Boston Celtics

Boston Celtics guard Payton Pritchard has been honored with the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year award for the 2024&ndash;25 season, recognizing his significant contributions off the bench.​
In his fifth season with the Celtics, Pritchard played in 80 games, starting only three, and averaged career highs of 14.3 points, 3.8 rebounds, and 3.5 assists per game. He led all NBA reserves with 1,079 total points and set a new league record by making 246 three-pointers as a reserve, shooting 40.7% from beyond the arc.&nbsp;
Pritchard received 82 out of 100 first-place votes from a global media panel, totaling 454 points. He outpaced Detroit Pistons' Malik Beasley, who finished second with 279 points and 13 first-place votes, and Ty Jerome of the Cleveland Cavaliers, who placed third with 91 points and two first-place votes.&nbsp;
This accolade places Pritchard among notable Celtics who have won the Sixth Man of the Year award, including Kevin McHale, Bill Walton, and Malcolm Brogdon.&nbsp;
Pritchard's recognition as Sixth Man of the Year underscores his dedication and adaptability, solidifying his role as a vital component in the Celtics' pursuit of consecutive championships.​

Boston Celtics guard Payton Pritchard has been honored with the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year award for the 2024–25 season.

Payton Pritchard named 2024–25 NBA Sixth Man of the Year​

After monitoring the NBA awards races all season, Nekias Duncan shares his final selections for DPOY, ROY, MIP, 6MOY and more.

Nekias Duncan's 2022-23 NBA award selections: DPOY, 6MOY, MIP, more

Nekias Duncan checks back in with this year's NBA award races with an in-depth look at who leads the pack through the end of February.

2022-23 NBA award front-runners Vol. 2: MVP, DPOY, ROY, more

Chris Ford, a member of the Boston Celtics 1981 championship team, a longtime NBA coach and the player credited with scoring the league&rsquo;s first 3-point basket, has died, his family announced in a statement. He was 74.
The family revealed the death through the Celtics on Wednesday. No official cause was given, but the statement said Ford passed away on Tuesday. The Press of Atlantic City <a href="https://pressofatlanticcity.com/sports/holy-spirit-grad-and-basketball-great-chris-ford-dies/article_f9c34ffa-940b-11ed-9363-4b0d850357a9.html">reported</a> he died in Philadelphia having suffered a heart attack earlier in the month.
&ldquo;Chris was beloved by his family, friends, and teammates. He had a great love for his family, the city of Boston, the fans, and the entire Celtics family,&rdquo; the family statement said. &ldquo;He always showed humility and respect for all those that were fortunate enough to be a part of his life.&rdquo;
Ford was voted the team&rsquo;s MVP in his first season with Boston. He retired following the 1981-82 season and was an assistant coach for the Celtics for seven seasons from 1983 to 1990, helping coach former teammates Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish to two titles in 1984 and 1986 while serving under coach K.C. Jones.
He is one of four former Celtics to have won championships as both a player and coach, joining Bill Russell, Tom Heinsohn and Jones.
&ldquo;As a player and coach, Chris Ford&rsquo;s career spanned over a decade of Celtics basketball, and he made his mark every step of the way,&rdquo; the Celtics said in a statement. &ldquo;&lsquo;Doc,&rsquo; as he was affectionately known by his teammates, was a fundamentally versatile all-around guard. &hellip; The Boston Celtics sends their deepest sympathies to the Ford family and their many friends.&rdquo;
Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Ford was drafted out of Villanova by the Detroit Pistons in 1972. He spent six seasons there before being traded to the Celtics. He averaged a career-high 15.6 points and 4.7 assists per game his first season in Boston in 1978-79. He opened the following season on Oct. 12, 1979, by sinking the first 3-point shot in NBA history in the first quarter of Boston's win over the Houston Rockets.
Ford succeeded Jimmy Rodgers as Celtics coach and led the team for five seasons from 1990-91 through 1994-95.
He compiled a 222-188 record with four playoff appearances as Boston&rsquo;s head coach, but his teams never advanced beyond the conference finals.
Ford also had a pair of two-year head coaching stints with the Milwaukee Bucks (1996-98) and Los Angeles Clippers (1998-2000). He began the 2003-04 season as an assistant for the Philadelphia 76ers and coached the final 30 games that season after Randy Ayers was fired.

The family revealed the death through the Celtics on Wednesday. The statement said Ford passed away on Tuesday.

