Has Rudy Tomjanovich compared Moses&Hakeem?

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Another article about 81:

SIX DAYS IN MAY - A personal remembrance of the 1981 NBA championship series

Houston Chronicle - Sunday, May 25, 1986
IT HAD BEEN a most improbable spring. Houston's pro basketball team was a ragtag bunch, a collection of diverse young men who really had little in common except their sport. They had absolutely nothing in common with championship basketball teams, none of which had ever showed up at the finals with a 40-42 record.

Were they anonymous when they finally got to the pinnacle, the city where championships and basketball go together like fetuccini and clam sauce? Well, a scene at the airport moments after we landed let me know the Houston Rockets were as anonymous in Boston as the Frito Banditos.

We were clumped together in the airport terminal on that drizzly evening, waiting for baggage from our flight to spill onto the carousel. Several feet away I noticed two elderly little ladies, hands over their mouths, peering intently at the erect giants.

"Millicent, who do you think these gentlemen are?" one asked in a very flat Bostonian accent.

"They're a basketball team. I heard someone say they're the Houston Rockies."

"The Rockies? That's an awfully strange name for a basketball team."

"No, Millicent, it really isn't. I think they're called the Rockies because Houston is in the Rocky Mountains."

To the populace of Boston, the city of Houston was definitely an unknown - some town from "out there." Texas was West - hey, haven't you ever seen Westerns? On television the Texas towns never look like Odessa. They always look like suburbs of Denver - hence, the understandable connection.

And to the populace of Boston, the Houston Rockets were just as unknown. Shoot, they were unknown to the Boston Celtics, who had fully expected someone else to show up for dinner.

"Someone else," of course, was the Los Angeles Lakers. The Rockets had severely jolted the NBA's orderly line of progression when they rubbed out the league's defending champions in the opening round, much in the order they did this year.

It was a playoff march in which the Rockets did everything backward. They could only win on the road. They would titillate Houston fans who saw them play like bionic men on television, then the locals would pack The Summit and see them do an incomprehensible series of pratfalls.

That's the way it had started in the miniseries at Los Angeles, the Rockets delivering a quick karate chop in the Forum. Then when The Summit was reeling in noise in Game 2, the Rockets bellied up and let the Lakers run them into exhaustion.

Game 3 was on a Sunday afternoon, and I'll never forget the drama of the game's last shot.

I was seated in press row directly under the Laker basket. Less than 20 seconds remained, the Rockets ahead by a point. From the left sideline near half-court, Magic Johnson had inbounded the ball, then jumped over and immediately gotten it back.

He began slowly shuffling toward the free-throw line with Rocket Tom Henderson bodying him all the way. Directly in front of me, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Moses Malone were shoving each other mightily, Kareem trying to get a step in front where Magic could get him a pass.

Kareem finally got the position he wanted, but it was a futile struggle. Magic glanced briefly at him, but instead of passing him the ball, he let fly with a little 15-foot one-handed jumper, pressed closely by Henderson's tummy.

I watched the arc of the ball, which seemed to be coming down in slow motion. Long before it completed it's journey, I could see it was going to be short.

It was. Way short, as in not even touching the rim. Malone grabbed the rebound and the Rockets were on their way to one of the wackiest of NBA odysseys.

It would continue in the next round at San Antonio, where the Rockets promptly won on the road, then came back to The Summit and got busted up.

That one finally came down to Game 7 in San Antonio, where Robert Reid was replaced in the Rocket starting lineup by a disgruntled Calvin Murphy.

Calvin hadn't been a starter in quite awhile, and he felt his talents were being neglected. He took out his anger on the Spurs, erupting for 42 points in one of the great clutch performances I have ever seen in my 15 years of following the NBA.

That was enough to make the Rockets surprising winners once again and send them on to Kansas City. By now they were playing in a virtual news vacuum.

Once the Lakers were eliminated, CBS phoned in a hurried retreat to all cameramen west of the Mississippi. They focused their attention completely on the Eastern playoffs, treating the Rockets as though they were aliens from the dark side of the moon. Not once did CBS televise a Western Conference playoff game after their Hollywood darlings got the boot.

Kansas City was flicked away like a piece of lint on the Rockets' sleeve. The world could have cared less, however. At that same time, the real basketball was being played back on the East Coast, where Bill Fitch's Celtics were coming back from a 3-1 deficit to eliminate Philadelphia.

................................

So here came the Rockets, and I couldn't help but think of them as ugly little ragamuffins who showed up uninvited at the rich kid's birthday party.

Everyone assumed the world championship series had just ended, when the Celtics bumped off Philadelphia. But wait, who are these snotty-nosed little brats? You mean we've got to tolerate these nobodies for a week before they give us our championship?

There were some reasons to believe it might be an interesting series, though. For one, the Celtics exhausted themselves in the ordeal of overtaking Philadelphia. For another, they had to be mightily susceptible to overconfidence.

For yet another, Del Harris had done a masterful coaching job throughout the playoffs. Harris was mapping strategy for a team with one true superstar, Moses Malone, and a bunch of other guys who looked like they belonged in the longshoremen's union hall.

Billy Paultz. Henderson. Mike Dunleavy. Bill Willoughby. Guys with a modicum of basketball talent but a willingness to lay bone on bone if that's what was needed to complete the job.

Harris had them playing a really ugly style of basketball. Chronicle columnist Ed Fowler dubbed it Rocketball." A lot of other people called it Uglyball." By whatever label, however, Harris had designed a game that allowed a collection of oxen to play evenly against teams with much more talent.

And so it was that the Rockets, faces wiped clean of dirt, uniforms neatly pressed for the occasion, finally debuted at Boston Garden for Game 1.

The overwhelming opinion was that we were about to witness a scene resembling Christians being fed to the lions. What happened though, was the ugly kids jumped all over the bluebloods in a hurry.

Who could ever forget fatboy Paultz repeatedly turning around and flipping in that little 12-foot bank shot? Or Malone going out to the side, unaccompanied by Robert Parish, and pitching in a succession of awkward baseline jumpers?

As the whole basketball world sat and watched in stunned silence, the team nobody wanted roared off to a 22-7 lead.

I have never heard Boston Garden as quiet as it was when Fitch angrily signaled for a timeout. He blistered some posteriors, and the alarm clock went off inside a few brains. The Celtics came back out on the court and by halftime were back in the game.

They never could kick the Rockets off their shins, however. It finally would come down to one final shot. The man chosen to take it, Rudy Tomjanovich , now is a Rocket assistant coach.

There was a world of irony there. Tomjanovich had enjoyed a brilliant career with the Rockets. In the summer, he was one of the world's great beer drinkers. Once the season started, however, he was 100-percent athlete, never slurping a drop unless the Rockets had two days off between games.

In 1981, though, he was a forgotten man. It was his final season, and only rarely did he take off his warmups and actually dirty up his No. 45 jersey.

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continued...

The frustration finally got to him. The night before that first game, he and I had visited a few taverns. He knew he would play only if a mass cholera attack visited the Rockets. This was his way of releasing a little of the internal pressure that had built up inside.

Sure enough, though, Game 1 came down again to the final seconds, with the Rockets needing a three-point shot to tie. Harris sent in Tomjanovich , still probably the best long-range shooter on the team.

Tomjanovich hadn't been on the court a single second. He had been sitting there two hours, without launching a shot. Now, though, the ball came into his hands, he had to put it up, and it actually hit the rim before bouncing teasingly away. The Celtics won 98-95.

The nation's press was about to discover the orphans. The Celtics could be a temperamental bunch in interview sessions. Parish was hardly talking at all. Larry Bird was polite but very bland. Fitch was amenable on practice days, but could be most difficult after games.

Soon the media tired of the interview hassles and began visiting the Rockets. The Rockets had a hoard of guys who were literate, quite witty and hungry for a little national exposure.

Harris was available almost on a 24-hour-a-day basis. Reid was a veritable quote machine. I'm going to stick so close to Larry Bird that I can tell you what kind of deodorant he's wearing," was one of his gems.

Paultz was a funny, funny guy, as was Dunleavy. Henderson was an excellent, cooperative analyst. Overall, these gents were the proverbial breath of fresh air after the grumpy locker room of the Celtics.

Understandably, then, the Rockets suddenly found themselves quoted in everything from the Wall Street Journal to the National Enquirer. And the hubbub really reached a crescendo after the stunner in Game 2.

................................

That's the night this thing really got serious. Once again the Celtics couldn't shake this leg-iron clamped to their ankles. The Rockets would win 92-90, and once again it came down to the drama of a final shot.

The Celtics tried mightily to work the ball to Bird, but Reid was all over him like a Navajo serape. Finally it was left up to little Nate Archibald to fire away from 18 feet, and his left-handed flipper wasn't even close.

The series went back to Houston tied at 1-1, but everyone realized how close it was to being 2-0 in the Rockets' favor. Had Tomjanovich 's desperation shot in Game 1 been half an inch longer, maybe if he had just ingested one more can of suds, the Celtics might've been blanked in their first two games at home.

In the Celtic locker room after Game 2, Cedric Maxwell finally voiced what everyone was beginning to realize.

We can lose this series," he said. You bet they can beat us, if we don't wake up and realize that we are playing for the world championship."

Back in Houston, though, that same old Summit pattern prevailed in Game 3. The Rockets piddled around ineptly, the Celtics won in a blowout, 94-71.

In Game 4, though, the Rockets actually won in their house, using only six men to claim a 91-86 triumph, tying the series at 2 and prompting a most uncharacteristic outburst from the normally silent Malone.

Apparently fed up with the nation's Bostonmania, Malone blurted out the shot heard round the world. Shoot," he said, the Celtics aren't that great. I could get four guys from the playground in Petersburg (Va., his home town) and beat them."

It seemed totally uncharacteristic, but those who know Malone knew it wasn't. Moses was a man of incredible personal pride, and he finally reacted to being shortsighted by virtually everyone on planet Earth.

What he had done, though, was finally give the Celtics a theme around which they could rally. Stung by the Four Guys From Petersburg" soliloquy, the Celtics returned to the Garden and used Malone and the Rockets for a doormat in Game 5. They won 109-80.

Afterward, I'll never forget a column in the Boston Globe penned by sportswriter Leigh Montville.

Uh, Moses ," it began, about those four guys from Petersburg. I don't want to be presumptuous, but don't you think this would be a good time to give them a call?"

Ahead now 3-2, the Celtics came back to The Summit for the sixth game. Moses could have had 20 friends from Petersburg and they wouldn't have made a difference.

Boston led by as many as 17 points, only to watch the Rockets come alive in the fourth quarter and whittle the lead all the way down to three.

At that juncture, though, the redoubtable Bird stepped to the front and performed the execution. With the game down to its closing seconds, Bird got the ball down close to the Rocket bench, once again right in front of my seat.

