The Grooviest Pad Of Them All..
I’m guessing she did the decorating..
Jul
28
2009
28
2009
Jul
13
2009
13
2009
ABA Adventures!
(Kentucky Colonels Head Coach Frank Ramsey is holding practice for his team during the 1970-71 ABA season..)
BANG!
Ramsey: Dammit, Cincinnatus! (chucks his cigarette butt across the court, lights another)
Powell: What, Coach?
Ramsey: If you insist on carrying a gun around during pickup games, at least keep the safety on!
Powell: Sure thing, Coach.
Ramsey: You alright, Sam?
Smith: (holding open gunshot wound) Yeah I’m cool, Coach. (more…)
Mar
16
2009
16
2009
David Stern Likes To Move It, Move It..
People tell me we are currently in an economic recession. I wouldn’t know, as I am a wealthy haberdasher. (more…)
Feb
27
2009
27
2009
Bob Ryan Also Sucks..
Bob Ryan is a pompous windbag. But you knew that already..
Did you know that Bob won the prestigious seven-year-old Dick Schaap Award for Outstanding Journalism in 2006? Other recipients? Bob Costas & Mitch Albom. There must be a height requirement.
But Bob Ryan? Really? As Bobby Knight might say, “I know Dick Schaap; and you, sir, are no Dick Schaap.” Of course I don’t know Dick Schaap. And for all I know he might be Dick Schaap. Is he Dick Schaap?
Today, Bob Ryan invites us into his time machine. C’mon in, there’s candy! The year? 1959. The place? Well…Boston, I guess. Adjust the flux Bobryaner! To infinity & beyond!
(Bob Ryan’s pompous windbaggery in bold, my snappy zingers in plain.)
Filling It Up
Goodness gracious, Bob!
Whatever else happens at the TD Banknorth Garden when the Celtics play the Indiana Pacers on Friday night,
Like Stephon Marbury repeatedly stabbing Mike Dunleavy Jr. in the face..
it’s not likely to match what took place at the original Boston Garden when the Celtics took on the Minneapolis Lakers and their sensational rookie Elgin Baylor 50 years ago to the day.
So you’re saying Troy Murphy is not as good as Elgin Baylor?
That is, unless someone is planning scoring 173 points. Yes, the Celtics set all kinds of scoring records that Saturday afternoon
“They even scored on my mom!”
– Feb. 27, 1959 —
Hey! That date is also today’s date!!
as they established a franchise single game scoring record that still stands by beating the Lakers, 173-139.
Yeah! Suck it, LA! Or…Minneapolis..
It was the Celtics’ 17th consecutive victory over the Lakers, who were playing their final year in the Twin Cities before relocating to Los Angeles, where you might say a few good things have happened.
Yeah, Magic got all that AIDS..
The times were a bit different then.
Less AIDS.
Do you think we could ever have a circumstance today in which a game with the Lakers is preceded by a basketball clinic sponsored by this newspaper?
NEVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Now we’re lucky they don’t charge us to get in).
Because nationally-published sportswriters don’t get paid nearly enough..
But that’s what we had at the Garden that day. Not only did Red Auerbach, Frank Ramsey and Sam Jones provide instruction for the 4,000 or so young’uns assembled for the 9th annual Globe/Celtics Basketball Clinic, but so, too, did both Lakers veteran Vern Mikklesen (a power forward before we had that term)
Back then, we called them “Polish Shortstops”..
and the aforementioned Mr. Baylor, who was busy reinventing the game of basketball for us all by turning what had always been a strict horizontal or vertical game into a diagonal demonstration of athleticism heretofore unseen. In case no one has told you, Elgin Baylor is the most important figure of the last 60 years in shaping the actual artistry of the game.
He’s also revolutionized making shitty draft picks.
From Elgin Baylor sprang Dr. J,
Like..out of him?
and then Michael and now Kobe and LeBron.
It’s like a Russian Babushka doll of personalitylessness!
Trust me on this one.
Nope.
Anyway, can you imagine coming to the next Celtics-Lakers game and getting, free of charge, a clinic with Doc, KG, Paul, Ray, Pau and Kobe?
MY BRAIN CANNOT FATHOM SUCH MADNESS!
I’m not sure if defense was addressed during that clinic. Let’s hope not.
LOL! Cuz they scored lots of points, you guyz!
The Celtics were expecting to win, of course, but there was some pregame angst because Bill Russell was nursing a strained tendon in his right leg and couldn’t play.
Pussy.
It did not turn out to be a problem.
Or did it?..
It just kinda happened.