Chris Ford, champ as player, coach with Celtics, dies at 74

Giannis Antetokounmpo set a career high <a href="https://apnews.com/article/milwaukee-bucks-philadelphia-76ers-washington-wizards-indiana-pacers-sports-82805995222618cd69855bdb39934d90">with 55 points</a> last Tuesday in Milwaukee's victory over Washington &mdash; and it wasn't even the week's top scoring performance in the NBA's Central Division.
That belonged to Cleveland's Donovan Mitchell, with <a href="https://apnews.com/article/kobe-bryant-chicago-bulls-cleveland-cavaliers-sports-nba-basketball-4000f884c911930cd172baa93ca42650">a staggering 71</a> the previous night.
The NBA these past few weeks has featured an almost nightly display of one-upmanship among the game's greatest scorers. Whether it was <a href="https://apnews.com/ef2ccddb44dd42fa14ebed5f8344c5a2">Mitchell's extraordinary effort</a> for the Cavaliers or Dallas' Luka Doncic reaching 50 points three times in a nine-day span, everywhere you turn, it seems like another player is putting up a huge total.
&ldquo;I think there are a lot of layers to it. You just see night after night, guys are having enormous offensive games,&rdquo; Wizards coach Wes Unseld Jr. said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s fun to watch as a fan, of course. Frustrating when you&rsquo;re trying to game plan to stop some of these guys because they&rsquo;re scoring at all levels &mdash; the paint, the 3s, getting to the line.&rdquo;
Ten different players have already scored 50 points in a game this season: Antetokounmpo, Mitchell, Doncic, Joel Embiid, Devin Booker, Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson, Pascal Siakam, Darius Garland and Stephen Curry.
Before 2016-17, no more than eight different players had ever had a 50-point game in one season, according to Sportradar. Since then, at least 10 have done it every season, including a record 14 in 2021-22. Some of this is to be expected in what has become a very high-scoring era. NBA teams were averaging 113.8 points per game entering Monday night, which if it continues would be the highest mark for the league since 1969-70. But the overall scoring environment tells only part of the story.
In that 1969-70 season, teams averaged 116.7 points, but only two players had a 50-point game. In 1984-85, the highest-scoring season of the 1980s, teams averaged 110.8 points. But only five players &mdash; Bernard King, Larry Bird, Purvis Short, Kevin McHale and Moses Malone &mdash; produced a 50-point game that season.
So what's happening lately is not just higher scoring league-wide. The top players are also producing huge games with remarkable frequency. Expansion may play a role. The number of teams is 30% higher than it was in 1985. More teams means more games, so it makes sense that there are more examples of a player scoring 50.
But the sport has changed in other ways, too.
&ldquo;Guys come into this league, and the most impressive thing is the skill set &mdash; the handle and the shooting," Golden State coach Steve Kerr said. "What&rsquo;s lacking, I think, is the foundation, the institutional knowledge that players used to have when they came into the league after a few years of college. Sometimes the defense isn&rsquo;t great. Transition defense is at an all-time low in this league.&rdquo;
Nowadays, basically every top scorer has some degree of proficiency from 3-point range, whereas back in the '80s, some stars largely ignored the shot and nobody attempted all that many.
&ldquo;Guys are taking 15 or 16 3s in some games,&rdquo; Los Angeles Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said. "Teams are encouraging guys to take those shots, and if you take so many shots, and if you get hot and make some, you can score a lot of points.&rdquo;
So current players have a variety of ways they can accumulate points in a hurry, and the 3-point shot affects the game even beyond that. With so many players capable of making open 3s, teams can space the floor in a way that punishes defenses for double teams.
&ldquo;You have to pick and choose the guys you try and double team and get the ball out of their hands because they are not great passers, but there are some guys who can score, but can also pick you apart with their passing,&rdquo; Lue said. &ldquo;So, when you have guys like that, you want to let those guys try and get theirs and take everyone else out, but sometimes it can backfire on you as well.&rdquo;
When King scored 60 points on Christmas in 1984, he didn't attempt a single 3. Even this year, Antetokounmpo didn't make any when he scored 55. But Mitchell attempted 15 and made seven in his 71-point game.
&ldquo;I think that 3-point line, as we&rsquo;ve seen over the years, has definitely changed the game,&rdquo; Memphis coach Taylor Jenkins said. &ldquo;Now you&rsquo;re getting more guys to embrace that. The volume of attempts creates those opportunities. It&rsquo;s pretty rare that guys are shooting 2 repeatedly to get to that 50-point mark. It&rsquo;s definitely the evolution of our game to see more of that. I would expect that trend to continue.&rdquo;
___
AP Sports Writer Pat Graham contributed to this report.

Ten different players have already scored 50 points in a game this season. Before 2016-17, no more than eight had done it in one year.

Three-point shooting leads to more NBA scoring binges

Kyrie Irving&rsquo;s first press conference after returning from his suspension was met by a barrage of reporters seemingly throwing a series of questions at him that could have potentially resulted in him being suspended again.
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The media smh <a href="https://t.co/6ZsGU5llll">pic.twitter.com/6ZsGU5llll</a>
&mdash; Etan Thomas (@etanthomas36) <a href="https://twitter.com/etanthomas36/status/1594830463675375620?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 21, 2022</a></blockquote>