As the Rockets watched in agony, Bird lofted one of his beautiful long shots, the ball arching cleanly through the net for a three-point basket.

Down now by six, the Rockets could do nothing but march peaceably to the gallows.

..............................

Looking back, it was totally inevitable that the Rockets would eventually lose. A talent like Bird simply would not let Boston succumb. The Rockets were badly overmatched in talent, Harris going to war a couple of times with only six players.

I never saw the blue-haired ladies again. Somewhere, though, I think they learned this team was not the Rockies," and Houston was not in the Rocky Mountains.

One thing I learned, too, was that these Rockies" had a mountain of intestinal fortitude.

Maybe the little ladies are still standing there. They'll hear something about Akeem and Ralph, and then the smart one can tell the dummy, Oh, Millicent, they're called the Rockies because they've got the Twin Towers."

Brief Rudy T column:

SPORTS MEMORIES

Akron Beacon Journal (OH) - Sunday, March 12, 1989
He was never the same player after the roundhouse punch. Anyone who
suffered what was called `a severe facial fracture' wouldn't be. But,
otherwise, life has had mostly kind moments for the guy known as Rudy T.

In long form among polite society, refer to him as Rudolph Tomjanovich . But
few do. Rudy T is plenty.

The 6-foot-8 forward was an All-American at the University of Michigan and a first-round draft pick of the Houston Rockets in 1970.

He spent his entire career with the Rockets until retiring in 1981 -- and
high notes abounded.

He averaged 17.4 points per game for his career, finishing with 13,383
points, second to Calvin Murphy in all-time team scoring. He ended with 6,198 rebounds, third behind Elvin Hayes and Moses Malone. Five NBA all-star games
felt his presence.

Most of this was accomplished before December 1977. That's when a thug named Kermit Washington threw a vicious punch that viewers saw and felt across TV-
land. Rudy T missed the rest of the 1977-78 season with that facial
fracture, and Washington got a big suspension.

But Rudy T survived -- and well. He had three passable years after the punch and joined the Rockets as a scout upon retiring. In 1983, he became a Houston assistant coach, a position he still holds. And what of Kermit Washington? Who cares.

Is there a sports figure from the past you'd like to know about? Write to
Sports Memories, Beacon magazine, 44 E. Exchange St., Akron, Ohio 44328.
Answers can only appear in this column. pdg

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Another:

WHOLLY MOSES - MALONE: FROM CHILD STAR TO WISE OLD NBA MENTOR

St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Sunday, December 26, 1993
After 20 seasons, the word used to describe Moses Malone, man of many rebounds and few syllables, essentially remains the same.

The word explains, as well as anything, how a slender high school prodigy leaped to the pros with unparalleled ease, grew from an ABA oddity into the greatest offensive rebounding center in history and finally evolved into a revered NBA dinosaur at 38.

The word is relentless.

"He was relentless, and so smart in getting good position," said Billy Cunningham, coach of the 1982-83 Philadelphia 76ers, who became champs thanks to Malone's overpowering presence. "He would just wear people down physically. The more physical he got, the more productive he became. ... He had something within him, a fire. I can't think of anyone who compares to him."

" Moses works very hard on both ends every night," said the Celtics' Robert Parish, the NBA's other back-to-the-basket relic. "He was in a position to take a night off and cruise if he wanted to, but he never did. It's that I respect most about him."

Everyone in basketball respects Moses Eugene Malone, the NBA's last active link to the ABA. When the renegade league was absorbed in 1976, it brought an infusion of talent that included David Thompson, George Gervin and Julius Erving.

But only Malone, whom Parish calls "one of the last true centers," endures. His enormous achievements are easy to overlook - he led the NBA in rebounding five times and offensive rebounding eight times, led the league in minutes played twice and free throws made three times, and hasn't fouled out of a game since 1977-78 - but his career will never be overlooked.

Having returned to Philadelphia, the city where he won his only championship ring, Malone is still capable of sporadically commandeering the paint, willing his way to the line and trudging his way up the ranks of the NBA's all-time leaders.

Although back surgery limited him to 11 games with Milwaukee last season, Malone was given a $2 million deal as a free agent to be a 15 minute-a-night backup and special tutor to 7-6 rookie Shawn Bradley.

" Moses helps Shawn by his work ethic, by talking to him and by going up against him every day," Sixers coach Fred Carter said. "We told Shawn to listen to everything Moses says, because Moses parted the Red Sea."

Professor Malone will undoubtedly teach Bradley about a center's life in the same mostly wordless way he taught a University of Houston student from Nigeria in some nasty summer games more than a decade ago.

"He pushed me. He shoved me. He did everything he could think of to stop me from getting the ball on a rebound or stop me from scoring," recalled a grateful Hakeem Olajuwon. "If I got him sealed off and called for the ball, when I jumped to catch the pass, he'd bump me so hard that if I went up into the air right near the basket, I usually came down out by the key."

In a league of soaring acrobats and 7-foot jump shooters, Malone's game remains anchored in the blocks.

"Everyone wants to be more flashy, but Moses is still doing the same things - throwing it off the glass and going to get it," Parish said. "He knows all the tricks. And he got all the calls. All of them. Both ends. Just like Michael Jordan."

Unlike Jordan, Malone never had any trademark offensive moves or the ability to leave opponents' mouths open with his jumping ability. He has thrived because he has always followed one blue-collar commandment: Thou shalt go to the glass, again and again.

"Certain guys like (Paul) Silas, (Charles) Oakley and (Dennis) Rodman are relentless, rebounding fools who take pride in that," said Pacers coach Larry Brown. "But at center, you don't find guys who are rebounding fools on both ends. Most of the great rebounding centers have been defensive rebounders, like (Bill) Russell and ( Wilt ) Chamberlain. Moses was an offensive rebounding center, which was kind of unique."

"You knew he was coming and, half the time, you couldn't stop him anyway," said Sixers assistant coach Jeff Ruland, who was traded for Malone in 1986.

"He still starts to rebound just before he shoots," said former NBA coach Bill Fitch.

Malone developed his brute style of play on the playgrounds of Petersburg, Va. It ultimately enabled him to free his mother, Mary, from her $100-a-week grocery packing job and move her out of their house with the ramshackle steps and old milk crate as a living-room coffee table.

At age 14, Malone had written on a piece of paper that he wanted to be a pro by 19. He put the paper in his Bible. College recruiters who flocked to see the eerily quiet teen-age Moses and expected to find an easy mark were surprised. Malone had unerring instincts. He repelled a sales pitch from Oral Roberts, who reportedly offered to heal his mother's ulcer if Moses attended the college. And he left an apoplectic Maryland coach Lefty Driesell at the altar to sign a five-year deal for approximately $1 million with the ABA Utah Stars prior to 1974-75.

The prophecy was fulfilled, but Moses was still just a child among men, albeit a special one.

"People who saw him at that time said what a skinny kid he was. He probably weighed 210 at most," said Bucky Buckwalter, who won the wooing war and was Malone's first coach in Utah. "Watching him on the floor, you could tell he was something special, that he had a nose for the ball. ... I thought it would be difficult for him. Going from (predominantly black) Petersburg, Virginia, to Salt Lake City is a culture shock that would be tough for anyone. But from Day 1, he fit in."

The basketball transition was incredibly smooth, too. Maybe it was because Malone had a wise-beyond-his-years approach that other high school-to-pro phenoms such as Darryl Dawkins and Bill Willoughby lacked. Or maybe it was simply that he willed himself to be a star.

"Coming out of high school, I had an attitude. I wasn't afraid," Malone said. "I loved a challenge. That's why I became a player. Not a superstar. A player. I always thought I was No. 1. I loved the contact, which is the way I learned on the playground."

"I remember people were saying that he's not physical at all," said Brown, who was Denver's coach during Malone's ABA debut season. "He got 32 rebounds the first time we played them. I had to laugh and I said, `There goes that myth."'

Still, the NBA wasn't so sure about Malone at the time of the dispersal draft. In fact, the Trail Blazers, already blessed with Bill Walton at center, picked Malone with the advance intention of dealing him to Buffalo for a draft pick before training camp ended. Malone also went from the Braves to the Rockets before 1976-77 was over.

"Everyone was saying he won't make it," Brown said. "I always heard so many things about what he couldn't do, instead of harping on what he could do. Like a lot of ABA kids, who got a chance to play when they were very young, he just kept getting better and better."

And bigger and stronger, because of the way he pushed himself. Malone relentlessly subjected his body to hour after hour of conditioning in the days before weights were the rage.

"Look at the old pictures of him," said Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich , Malone's former teammate in Houston. "His body really changed. Back then, we didn't have strength coaches and people like that. He wasn't a guy who flaunted his work habits. I used to go to the same health club as him. The people there were telling me he comes in at 7 a.m., before anyone else."

It has always been about working and winning.

"When I played with Moses , he wasn't a very good free-throw shooter until the last two minutes. But he always buried those big ones you needed to win," remembered Mike Dunleavy, Malone's teammate with the Rockets and later his coach with the Bucks. "And he was a pretty clutch outside shooter, too."

There was a run to the NBA finals with the Rockets in 1980-81 and, finally, the deal that allowed Malone to flee Houston for Philadelphia as a free agent. Because his addition resulted in the departure of the popular Caldwell Jones, some Sixers veterans were unsettled by Moses ' arrival. However, Cunningham knew that a nucleus of Erving, Maurice Cheeks and Bobby Jones wasn't enough, that Malone was the missing ingredient.

"One of the things we were missing was physical presence," Cunningham said. " Moses added a lot more than that, but we thrived on that. After a few days of training camp, he was embraced by his teammates. He didn't say a lot, of course, but he had a presence. When he said, `Let's go. It's time to turn it up a notch,' they did."

Late in that 1982-83 season, while he received treatment for a sore knee, Malone made his famous, typically terse playoff prediction of "Fo, fo, fo" to Cunninngham, suggesting the Sixers would require only the minimum number of postseason games to win their title. "He was off by one game," Cunningham said.

Now, more than a decade later, Malone is back in Philly in a backup role, averaging 7.0 points and 5.4 rebounds going into the weekend. He is slower than ever, but is still contributing and teaching yet another generation the simple and harsh secrets of how to claim the paint.

"It's amazing he's been able to compete this long," Dunleavy said.

"I'm not surprised he's still playing," said ex-Rocket teammate Calvin Murphy. "I'm just surprised he is not playing more minutes."

Nobody will have to tell Malone it's time to go once he senses the inner fire that has made him special and so relentless for so many years no longer burns within.

"Once I lose interest, it's over," Malone said recently. "I don't want to be around just trying to get a check. I want to produce. I want to deserve to get paid."

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I'm going to post some other cool articles I found during this search, before getting back to work:

Garnett does well on NBA schoolwork

Houston Chronicle - Saturday, November 11, 1995
The education of Kevin Garnett continues tonight when the Minnesota Timberwolves take the floor against the Rockets at The Summit.