“My penis just kinda flopped out of my trousers and everyone in the schoolyard saw it. It was an honest mistake, Officer!”
The Celtics started out hot and never cooled off.
They should’ve had some refreshing Nestea Iced Tea! Now with lemon!
They led 40-30 after one, 83-64 at the half and 121-95 after three. Meanwhile, Bob Cousy was piling up the assists, and after a while people realized he had a shot at the existing one-game record of 21, held by Richie Guerin of the Knicks.
Yeah! Suck it, Guerin!
He was taken out of the game with the record tied, but when someone apprised Auerbach of the situation, the redhead immediately put The Cooz back in the game.
The Redhead & The Cooz, coming to ABC. Sundays this fall.
Soon he had number 22. And then numbers 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28. The record was tied four years later by Philadelphia’s Guy Rodgers.
Aw screw you, Guy!
John Stockton also had a 28 in 1991.
You’re cool.
It still stands at number three, behind Scott Skiles’s 30 and Kevin Porter’s 29, but in the eyes of ultra-purists it remains number one because it was not puffed up by semi-bogus assists on such tomfoolery as three-pointers, which didn’t even exist in Cousy’s day.
Back in my day, we scored two points and we liked it!
And forget about three-pointers.
Done.
The concept of what merits an assist has been significantly broadened
Like my waist.
– some would say cheapened —
Like my career.
over the years so badly that it’s safe to say Cousy would easily average 13 or 15 a game today. In those days an assist pretty much meant a lay-up and would never be attached to anything requiring more than one, or possibly two, dribbles after reception.
Dribbles After Reception (DAR). I guarantee you Daryl Morey keeps that stat.
As for Guy Rodgers, a very good player whom many think belongs in the Hall of Fame, he had the benefit of throwing the ball into Wilt Chamberlain.
The jerk..
Anyway, The Cooz finished that game with a gaudy 31 points and 29 assists, thereby accounting for 89 of those 173 all by himself.
Maths!
“I never saw anything like that in my 13 years of professional basketball,” Auerbach said. “I heard he had a chance to break the record. So I rested him for a minute and sent him right back to bust it.”
An’ he bust the shit out it!
The teams combined to hoist it 267 times.
I don’t ever need to hear Bob Ryan say “hoist it” again.
Tom Heinsohn had 28 of Boston’s 143 attempts, making 18 en route to a career-high 43.
He gets a Tommy Point.
The Celtics placed seven men in doubles, while the Lakers had six. There were 183 rebounds available.
For sale?
The 173 has since been surpassed, of course. The current record high game is Detroit’s 1983 186-184 triumph over Denver, a game in which four men had 40 or more (Kiki Vandeweghe and Alex English for Denver; Isiah Thomas and John Long for Detroit.) But that one took four overtimes.
So it sucks. Ours is better.
What does remain, however, is Boston’s 72 field goals in a 48-minute game. This figure has never been surpassed.
And never shall! I declare it, in the name of all that is good & Bob Ryan!
Commissioner Maurice Podoloff was not amused when he heard the score.
That’s too many points! Raaaaaaaaaaarrrrr! Score less!
In fact, he was infuriated, so much so that he said he would summon the officials to inquire if the teams had been “goofing off” rather than trying to play defense.
K.C. Jones was just doing somersaults up & down the court.
Minneapolis coach John Kundla took his beating like a man.
I whimpering, sniveling shell of a man.
“I just hope we can shake the effects of this one,” he said. “There was little we could do about their phenomenal shooting, although after staying with them for a while. We really played bad defense over the second half.”
This was the 50’s. Shouldn’t he have ended that by popping the collar on his leather jacket and saying “Ayyyyyyy.”
A 52-point Celtics fourth quarter might be what he was alluding to.
The Lakers did “shake it off.”
And then properly zipped up their flies and washed their hands thoroughly.
Playing the Philadelphia Warriors the next night in Camden, NJ (I said things were different then),
Caucasians weren’t afraid to go into Camden!
they pulled one out.
Hey now!
As for the Celtics, they lost a 104-102 game the next night in St. Louis when, according to them, Bob Pettit goaltended a potential game-tying shot by Cousy at the buzzer.
You will burn in hell, Pettit! In hellllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!
“AUERBACH CLAIMS ‘GOALTENDING’”, read the headline. “It was goaltending as flagrant as anything I’ve ever seen,” he fumed.
He then put his cigar out in a towel boy’s eye.
Well, not everything has changed.
Zing.
~~~
Thanks for the trip down Memory Lane, Bob. Just wish you hadn’t held my hand the whole way..