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One interpretation is that the reporters were just doing their job in asking Kyrie the questions that inquiring minds would like answered. However, another interpretation is that Kyrie asked (very politely) if the reporters could simply stick to questions about the actual game, and they seemingly ignored his request and continued to ask questions that could potentially get him in hot water once again &mdash; an intentional attempt to set him up.
I wanted to delve deeper into this topic, so I reached out to journalist Chuck Modiano, who is a senior writer for Deadspin and has also written for the New York Daily News.
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Etan Thomas: Does it seem like the media is now picking on Kyrie?
Chuck Modiano: Let me first say that you have been doing a great job on social media covering this.
Thomas: Oh, I appreciate that.
Modiano: No problem. Well, there are definitely a couple of members who keep harping on it, but the problem is, they don&rsquo;t do that to other athletes. I don&rsquo;t think Jerry Jones is going to be peppered the same way. I know initially they asked him, but I doubt the questions will continue. I could be wrong, but we&rsquo;ll see. But the double standard always exists with Black athletes and it always has, and part of that double standard is the makeup of the press &mdash; and what the press finds noteworthy and not noteworthy to pursue. So yeah, it&rsquo;s definitely there and will continue to be there and we have to keep calling it out.
Thomas: I agree, but I don&rsquo;t see enough people calling it out and that&rsquo;s the part that frustrates me. It seems like it&rsquo;s just accepted. And let&rsquo;s take the actual content of everything that happened with Kyrie out of the discussion for a moment, and just compare this to how, say, Brett Farve was dealt with in the media. I mean, he didn&rsquo;t have to do anything &mdash; he didn&rsquo;t have to apologize or nothing?
Modiano: I think Brett Favre is a great recurring example. With Kyrie, it goes so far beyond the initial discussion of anti-semitism. It goes to something greater in media. The Black athlete is profitable and the Black athlete&rsquo;s perceived misbehavior is profitable. And we know this when a discussion should shift and it does not. So I&rsquo;ll give you an example. So there was a period of time where the discussion moved from Kyrie Irving to Jeff Bezos &mdash; let&rsquo;s hold Amazon accountable. He&rsquo;s making all this money off "Hebrews To Negroes." And let&rsquo;s form a petition, etc. And there were some famous actors joining in the charge. Rolling Stone actually had pictures of those actors, but most publications, even if the article was focused on Jeff Bezos and Amazon, still had the cover picture of Kyrie. So I said, "Well, that&rsquo;s not about perceived anti-semitism, that&rsquo;s about anti-Blackness." Because, again, the whole article was about Jeff Bezos and Amazon, so why is Kyrie on the cover picture? That was an editorial choice and that&rsquo;s when you have to examine the fact that anti-Blackness will get you more clicks and there is more profit in anti-Blackness.
Thomas: That&rsquo;s interesting. Now that you say that, I definitely noticed that as well. And to your point, there are a lot of Black media that participate in that as well. Right now, there are a lot of people trying to give Jerry Jones a pass. I just saw Stephen A. Smith and Jason Whitlock both defending him today. I actually tweeted about it.
Modiano: It&rsquo;s completely ridiculous. And listen, I am someone who has marched with former Nazis who are now against Nazis and are now on the anti-racism side and it&rsquo;s their life mission to flip other Nazis. So I am someone who believes to the greatest extent that reform is possible. But let&rsquo;s take Jerry Jones here, and put aside the fact that probably 95% of white people in Arkansas in 1957 more than likely shared a certain belief about Black people, I think we can safely say that. But not everyone joined a mob to terrorize Black students, so there is a difference between racist thoughts and racist actions. And it&rsquo;s important to remember that in 1954, the Brown vs. Board of Education was put into law, and the one of the ways white people would fight against that law was through mob action, and Jerry Jones was a part of that. So if you&rsquo;re going to tell me he&rsquo;s changed, I need to see it. I see his comments about [Colin] Kaepernick. I see the fact that he has never had a Black head coach. I see him donating half a million to Governor [Greg] Abbott&rsquo;s campaign. This doesn&rsquo;t sound like he has changed too much since 1957.
Thomas: And the same with Brett Favre. I haven&rsquo;t seen anything where he's tried to make amends after this $77 million Mississippi state-welfare-fund scandal or any evidence that he has changed. They say it&rsquo;s always something with Kyrie; well, it&rsquo;s always something with Brett Favre, right?
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<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/JerryJones?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#JerryJones</a> <a href="https://t.co/kpy9G3XaFU">pic.twitter.com/kpy9G3XaFU</a>
&mdash; Etan Thomas (@etanthomas36) <a href="https://twitter.com/etanthomas36/status/1596296501747228674?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 26, 2022</a></blockquote>