A lot of eyebrows were raised when Garnett was taken by the Timberwolves with the fifth pick in what was a remarkably young draft. So young that Garnett was the first senior taken - a 19-year-old high school senior.

Garnett, the 6-11 wunderkind out of Chicago's Farragut Academy, is a player whose skills have him projected as a small forward in the NBA. He became the first player taken directly out of high shcool since Bill Willoughby and Darryl Dawkins were selected by Atlanta and Philadelphia, respectively, in the 1975 draft. Seattle's Shawn Kemp sat out one year while attending classes at Trinity Valley Community College, but did not play basketball there.

Moses Malone, whose Hall of Fame career started when he went straight from Petersburg (Va.) High School to the Utah Stars of the American Basketball Association in 1974, is the greatest success story among those who bypassed college for the pros.

It's too soon to tell if Garnett will have an undistinguished career like Willoughby or be a superstar like Kemp or Malone, but few doubt he belongs in the league. Garnett saw his stock soar in the eyes of lottery teams such as Minnesota with his ball-handling, passing and shooting skills in pre-draft workouts.

What can a player like Garnett add to a team like the Timberwolves?

"Maturity," joked the Rockets' Sam Cassell. "He'll take his bumps and bruises (on the court), but he also will shine occasionally. He has great skills. The guy's a talent. He's not a prospect - he's a talented young guy. His future is going to be very bright. He's very lucky. If he doesn't pick up any bad habits and stays clean, he'll be a very wealthy young man."

In his NBA debut, Garnett played 16 minutes, scoring eight points (on 4-for-4 shooting) and picking up one assist against the Sacramento Kings (a 95-86 loss). After going scoreless in a loss to Vancouver, Garnett picked up eight points, five rebounds and two assists in a one-point victory over the Los Angeles Lakers, playing a season-high 26 minutes off the bench.

In eight preseason games, Garnett averaged 9.1 points (scoring double figures in five games), 4.9 rebounds and team highs of 1.3 steals and 1.6 blocks in his 27.1 minutes, so the skills are there. Besides, there was a pretty good chance Garnett would have been a No. 1 pick down the line, so perhaps Minnesota vice president of basketball operations Kevin McHale got a bargain when he signed the youngster to a contract that pays him $1.6 million this year.

"He's very athletic and he has savvy beyond his years about when to pass the ball and when to take the shot," Rockets vice president of basketball operations Bob Weinhauer said. "I think (Minnesota coach) Bill (Blair) is doing a great job of not overexposing him. He's slotting minutes for him, and I think that's the way to go with a young guy.

"It (a 19-year-old in the NBA) is an awesome thought. The maturity level you have to exhibit is unbelievable. Plus he has a lot more free time than what he's used to."

Which is where the second part of the adjustment comes in. Garnett is not only dealing with the athletic aspects of the jump from high school, but the social ones as well. Most people his age are dealing with freshman composition in college; Garnett is trading elbows with players such as Robert Horry and Scottie Pippen.

"I think it's a gigantic adjustment," Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich said. "I just remember going to college and how big that was for most guys alone just getting into college life. Getting into the NBA, of course it's going to be an adjustment. I'm sure a lot of the players are taking him under their wings."

Cassell thinks that coming from Chicago will help Garnett feel his way through life in the NBA.

"He's not from a small town, he's from a big city," Cassell said. "He knows the ins and outs. Now he just has more money in his pocket.

3-Pointer Not Just a Gimmick Anymore

THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - Tuesday, January 24, 1989
Cleveland

Nine years after the NBA copied the old American Basketball Association and put a 3-point line into the game, the 3-point basket finally has become something other than novelty.

With more and more teams and coaches utilizing the 3-point basket, the trey has suddenly become as big a part of an NBA team's game plan as its rotating defenses and halfcourt sets.

New York's Rick Pitino, whose "Bomb Squad" shattered an NBA record by launching 28 treys against the Warriors last Wednesday night at the Coliseum Arena, insists the bomb is an integral part of his game plan, just as it was when he coached at Providence College two years ago, when his Friars led the nation in 3-pointers.

"Without the 3-pointer, teams are going to double-team (center) Patrick Ewing all the time," Pitino explained. "We use the 3-pointer to get Ewing free of the double teams."

The New York explosion of 3-pointers came just two nights after the Seattle SuperSonics, also in a loss at Golden State, tied the then-NBA record by attempting 21 3-pointers.

The Warriors' Don Nelson, meanwhile, encourages the 3-pointer from marksmen Rod Higgins, Chris Mullin and Mitch Richmond (5-for-5 against Sacramento last Saturday), and he has even given the go-ahead to 7-foot-7 Manute Bol.

Golden State hit a franchise-record nine treys

- blasting the old record of six - in its 136-111 blowout victory over the Kings last Saturday.

In Denver, Nuggets Coach Doug Moe constantly utilizes the services of guard Michael Adams, who tied an NBA record by hitting eight 3-pointers in 12 attempts last Saturday night in a 116-107 Denver loss at home against Milwaukee.

That extended to 78 the number of games in which Adams has hit at least one trey.

It wasn't long ago that veteran head coaches pooh-poohed the 3-pointer as a low-percentage shot that should only be utilized in the closing seconds of a tight game.

But the trend this year indicates that, nine years after its inception, the 3-pointer must be taken seriously by every NBA team.

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Interesting stuff:

STERN'S FOREIGN OBJECT: EXPORT NBA

The Palm Beach Post - Sunday, February 11, 1990
There was a foreign flavor to David Stern's news conference Saturday at Miami Arena. The NBA Commissioner used this cosmopolitan city to announce continued globalization of the American game to Europe, the Far East and Canada.

* The New York Knicks will represent the league Oct. 11 and 13 in the McDonald's Open at the new Palau d'Esports Sant Jordi in Barcelona, Spain.

Barcelona of the Spanish League and two other yet-to-be determined European teams will also compete in the fourth annual international tournament won by the Milwaukee Bucks in 1987, the Boston Celtics in `88 and the Denver Nuggets in `89.

This McDonald's Open will be the first sporting event in the 17,700-seat arena, which will be the site of the basketball championships in the 1992 Summer Olympics.

* The NBA and FIBA (the International Basketball Federation) will conduct a series of four clinics designed to help advance basketball training and coaching techniques worldwide. The first of these clinics will be held April 17-19 in Zaragoza, Spain, site of the European Championships.

Jack Ramsay, the second winningest coach in NBA history and a member of the Basketball Advisory Board of NBA International, will head the contingent of American instructors in Zaragonza.

* The 1990-91 season opener could be played in Tokyo. Teams and venues are under consideration. Foreign teams will become a bigger part of the NBA exhibition schedule.

"Requests from Japan have been expressed to us over many years," Stern said. "We've expressed a willingness to listen. We will continue to listen. One proposal is very serious."

* There are no plans to expand the NBA into Europe, but a Canadian franchise could become part of the league by the end of the decade. "My guess is that it would be a good bet, and I'm not a betting man," Stern said.

* Six more league representatives have joined USA Basketball in another step toward NBA players competing in the 1992 Summer Olympics at Barcelona.

Wayne Embry, general manager of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Rod Thorn, vice president-operations for the NBA, currently serve as at-large members of the committee. The six new members are Charles Grantham, executive director for the NBA Players Association; Billy Cunningham, part-owner of the Miami Heat; Bob Bass, assistant to the chairman/president of the San Antonio Spurs; Jack McCloskey, general manager of the Detroit Pistons; Donnie Walsh, president of the Indiana Pacers; and Jan Vo lk, executive vice president and general manager of the Boston Celtics.

"This is another step on the way to fielding the best U.S. teams possible in the NBA," said Russ Granik, who was elected Saturday as deputy commissioner of the NBA.

According to Granik, who for six years served as the league's executive vice president, the biggest practical problem at this point has to do with Olympic Trials. Zone qualifying under FIBA rules is scheduled for June 1992, and asking NBA players to devote their summer to trying out for the USA team would be unfair. Commercial problems over player-endorsement contracts would also need to be negotiated.

"My sense is that we're going to find a way to work out all of these issues by 1992," Stern said. "Our discussions on every level are proceeding on a positive basis. I can't say for sure it will happen, but I'm optimistic it will."

THE NBA THROUGH THE DECADE

The major events in NBA history. In the last 40 years, the league has gone from the brink of bankruptcy to the most successful enterprise of the four major American professional sports.

1950s

* New York's `Sweetwater' Clifton becomes first black player to sign (1950)

* Minneapolis' George Mikan defines center position

* Jump ball after every free throw eliminated in 1952

* Philadelphia's Paul Arizin refines the jump shot

* Philadelphia's Neil Johnston is first to score 50 points in a game (1953)

* 24-second clock instituted (1954)

* Boston Celtics win first of 16 championships (1957)

* League scoring average tops 100 points for first time (1958)

* Elgin Baylor finishes third in MVP voting as a rookie (1959)

* Bob Cousy leads league in assists 8 straight years (1953-60)

1960s

* Minneapolis Lakers move to Los Angeles (1960)

* Philadelphia's Wilt Chamberlain scores 100 points in a game (1962)

* Oscar Robertson first to average double-figure assists (11.4 in 1962)

* Celtics' John Havlicek defines sixth-man role

* Chamberlain becomes first to earn $100,000 salary (1965)

* ABA begins nine-year run as competitive league (1967)

* Chamberlain, Bill Russell wage decade-long battle

* League expands from 8-team league to one with 14 franchises.

* Celtics win 10 championships in 11 seasons (1959-69)

* Lakers team up Chamberlain, Baylor, Jerry West (1969)

1970s

* Willis Reed leads Knicks to first championship (1970)

* Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wins first of six titles with Milwaukee (1971)

* Lakers set league record with 33 straight wins (1971-72)

* Miami Floridians play four seasons in ABA (1968-72)

* Moses Malone bypasses college to join ABA (1974)

* Addition of four ABA expansion cities gives league 22 teams (1977)

* Philadephia makes $6 million deal to acquire Julius Erving (1977)

* Kermit Washington suspended 60 days for punching Rudy Tomjanovich (1978)

* Larry Bird, Magic Johnson enter league (1979)

* Three-point shot adopted for NBA use (1979)

1980s

* Celtics' 32-game improvement biggest in league history (1980)

* Magic Johnson subs for Abdul-Jabbar at center, Lakers' win title (1980)

* Slam-Dunk Contest highlights first All-Star Saturday (1984)

* Bird becomes third player to win three straight MVPs (1984-86)

* Chicago's Michael Jordan scores playoff-record 63 points (1986)

* New Jersey's Micheal Ray Richardson first player banned for drug use (1986) * Miami Heat selected as one of four new expansion teams (1987)

* Lakers first team in 19 years to win back-to-back titles (1987-88)

* Third game official added to crew (1988)

* Charlotte first expansion team to lead pro league in attendance (1989)

[daj0264]

c-c-c-combo breaker!!!

