NBA: Never Been Altered

Ben Roberts

I potentially risk the ire of Balanced Sports' editor-in-chief with the following reflection. Having been on paternity leave recently an old flame has been reignited. Probably it has been since the Chicago Bulls collected their first 1990s 'three-peat' when I last engaged with Basketball and watched the NBA consistently.

Not only have I been taken in by the current play-off series' but I also decided to borrow a couple of DVDs from my brother (who has maintained the fire for the hoops over many years) containing two of Michael Jordan's great performances: 1995 just out of retirement against the New York Knicks, scoring 50 plus points, followed by a flu-ridden Jordan in the 1997 NBA finals helping the Bulls to victory over the Jazz in Salt Lake City (see image).

The combination of the current play-offs with the trip into history led me to surmise that really the game of Basketball hasn't changed all that much, thus the title. Don't read into this negatively or positively, I certainly haven't made a judgement call, nor will I probably be able to back it up with expert opinion. But is it not surprising that someone can make such an observation 18 years since there last serious viewing of the game?

Watching a current match compared to these now 15 years old matches only three things stood out to me as clearly indicating a difference: The sepia toned film of the older matches, the fashions of players differed (though only slightly, spectators differed dramatically) and finally the logos of teams adorning the court. Noticeably none of this reflects the actual gameplay despite some rule changes having occurred.

While I may be mistaken, if it's true, what does this say about the game? Is the controlled environment – constant climate, consistent court, combined with the smaller number of competitors limiting the amount of variation. Minimal adjustment to rules over history? Again let me say that this is no means a negative, just an observation. Most other sports to watch bear little to no resemblance to past matches, certainly Australian football has changed markedly even since the mid 2000s and continues to change season by season and does not have the aforementioned characteristics.

Potentially this observation extends to other USA sporting pursuits where statistics play such an important part of analysis. Few sports with cultural centres outside the United States ever feel free to compare statistics half a century even a century apart, yet this is common place in Basketball and other US sports. Two sports that I have the longest history of following, Cricket and Australian Football, you cannot compare generations with great success given the changes in gameplay, but they do not exist in the heavily controlled environments that characterise Basketball and other USA centric games.

Many have been drawn once again to the NBA this year. I have heard more “water-cooler discussions” on it this year than I probably have in the last 10. How should this be viewed?

To look at it negatively; does this mean that despite my interest being pricked to continue watching this year's play-offs (and supporting the Bulls again), the fact that I cannot see any marked change potentially means that I'll tire of the sport like I did previously. Positively a generational consistency exists. If its true, you can genuinely ask the questions of whether Wilt Chamberlain could have cut it today, or Kobe Bryant in yesteryear; would the Celtics of the 1960s, Lakers of the 1980s and Bulls of the 1990s be successful at any point in history?

Image courtesy: argumentking.blogspot.com

Book review: Red and Me, by Bill Russell

A few months ago I was in the book shop at the Central Station in Washington DC and happened upon a book by Bill Russell in the remainder bin. It was marked down from $24.99 to $4.99, so I bought it. It was entitled “Red and Me: My Coach, my lifelong friend”. I only recently picked it up to read and without fail, every thirty pages I was forced to exclaim to my wife how horrible a sports book it was with statements like “Now he's claiming to teach an 80-year old Auerbach about basketball from the stands!” or “I can see why it was in the remainder bin” or, less tactfully “What complete and utter BULL SHIT”. Yeah, I was yelling by the end of the sentence.

An insight into a particularly successful coach/player relationship? I think not. It is only 180-odd pages of drivel by a man whose ego simply knows no limits. When many people think back on the age-old “Wilt or Russell” debate, Chamberlain's ability to reel off his statistics and accomplishments has usually marked him the more egotistical of the pair. Russ, however, simply put it as “Eleven rings, ten fingers”. That Wilt only won twice – on mostly inferior teams – was the burden he had to lug about and as such in the “Who's better, who's best” game he had to rely on his extraordinary personal achievements. Russell has always been seen as the less-outspoken and less crass of the pair.

Until now. Red and Me was less about Red and more about Me. It was undoubtedly the most arrogant, selfish, egotistical and self-gratifying sports book I've ever had the misfortune to read and without question ranks at the bottom of the pile. And I've read Dean Jones: One day Magic, Punter: The first Tests of a Champion and the immortally bad Second Coming where Sam Smith attempts to revisit the success he had with The Jordan Rules but with only a modicum of enthusiasm. The point is, I've read some rubbish in my time but never have I read a sports book I enjoyed less.

These are not the recollections of a coach/player relationship and what made it so successful, more an attempted apologetic at how good Bill Russell was as a player. For several years during and after the careers of Wilt and Russell – I hate bringing Wilt's name into this but their careers will always be inextricably linked – Russell always said the Celtics triumphed most often because they had the better teams, which was for the large part true. Now he appears to be coming out saying that his teammates weren't nearly as good as history has made them out, and that all the glory for their championship years should go to him, simply because he was that good. I get the feeling now there is a swell of posthumous support for Chamberlain's case as greater and this is Russell trying to tell everyone that he was the best ever in a very gentle sense. He fails horribly in this.

Throughout the book, as he dwells on his family history, his relationships with his coaches and his experience Russell says “It is better to understand than to be understood” and lets on that this is his personal philosophy, the mantra he's led his life by. What twaddle! It may very well be true, but when he follows it immediately with a “Why do the citizens of Boston hate me?” soliloquy after purporting to understand them it rings very false indeed. He then uses the “... than to be understood” as an excuse to do just as he wants in life and be excused for it, no matter what the consequences on those around him. This makes him look a very sad, extremely angry and ultimately exceedingly lonely man.

Russell has a reputation for being a little spiky, perhaps hard to get to know. He often has refused to sign autographs for young fans, backing it up with statements like “Young children should ask their teacher for their autograph”. Within 30 pages he shoots that argument in the foot automatically and irrevocably by stating that he learnt nothing from his coaches at the University of San Francisco or from Auerbach during their ten years together. Indeed he then says he never respected any coaches he'd had except Red Auerbach, and the reason he held Red in such esteem was that he didn't try to get Russell to play according to team rules but changed the team rules to what was best for the Big Fella. He then says he knew everything about basketball before comin into the NBA as a 22-year old. According to Bill, Red identified early his talent and then essentially gave him carté blanche to do as he pleased.

No-one can ever argue with the record of the Boston Celtics during the 1950s and 1960s. I would have said “No-one can ever argue with Bill Russell's record ...” except this book has engendered such a dislike of the man in me that I now simply refuse to acknowledge him out of the Celtics team. That this man, such an icon of the sporting world, the first black coach in any pro sport comes out and says “I liked Red Auerbach because he let me do things the way I wanted”. No-one can dispute the results of this theory, so perhaps Auerbach was every bit the coach we now think of him as. To effectively get a player with a chip on his shoulder the size of Russell's to suit up and play hard every game ensures Red's reputation as one of the greats but more than that, Red and Me places Bill Russell inelegantly balancing at the top of Sporting Hall of Fame for Complete Dicks.

So to sum up: Red and Me: My Coach, my lifelong friend – 0 stars.

Don't even buy it for your worst enemy.