Author: greggdrinnan

In honor of the underdogs (Toronto Raptors) bringing it to the big dogs (Golden State Warriors), here’s Jim Murray’s column on the old days of the NBA from Feb. 26, 1992. . . . Enjoy!

——

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1982, SPORTS

Copyright 1982/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY

JIM MURRAY

The NBA Never Had It So Good

  When I began to cover pro basketball about 20 or so years ago, it was a hit-and-miss sport, mostly the latter.

  Franchises were like floating crap games. The teams dropped their bags wherever they could get a basketball and a couple of hundred people to pass the hat to. If you scratched the St. Louis Hawks uniform emblem, you might see Waterloo, Iowa stencilled underneath.

 The game was played in metropolises like Sheboygan, Oshkosh, Anderson, Ind., and Providence, R.I. The Tri-Cities Blackhawks (Moline and Rock Island, Ill., and Davenport, Iowa) were the forerunners of today’s Atlanta Hawks.

  But it wasn’t only in prehistoric times that the game was part sport, part medicine show. The public thought the Harlem Globetrotters were the best team in basketball and, to sell out Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks usually had to share a doubleheader with the Globies.

  The public was slow to warm to the game. I can remember, as late as 1961, going to a playoff game on a Sunday afternoon between the St. Louis Hawks and the Los Angeles Lakers and finding a “throng” of about 2,800 at the Sports Arena. And the floor had players on it like Bob Pettit, Cliff Hagan, Clyde Lovelette, Lenny Wilkens, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor and Rod Hundley.

  Even with that kind of talent, I recall Wilt Chamberlain was the highest paid player in the league at less than $20,000. The Lakers had been sent to L.A. by the then-owner Bob Short, with instructions to his general manager to “keep the team going into the Pacific Ocean if they lose money there, too.” The game ultimately thrived in L.A. where the population had a large number of New York expatriates who had learned the game in their youth in the boroughs of the big city, where basketball was “the poor man’s polo.”

  I bring this up because the commissioner of modern pro basketball passed through this week with a report to the media on the state of the game in this Year of Our Lord 1982.

  One thing is sure: It’s never going back to Oshkosh.

  Lawrence F. O’Brien, once the Kennedy family’s political mentor, and ex-Postmaster General of the U.S., reports that rumors of the game’s terminal status are somewhat, if not greatly exaggerated. He broke up the fast break of the doomsayers with a little fancy “D” of his own under the basket:

  Rumor No. 1 had it that the NBA was in deep financial trouble and in imminent danger of collapse from top to bottom. “Not so,” said Commissioner O’Brien. “In the NBA, one-third of the league is highly profitable, one-third is breaking even or almost, and one-third is losing money. But corrections in the league population of 23 are not contemplated because cable revenues are just over the horizon for even the most troubled franchises.”

  Rumor No. 2 had it that television, the Great White Father of sports, is disenchanted with basketball as a prime time or even Sunday afternoon attraction. “We just signed a new four-year pact with CBS for $88 million and a $5.5 million-a-year pact with cable TV (ESPN and USA). That’s $27.5 million a year we get to split evenly among our franchises. We signed for only two years with cable because we think the numbers there are going to go up substantially and soon.”

  Rumor 3 had it that affluent white fans are becoming disenchanted with the almost all-black makeup of the game. “There is no evidence of that at all. Attendance is up eight percent all over the league and some franchises are up dramatically – a 90 percent increase in New Jersey. The color of the uniform means more to the fans than the color of the player.”

  Rumor 4 had it that fat-cat owners are pricing the league out of business, as witness Magic Johnson’s $25-million contract. “The average salary in this league is $214,500, and our figures indicate that two-thirds of all team revenues go to the players,” O’Brien said. He did not say it in so many words, but he indicated that, when the league Players Association contract is up this year, the players may have to approach the bargaining table in a “give-back” frame of mind, that, like all labor, it might behoove them to sacrifice individual benefits to preserve the industry as a whole.

  Will players be apt to take such a statesmanlike view, he was asked, or will most choose not to care what happens to the goose now that they’ve gotten their golden eggs out of it? “We hold more informal discussions than other sports,” O’Brien pointed out. “I have not personally dabbled into the preliminary negotiations, but I think we have a closer sense of fraternity and purpose about our league that some of the older, more-established sports.”

  Maybe they should have. There are lots of us still around who remember when the “league” was a bus load of players riding through the cornfields of Iowa on the lookout for an empty gym and a bunch of farm workers who just got paid, when Walter Brown bought the Celtics for $2,500 and, when someone called the arena to ask what time the game would be played, the answer might be “What time would you like it?”