Nov
09
2008
09
2008
Act Like You Know, Part I
This is Part 1 of Act Like You Know . Part 2 can be found here.
I watched Love And Basketball for the fourth time the other day, and
one thing continues to bother me — the casting of Omar Epps in the lead role. I have nothing against Epps as an actor, but I don’t buy him as a professional basketball player. There’s just something off about him every time he steps out on the court, especially with the Lakers. It’s even worse now that I associate him with Dr. Foreman on House. So, I started thinking — would the movie be any better if the part of Quincy McCall went to say, Will Smith…or how about Ray Allen? Actually, can any NBA players be good (or even passable) as movie actors? We know that Paul Pierce, for one, deserves an Oscar for his stunning performance in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
Now, of course, it’s not a big stretch for a basketball player to play himself or another athlete in a movie…or so we’d hope. Part I of this two-part set will focus on movies that feature NBA players “acting” as basketball players, while Part II will look at those who’ve branched out into bigger roles, including Allen in He Got Game.
1. Eddie (1996): John Salley, Rick Fox, Malik Sealy (RIP), Mark Jackson, Dwayne Schintzius, Greg Ostertag, Gary Payton, plus assorted NBA players (49 total) as themselves.
I’m sure every NBA fan has seen this one — Whoopi Goldberg goes from 
an obnoxious Knicks fan to the team’s coach, and puts the Isiah Thomas era to shame in the process. The best of the NBA players are Ostertag, who plays a dimwitted yokel of a player (yeah, this was a big reach for him); Sealy, who channels his inner Rickey Henderson and refers to himself in the third person; and Schintzius, who plays (?) a moron that speaks only three words of English. The rest of the bunch do just fine in minor roles — Olden Polynice, for instance, shows off his scientific knowledge of a black hole…nah, too easy.
2. Space Jam (1996): Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Muggsy Bogues, Larry Johnson, Shawn Bradley, Larry Bird, Vlade Divac, Cedric Ceballos, A.C. Green, Derek Harper, Alonzo Mourning, Charles Oakley — all as themselves.
If you’re like me and saw this movie when you were younger, you probably liked it
enough to not question the acting abilities of the stars. Jordan isn’t really asked to do anything out of the ordinary here — he plays basketball and exhibits good sportsmanship, even if he’s sometimes as stiff as the hardwood. After aliens take away the NBA players’ skills, we get to see them do their best Brian Scalabrene impressions. Of course, the cheap laughs again come at the expense of the tall white guy: Shawn Bradley becomes awkward and uncoordinated on the court…in other words, the directors just told him to act natural.
3. Blue Chips (1994): Shaquille O’Neal, Anfernee Hardaway, Larry Bird, Bob Cousy, and several players as themselves, including Allan Houston, Rodney Rogers, Calbert Cheaney, Bobby Hurley, Marques Johnson, Rick Fox, George Lynch, and Chris Mills.
The movie gives a realistic (but fictional) account of behind-the-scenes cheating 
and corruption in college athletics. Aside from dunking in the basketball scenes, Shaq gives his usual cringe-worthy performance (much more on this in Part II) in his acting debut. Penny is surprisingly likable in his recruitment scenes with Nick Nolte; more impressively, he didn’t even injure himself on the set. Fortunately for us, the other players (notably Hurley and Cheaney) are not asked to do much off the court and safely fade into the background. Cousy and Bird are, well, there.
4. Forget Paris (1995): Charles Barkley, David Robinson, Dan Majerle, Kevin Johnson, Sean Elliott, Patrick Ewing, Tim Hardaway, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Laimbeer, Reggie Miller, Chris Mullin, Charles Oakley, Kurt Rambis, John Starks, Isiah Thomas, Spud Webb, Marques Johnson, Reggie Theus — all as themselves.
I’m almost ashamed to admit that I sort of like this movie, even though it’s a
romantic comedy. Billy Crystal plays an NBA referee, and all of the player cameos take place on the court. As expected, these are mostly in-game action sequences, and require the players to argue with the refs (once again, this hopefully shouldn’t be too hard). Kareem, Barkley, and Spud Webb, in particular, are very believable in their brief interactions with Crystal, while most of the other players don’t have noteworthy speaking parts.
5. The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh (1979): Julius “Dr. J” Erving, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Meadowlark Lemon (Harlem Globetrotter), and several NBA/ABA players, including Connie Hawkins, Spencer Haywood, Bob Lanier, Cedric Maxwell, and Norm Nixon.
