Chamberlain try the fadeaway? Russell fixes a reporter with his baleful eye: "In a time of stereo, a man always foes to what he thinks is better for him." Note that Russell does not say, "best for his team," or "best to win."

So the psych is in, but Wilt doesn't seem to get the message. He comes out laughing for the fifth game, ostentatiously realized, like a man who is going to win, but win cool. While he's relaxing, Boston starts in on a red-hot running-pressing-shooting ball game. It's 8-0 Boston before Wilt stuffs one, and at 24-17 the first of many eggs hits the court while Wilt stands joking-

(Picture of Sam Jones and Russell sitting on a stanchion)

"In the last quarter of the last game, exhausted Celtics Sam Jones and Russell blow while sweepers clear the floor of trash thrown by Philadelphia fans."

- with the referee; and the quarter ends with Boston leading 37-26, having shot 16-29 from the field, with Russell out-rebounding Chamberlain 10 to 5.

Later it gets even worse, with Wilt pressing to take up the scoring slack and Boston jumping out 53-37 and 63-48 as the 76ers are clogs and static on offense. Nevertheless they hang in and Wilt, coming on strong now, wrenches a rebound from Russell's hands, feeds Walker on a three-point play-and the fans start stomping and screaming for blood. Hand over hand Philly draws closer, and the half ends with Boston's lead cut to five, Wilt having scored 22 points.

At the start of the third quarter 76er Wally Jones goes wild and wipes out the Boston lead in less than two minutes. The last quarter begins slowly, with both teams missing and fouling, till Wilt comes out of nowhere for a rebound, stuffs for a quick score and a minute later slips one in while a Boston Jones boy clings to either arm.

Then at last, after eight long years, the gates are open. With Boston pressing, Havlicek steals, but Greer steals right back and Walker feeds Cunningham, who throws it in over a tiring Russell. Greer hits a spectacular shot from behind the baseline and Boston is really dead. Wilt steals a rebound from Russell and feeds Greer. Greer steals and feeds Guokas and scores himself on a needle-threading drive, takes a long pass from Wilt and scores again. Wilt blocks a shot by Havlicek, turns around and slams down a shot by Russell. And the 76ers are 20 points out and running away!

With a minute left Wilt is taken out of the game-and the fans try to tear down Convention Hall in his honor. The big man has come through-he has 36 rebounds, 29 points, 13 assists-and a stunning victory over dread Boston and dread Russell. After eight years will Wilt laugh at last? Will he jump up and down for joy?

No, he won't let go of his image. To carry on now would be to admit how much it's hurt him all along. He sits on the bench quietly nodding, drinking from a paper cup, ignoring photographers who kneel around him, expressionless and every much alone.

"I don't think there's a happier guy in the world than Wilt right now," Wilt's coach tells the press. But upstairs while his teammates whoop and scream and pour champagne, the exhausted star sits all alone in a tine trainer's room, with no champagne, no victory cigar, no winner's smile. The first photographer hits the scene, and the star says, "Please leave me alone."

Eventually Wilt lights a cigaret-with a joke about stunting his growth-and handles the reporters' questions. "Thank you very kindly," he says as they shake his hand. Then the P.R. men lead him out to be doused with champagne for the photographers, his teammates clustering to pour as Wilt manages his first grin for the press.

Over in the funereal Celtic dressing room, Russell refuses to make excuses. "Every time we came down and missed, Wilt got the rebound, and that's what broke it open."

You'd think at last the Giant would be happy. But he shows you nothing, because it does him no good. If he lets the crowd give him happiness, he'd have to let them take it away again, and they'd have usurped the power he wants to reserve ever and always for himself: the right to be the self-appointed greatest, no matter what happens on the outside. Because from the beginning he has been the baffled big kid, the biggest on the block, who win or lose is the largest, the one who has it all coming-and who can therefore win nothing finally-who must hold himself carefully aloof even as he smiles and nods and acknowledges the cheers that hold him captive and tell him who he is. He is stuck inside himself, a standout, with no place to hide and nothing to do year in and year out but assert and reassert his simple sterile pride in his own existence.

(Picture of Wilt sitting contently in a locker room)

"After last game of series, the Giant holds himself aloof from locker-room celebration, politely answering reporters' questions."

[ProfessorMurder]

Bump.

[LAZERUSS]

Bump.

Sorry. I remember when you first posted this topic, some of the links weren't there, so I didn't continue reading.

My bad.

Great stuff here.

Pistol Pete was something else, BTW.

I have asked this before, but almost everyone here has played at some level of organized ball. Now ask yourself this? What was your highest scoring game, at the highest level you played at? How many 40+ point games did you have?

Here was Maravich, with entire defenses designed to stop him, averaging 44 ppg in his three year college career. And doing so at the highest level of college, as well.

Then, he even had one season in his NBA career in which he led the league in scoring. And his high game of 68 points is among the highest scoring games in NBA history, as well.

[ProfessorMurder]

Sorry. I remember when you first posted this topic, some of the links weren't there, so I didn't continue reading.

My bad.

Great stuff here.

Pistol Pete was something else, BTW.

I have asked this before, but almost everyone here has played at some level of organized ball. Now ask yourself this? What was your highest scoring game, at the highest level you played at? How many 40+ point games did you have?

Here was Maravich, with entire defenses designed to stop him, averaging 44 ppg in his three year college career. And doing so at the highest level of college, as well.

Then, he even had one season in his NBA career in which he led the league in scoring. And his high game of 68 points is among the highest scoring games in NBA history, as well.

No problem man. Had a few computer issues so I staggered the posts a bit haha.

I was a consistent scorer, but only had two monster games, a 36 point near quadruple double in a varsity playoff game in 8th grade, and a 47 point game in a travel game in 9th grade. Those would be 'meh' scoring games for him...

I remember watching Pistol Pete videos on ESPN classic, him explaining drills he did himself and then I'd copy them for hours.

I also read a an article that tried to extrapolate his college numbers with a 3 point line, and I think it said the 44ppg would be like 53-57ppg.

Just nuts.

[LAZERUSS]

No problem man. Had a few computer issues so I staggered the posts a bit haha.

I was a consistent scorer, but only had two monster games, a 36 point near quadruple double in a varsity playoff game in 8th grade, and a 47 point game in a travel game in 9th grade. Those would be 'meh' scoring games for him...

I remember watching Pistol Pete videos on ESPN classic, him explaining drills he did himself and then I'd copy them for hours.

I also read a an article that tried to extrapolate his college numbers with a 3 point line, and I think it said the 44ppg would be like 53-57ppg.

Just nuts.

There have been a number of "bridges" in NBA history...players that had long careers that spanned many seasons...with Kareem being the greatest example, but if Ricky Rubio can play in this era, is there any doubt that a bigger, more athletic, and much more skilled Pistol would be among the best players in the league today?

Same with Kevin Love. Jerry Lucas was Kevin Love long before Love was.