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<div>Modiano: Oh, don&rsquo;t get me started on Brett. He has a long, ugly history and I&rsquo;m not just talking about outwardly supporting Donald Trump at the height of his racism and Charlottesville and Jan. 6th, or the inappropriate messages and nude pictures he sent to New York Jets game day host Ms. Sterger, but yes there is definitely enough history for there to be much more upheaval of outrage from the media. So we have to ask, why is the Brett Favre scandal not given the same attention and scrutiny as Kyrie? The answer could be simply that Brett Favre is not going to produce the amount of clicks that Kyrie will. But then you have to ask: why is Kyrie going to produce more clicks? Because Brett is retired and Kyrie is an active player? I don&rsquo;t think that&rsquo;s it. I think it&rsquo;s because of anti-Blackness. We have a white customer service base that likes to see Black athletes being denigrated and will use Black media talking heads, like the ones you named before, to do the actual denigrating. That&rsquo;s the bottom line. So some will say, "No, it&rsquo;s the anti-semitism that is a much bigger issue." Well, if that were the case, all forms of perceived anti-semitism would garner the same reaction that Kyrie did, and it doesn&rsquo;t.</div>
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<div>Thomas: And to your point, let me read this <a href="https://twitter.com/shaunking/status/1596184440513777665" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tweet from Shaun King</a> that read: &ldquo;So we now know that Donald Trump just had dinner with one of the most explicit bigots and Holocaust-deniers in the world right now, Nick Fuentes. I need to see if Trump and the people who support him get the Kyrie Irving treatment now. I seriously doubt it." Now they can&rsquo;t say that Kyrie has more power and influence than Trump, so will there be a big outrage about Trump?&nbsp;</div>
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<div>Modiano: We already know the answer to that. Of course there won&rsquo;t and Nick Fuentes is a proud white supremacist and racist. He is an actual Holocaust denier and has spewed actual anti-semetic rhetoric out of his mouth. And Trump has himself said a lot of perceived, I&rsquo;ll say, antisemitic statements. So in comparing the reaction of that to Kyrie, you&rsquo;re right; it&rsquo;s not the same outrage.&nbsp;A few years ago, I wrote an article with the New York Daily News asking, "Why are we not critiquing white athletes?" Whether it&rsquo;s Tom Brady with the Trump hat in his locker or Brett Favre posing in a picture with him on the golf course, where were those same reporters who pressed Kyrie then? Where were the pointed questions that we are seeing repeatedly with Kyrie? So if we are going to have a media that is critiquing athletes the way they are with Kyrie, ok that&rsquo;s fine, but let&rsquo;s do it with the white athletes too.&nbsp;</div>
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<div>Thomas: So, how can Kyrie navigate through this? Because it seems like the media is going to continue to press him on topics where they&rsquo;re almost trying to play GOTCHA with him. He has to meet with the media, or he&rsquo;ll get fined. So should he just keep repeating the phrase, "Can you please only ask me basketball questions?" Or do the Marshawn Lynch ("I&rsquo;m just here so I won&rsquo;t get fined")?</div>
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<div>Modiano: I&rsquo;ll tell you what, I thought he turned the Thanksgiving question on its head pretty nicely. I thought it was brilliant how he navigated that. He ended positively, he wished everyone a happy holiday, and he did it with a smile, but he also made the point clear: I&rsquo;m not personally celebrating Thanksgiving. And I think that&rsquo;s great because it now brings the much larger discussion that is not going on about the actual history of Thanksgiving and the treatment of indigenous people of this country, so I thought he navigated that question brilliantly.&nbsp;</div>
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<div>Thomas: But do you think the media was again trying to pick at him? I tweeted about this and it got a very strong response. Anyone who has been even remotely following the NBA knows about Kyrie Irving&rsquo;s connection to his Native American heritage. When I saw that, I was like, "Are they just trolling Kyrie now?" They could&rsquo;ve asked any other player on the team that, but they ask him in particular? I just don&rsquo;t think they would&rsquo;ve asked Deni Avdija (the Washington Wizards forward who is Jewish) if he would like to wish everyone out there a Merry Christmas; I just personally don&rsquo;t think they would.&nbsp;</div>
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They know Kyrie Irving doesn&rsquo;t celebrate Thanksgiving and they know exactly why because he has explained his connection to his Native American heritage and the celebrated slaughter of his people. The media is being very intentional right now with Kyrie <a href="https://t.co/RCKWhaJn0I">https://t.co/RCKWhaJn0I</a>
&mdash; Etan Thomas (@etanthomas36) <a href="https://twitter.com/etanthomas36/status/1595784312359624707?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 24, 2022</a></blockquote>
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<div>Modiano: So, I&rsquo;m leaning toward what you&rsquo;re saying. I don&rsquo;t know who the particular reporter was, I don&rsquo;t know the history, and we have to look at media collectively, not just this one person.&nbsp;</div>
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<div>Thomas: Oh yeah, it wasn&rsquo;t particular to Meghan Triplett, the Nets new sideline reporter; I wasn&rsquo;t saying that. I was just using this one instance as yet another example, not her in particular. &nbsp;</div>
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<div>Modiano: Right, but I think collectively, it&rsquo;s no question the media has a double standard with Kyrie. It&rsquo;s abundantly clear. So I&rsquo;ll say it like this: I can&rsquo;t say definitively that it&rsquo;s a racial double standard, but I will say that it&rsquo;s worthy of an investigation of a possibly racial double standard. And it&rsquo;s not just Kyrie, there has been a racial double standard historically with Black athletes for decades.&nbsp;</div>