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Bird's pending retirement:

The NBA Bird not ready to fly coop Larry unlikely to retire after C's season ex

pires
Boston Herald (MA) - Sunday, March 8, 1992
Three reasonable reasons to think Larry Bird will indeed be back with the Celtics next season - despite any retirement rumblings:

1)The feeling on the last Western swing is that Larry finally realized the true extent to which he really loves this NBA stuff. All of it. Even the travel and the practices. Sidney Moncrief said last year he didn't realize until he was away from the game for a while how much all the things he used to think were annoyances were actually privileges.

Bird talked about the joy of just being one of the guys, and it appeared the understanding washed over him that it will be nearly impossible for him to simply walk away from the game cleanly. There are too many aspects he will miss - aspects he never truly fathomed.

2)There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to his career length. This past summer, Bird signed a two-year extension that constitutes his third "final contract of his career." You simply cannot say how a man will react to the end of his playing days until he is actually faced with it.

3)While health is clearly the primary issue for Bird, the fact remains that he doesn't have to be able to do everything to still have a major impact on the Celtics. In addition to his attitude contribution, if Bird can hit the open jumper, pull down a few defensive rebounds and stand on the wing and make entry passes, he will be an essential part of this team.

Larry says now he wants to get through this season and get through the Olympics in Barcelona before making any decisions. But if he accomplishes those two goals, the decision will already have been made.

USUALLY HE'S ONLY SKEPTICAL ABOUT HIS OWN PLAYERS: But this week Cotton Fitzsimmons cast his wary eye on the aforementioned Mr. L. Bird. "Let's see if he can be competitive and healthy for a long period," said the Suns' coach. "Let's see if he can make it in the long run. If he holds up, then, yes, (the Celtics are) going to be hard to beat." ... New Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich also mentioned the physical matter, adding, "If they stay healthy, that's a veteran team. And that counts when the playoffs roll around. My son has this tape at home called "Awesome Endings." Bird and Magic (Johnson), those guys are the whole tape." ... The Phoenix-Utah game caused a large uproar in wagering circles. The game had apparently ended with the Suns ahead by seven. NBC even signed off with that score. But what had gone unnoticed is that Mike Mathis had called a foul on Phoenix just prior to the buzzer. Two free throws later, it was a five-point game and numerous bettors were upset. The Suns had been a 6- to 6 1/2-point favorite. The late call meant they didn't cover the spread. Both Phoenix papers were inundated with telephone calls from angry investors.

Curtailing violence in the league:

HOUSTON - Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich can't explain the recent

San Antonio Express-News - Wednesday, June 1, 1994
Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich can't explain the recent boom of violence in the NBA. Being a victim doesn't necessarily make you an expert.

Nevertheless, his opinion on the subject is frequently sought. Tomjanovich 's entire career is often distilled to a single violent act that took place on a basketball court.

"I don't know if it's getting worse, but it's surprising because the league is doing all it can to curtail it," Tomjanovich said. "It makes you wonder what it's going to take."

Fines and suspensions are the league's answers. Tighter officiating is a direct order from the league office.

Neither action has worked. Two vicious brawls have broken out in 1994 playoff games.

How do you stop the fighting? Tomjanovich tried to do that in 1977, when Rockets teammate Kevin Kunnert got into a scuffle with the Los Angeles Lakers' Kermit Washington. A wild punch from Washington left Tomjanovich in intensive care for a week. He didn't play again until the following season.

Tomjanovich doesn't like to reflect on the incident. But it's hard to avoid in this age of taunts and fights.

"You can't explain it - there's a lot of emotion on both sides," Tomjanovich said. "It's like something that happened in your family. You don't need to tell the whole world how you feel."

Tomjanovich comes from a basketball era long gone, when opponents' sassy remarks were fought with a steal or converted jumper, not a blow to the nose.

This year, Miami forward Grant Long put a choke-hold on Atlanta's Duane Ferrell after a hard foul during Game 2 of their first-round series. It led to a seven-minute brawl that peaked when Keith Askins and Doug Edwards exchanged blows.

Taunts led to the most vicious act to date this season. Tired of receiving JoJo English's verbal attacks, the Knicks' Derek Harper punched the young Bulls guard and threw him to the floor. NBA commissioner David Stern was just a few feet away when players from both sides rushed the pile.

The two brawls resulted in more than $200,000 in fines and seven suspensions. They were the first postseason suspensions since Robert Parish was suspended following a 1988 confrontation with Bill Laimbeer.

Vice President of NBA Operations Rod Thorn has developed a three-point strategy to stop the fighting:

- Stiffer penalties for people who leave the bench to join a fight. Suspending players for these actions.

- Calling more taunting technicals, because taunting sometimes leads to altercations.

- Calling the games more closely, including illegal screens and hand checks.

The success of last season's new anti-flagrant foul rules gives Stern and Thorn reason for optimism.

There were no player suspensions for flagrant fouls this season. New York's Charles Oakley, guilty of 11 flagrant fouls in the 1992-93 season, committed only five in 1993-94. A punch was landed only three times last season, down from eight two seasons ago.

Overall, the NBA reported nine fights last season, compared to 12 in 1992-93.

"We do not have as many fights as we used to have," Thorn said. "The perception is that we have more. There is not as much fighting or flagrant fouls as in the past."

The taunting, however, continues to grow. Gary Payton and John Starks exemplify the brash new group of NBA stars who have made taunting a part of the game.

"The younger players have brought that playground mentality," former Rockets forward and St. Mary's standout Robert Reid said. "We didn't used to go out there and taunt. When I came in, you didn't have time to taunt.

"You think with Moses Malone and Rudy Tomjanovich and Maurice Lucas, I could have gotten away with activity like a little kid? We had to be grown men like them."

Tomjanovich tries to instill this mentality in his players. With Houston on the brink of reaching the NBA Finals, Tomjanovich can't afford to lose anyone to suspensions. He warns them about the penalties, then prays they will take heed.

The message has been received. Rockets guard Vernon Maxwell is a trash-talking dynamo who knows where to draw the line. Despite his flamboyant court demeanor, Maxwell has never instigated an on-court fight.

"Suspensions won't make a difference (in stopping taunting)," Maxwell said. "It's the fines, because it would cost me too much. I can't afford to start a fight - unless someone punches me."

Such a scene is something Tomjanovich hopes he never has to witness. Living it was hard enough.pro basketball

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ABA records commentary:

IT'S TIME FOR STERN TO GIVE ABA ITS DUE

Rocky Mountain News (CO) - Sunday, June 9, 1996
It was Shaquille O'Neal who innocently reminded an older generation the past is lost without an accessible, high-profile history. At his first All-Star Game, the Orlando star asked coach Lenny Wilkens if he'd ever played the game. The unassuming Hall-of-Famer smiled and allowed as how he'd given it a shot.

Commissioner David Stern acknowledged his game's relative dearth of historical materials last week as he launched a well-financed observation of the NBA at 50, an anniversary celebration that will prompt new interviews with old-timers, collection of old films and a renewed focus on teams and stars long forgotten.

If Stern brings half his customary energy to the effort, it might turn out to be one of his greatest contributions to a game that has long lacked the sort of archival materials baseball and NFL Films consider staples of their games.

But the NBA effort - and its spokesman, Julius Erving - raise an old and irksome problem for the league. Dr. J wasted no time raising it Thursday as Stern christened the ship.

The problem is the integration of statistics from the defunct American Basketball Association into the NBA history books. The league has refused to integrate fully the two sets of numbers, instead compromising with lists of NBA records and separate lists of combined NBA / ABA numbers in selected categories. But, as in the Jim Crow South, separate but equal turns out to be an oxymoron.

Twenty years after the merger of the two leagues, the headliners of the ABA no longer are outsiders. Dr. J and Dan Issel broke that barrier when they became the first players to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame after beginning their careers in the ABA.

With uncharacteristic immodesty, Erving read a long list of his accomplishments directly to the commissioner during their news conference, a list valid only when his achievements from the two leagues are combined.

Indeed, when you look up the NBA's all-time scoring leaders in the current edition of the Official NBA Guide, Erving ranks 35th, Issel 73rd. Casual fans might wonder about their election to the Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility. Persistence uncovers the combined scoring list, where Erving ranks third, behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain. Issel is fifth, right behind Moses Malone.

It's not only players who suffer this dual status. Larry Brown remains short of 600 victories on the NBA list, nearly 400 behind Wilkens, the career leader. On the combined list, Brown shoots up over 800, already one of the best in history.

Part of the problem, explained deputy commissioner Russ Granik, are different sets of rules. Should history record the ABA's three-point shooting leader as the NBA's leader when the older league didn't have a three-point shot? Ironically, today's NBA has rules more similar to the ABA than the old NBA.

Besides, these issues seem minor - isn't this what footnotes are for? - compared with the historical limbo in which some of the game's greatest names remain. Purists once argued the ABA was clearly inferior to the NBA and the numbers not comparable.

Expansion has diluted that line of logic. Today's NBA has absorbed more new teams in the past eight years than it did in the merger 20 years ago. Was the level of play in the worst ABA matchup any lower than in a Vancouver-Minnesota game from last season?

Thursday, Stern called the ABA ``very much part of our tradition.'' But it's still only peripherally part of the NBA's records. The staid old league learned much from the upstarts, from Carl Scheer's slam-dunk contest to the three-point shot to the brilliance of Erving, Issel, George Gervin, Artis Gilmore, Connie Hawkins, Mel Daniels, Spencer Haywood, David Thompson and many others.

It would be yet another major contribution from the NBA's able commissioner if, as part of its 50th birthday celebration, the league found a way to heal the rift for good.

The biggest battle


Roger Brown, a dynamic swing man for the ABA's Indiana Pacers, which won three championships in four seasons, is in a fight for his life with colon cancer. Brown, who was nominated but not elected to the Hall of Fame this year, has had one operation and will need more.

``It's kind of shocking,'' Brown said. ``You go through life and feel you're infallible and invincible. But then you find out you're just like anybody else. But let me put it this way: If I would leave here tomorrow, I wouldn't have done anything any different.''

That other sport


Pat Riley and Bernie Bickerstaff, whose basketball teams have been overshadowed by recently arrived hockey clubs now competing for the Stanley Cup, both deny the Cup craze hurts their clubs.

``I think it's good for the town and good for Ascent,'' said Bickerstaff, referring to the corporate owner of the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche.

``I see it as something that benefits South Florida,'' Riley said of the Florida Panthers' success. ``It can only help the Heat, the Marlins, the Dolphins. It gets people in this community excited about what it could be like.''

