A basketball fans perspective

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Rooney Rule in the NBA

I’m unsure how the question was first generated, the inquiry if there is a Rooney Rule in the NBA? The simple answer is no and there is no single reason except apparently the NBA never felt it was a requirement. The league probably had 3-4 African-American head coaches before the NFL ever hired Art Shell with the Oakland Raiders in 1989. The legend Celtic great Bill Russell was hired in 1966, Al Attles took on the role for the Warriors for the 1970-71 NBA season. Ray Scott became Pistons head coach in November 1972 replacing Earl Lloyd one of the first black players in the NBA. As you can see that’s four black NBA coaches hired before Shell would become the first head coach in the NFL.

Naturally since the Shell hiring there have been other black coaches in the NFL, the number of black coaches hired and fired in the NBA far exceeds the number hired and fired in the NFL. From AI Overview: “Approximately 55 Black head coaches have been hired in NBA history, spanning both full-time and interim roles. Black head coaches have comprised roughly one-third of all coaches in the league since Bill Russell broke the ultimate coaching barrier with the Boston Celtics in 1967.” Let’s conduct a deep dive on NFL hiring also from AI Overview: “In NFL history, there have been exactly 25 Black men hired as permanent, full-time head coaches. This includes Art Shell, who became the league’s first Black head coach in the modern era with the Los Angeles Raiders in 1989, followed by 24 others over the decades.” As you might note by the numbers and maybe intent there was no requirement for an NBA Rooney Rule, the path was less demanding by NBA owners over their NFL counterparts.  

Sweep

The Knicks are Eastern Conference champs after beating the Cavs 130-93. I’m really unsure if the outcome was ever in question, the Cavs began the game with a plan to compete but you remember the old Mike Tyson quote. “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth,” that was the case for the Cavs in Game 4 for the win and sweep. By the time you read this the champion Knicks will be resting waiting to play the winner of the Thunder-Spurs series. Jalen Brunson was named conference finals MVP for the series but this Knicks win was a team effort, they received contributions from the starters down to the reserves.

I’ve got to give a shout out to my Kansas City homie Landry Shamet, once again he came off the bench with a 16 point effort in 19 minutes. This Knicks team has now won 11 consecutive games and I believe this statement to be correct. Tom Thibodeau was/is a good coach, he’s been a winner at a number of stops, the problem always appeared to be effective use of his bench. That is not the case for Mike Brown, most of the Knicks roster are holdovers but this is the key difference I believe. Brown more effectively utilized his bench over Thibodeau and that certainly made a huge difference. These Knicks will have their hands full playing the Thunder or the Spurs however I’m certainly not prepared to state they cannot win a championship based on what I’ve witnessed.

“They just punched us in our face early”

The headline above are the words of Thunder guard SGA and it was pretty much true for major portions of Game 4, the Thunder managed to come up short. As I have often mentioned I don’t do analytics however plain numbers speak volumes to me. The final score read Spurs 103 Thunder 82 a blowout win if we just checked the box score. The game had more to it, the Spurs came out of the locker room fired up and ready to play. They outshot, outrebounded and plain outhustled the Thunder during the early portion of the game, this was the established pattern they would continue. Of course the defending champions would not remain down for long as they played much better, it seemed to me the Spurs always had an answer for whatever hand the Thunder played.

The answer the Thunder were unable to contained is nicknamed The Alien, Wemby finished the game with 33 points, 8 rebounds 5 assists and 3 blocked shots. Play from the Thunder bench in this game was virtually non-existent versus the 76 points they scored in Game 3. Stephon Castle only scored 13 points but dished out 6 assists, the same could be said for DeAaron Fox. Fox had 12 points along with 5 assists and 0 turnovers. SGA was high scorer for the Thunder scoring 19 points for the game. The Spurs had 52 rebounds compared to 47 for the Thunder. Numbers I mentioned at the beginning of this account, for the Spurs it was 39% from the floor with 26 of it from three. The Thunder shot 33% from the floor and a meager 18% from three. The teams return to OKC for Game 5, by the time you read this it will have been played last night. Did the Spurs win again or did the return home do the trick for the Thunder?

Was he the best….you become the judge

Recently I saw a video which is the basis for this look, warning this is a revisionist examination of history. This individual chose the issue of Steph Curry (or John Stockton for that matter) being named the NBA’s all-time best point guard. He named Magic Johnson as the cream of the crop (my words, not his) and this was his statement. “Magic retired at a point he could have played several more years at a high level.” I decided to check this podcaster regarding his video, could he possibly be correct in his assessment? For many reading this they might be unaware Magic retired from the NBA due to contracting HIV, he was 31-years old. In 1991 the medical community knew very little about HIV/Aids with the exception of most who contracted it would eventually die. Magic never contracted Aids and medical advancements have allowed him to live a full life.

Magic would eventually return to the game he loved and play one more season at the age of 36 by this time he was only a shadow of his previous self-due to lack of play and the aging process. Keep this in mind Magic was a distributor of the basketball, that was his specialty not shooting. Despite this fact he did manage to shoot 48% from the floor and 32% from three and nearly 20 points a game for his career. His last season of play he managed to total 12.5 assists per game finishing second to John Stockton of the Jazz that season. Playing a total of 13 seasons Magic averaged 11.2 assists during his brilliant career. Despite the early retirement of Magic he currently ranks 8th on the NBA’s all-time list for assists. I’m going to adopt the same stance after checking the numbers, is Magic Johnson the best ever at the point? You become the decider on this issue….my mind is clear on the matter.