I’m willing to best that most people under 30 aren’t familiar with this one. Dr. J 
plays the superstar on a terrible basketball team. After most of the players quit, in comes an absolutely ridiculous premise; let’s just say it has to do with astrology. The acting is minimal and beyond wooden (not just the players, either), while attempts at humor predictably fall short. Even still, I’d recommend watching it, if only for the unintentionally hilarious disco soundtrack.
Honorable Mention:
*Heaven Is A Playground (1991): Bo Kimble, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kendall Gill
A coach tries to keep his urban high school basketball team out of trouble — as expected, it’s to no avail. Former Clipper Bo Kimble plays a good player who later becomes a bitter loner after a serious knee injury, while Olajuwon and Gill have minor roles as his teammates. Apparently, Michael Jordan was originally supposed to be cast in the movie instead of Kimble, and was sued for by the filmmakers for breach-of-contract.
*Like Mike (2002): Michael Finley, Steve Francis, Allen Iverson, Jason Kidd, Tracy McGrady, Alonzo Mourning, Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, Gary Payton, Jason Richardson, David Robinson, Rasheed Wallace, Gerald Wallace, Chris Webber — all as themselves.
I’m not gonna lie to you — I never saw this movie, but I remember watching an ‘extended preview’ in the theater, which basically showed the whole movie in five minutes. Looking at the stills (Robinson, Kidd) is making me a little nauseous, so let’s move on. Oh, and FYI, “Like Mike 2” (I had no idea either) doesn’t have any player appearances, unless you count Mark Cuban.
*White Men Can’t Jump (1992): You may have noticed that Marques Johnson — who had a very solid NBA career during the ’80’s — appeared in two other movies on the list. As the only professional player in this one, he doesn’t play a big enough role to make the cut. Side note: I watched this movie when I was 12 or 13 years old, and I remember my dad walking in during one of the sex scenes….um, very bad times.
Oct
26
2008
26
2008
Where Did All the ‘Fros Go?
I’ve been fascinated by afros ever since I was a little kid. When I was growing up, I wanted a ‘fro more than anything in the world, and constantly begged my mother to let me get a perm for my wavy hair. In hindsight, I’m glad she didn’t listen, because I could never pull of a cool-looking Jewfro (at least, not as well as “Fletch“).
To make up for the lack of awesome afros in the early ’90’s — the apparent peak of the flat top era — I frequented local sports card shows, searching for new, um, hair-raising items to add to my collection. The ABA was the jackpot of amazing afros during the 1970’s. Among my favorites were classic styles worn by the likes of Darnell Hillman and Julius Erving, the Chia Pet on the head of Randy Denton, and Michael Jackson’s “thriller.” The unintentionally hilarious balding ‘fro would later find its way into the NBA, courtesy of World B. Free.
Thankfully, the late ’90’s and early 2000’s marked the triumphant return of the ‘fro, starting with Ben Wallace. Big Ben was one of the first players to switch between the increasingly popular cornrows and afro hairstyles from game to game. Although the trend never caught on as much as one would’ve liked, it game us a handful of memorable appearances, such as the ones below.
Ben Wallace
Shaun Livingston
Ricky Davis
Darius Miles
Moochie Norris
Ronny Turiaf
For a short time, several NBA superstars got into the act, popularizing the ‘baby afro’ look in the mid-2000’s. It’s a shame that Gilbert Arenas may have kept his bushy hairstyle a little longer, had it not been for an unfortunate conditioning incident. Even the usually plain-vanilla Tim Duncan busted out a fantastic mini-fro for the beginning 2004/05 season, before eventually going back to his patented bald look.
Kobe Bryant
Gilbert Arenas
Tim Duncan
Unfortunately, those hairstyles are long gone, and today’s NBA has a disturbing lack of hair creativity. Ben Wallace’s ‘fro is tired, and it’s only a matter of time before he starts looking like the aforementioned World B. Free (sorry, I just can’t get enough of that photo). I don’t know what Anderson Varejao, Robin Lopez, and Joakim Noah have going right now, but those are not afros. They look more like Sideshow Bob or Corbin Bleu admirers than Dr. J fans. To top if off, the only man who’s maintained a true ‘fro since coming into the league, Josh Childress, is now representing in Greece. And it’ll be at least a year until we see Brandon Jennings’ old school flat top on the NBA hardwood. We’re close to reaching a crisis stage here, people. If David Stern needs to get involved here, I’m okay with that — whatever it takes. Just bring back the ‘fro!
Josh Childress
Anderson Varejao
Robin Lopez