Around the league


With an increasing number of players opting not to play in games at the league's pre-draft camp in Chicago, the number of those helping themselves is down. Among those who have impressed are forward Jason Osborne, who was academically ineligible to play at Louisville last season, and Wright State big man Vitaly Potapenko. Not helping themselves: Georgetown center Othella Harrington, listed by the Hoyas at 6-feet-11 but measuring 6-8 1/2 in Chicago, and 7-4, 343-pound Priest Lauderdale, who declined to play . . . Clippers owner Donald T. Sterling broke off talks Thursday to leave the dilapidated L.A. Sports Arena, where his team averaged attendance of 9,074 last season, and move to the Pond in Anaheim, where the Clippers averaged 14,389 in eight dates . . . O'Neal reportedly was seen in L.A. last week having lunch with Lakers guard Nick Van Exel, fueling speculation Shaq will move to Los Angeles as a free agent next season. The Los Angeles Times took the opportunity to publish a photo of O'Neal running up the floor at the Forum wearing a superimposed Lakers jersey. The jersey bore a question mark where the number would be. Shaq's college number (33) and pro number (32) both have been retired by the Lakers in honor of Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson, respectively . . . If Indiana fails to sign free agents Reggie Miller and Dale Davis, it will free nearly $10 million with which to shop for other teams' free agents . . . Before signing John Calipari as their new coach, the Nets sought permission from Cleveland to talk with Mike Fratello. Cavs GM Wayne Embry turned them down . . . Chris Ford remains the leading candidate to succeed Mike Dunleavy as coach of the Bucks . . . Blazers assistant Johnny Davis has the inside track in Philadelphia. ``He's ready to be a head coach, certainly,'' said his boss, Portland head coach P.J. Carlesimo . . . Pistons coach Doug Collins hired defensive guru Johnny Bach as an assistant. Bach, who worked under Collins in Chicago, was released along with the rest of Allan Bristow's staff in Charlotte . . . When Rick Pitino turned down New Jersey's $20 million offer, he cost Pacers coach Larry Brown more than $1 million. Brown's salary is tied to the average of the four highest-paid coaches in the league. The Pitino deal would have boosted that average from $1.5 million to $2 million. Calipari's five-year, $15 million deal will recoup some of that loss. Brown has three years left on his contract . . . Utah's Karl Malone tried to keep the Jazz's defeat to the Sonics in perspective. Said the Mailman at his club's final meeting: ``It's disappointing, but you can't come in here like your best bird dog just died.''

To tell the truth


* Chicago's Dennis Rodman on the Bulls' second-half pressure: ``In the first half, we kind of throw a bait out there, see if any catfish or big-mouth bass will bite on it. After that, we can go in and go for the big thing.''

* Seattle's Gary Payton, in reply: ``We ain't hooked yet. We still ain't hooked.''


Tip-ins


* Chicago's Dennis Rodman said the dye job on his hair for the Finals, variously described as an attack of graffiti and plaid on drugs, actually was a montage of four different symbols: ``Peace and love sign, the AIDS symbol, Pearl Jam and the gay and lesbian symbol in the back. It represents all the people that people won't have anything to do with.''

* Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder was Rodman's guest at Game 1. Rodman denied a rift, even though his favorite band is based in the home of the Sonics: ``They're rooting for Seattle, but we're still friends.''

* David Benoit, bumped to third-string small forward in Utah behind Chris Morris and Bryon Russell, was a no-show at the Jazz's final team meeting. Benoit will be a free agent July 1.

* Boston's Pervis Ellison, who could have been a free agent, elected not to exercise an out in his contract. The NBA turned down a joint request by Ellison and the Celtics to allow him to push back the out one year.

LIB3
Caption: Photo
Julius Erving's feats in the ABA merited induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame, but the NBA has yet to properly acknowledged his stats from the defunct league. By Tim Johnson / Associated Press. FILE: ERVING, JULIUS

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Fun title:

NBA NOTES: SHAQ GETS A MUSICAL MEDLEY

Scripps Howard News Service - Tuesday, March 3, 1998
For Shaquille O'Neal's recent return to the O-rena, the Orlando Magic prepared a special musical medley. Among the selections: The Beatles' "I'm a Loser," Carly Simon's "You're so Vain," Steve Miller's "Take the Money and Run" and The Eurythmics' "Would I Lie to You?" Fans, too, did their part to welcome home their former star. Said one of the homemade signs: ''SHAQ: We're the two that saw your movies!!!''

Miami's Pat Riley has invented a new statistic to track his team's rebounding efforts. He calls it ''heads under the rim.'' The goal, Riley said, is to count 80 times in a game when a Heat rebounder gets in position beneath the basket. ''So far, the best we've had is in the high 60s,'' he said.

When Portland coach Mike Dunleavy obtained Damon Stoudamire at the trading deadline, it culminated a 2 1/2-year effort. Running the Bucks in 1995, he traded up to the eighth pick in the draft to take him. When Stoudamire when to Toronto at No. 7, Dunleavy settled for Shawn Respert, a pick that hastened his departure.

NUMBERS - 19 of the 29 teams will lose money this season, according to Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller, and 24 are projected to lose money next season. The aggregate loss, according to Miller: $67 million this season, between $140 million and $150 million next season.

23 players have been on Larry Brown's Philadelphia roster this season, counting Herb Williams and Ronnie Grandison, who were obtained at the trading deadline for Terry Cummings and waived immediately.

405 offensive rebounds for New Jersey center Jayson Williams, most ever by a Nets player and most in the NBA since 1993-94, when Dennis Rodman grabbed 453 for San Antonio. The most ever was 587 by Moses Malone for Houston in 1978-79.

QUOTES - Los Angeles Lakers coach Del Harris on opponents getting up to play his team: ''When teams beat us now, it's like they just won the NCAA Tournament. I was amazed by the Rockets when they beat us. That's a team that already has won two NBA titles. But when they beat us, Rudy ( Tomjanovich ) was running around on the court after the game. I thought he was looking for a ladder so he could cut down the nets.''

Seattle coach George Karl on the contributions of reserves Aaron Williams and Greg Anthony in the absence of injured Nate McMillan, Detlef Schrempf and Jerome Kersey: ''Good teams make injuries a positive and bad teams make injuries an excuse.''

Miami guard Brent Barry on his suspect defense: ''I thought defense was that thing surrounding your yard. I didn't think it was an actual basketball term ''

TMac:

No Kidding: McGrady just as valuable

Daytona Beach News-Journal (FL) - Thursday, April 11, 2002
Imagine how many points per game Tracy McGrady would average if he had Jason Kidd getting him the ball.

Imagine how many assists Kidd would average if he had McGrady on the receiving end of his passes.

But for the sake of this argument, imagine what the Orlando Magic would be like without McGrady and what the New Jersey Nets would be like without Kidd.

For starters, tonight's Magic-Nets game wouldn't be a meeting of teams that have already clinched playoff berths. Until Kidd was acquired from the Suns last July, the Nets were the butt of as many jokes in New Jersey as organized crime and big hair. Their ascent to the top of the Atlantic Division is more of a surprise than the Magic battling for homecourt advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

But Kidd has the advantage of being teammates with Keith Van Horn, the second player drafted in 1997, and Kenyon Martin, the top pick in 2000. Or at least he has played with Martin when the 6-foot-9 forward hasn't been serving suspensions for doing his Russell Crowe impersonation of swinging at anything that moves.

No such luck for McGrady. When the Magic sewed up a spot in the postseason Tuesday night at New York, they had no one else in uniform who had been a top-10 pick since 1987 -- before the franchise existed.

LET THE DEBATE BEGIN

So, which player is more valuable: Kidd with the finally healthy Nets, or McGrady with Grant Hill undergoing more surgery and with Mike Miller basically unavailable the past month?

"It depends on what you call MVP," Magic coach Doc Rivers said last week.

McGrady's scoring, rebounding and assist averages have hardly changed from his first season with the Magic. But they'll finish with more victories, barring a collapse through the final five games. And the way he can take over a game can't be measured by statistics alone.

"What he does is legendary-type stuff," Houston Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich said Monday night after McGrady scored 14 points in the last 11 minutes of a game neither team seemed to want to win.

All that talent. And all those years still in front of him.

"I saw it. But I didn't see it at 22," Cleveland Cavaliers coach John Lucas said. "I saw it maybe at 25."

NOT ENOUGH WINS

McGrady may have to wait until his 25th birthday, if not later, to take home the league's top individual award. The last MVP younger than 25 was Moses Malone in 1979. Malone won it again three years later, the last time a player on a team with less than 50 wins has been so honored.

And not since a then-25-year-old Michael Jordan was the leading vote-getter in 1988 has an MVP come from a team that didn't win its division.

"Michael had to be very good that year, right? So is Tracy," Rivers said.

But so is Kidd. So is Tim Duncan. So is Shaquille O'Neal, who went eight years before getting the full measure of respect he had sought.

Through no fault of his own, McGrady is waging a one-man campaign. Not for votes, but to get the Magic further in the playoffs than at any time since Shaq left for Los Angeles.

"If Orlando was winning its division, he's a solid candidate for MVP," Lucas said. "He's a solid candidate anyway. But I don't think enough wins are there."

You win some, you lose some. Better luck next year.

[fpliii]

On Amare:

ROOKIE SENSATION: TURNING HEADS EARLY

Columbian, The (Vancouver, WA) - Saturday, October 19, 2002
PHOENIX -- The oohs and ahs are building for 19-year-old Amare Stoudemire after just four preseason games.

"He's going to wind up being a great player," Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich said after watching the Phoenix Suns' rookie score 17 points and grab 11 rebounds against the Rockets on Thursday night.

As the No. 9 pick in the draft out of Cypress Creek High in Orlando, Fla., Stoudemire was the only high school player selected in the first round.

But unlike most players who go directly from high school to the NBA, Stoudemire is showing he can make an immediate impact he's averaging 10.5 points and 6.8 rebounds and he's only going to get better.

"I've learned more this preseason than I did in my whole life in basketball," Stoudemire said.

Some high in the Phoenix organization say Stoudemire could turn out to be the best player the franchise ever drafted, which includes standouts like Jeff Hornacek (1986) and Dan Majerle (1988).

"He's very special," Suns owner Jerry Colangelo said.

Tomjanovich , Suns coach Frank Sanders and Penny Hardaway all compared Stoudemire to "a young Shawn Kemp." Johnson added "a young Moses Malone" to the mix, especially the way he carries himself on the court.

At 6-foot-10 and a muscular 245-pounds, Stoudemire has boundless energy, remarkable coordination and quickness around the hoop. He usually is the first player down the court.

He is raw, though. He didn't start playing basketball until he was 14, and in the three high schools he attended, he received virtually no coaching. That hasn't stopped him from making a good impression.

"One thing that's obvious is he's not intimidated by anyone anywhere," said Bryan Colangelo, Suns president of basketball operations.