Reprinted with the permission of the Los Angeles Times

Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 60753, Pasadena, CA 91116

———

What is the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation? 

  The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, established in 1999 to perpetuate the Jim Murray legacy, and his love for and dedication to his extraordinary career in journalism. Since 1999, JMMF has granted 104 $5,000 scholarships to outstanding journalism students. Success of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation’s efforts depends heavily on the contributions from generous individuals, organizations, corporations, and volunteers who align themselves with the mission and values of the JMMF.

Like us on Facebook, and visit the JMMF website, www.jimmurrayfoundation.org.

——

A dozen years ago, Linda McCoy-Murray compiled a book of Jim Murray’s columns on female athletes (1961-1998). While the book is idle waiting for an interested publisher, the JMMF thinks this is an appropriate year to get the book on the shelves, i.e., Jim Murray’s 100^th birthday, 1919-2019.  

Our mission is to empower women of all ages to succeed and prosper — in and out of sports — while entertaining the reader with Jim Murray’s wit and hyperbole.  An excellent teaching tool for Women’s Studies.

Proceeds from book sales will benefit the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization providing sports journalism scholarships at universities across the country.

His nicknames included Mr. Clutch, for his ability to make a big play in a clutch situation, such as his famous buzzer-beating 60-foot shot that tied Game 3 of the 1970 NBA championship series against the New York Knicks; The Logo, in reference to his silhouette being incorporated into the NBA logo; Mr. Outside, in reference to his perimeter play with the Los Angeles Lakers; and Zeke from Cabin Creek, for the creek near his birthplace of Chilean, W.Va.

He had an extraordinary 14-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, and was the co-captain of the 1960 U.S. Olympic gold medal team, a squad that was inducted as a unit into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010.

Jerry West was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1980 and voted as one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history in 1996.

After his playing career ended, West took over as head coach of the Lakers for three years. He led Los Angeles into the playoffs each season and earned a Western Conference final berth once. Working as a player-scout for three years, West was named general manager of the Lakers prior to the 1982-83 NBA season. Under his reign, Los Angeles won six championship rings. In 2002, West became general manager of the Memphis Grizzlies and helped the franchise win their first-ever playoff berths. For his contributions, West won the NBA executive-of-the-year award twice, once as a Lakers manager (1995) and then as a Grizzlies manager (2004).

On June 14, 2017, West joined the Los Angeles Clippers as a consultant to the team’s front office and on May 14, 2019, he agreed to a new contract to stay with the franchise.

——  

THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 1993, SPORTS

Copyright 1993/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY

JIM MURRAY

Clippers Finally Come of Age

   There used to be a scene in the old Westerns where one gunslinger would ride into town and come up to another and snarl, “There isn’t room enough in this town for the both of us, Buster, so why don’t you get on your horse and ride out while you still can!”

   It was sure-fire theater and sold a lot of popcorn. I was reminded of it the other night at the Sports Arena, where the Clippers suddenly came of age. They stopped being the pimply-faced kid at the end of the bar dreaming of glory and instead went up to the town bully and said, “Make me!”

   The game between the upstart Clippers and the old pro Lakers was a watershed moment. They walked down Main Street at high noon, and the Lakers blinked.

   It isn’t as if the town is the Clippers’ — but it isn’t the Lakers’ anymore.

   The Lakers, for years, didn’t even know the Clippers existed. Remember the famous time in New York when the Giants manager, Bill Terry, maliciously asked, “Brooklyn? Are they still in the league?” And the Dodgers, smarting, knocked them out of the pennant in a season-closing series?

   The Lakers, luxuriating in the glory years when they had the roughest hombres in the West — Magic, Kareem, Worthy, Wilkes, McAdoo, Cooper and Scott — had no reason to know if the Clippers were still in the league. Or where. They beat them when they were the Buffalo Braves. They beat them when they were the San Diego Clippers. They beat them when they were the Los Angeles Clippers. They beat them wherever they found them.

   The Clippers were kind of a municipal embarrassment. They went through more towns faster than the Ohio River or Butch Cassidy on the lam. They wore out their welcome right after they wiped their feet, and when owner Donald Sterling figured he might as well join the rest of the country and move them to Los Angeles, the reaction was, “L.A. already has a team. Have you given any thought to Anaheim?” Or Dubuque, for that matter.

   No one ever used that sports-page cliche, “cross-town rivals,” because there wasn’t really any rivalry. The Lakers used to treat the Clippers as kind of a complicated workout. An uncontested shootaround.

   The Lakers got to thinking they could send 10 guys from the back of a truck out there with “Lakers” scrawled on their jerseys, and the Clippers would fold. But this began to change subtly when first Kareem, then Magic, left the Lakers.

