Basketball from a fan’s perspective

Honors

I failed to include a portion of the honors received by Lew Alcindor while enrolled at UCLA. These achievements will never be duplicated by another college player ever. The basis as to why is simple, any modicum of talent the player is on his way to the NBA after one or two college seasons. As a reminder back in the day freshman were ineligible for varsity sports, athletes of that era were only eligible 3 seasons. Below are the honors, just for grins included are high school honors while Alcindor was enrolled at Power Memorial (now closed).

3-time NCAA Final Four Most Outstanding Player

3-time National College Player of the Year

3-time Consensus All-American 

3-time Parade Magazine All-American (high school)

2-time Mr. Basketball USA (high school)

What did he say?

It is part of the chronicle, the late Bulls GM Jerry Krause had an adversarial relationship with Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan, and many other Bulls players of the period. The basis for re-telling the account revolves around ESPN’s upcoming program “Last Dance” this Sunday. One of the anchors made a strange statement at least to me. This person mentions the program and then briefly discusses the reported issues at the time.

He said, “Krause drafted Scottie Pippen and was responsible for assembling that championship Bulls team. Of all the players on that team Michael Jordan is the only one Krause did not draft.”  Rod Thorn who was with the Bulls at the time did indeed draft MJ.  My initial thought, “You are claiming that it was an ego issue for the GM since he wasn’t responsible for drafting MJ?”  I said to myself everything up to a point was true, Krause was the architect behind that team, to hint because he did not draft Jordan created a problem. Did not make any sense when I heard it and still does not make any sense.

“Show me the money”

You remember the line from the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire? Sports agent Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) was attempting to become the agent for wide receiver Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.). On the telephone with Tidwell the football player yelled over the telephone “Show me the money.”  Guard Jalen Green was rated the number two prospect in the Rivals Class of 2020, it was believed he was headed for college when he decided in favor of the G-League. Word came Green will be paid a cool $500,000 for one season. In the immortal words of Rod Tidwell, “Show me the money”, you have got to scream it!

Warrior greats

How good was the late Wilt Chamberlain, good enough to be all three NBA teams all-time list?  He played for the Warriors, Sixers and Lakers and distinguished himself playing for all three.  Over time with the franchise playing in Philadelphia and San Francisco several great players suited up for them.  There are a few such as Chris Webber and Robert Parrish their best years were spent with other teams.  As for the others they are:

Steph Curry

Nate Thurmond

Wilt Chamberlain

Rick Barry

Tim Hardaway

Honorable mention might include these names

Phil Smith

Guy Rodgers

Chris Mullin

Sleepy Floyd

Joe Fulks

Klay Thompson

I realize the honorable list contains six players however I couldn’t reduce it to a smaller number.