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<div>Thomas: So let me ask you this: People like Shaq and Charles Barkley were very direct with their critique of Kyrie. I actually tweeted about this as well.&nbsp;</div>
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Immediately they got <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CharlesBarkley?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CharlesBarkley</a> to go live and condemn <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/KyrieIrving?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#KyrieIrving</a> and I know he hadn&rsquo;t actually watched <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HebrewsToNegroes?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HebrewsToNegroes</a> to even know what he was talking about. But Barkley is one of the go to Black Media used to condemn Black People and it&rsquo;s sad<a href="https://t.co/58aGoedJo8">https://t.co/58aGoedJo8</a> <a href="https://t.co/XC1kdKqKXi">pic.twitter.com/XC1kdKqKXi</a>
&mdash; Etan Thomas (@etanthomas36) <a href="https://twitter.com/etanthomas36/status/1595022874901090311?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 22, 2022</a></blockquote>
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<div>Modiano: I&rsquo;m telling you, you&rsquo;ve been on it on social media. And your interviews have been great too. Different perspectives. You even got a Rabbi! I haven&rsquo;t seen anyone go to the length to actually sit down with a Rabbi and discuss this.</div>
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<div>Thomas: (Laughing) Well, there&rsquo;s been a lot to cover, but it seems like people like Charles Barkley and those of his ilk are just not willing to move past it. He brought it up again last night, saying he was disappointed that more NBA players didn&rsquo;t come out and speak against him. I&rsquo;m just like... he has apologized, served his suspension, went through the entire ridiculous six-step criteria they laid out for him, met with Adam Silver, met with Joe Tsai, and they all gave him the stamp of approval that he is not anti-semitic (although he never said anything out of his mouth that was anti-semitic). He went through all of those steps, so how long will it be before the media as a collective whole stops trolling him?&nbsp;</div>
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<div>Modiano: My response to the many problematic things that come out of Charles Barkley&rsquo;s mouth is: Why is he being uplifted as this voice of Black America or something? I remember a few years ago, CNN did this series called Race In America, led by Charles Barkley. What qualified him to lead that series?&nbsp;</div>
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<div class="mceNonEditable"><spike>&nbsp;</spike></div>
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<div>Thomas: They could&rsquo;ve gotten Craig Hodges, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Colin Kaepernick, John Carlos, Tommie Smith or if they wanted contemporary athletes, they could&rsquo;ve gotten LeBron James, Eric Reid, Jaylen Brown, the Olympian Gwen Berry, Swin Cash... There are so many combinations of athlete activists they could&rsquo;ve gotten. And I interviewed most of them in my book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/We-Matter-Athletes-Activism-Sports/dp/1617755915/ref=nodl_?dplnkId=66c9a448-2d15-42b5-ad8b-555bf1229604" target="_blank" rel="noopener">"We Matter: Athletes And Activism.&rdquo;&nbsp;</a></div>
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<div>Modiano: Right, but they didn&rsquo;t want any of them, they wanted Charles Barkley. Why? The same reason he was on CNN being the spokesperson of Black America, which I believe you tweeted about too.</div>
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<div>Thomas: Yes, <a href="https://twitter.com/etanthomas36/status/1594710024969912322?s=46&amp;t=DudNOqBBO4hPI-A58FFLUg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">I did actually.</a>&nbsp;</div>
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<div>Modiano: I told you, you&rsquo;ve been on it! (laughing) But why Charles Barkley? Because they know what his position will be on the topic, so it doesn&rsquo;t matter that he doesn&rsquo;t have a rich history of social justice like all the athletes you mentioned before and interviewed in your book. They like the positions he takes so that will trump his actual qualifications. Same with Herschel Walker. But just think about it, they don&rsquo;t do that with white athletes; they don&rsquo;t turn them into the spokespersons for white America on race relations. Anybody know where Larry Bird stands on anything? Kevin McHale? Dirk? Jerry West? Chris Mullin? We have to question these networks who continue to put the mic in Charles Barkley&rsquo;s face but at the same time, we know the answer. It&rsquo;s because he is saying what they want to hear a Black person say. Anti-Black is anti Black whether it&rsquo;s on Fox News, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Jason Whitlock or Charles Barkley.</div>
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<div>Thomas: So basically, a lot of people in the media are pawns like Kyrie said&hellip; You don&rsquo;t have to answer that. Like you said, we already know the answer.</div>
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<div>Check out these related episodes of "The Rematch."</div>
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<div>Craig Hodges and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf:</div>
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<div>Rabbi Harry Rozenberg:</div>
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<div>Dave Zirin:</div>
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Has the media treated Kyrie Irving fairly? Etan Thomas sits down with journalist Chuck Modiano to discuss the coverage of Irving.