   The rivalry extended off the court. Elgin Baylor and Jerry West never played each other on the court, but as general managers, they went one-on-one with each other with customary intensity.

   Getting a winning team in the NBA is a crapshoot. A Magic Johnson or Larry Bird or Michael Jordan comes walking out of the collegiate ranks to prove to be an all-world only infrequently. More often, a guy with equal collegiate credentials can’t jump shoot in this competition.

   Most years, you don’t get superstars. You have to be crafty and figure out who are the best of the journeymen.

   Los Angeles is no stranger to the notion of cross-town rivalries. UCLA and USC would rather beat each other than win the conference. But the pros have never had any comparable feuds.

   In New York, the Dodger fans hated the Giants’. But in California, the Giants are 400 miles away. It’s easier to hate someone whose ballpark you can invade periodically to vent your hostility. In New York, they hated one another whether their teams were last or first.

   Does Los Angeles need a contender to care that much? Will the fans leave in the seventh inning or hit the parking lot with a quarter to play unless a championship is at stake?

   The Lakers look like a guy with one foot on a banana peel and the other on a roller skate. The Clippers won’t remind you of the Bird Celtics or the Magic Lakers, but they artfully use what they have.

   One of the things they have is a kind of bull-elephant backfield. Stanley Roberts and John Williams look in poor light like a pair of Alps and are as impenetrable as rush-hour traffic. When those two lock arms, the only way to the basket is by Figueroa Street. They are the only duo on the floor who are 7 feet tall-and 10 feet wide. They should play in Santa Claus suits.

   And the Clippers have Mark Jackson, a cat-quick, savvy point guard-we used to call them “playmakers” — who keeps the Clippers on their toes with his fast footwork and ear-high passes. He is to the Clippers what Joe Montana was to the 49ers. He steers them downcourt, then commands the attack under the basket, skillfully working for the open man. His idol and role model was Magic Johnson. “I’m no Magic,” he admits. “But I try to set up the floor the way he did.”

   Since Jackson played his whole career in and around New York — at St. John’s and with the Knicks, before the Clippers slickered him West — he is asked whether a New York-style rivalry is possible in laid-back L.A.

   “In New York,” he explains, “the attitude is set up by the media. It’s not that they’re more knowledgeable or more caring, they’re more demanding. They read a story in the papers and get their perception from that. They not only boo ineffectiveness, they boo great players. This town booed Babe Ruth, don’t forget. They booed Earl Monroe. There’s a lot more pressure playing in New York because you’re bucking preconceived notions.”

   It has been suggested (here) that the difference between the New York fan and the L.A. fan can be summed up in the attitude of the guy at the race track watching his horse struggle to the wire. In New York, the fan’s face is contorted with rage. “Don’t die now, ya dog!” is his scream at the mount. In L.A., the fan is more inclined to plead and encourage than to insult. “Just a few more steps, sweetheart, you can do it!”

   “They get on you here, too,” Jackson says. “But I think we passed a test tonight. We’re still a game behind the Lakers, but they know we’re here now. I’m proud of this team. We needed this win and we got it.”

   It’s the Lakers’ turn to wonder, “Who are these guys?” It’s their turn to consider getting out of town, according to the Clippers.

   All dynasties fade in time. The Lakers owned this town for a long time. But that funny little team on the other end of the freeway passed a major test Tuesday night. It was the first time since 1974, when they were the Buffalo Braves, that they have won a season series from the Lakers.

If anybody has the right to say, “Be outta town by sundown!” it’s the new kid on the block. He gets to wear the white hat in this chase.

Reprinted with the permission of the Los Angeles Times

Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 60753, Pasadena, CA 91116

———

What is the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation? 

  The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, established in 1999 to perpetuate the Jim Murray legacy, and his love for and dedication to his extraordinary career in journalism. Since 1999, JMMF has granted 104 $5,000 scholarships to outstanding journalism students. Success of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation’s efforts depends heavily on the contributions from generous individuals, organizations, corporations, and volunteers who align themselves with the mission and values of the JMMF.

Like us on Facebook, and visit the JMMF website, www.jimmurrayfoundation.org.

——

A dozen years ago, Linda McCoy-Murray compiled a book of Jim Murray’s columns on female athletes (1961-1998). While the book is idle waiting for an interested publisher, the JMMF thinks this is an appropriate year to get the book on the shelves, i.e., Jim Murray’s 100^th birthday, 1919-2019.  

Our mission is to empower women of all ages to succeed and prosper — in and out of sports — while entertaining the reader with Jim Murray’s wit and hyperbole.  An excellent teaching tool for Women’s Studies.

Proceeds from book sales will benefit the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization providing sports journalism scholarships at universities across the country.