Five of Stoudemire's seven field goals Thursday night were monster dunks. He also hit a 10-foot bank shot off the dribble, and another short jumper. Near the end of the first half, he tossed up an awkward shot in the side of the backboard, but grabbed the rebound and slammed it.

"I forgot the play," he said. "But I studied it at halftime."

In the second half, the Suns ran the same play, with Hardaway lobbing the ball toward the basket. Stoudemire soared to grab it in his right hand, balanced it there above the rim, then finished the play with a one-handed dunk.

"He'll make mistakes," teammate Tom Gugliotta said. "But the kid can flat play."

Hardaway said Stoudemire's big hands and ability to catch the ball remind him of the days when he was passing to Shaquille O'Neal in Orlando.

Tomjanovich said the Rockets "knew he was a dynamo. He can hold his own with anybody physically. He's going to get you rebounds. He's going to get you the hustle stuff, then as the years go by, the finesse, the skill stuff, he'll get it."

Stoudemire is the youngest player on a very young team. Joe Johnson, Casey Jacobsen and Alton Ford are 21. Stephon Marbury and Shawn Marion are 24.

The rookie admits he still has much to learn.

"The game is a lot faster," Stoudemire said. "Guys are a lot stronger. I'm just going to be a student of the game and learn as much as I can."

Stoudemire always has been the solid foundation of his family. His father died when he was 12. His older brother is in a New York prison on drug and sex-abuse convictions. His mother has spent time in jail on drug and theft charges, but has turned her life around and will move to Phoenix to be with him. Stoudemire's younger brother already is there. Through it all, he seems remarkably mature and not pressured to live up to expectations.

"This is my dream," he said. "I'm just trying to live up to it."

He is, remember, a rookie.

"Yeah, I have to bring doughnuts to practice," he said.

and Barry:

NOT NEW, JUST WORSE - IN '78, BARRY CHASED FAN TO SCARE, NOT ATTACK

New York Post (NY) - Sunday, November 28, 2004
A FEW days after the riot at Auburn Hills, the name Rick Barry came up. Then it struck me: I had seen the future. It was all there, that night, Dec. 20, 1978, back when the NBA and other sports were still sold mostly as sports and nothing more. Or less.

It was one of those nights. It was even the night when I'd first file a story through a bulky, futuristic contraption, what I now recognize as a primitive laptop. I was 26, assigned by The Post to cover the pre-Meadowlands Nets, a bad team that played in the Rutgers Athletic Center, typically in front of 5,000 people.

On this Friday night, the Nets would play the Houston Rockets - Barry, Moses Malone, Rudy Tomjanovich , Calvin Murphy, Robert Reid, Mike Dunleavy, Mike Newlin. Bernard King was the Nets' rising star. This would be his first game since he'd been arrested, four days earlier, for drunken driving and cocaine possession.

During the introduction of the starting lineups, when King's intro brought a tepid response from the assembled crowd, Nets' radio man and head cheerleader John Sterling got into the act. From his courtside position, Sterling rose, gesturing to the crowd to give King a standing ovation.

Slowly, remarkably - bizarrely - the crowd began to respond, more than half of it rising to applaud King.

Then, as the national anthem played, Rockets coach Tom Nissalke stormed over to Sterling and chewed him out. (Nissalke would explain that the NBA was beginning to suffer from a proliferation of selfish players, players on drugs and just plain bad guys, thus he was infuriated by Sterling's pandering.)

At halftime, a coterie of barely clothed, barely legal Philadelphia Eagles' cheerleaders hit the court and began a synchronized mating dance. They were there at the behest of CBS, which was taping their performance for an NFL feature. The Nets got a free halftime show. This was before the NBA regularly threw sex into the mix. Many in the crowd leered and gleefully hooted. "Wooo!"

A woman, a regular whom I'd gotten to know, walked up to me at press row. She was steamed. She pointed to the dancers. "What does this have to do with basketball?"

The Nets stayed close, but with Barry's fabulous one-touch passes leading to layups, the Nets lost, 108-105. For all the ugly stuff, basketball had won out. Barry had made this an Art Appreciation Night. But a kid, no older than 15, didn't see it that way. As the Rockets filed off, the kid stood in front of the first row of seats. As Barry passed, the kid made a megaphone with his hands, leaned forward and from about eight feet away, hollered, "Barry, you [bleep bleep]!"

Barry bolted into the stands, chasing the kid. He didn't get far as he tripped over spectators. Murphy and Malone followed. Murphy and a fan shoved each other. A woman in the stands sat sobbing, holding her head. The kid vanished.

Later, with the arena now mostly empty, Barry, Nets' GM Charlie Theokas and the aggrieved woman and her husband slipped into a room, just off the press room. I eavesdropped. It was back to the future:

"Rick, you've been in this league too long for this to happen," said Theokas.

"You've got animal fans," said Barry. "And if you had the right protection, things like this wouldn't happen."

"What'd the kid do, curse you? Big deal."

Later, Barry addressed the press: "I was wrong, and [the youth] was wrong. He was a little kid; I wouldn't have touched him."

Wednesday, I spoke with Barry, now 60 and living in Colorado. He said that what then seemed aberrational is now a matter of promise, that incivility is now party to the party, a reasonable result.

"My intent that night was to scare the fear of God into that kid. What was I going to do, hit a kid? I was shocked to hear that out of a kid. He got right up to me and cursed me. Why?

"Today? Well, it's not unexpected.

"You know that woman sued me [for assault]. She claimed that what happened had affected her sex life. It was crazy. My insurance company paid her $30,000."

That kid, today, is about 40. Wonder if he has kids. Wonder if he has done a number on them or whether he left that to everyone else.

[sportjames23]

"I played against the greatest centers in the world, and I wouldn't trade that time for anything," Robertson said. "Look at all those guys who are in the Hall of Fame and the competition they provided on the floor - Russell, Chamberlain, Nate Thurmond, Walt Bellamy. You just can't replace that."

Maybe you'd have more rings if you played the era of "not many great players", Oscar.

This dude was always a hater. Hates on MJ, but props Kobe and Lebron.

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Erving/Bird fight:

ERVING AND BIRD ASSESSED $7,500 EACH TOTAL FINES FOR FIRDAY'S FIGHT: $30,500

Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) - Wednesday, November 14, 1984
Julius Erving of the 76ers and Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics, the principal participants in Friday night's bench-clearing brawl in Boston Garden, were fined $7,500 each yesterday by the National Basketball Association.

Scotty Stirling, league operations director, said in a letter to Bird that the Boston forward was clearly the aggressor and instigator in the third- quarter fight, but he also told Erving in another letter that "your continuation of the incident by punching Bird escalated an already serious situation."

Brian McIntyre, NBA public relations director, said the individual fines on Bird and Erving were the second-largest in league history, behind the $10,000 fine levied in 1977 against Kermit Washington of the Los Angeles Lakers. Washington, who also was suspended for 60 days, slugged Houston's Rudy Tomjanovich and broke several bones in his face.

In the wake of Friday's brawl, the NBA also fined Sixers center Moses Malone and Boston reserve swingman M. L. Carr $3,000 each for their participation in the fight. Charles Barkley, the Sixers' rookie forward, was fined $1,000.

The NBA also fined Sixers coach Billy Cunningham $2,500 for his part in the fight and postgame comments that the league found "highly inflammatory."

Twelve other players, all of whom were on the bench when the fight erupted with 1 minute, 38 seconds left in the third period, were given automatic fines of $500 for leaving the bench during a fight. Those players were Marc Iavaroni, Clemon Johnson, Bobby Jones, Clint Richardson, Sedale Threatt and Sam Williams of the Sixers, and Danny Ainge, Rick Carlisle, Carlos Clark, Dennis Johnson, Greg Kite and Scott Wedman of the Celtics.

McIntyre said the total $30,500 in fines on the 18 participants was believed to be the largest aggregate fine imposed in NBA history.

Only Sixers guards Maurice Cheeks and rookie Leon Wood, both of whom were playing when the fight erupted, escaped among the Philadelphia players. Andrew Toney was injured and not at the game.

Of the Celtics, none of Bird's on-court teammates was fined, nor was Celtics center Robert Parish, who never left the bench.

Broken down, the fine to Erving represents a little more than half of the salary he receives per regular-season game, which is believed to be about $14,600. The fine levied against Bird represents more than one-third of his per-game salary, which is believed to be about $24,400.

The fight between Erving and Bird erupted shortly after Bird was called for an offensive foul against Erving. On the play, the Boston forward threw an elbow, which missed Erving, and then tumbled to the floor.

Back upcourt on the ensuing sequence, Erving slipped his arm around Bird's waist in what appeared to be a conciliatory gesture, but Bird responded by throwing a punch that missed. Erving retaliated by grabbing Bird's throat, then throwing three punches that hit Bird squarely in the face. Both benches immediately emptied.

Erving and Bird were ejected from the game, which the Celtics won, 130-119.

NBA security director Jack Joyce conducted an investigation of the incident by reviewing videotapes and interviewing the principal players and coaches involved.

Shortly after noon yesterday, Stirling wrote to Erving and Bird to inform them of the penalties.

In his letter to Bird, Stirling said Bird was "clearly the aggressor, the instigator of a melee which eventually involved a number of players and coaches. . . . Had you not confronted Erving in such a manner after the offensive foul, the reaction which saw you held and punches thrown at you would not have occurred."

To Erving, Stirling wrote that "while recognizing that Bird was the aggressor and the instigator, your continuation of the incident by punching Bird escalated an already serious situation."

Stirling also issued warnings to Erving and Bird.

"Involvement in any further conduct of this manner will result in even more severe penalties, including suspension."

Erving had no comment about the fine after it was announced, but yesterday morning, after the Sixers' regular practice at St. Joseph's University, he spoke about the incident:

"I wasn't that upset until I saw the videotape," Erving said. "I didn't even realize that he'd tried to elbow me before he fell. . . . That's what Billy had gotten so upset about. And then, watching the tape, I saw what he (Bird) was so upset about. He fell on his face. And I had just acknowledged the call of the offensive foul and I ran back downcourt, and I didn't even look behind me. I didn't see, until I saw the tape, that he'd fallen on his face and that he'd tried to elbow me. That let me know why he was mad, because I didn't even understand why he was mad when he came running all the way down the court."

Erving said he hoped he and Bird would be able to reconcile any differences.

"We've never had a great personal relationship," Erving said, "but we've had a great professional relationship, and I don't anticipate that changing too much. I may be wrong, but I don't anticipate any change. Not on my part, anyway."

Erving also said he was not upset at the unusually heavy public interest in the incident.

"I respect the focus (of the media)," he said, "since anything that's out of character is newsworthy, and this is definitely out of character. Not in the game itself, but for the players who were involved - Larry, and particularly me, to be involved."

Cunningham, who after the game said he might consider ordering a Sixer to begin a fight with Bird the next time the teams meet, apologized for the remark yesterday.