How long will the media continue to troll Kyrie Irving?

Welcome to Basketball News' 10-part mini-series, Blazing the Trail, where Mat Issa breaks down the most revolutionary players of the 1990s and 2000s. Throughout this series, we'll examine how these players changed basketball and pioneered their respective skills.
In this fourth installment, Mat goes in-depth on one of the greatest shooters of all-time: Reggie Miller. He explains what made him different from the marksmen who came before him, with insights from his former coaches in Indiana &mdash; Dan Burke and Bob Ociepka &mdash; his former teammate Rik Smits and basketball analyst Mike Prada.
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In his critically acclaimed, historical rendition of the NBA, "The Book of Basketball," The Ringer's Bill Simmons ranked NBA and Indiana Pacers legend Reggie Miller outside of the top 60 all-time:
&ldquo;Reggie Miller was the most overrated &lsquo;superstar&rsquo; of the past thirty years,&rdquo; Simmons opined.
To Simmons' credit, however, he later retracted this statement in the sequel podcast, "<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/book-of-basketball-2-0/id1483525141?i=1000462435000">The Book of Basketball 2.0.</a>" Revising his previous comments, Simmons suggested that in today's game, Miller would indeed constitute superstar status.
But what if Miller would have been a superstar in any era? What if he was an elite scorer and playmaker in ways that we couldn&rsquo;t comprehend during his time? And what if he served as an inspiration to the most prolific dynasty of the NBA's pace-and-space era?
Let's find out.
WHAT MADE MILLER SPECIAL
As a child, Miller would regularly participate in 1-on-1 matchups against his older sister, Cheryl, who turned out to be one of the greatest women's basketball players of all-time prior to untimely injuries. (She's enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.)
Because of Cheryl's superior size and strength, Reggie going inside was a moot point.
&ldquo;One of the reasons I practiced shooting from the outside was that Cheryl used to block my shots when I drove to the hoop,&rdquo; Miller recalled in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Love-Being-Enemy-Reggie-Miller/dp/0684870398" target="_blank" rel="noopener">his autobiography</a>. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a bad feeling when your sister is knocking your best stuff into the rosebushes.&rdquo;
To defeat his sibling, Miller needed to hone in on his perimeter game.&nbsp;
That's exactly what he did.
Miller endured his sister&rsquo;s challenges and triumphed to become one of the premier shooters the NBA had ever seen. According to Cerebro Sports' Three-Point Efficiency metric (a shooting metric that combines three-point volume and efficiency to show the most lethal shooters), Miller finished in the 97th percentile or higher in all but one year from 1988 to 2004.
(The 2002-03 campaign was the exception, where he finished in the 94th percentile).
<img src="https://cdn.basketballnews.com/images/story/body/2.png" alt="" width="550" height="550" />
Visual provided by Cerebro Sports
Even more impressive is how he earned his standing in this data set. Unlike many of the great shooters of his time &mdash; who made their mark primarily off standstill catch-and-shoot opportunities &mdash; a majority of Miller&rsquo;s triples came while he was circling the half-court at top speed.
And again, much like his pickup contests growing up, this strategy was rooted in necessity.
&ldquo;The chances for spot-up [threes] weren&rsquo;t really there,&rdquo; said Dan Burke, Miller&rsquo;s former coach in Indiana and now an assistant with the Philadelphia 76ers. &ldquo;You have to have a real big, key player [you&rsquo;re playing off of] to get spot-ups.&rdquo;
To back Burke's words, think of one of the other notable three-point shooters of that time: Dan Majerle. Throughout his time in Phoenix and Miami, Majerle was gifted with potent penetrators like Kevin Johnson and Tim Hardaway, who could both consistently <a href="https://streamable.com/wd17v5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">break down a defense and get two feet in the paint</a>.
Meanwhile, Miller&rsquo;s most accomplished backcourt mate, Mark Jackson, was more of a post facilitator than a downhill threat.
Instead, Miller achieved sage status in the art of movement shooting. And for those following along at home, his technique can be divided into <a href="https://youtu.be/tv3EyzBuRb4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">three keys</a>.
Key 1: Set up the Defender
Miller was an avid participant in basketball grappling &mdash; the practice of using physicality to manipulate and gain separation from your defender.
&ldquo;[Miller] embraced contact and sometimes got the feel of a guy so [he] could push off him and get open,&rdquo; Burke said.
The cunning sharpshooter also deployed harsh cuts and abrupt changes in speed to further decrease the likelihood that his opponent could shadow his movements.
&ldquo;When you watch him, it wasn&rsquo;t always the same speed,&rdquo; Burke continued. &ldquo;He changed speeds. He&rsquo;d stop and go.&rdquo;
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Key 2: Read the Screen
Once he gained a step, Miller could interpret his optimal route-running path based on the direction his defender was chasing him. If his defender trailed outside the screen, Miller would juke inwards. If his defender rushed from the inside, Miller would retreat outside.
Miller's astute ability in this regard was largely based upon the continuity he achieved with his screen-setting bigs &mdash; Antonio Davis, Dale Davis and Rik Smits.
&ldquo;We would run through our sets almost every practice,&rdquo; Smits recalled to Basketball News. &ldquo;[A lot] of dummy offenses. Just run, run, run. We really concentrated on getting good screens set just to take full advantage of everything [Miller brought to the table].&rdquo;
"Reggie would talk to those bigs too," Burke added. "'Just stand there, I&rsquo;ll use you.'&rdquo;
Key 3: Footwork
Miller boasted balletic footwork, akin to that of a peak-<a href="https://youtu.be/Ye7xMqYqAbA">Torture Chamber Kevin McHale</a>, able to stop and pop effortlessly regardless of his travel velocity and angle.
&ldquo;[Typically], if you are right-handed, you want to come off [a pindown screen] going to your left so that your shoulder is closer to the rim,&rdquo; Burke said. &ldquo;It didn&rsquo;t matter with Reggie. He could come with his right hand or with his left hand.&rdquo;
Miller's ambidexterity is a testament to his impeccable footwork. The direction didn't matter because his stride was sound both ways. And his ability to maintain balance during these sequences is even more impressive when you consider the defensive physicality that was accepted during his era.
&ldquo;Every time a guy like Reggie cut through the lane, the goal was to smack him. We used to say, &lsquo;Pinball him,&rsquo;" Burke recalled.&nbsp;
&ldquo;The league allows no &lsquo;impeding&rsquo; cutters now. There was much more holding then. But Reggie would stay locked and still get a rhythm jumper.&rdquo;
Here are all three of those keys in action:
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ON-COURT PRODUCTION
Miller&rsquo;s shooting served as a double-edged sword for his reputation. On one end, he was revered as one of the game&rsquo;s top snipers. On the other, he&rsquo;d been pigeonholed into a singular role on the floor.
However, Miller was more than a marksman. He was a three-level scorer who utilized the <a href="https://streamable.com/ykdkx5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">triple-threat</a> position to score from the mid-range and at the rim.
&ldquo;One thing Reggie worked on, we used to call it &lsquo;Pete Newell,&rsquo;" Burke explained. &ldquo;Pete Newell was an old coach who used to have a big-man camp. His whole thing was: Jab, catch, create space. If the guy doesn&rsquo;t honor your jab, you go by him. If he backs up, you raise up and shoot it.
&ldquo;It was a series. And [Reggie] really worked on it.&rdquo;
This combination of three-level scoring and high conversion rates from the most efficient spots on the floor made Miller arguably the best backcourt scorer of the 1990s not named Michael Jordan.
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To compare the two, from 1989 to 1999, Miller tallied nine seasons where he ranked in the 90th percentile in both scoring volume and efficiency, while Jordan only touted two such seasons.&nbsp;
Additionally, Miller&rsquo;s unpredictable tendencies coming off screens and counter-laden arsenal made him one of the few stars to rarely improve his volume and efficiency during postseason play.
For instance, in 1994-95, Miller averaged 23.9 points per 75 possessions on 62.0% True Shooting. In the playoffs, those averages ballooned to 28.0 points and 63.2% True Shooting, respectively.&nbsp;
To show how rare that is, there was an inverse trend of that with John Stockton and Mitch Richmond &mdash; two guards who were (<a href="https://twitter.com/matissa15/status/1556676428426612738?s=20&amp;t=haKXS_VAVIAeIw7hLdSqkQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrongfully?</a>) regularly awarded All-NBA selections over Miller.&nbsp;
WEAVING THE THREAD
The first guard to function as an off-ball superstar was John Havlicek. When "Hondo" wasn&rsquo;t ripping and running in transition, he was usually <a href="https://streamable.com/uzgwhw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">curling off screens</a> for leaning mid-range jumpers.
A post-three-point line precursor to Miller was Joe Dumars (who coincidentally probably also took some of his All-NBA accolades). Another one of Miller&rsquo;s coaches in Indiana, Dick Versace, spent time as an assistant on the Detroit Pistons before becoming the head coach of the Pacers in 1988.
&ldquo;Joe Dumars had that knack for getting free off screens,&rdquo; said Bob Ociepka, an assistant on Versace's staff in Indiana and a 23-year NBA coach. &ldquo;Coach Versace, coming from [Detroit], ran a lot of the things Chuck Daly did &mdash; [like Dumars] coming off those staggered screens from the baseline.&rdquo;
Miller expressed a great admiration toward Dumars, even going as far as to call him the "unsung MVP of Dream Team II" in his book.
Dale Ellis was another <a href="https://twitter.com/matissa15/status/1555600444763869186?s=20&amp;t=EBeojEhLms-WUc2csgmNdA" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sniper</a> from that generation who cratered defenses using floppy action &mdash; a play in which a player, positioned under the basket, can choose whether to cut off a single screen to one side or a double screen to the other, per Basketball Dictionary.
However, because of the typical constraints placed on 2-guards at the time, neither Dumars nor Ellis could fully leverage their shooting prowess to their advantage.
&ldquo;[In that era], the shooting guard was supposed to be Jordan-esque,&rdquo; said Mike Prada, editor at The Athletic and "Spaced Out" <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Spaced-Out-Three-Point-Revolution-Everything/dp/1629378860/ref=asc_df_1629378860/?tag=hyprod-20&amp;linkCode=df0&amp;hvadid=564700905732&amp;hvpos=&amp;hvnetw=g&amp;hvrand=6603785140486578978&amp;hvpone=&amp;hvptwo=&amp;hvqmt=&amp;hvdev=c&amp;hvdvcmdl=&amp;hvlocint=&amp;hvlocphy=9016969&amp;hvtargid=pla-1645726366795&amp;psc=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">author</a>. &ldquo;You were an all-around player, you got a lot of rebounds and assists, you went 1-on-1 a lot, you were explosive, you could dunk on people &mdash; sort of that Platonic Ideal.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Miller was different from those guards; he didn&rsquo;t possess the same ball-handling or rebounding acumen. He was an outlier who weaponized his extraordinary gift to buoy an offense almost entirely through his off-ball presence.
Notably, the Pacer legend pioneered a term deeply entrenched in today&rsquo;s basketball jargon: gravity.
Dangerous from deep, Miller made <a href="https://en.mimi.hu/basketball/double_down.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">doubling down</a> on his big-men teammates in the post a conversation killer. Teams would rather face guard him at the three-point line than send reinforcements to the interior, which opened up room for his low-post executioners to make decisions.
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Smits expressed a great deal of gratitude for the space Miller provided him to operate.
&ldquo;I was glad he was on my team. I could tell you that,&rdquo; Smits laughed.&nbsp;
Miller&rsquo;s landscape-altering effect is felt when you look through the lens of historian Ben Taylor&rsquo;s passing and playmaking statistics.
For example, in 1993-94, Gary Payton finished in the 80th percentile in Taylor&rsquo;s Box Creation stat &mdash; a metric that estimates playmaking (per <a href="https://backpicks.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Backpicks.com</a>). Payton did this while simultaneously scoring in the 94th percentile in Passer Rating.
In the same season, despite only scoring in the 37th percentile in passing, Miller finished in the 77th percentile in playmaking.
Miller wasn&rsquo;t the on-ball initiator that Payton was, but this conveys that the former was still able to operate as a high-end creator thanks to the attention he garnered from his opponents.
&ldquo;The thing that Reggie Miller had that we didn&rsquo;t know how to identify back when he played &mdash; but now it&rsquo;s a no-brainer concept &mdash; is this idea of gravity,&rdquo; Prada said.
IMPACT ON TODAY'S GAME
In many circles, Ray Allen is often cited as the disciple who bears the most resemblance to Miller. Along with Allen, Richard Hamilton, JJ Redick and Kyle Korver have all played the part of "<a href="https://grantland.com/features/kyle-korver-nba-atlanta-hawks/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">offense unto themselves</a>" by utilizing their off-ball gravitational pull.
In the current NBA landscape, Miller&rsquo;s most obvious descendants share the same squad.
&ldquo;Two guys on the same team,&rdquo; Burke pointed out. "Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson."
The dynastic Golden State Warriors have become famous for pushing the boundaries of time and space by exploiting the shooting gravity their dynamic duo wields.&nbsp;
And, as fate would have it, Miller also once teamed up with a fellow gravity co-founder, Chris Mullin.&nbsp;
Mullin was arguably the closest comparison to Miller at the time, and together, the tandem caused wide-scale chaos and confusion &mdash; the likes of which the league would not see again until the Splash Brothers coalesced in the Bay Area nearly two decades later.
Tell me if these sequences look familiar:
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In both plays, the two pairs create a defensive breakdown simply by running past each other in the opposite direction.
Even more poetic, take a look at the Pacers&rsquo; opponent in the first clip. Who was a reserve on that team? None other than Warriors head coach Steve Kerr.
&ldquo;All of the stuff that the Warriors did in the early days with the Steph/Klay combo &mdash; the crazy, figure-eight-type stuff &mdash; was very much ripped right from the Pacers,&rdquo; Prada explained.
Golden State expanded on Miller&rsquo;s semi-contained havoc, turning half-court offensive sets into absolute anarchy.
Miller&rsquo;s movement authored a great deal of mayhem, more than anyone of his time, but he was still forced to rein it in a bit to accommodate the structure of his offense. Nowadays, engines like Curry and Thompson have the discretion to graze the terrain as they see fit.
&ldquo;[For Miller], his was set plays, so it was easier for teams to really dial in,&rdquo; Burke explained. &ldquo;Curry is more of a constant, built into a random system.&rdquo;
But it was still the audacious Miller who paved the way. He crawled so that the Golden State empire could walk.
&ldquo;He was this type of player that, in an era that did not have a blueprint for this style of play, he provided it,&rdquo; Prada concluded.&nbsp;
He's the player responsible for the outline that triggered a dynasty.
Are we sure Reggie Miller was overrated?
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://cdn.basketballnews.com/images/story/body/img_5152.jpg" alt="" width="550" height="550" />
Tune in next week for Part V of Blazing the Trail, which focuses on Andrei Kirilenko &mdash; the five-tool defender.
<a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/nba-blazing-the-trail-shane-battier-the-databall-defender-memphis-grizzlies-houston-rockets-miami-heat-daryl-morey-david-fizdale-detroit-pistons-draymond-green" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to read Part III: "Shane Battier, the data-ball defender."</a>
<a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/nba-blazing-the-trail-rashard-lewis-all-star-stretch-four-orlando-magic-stan-van-gundy-dwight-howard-hedo-turkoglu" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to read Part II: "Rashard Lewis, the All-Star stretch 4."</a>
<a href="https://www.basketballnews.com/stories/nba-blazing-the-trail-steve-nash-phoenix-suns-mike-dantoni-raja-bell-steph-curry-all-time-great-point-guard" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to read Part I: "Steve Nash, the magician who danced in the paint."</a>