"After thinking about what my response was, that we would bring somebody off the bench, well, we're not going to play basketball like that," Cunningham said. "I was obviously a little upset, but I've never coached a player since I've been coaching to go out and start a fight or hurt somebody during the course of a game."

Malone said through team spokesman Harvey Pollack that he would have no comment on the fine, although earlier in the day Malone told reporters, "I don't think I should be fined at all."

In Boston, Bird also said he would have no comment. Asked if he had a comment on Erving's reaction, Bird said, "I don't care what Julius says, do you?"

Carr, who along with Malone was assessed the second-highest fine in the incident, said he would appeal through the league office. "I thought it was excessive," Carr said. "I'll appeal. . . . Maybe they went by previous press clips."

Carr said he also disagreed with the league's ruling that Bird, who had scored 42 points before the fight broke out, was the instigator.

"I thought Larry was the instigator in terms of the way he was playing," Carr said. "It was clear the way Larry was going they had to do something to stop him."

Boston coach K. C. Jones said, "To say Larry was clearly the aggressor, I clearly disagree with."

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Kobe/LeBron:

IT'S INEVITABLE - THERE'S JUST NO AVOIDING KOBE-LEBRON

New York Post (NY) - Wednesday, May 20, 2009
LET'S hope the ultimate battles for the Eastern Bloc and Spaghetti Western are competitive enough to keep Billy Packer from coming over and turning off my TV.

What did we learn from Sunday's pair of 19-point Game 7 blowouts that might translate into the conference finals?

1) The Lakers, lathered in lethargy for prolonged periods in Houston, had best sharpen their approach in Games 3, 4 and 6 in Denver or face the prospects of Rudy Tomjanovich retaking control of the sidelines. First player to admit the biggest betweengames adjustment in his or the team's performance was increased aggressiveness earns a beat-down to the 10th power.

The Purple Feign did win three of four meetings with Denver during the regular season, but, as we've learned - and despite nitwork TV's continued quest to bury 'em - these are no longer your father's sheepherders. Lakers fans might want to postpone their shopping; George Karl's crusty cattle cowboys are stormin' down Rodeo Drive. Impossible so far to pen up or pin down, they're meaner and tougher than LA, shoot better on the run and from out on the range and flaunt unflustered Chauncey Billups.

That's enough to win.

Then again, in the other corner, LA has Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Zen Hen and luxurious length across the front and home court and the promising zaftig market pull of The Black Mamba vs. LeBrontosaurus Rex; surely that's worth a few critical points somewhere, somehow.

As usual, it all comes down to this: Will Kobe defend and initiate offense through the bigs or does he take jumpers with 18 seconds left on the shot clock and "defer" to Derek Fisher or Jordan Farmar to defend Billups down the stretch.

As usual, it's all about Kobe and his willingness to stay in the fold to WIN-not to look good.

PREDICTION: Lakers in six

2) The Magic - who should have won their best-of-7 series vs. Boston six games to one - need to build cushions so comfy even Stan Van Gundy's untimely harangues can't suck the life out of his players.

Like the Lakers, Orlando was subject to stretched siestas in the second round. Still, it has to be buoyed by beating the Cavaliers twice at home - by 11 and 29 points, by far the Cavs' worst defeat until the regular season became meaningless. Forty-eight points from James were required to dispose of the Magic in OT for the Cavs' lone win.

If the Cavs represent Lake Erie, the Magic symbolize Lake Superior. Despite the absence of AllStar playmaker/mid-range jumpshooter Jameer Nelson, Dwight Howard's overall team may very well be better than LeBron's league-leading outfit.

Orlando showcases the Defensive Player of the Year in Howard, excellent equilibrium, a profusion of off-shore depositors, a legit post-up presence in Rashard Lewis, who wishes he were as dangerous from beyond the arc of least resistance, and a doubledouble threat (points and assists) in Hedo Turkoglu.

At the same time, Orlando will be hard pressed to defend LeBron with rookie Courtney Lee, James' favorite counselor two summers ago at his Akron camp. The Ohio Players boast ample size and artillery to keep Howard busy, bushed and unbalanced. And they've got Mo Williams. And home court. And you know Anderson Varejao is going to tango regularly with Howard. To overcome all of the above, Howard must focus almost exclusively on scoring off teammates' misses, and Slap To My Lou's brain drain attacks must significantly subside.

"When Dwight stops making commercials and starts reading Low-Post Moves for Dummies, he's gonna be something," column contributor Dino DiPietro submits. "Why he chooses to fade away from eight feet instead of going straight to the halo is . . . oh, wait a second, Patrick Chewing is mentoring him. That explains it. Maybe next training camp Orlando brass should arrange a special guest appearance from Moses Malone."

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40 Bigges Villains in (then) Cavs History:

Rogues gallery: The villains The biggest bad guy? Well, Jordan of course

Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH) - Wednesday, March 10, 2010
CAVALIERS BASKETBALL: 40 YEARS

Well, what did you expect?

Naming Michael Jordan the Cavaliers' top antagonist of all-time was almost as easy as selecting LeBron James as the top Cavs player of all-time.

For all the cumulative damage Jordan did to the Cavs throughout his career, nothing crushed the franchise like The Shot - over an outstretched Craig Ehlo - that gave the Chicago Bulls a 101-100 victory in the deciding Game 5 of the first-round of the Eastern Conference playoffs on May 7, 1989. That shot, and the game, propelled Jordan and the Bulls into the stratosphere.

Neither they, nor the Cavs, were the same again. It was Cleveland's misfortune to field some of its best teams as Jordan was at his greatest.

"You look at the top 10 players on our team and then compare them to the their top 10 and we were the better team," Wayne Embry, the Cavs GM from 1986 to '96, recently told The Plain Dealer's Terry Pluto. "But they had greatness.

"It's just so hard to beat greatness."

The great Jordan leads the Top 40 antagonists, the third category in a series celebrating the Cavaliers' 40th season.

Originally, this category was the Top 40 opponents. But while top opponents could be a list of the best players to face the Cavs - like, say, Wilt Chamberlain, although he was nearing the end of his career when the Cavs entered the league - we wanted to compile a list of players who really got under the skin of the Cavs or their fans. Once again, the word "top" is purposefully vague enough to justify almost anything.

As we did in selecting the Top 40 games in Cavs history in January and the Top 40 players in February, Plain Dealer sportswriters Mary Schmitt Boyer, Dennis Manoloff and Mike Peticca, who combined have followed the team for a total of almost 90 years, collected nominations from our colleagues and then ranked them. Helping us in the process were Deputy Sports Editor Mike Starkey, Plain Dealer Reader Representative (and former sports editor) Ted Diadiun, columnist Bill Livingston, retired Plain Dealer reporter Burt Graeff and former Cavs beat writer Elton Alexander.

Some antagonists were selected on the basis of career achievement, some for a single incident, some on general principle. If there were a team category, the Detroit Pistons would have been the clear winners.

As in the previous stories, there are no right or wrong selections. Fans are encouraged to express their opinions and suggestions for the Top 40 antagonists on cleveland.com.

1. Michael Jordan

Has three of the top scoring games of all-time against the Cavs, including his personal-best 69 points in a Bulls overtime victory on March 28, 1990. But it's The Shot Clevelanders hold against him most - and he knows it.

A recent story about a couple of games of H-O-R-S-E that Jordan, now the owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, played against Charlotte rookie Gerald Henderson contained the following exchange:

"You've got to miss eventually," Henderson told Jordan.

"That's what Cleveland said," Jordan replied.

2. Rick Mahorn

He nearly decapitated Mark Price with an elbow to the head during a game Feb. 28, 1989. Mahorn was fined $5,000 for the hit, but not suspended, while Price suffered a severe concussion - one of many injuries that factored into the Cavs' surrender of the five-game conference lead they had built. Cavs fans were not alone in their distaste for Mahorn. The late Johnny Most, legendary Celtics play-by-play voice, nicknamed Mahorn and Jeff Ruland "McFilthy and McNasty," interchangeable nicknames when they played for the then Washington Bullets.

3. Rasheed Wallace

He elbowed Zydrunas Ilgauskas in the head, drawing blood, during a regular-season game in 2006. Wallace was fined $5,000 for the hit. Old-timers were upset that not only did none of Ilgauskas' teammates retaliate - in fact, it was Ilgauskas who finally hip-checked Wallace as payback in the next matchup that season - but LeBron James actually joked with Wallace during pregame warmups before that rematch. That led to the memorable "Sheed Must Bleed" rallying cry from Cavs fans, although the Pistons used it for inspiration to win a second-round playoff series that season in seven games.

4. Carlos Boozer

With a nickname like "Booz," how can you not root against the guy who turned his back on the Cavs after they allowed him to become a free agent, thinking he would re-sign with the team? That'll teach 'em. Injuries have kept him from playing a lot against the Cavs in Cleveland, but when he does, the fans still let him have it.

5. DeShawn Stevenson

Please don't make us rehash the entire Soulja Boy thing. Suffice it to say, Stevenson made a general nuisance of himself in three straight years of first-round playoff matchups between the Cavs and Wizards from 2006 to '08 - all won by the Cavs. But he was all talk. He never had the game to back it up.

6. Charles Barkley

He's so big, he makes the list in two categories - as a player and a television analyst. It wasn't bad enough that he once leveled Craig Ehlo during a playoff game in 1990, averaging 25.6 points and

14 rebounds as Philadelphia won the series. He also has been a constant critic of the Cavs in his role on TNT, which earns him a rousing reception anytime the studio crew visits. He seems to have become a LeBron James fan, but that hasn't been enough to win Cavs fans over just yet.

7. George McCloud

He sucker-punched John Battle outside the Cavs' locker room after the Cavs' 119-115 overtime victory over the Indiana Pacers on Jan. 22, 1992. The two had tussled during the fourth quarter of the game. Battle, who was six inches shorter and 40 pounds lighter than McCloud, reportedly went looking for a 2x4 to retaliate after McCloud's punch, bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase "grabbing a board." McCloud was fined $10,000 and suspended for a game.

7a. In an aside, Indiana coach Bob Hill reportedly got into a shoving match with then-Cavs coach Lenny Wilkens during the McCloud-Battle dust up, then complained he was not well-received when he went to the Cavs' locker room to apologize for the whole incident. Really?

8. Allen Iverson

It started his rookie season when the media named him MVP of the Rookie Game during All-Star Weekend festivities in Cleveland in 1997, when fans wanted Kobe Bryant to win the honor. Iverson never forgot the slight and played some of his greatest games here. Iverson twice scored 50 or more points against Cleveland and owns the arena record with 54 points.

9. Bill Laimbeer

OK, here's the first guy on the list for general principle. He was nominated as "one of the goons in the Detroit gang." He baited the normally placid Brad Daugherty into throwing a punch during a Cavs' 80-79 victory at Detroit on Jan. 27, 1989. Laimbeer became an All-Star with the Pistons after playing his first one and a half seasons with the Cavs.

10. Paul Pierce

Has a long and snippy history with the Cavs that pre-dates the shootout duel with LeBron James in the Celtics' ouster of the Cavs in Game 7 of the 2008 Eastern Conference semifinals. In fact, it goes all the way back to a preseason game in Columbus in 2004 when James and Pierce went at each other in the game and after it - no doubt in part because Pierce spit in the direction of the Cavs' bench during the game.

11. Norm Van Lier

Fans turned on him after he criticized the Cavs in the mid-'70s, just as the team was starting to improve.

12. Hedo Turkoglu

He was the biggest reason the Orlando Magic were able to defeat the Cavs in the Eastern Conference finals last season, when their best season came to a crashing halt a series short. The Cavs never found an answer for him on the court and never could wipe that smirk off his face.

13. Larry Bird

Cavs fans chanted, "We want Bird" during a 105-98 playoff victory that Bird missed with an injury. They got him the next game, as he put up 34 points, 14 rebounds and seven assists to eliminate the Cavs in four games of the best-of-five first-round series in 1985. He averaged 24.2 points and nearly 10 rebounds and six assists against the Cavs in his career, which ended in Cleveland's 122-104 home victory over Boston in a 1992 conference semifinal Game 7.

14. Dennis Rodman

He tormented the Cavs with two hated foes: the Pistons and the Bulls. In addition to killing the Cavs on the boards like he did with every team, he was assigned to rough up Larry Nance on the perimeter. It often worked, throwing Nance off his game and causing him to press. Rodman once greeted reporters visiting the postgame locker room wearing one of those masks Jason wore in the movie "Halloween."

15. Elvin Hayes

In 66 games against the Cavs, he averaged 21.3 points and 12 rebounds. He was one of Washington's stars during the Miracle of Richfield. Famously, he missed key free throws in two Bullets losses to Cleveland in the classic 1976 playoff series. But, he was the main reason the Bullets were close. He averaged 20.5 points, 13.6 rebounds and 3.6 blocked shots in 10 career playoff games against the Cavs.

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continued...

16. JoJo White

He averaged 19.3 points and 5.4 assists in 42 games against the Cavs. Mostly he hit big shots, in-

cluding late-game daggers among his 29 points in the Celtics' 1976 playoff series clincher over the Cavs.

17. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Until Jordan came along, he had the two biggest games against the Cavs, twice scoring 53 for the Milwaukee Bucks. He finished his long Bucks/Lakers career with averages of 26.3 points and 11.4 rebounds against Cleveland - and countless defensive stops. Incidentally, he scored 42 in the Lakers' quadruple overtime loss to the Cavs on Jan. 29, 1980, recently named No. 1 in the recent Top 40 poll of all-time Cavs games.

18. Isiah Thomas

See Bill Laimbeer. He was nominated for being the "sneaky leader of the Detroit thugs." Besides often beating the Cavs with his scoring, his 619 career assists against Cleveland tops every Cavs opponent.

19. Shaquille O'Neal

Face it, the guy was a load whether he was playing for Orlando, Los Angeles, Miami or Phoenix. If he wasn't tough enough to handle physically, he also loved to get into a war of words. After Horace Grant punched Danny Ferry in a game in Orlando on April 10, 1996 - earning a $5,000 fine and a one-game suspension - O'Neal defended his teammate by saying, "There's two kinds of dirty: dirty and sewer dirty. Danny Ferry is sewer dirty and has been ever since he was at Duke." Of course, now that Ferry's his boss, O'Neal always refers to him as "the great Danny Ferry."

20. Scottie Pippen

Everyone remembers his scoring and rebounding, but where he really hurt the Cavs was when he, along with Jordan, double-teamed Mark Price on the perimeter. Price, at 6-0, could not see over the two to run a play. Coach Phil Jackson saved this tactic for the playoffs, especially Game 3 of the 1992 conference finals, as the move keyed an easy Bulls victory after

the Cavs' 107-81 rout of the Bulls in Chicago in Game 2.

21. George Gervin

He helped dash fans' hopes that had been raised after the Miracle of Richfield. When the Spurs entered the NBA in 1976-77, Gervin was the main reason Cleveland had so much trouble beating San Antonio. In 32 games against the Cavs, he averaged 27.4 points per game. From 1976 to '79, the Cavs won just two of 10 matchups with the Spurs - both in the first season.

22. Kobe Bryant

He has four rings, the Cavs have none. Enough said. He's James' No. 1 rival as the best player in the league, although he doesn't always play as well against James and the Cavs as he does against other teams.

23. Dave Cowens

He demolished the Cavs with his relentless hustle and physical play around the basket. Especially irritating was the sense that he seemed to have the referees on his side. Most distressing for Cleveland fans was his 1976 playoff series when he averaged 18 points, 15.2 rebounds and 4.8 assists as Boston won in six games.

24. Spencer Haywood

Had a ton of great games against the Cavs, including a 48-point performance for Seattle on Jan. 7, 1972. He hit a jump shot with one second left to lift New York to a 109-107 victory and a two-game sweep of the Cavs in the best-of-three first round series in 1978.

25. Charles Oakley

A tough, muscular Cleveland native who always seemed primed for his hometown team, especially when his Bulls topped the Cavs in a 1988 playoff series, and when he helped the Knicks oust Cleveland from the 1995 and 1996 playoffs. He owns the opponent record for rebounds in a game with 35 in a Cavs' 107-103 victory at Chicago on April 22, 1988. In 64 games against the Cavs, he averaged 10.5 rebounds.

26. Patrick Ewing

He averaged 22.8 points in 47 regular-season games against the Cavs, and 18.4 points, 10.4 rebounds and 3.3 blocked shots in the Knicks' 1995 and 1996 playoff series wins against Cleveland. The fact that he's now tutoring Orlando center Dwight Howard as a Magic assistant coach doesn't help.

27. Gilbert Arenas

Though supplanted recently by the Boston Celtics and Orlando Magic, for several years the Washington Wizards were the Cavs' biggest rivals and Arenas was their best player (sorry, Antawn Jamison). He had 45 points against the Cavs in a regular-season game at Washington on Nov. 18, 2006, and he scored 44 in a 121-120 Cavs overtime victory in Game 5 of a first-round playoff series on May 3, 2006. In Game 6, you may recall James whispering in Arenas' ear just before Arenas missed two crucial free throws in the closing seconds of the Cavs' series deciding 114-113 victory.

28. Pete Maravich

With his scoring - averaging 24.7 points a game against Cleveland - and peerless passing, he was often the main reason his good Hawks teams beat the Cavs, and often the only reason his inferior New Orleans Jazz teams played the Cavs tough.

29. Reggie Miller

It's not so much the 1,290 points he scored against the Cavs - the seventh-most by any opponent - it's the way he got so many of them, swishing long-range jumpers in crunch time with a certain air of arrogance.

30. Karl Malone

He got booed during the 1997 All-Star Game in Cleveland and when he was introduced as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA history during the weekend festivities because fans thought he dissed Cleveland heading into the game. Asked 10 days earlier about playing in the game, Malone told the

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "I want to go, stay healthy and get the hell out of Cleveland. My wife and kids are going to leave for the airport in the third quarter." After the game, he said: "All I said was the truth. I was asked if I would rather be here or somewhere else, and I didn't lie. I guess they thought I was ripping on Cleveland. I wasn't. They must have been looking for someone to boo." Of course, as half of the potent Malone-John Stockton combination that gave everybody fits in those days, Cavs fans had basketball reasons to boo him, too.

30a. Though he didn't get booed that weekend, Stockton always was a headache for Cavs fans, running the pick-and-roll to perfection with Malone and somehow managing to get a cheap shot in here and there as well. He shares the opponent record for most assists with 22 in an overtime game at Utah on Dec. 11, 1989. Magic Johnson set the mark with 22 assists for the Lakers on Nov. 17, 1983.

31. Dwyane Wade

His memorable head-to-head duels with James are classics, but as long as the Cavs are coming out with the victories he's not the villain some of these other guys are. Competition really started with a shootout in a Cavs 106-99 win on April 1, 2006, when James finished with 47 points (18 in the fourth quarter) and Wade scored 44 (21 in the fourth), a game voted No. 3 in the recent Top 40 poll of all-time Cavs games. There have been many memorable rematches, but head-to-head, James is 13-9 against Wade, who has averaged 27.6 points in 22 career games against Cleveland.

32. Kevin McHale

The man Charles Barkley said was maybe his toughest opponent showed Cavs fans why. His stifling low-post defense and clutch rebounding were more important against the Cavs than his 18-point scoring average.

33. Dwight Howard

To paraphrase Shaquille O'Neal, "Superman, my butt." Howard helped the Magic bounce the top-seeded Cavs from the 2009 Eastern Conference finals and was criticized by O'Neal earlier this season for making off with his nickname. The rivalry with the Magic could replace that with the Celtics, depending on how the rest of this season goes.

34. Moses Malone

His 1,558 regular-season points are second to Jordan's 1,977 against the Cavs, and his 908 rebounds are first.

35. Wes Unseld

He averaged 14 rebounds, clogged the middle defensively and helped the Bullets' offense purr against the Cavs with his deft interior passing.

36. Derrick Coleman

It wasn't his fault New Jersey lost two playoff series to the Cavs, as he averaged 24.8 points, 13.6 rebounds and 4.9 assists in nine games - all double doubles except for a 24-point, nine-rebound game. At one point in the 1993 series, Hot Rod Williams mentioned to a teammate that Coleman could really go to his left. The teammate replied, "Hot Rod, that's because he's left-handed."

37. Dominique Wilkins

Averaged 24 points in 58 games against the Cavs, who had several good defenders that just couldn't find a way to contain him.

38. Rudy Tomjanovich

The Cavs had four pretty good teams from 1974 to '78, but they were just 9-12 against the Houston Rockets, in large part because of Rudy T's clutch scoring and rugged rebounding. He averaged 19.1 points in his career against Cleveland.

39. Tiny Archibald

Whether he was with bad, average or powerful teams - like the early 1980s Celtics - he usually made the Cavs dizzy with his waterbug play, averaging 19 points and 7.7 assists against them, and wreaking havoc at the defensive end.

40. Bob Lanier

He averaged 19.3 points and did a lot of other good things against the Cavs in spite of the constant pain in his knees. Cavs fans didn't feel sorry for him, especially after some roughhousing with beloved and aging Cavs center Nate Thurmond, whom he once got in a headlock - and twisted.

Also considered

Rafer Alston, Carmelo Anthony, Rick Barry, Bruce Bowen, Adrian Dantley, Ricky Davis, Joe Dumars, Manu Ginobili, John Havlicek, Bernard King, Vernon Maxwell, Mikki Moore, Mike Newlin, Robert Parish, Tony Parker, John Paxson, Buck Williams.