In his "Blazing the Trail" series, Mat Issa analyzes all-time shooting great Reggie Miller and what separated him from the rest.

Blazing the Trail: Reggie Miller, the moving target

BOSTON (AP) &mdash; Celtics coach Ime Udoka has his priorities set for the final push to the playoffs, and trying to figure out Boston's best matchup isn't among them.
&ldquo;Teams manipulate where they want to play. We&rsquo;re not concerned about that,&rdquo; the rookie head coach said on Sunday after the Celtics cruised past the Minnesota Timberwolves 134-112 and climbed to the top of the Eastern Conference.
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s too much closeness to try to manipulate things and pick an opponent," Udoka said. &ldquo;Home court advantage is the main thing, and let the chops fall where they&rsquo;re going to fall.&rdquo;
Jayson Tatum scored 34 and Jaylen Brown had 31 points and 10 rebounds to lead Boston to its sixth straight win. The Celtics won for the 24th time in their last 28 games and, combined with the 76ers loss to Phoenix, took over the No. 1 spot in the East.
Boston and Miami have the same record at 47-28. The Celtics have beaten the Heattwice this season, and the teams meet again Wednesday.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s been a journey,&rdquo; Tatum said. &ldquo;We had to find our identity. Lost some teammates; got some new guys. We&rsquo;ve had to battle, but it&rsquo;s been fun. We had some tougher times, but we&rsquo;ve benefited from it, and made us better."
This win came at the expense of the team that until recently had been the one of the hottest in the NBA: Minnesota is 12-5 since the All-Star break, winning 10 of 11 before back-to-back losses to Phoenix and Dallas this week.
Anthony Edwards scored 24 and Karl-Anthony Towns added 19 as the Timberwolves opened a four-game road trip with a loss &mdash; their third in four games.
The Celtics scored 13 of the first 15 points in the second quarter to open a double-digit lead they never relinquished. It was 72-49 at halftime.
By that point, the only question was whether Tatum would move into the NBA lead in scoring. He did, finishing the day with 1,923 points to pass Atlanta's Trae Young (1,915) for the top spot.
The Celtics star already has one of the top 15 scoring seasons in Celtics history and has seven games left to become the seventh player in franchise history to top 2,000 points in a season. He would join John Havlicek, Paul Pierce, Larry Bird, Isaiah Thomas, Kevin McHale, Sam Jones.
OUT
The Celtics were without forward Al Horford, who missed the game for undisclosed personal reasons and is unlikely for Monday night in Toronto. Minnesota missed Malik Beasley, who left Friday night&rsquo;s game with a sprained ankle.
Brown and Tatum both tested their sore knees before the game and were cleared to play. Robert Williams III, who had 13 points and 10 rebounds, limped off the court at the end of the third quarter with the Celtics up 26, and did not return.
The team said he had a left knee sprain. Udoka said Williams had &ldquo;quite a bit of pain&rdquo; but the team would know more after seeing a scan on Monday.
Udoka said some players might sit out against Toronto in the second game of a back-to-back on Monday night &mdash; even with the East's top four seeds within a half-game of each other. (Boston and Miami were 47-28, with Milwaukee and Philadelphia at 46-28.)
&ldquo;As far as rest goes, that&rsquo;s the main thing,&rdquo; Udoka said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got some guys who&rsquo;ve got some nicks now and you have to be smart about it.&rdquo;
FINED
The NBA fined Timberwolves forward Taurean Prince $15,000 on Sunday for making an obscene gesture on the court in their 116-95 win over Dallas. At end of the third quarter of Friday night&rsquo;s game, Prince and Dallas&rsquo; Luka Doncic both got technical fouls for exchanging words.
TIP-INS
Towns was removed for a substitute late in the third quarter. He walked off the court and straight to the locker room. ... It&rsquo;s the seventh time this year Tatum and Brown have scored at least 30 apiece.
UP NEXT
Timberwolves: At Toronto on Wednesday night.
Celtics: At Toronto on Monday night.
&nbsp;

Jayson Tatum scored 34 as the Celtics beat the Timberwolves 134-112 and climbed to the top of the Eastern Conference.

Celtics beat T'Wolves 134-112, take over top spot in East

With a couple of curses, a primal scream, and a few tears, too, Kevin Garnett helped hoist his No. 5 to the TD Garden rafters on Sunday alongside the 2008 NBA championship banner he helped win after arriving in Boston.
On a day that featured live and video tributes from ex-teammates, former Celtics greats, other NBA A-listers &mdash; and even musician Kenny G &mdash; Garnett became the 24th person in franchise history have is number retired.
None of the previous honorees them had quite the same combination of intensity, hard work and humor that Garnett brought when he joined Paul Pierce and Ray Allen for a New Big Three that ended the longest title drought in franchise history.
&ldquo;Before he got here, we had one of our worst seasons. He was just that injection in the heart that we needed,&rdquo; Pierce, whose No. 34 was retired in 2018, said in the postgame ceremony. &ldquo;You brought a sense of culture to this team that was desperately, desperately needed. You brought Boston pride &mdash; Celtic pride &mdash; back.&rdquo;
Wearing a dark suit and a black turtleneck, with a Ukrainian flag ribbon on his lapel and a Celtics green pocket square, Garnett came onto the court with his daughters and was greeted by former teammate and current broadcaster Brian Scalabrine.
With the championship trophy on a table behind them, Scalabrine asked where Garnett got the passion that propelled him from the fifth overall draft pick out of a Chicago high school to the basketball Hall of Fame.
&ldquo;Nobody tells you how to use your superpower,&rdquo; Garnett said, adding that he watched his mother work hard to raise him. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s in my DNA. I figured it out.&rdquo;
The day also included a reunion with Allen, ending a public feud that began when the sharpshooting guard left the Celtics to sign with the Miami Heat. The two players hugged and were soon joined by Pierce before Garnett shouted into the microphone: &ldquo;Ray&rsquo;s next, damn it!&rdquo;
Garnett played only six seasons in Boston, but they included five of his 15 career All-Star appearances and the 2008 championship &mdash; the 17th for the Celtics. He was the 2004 MVP with Minnesota, where he started and ended his 21-year NBA career.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad to see you&rsquo;re a member of this elite club,&rdquo; Hall of Famer Bill Russell told him in a videotaped tribute. &ldquo;I always enjoyed watching you play, and now our jerseys hang together in the rafters.&rdquo;
The Celtics presented Garnett with a piece of the original parquet floor, a custom bottle of tequila, a portrait of him popping his Celtics jersey, and &ldquo;an NFT gift basket.&rdquo; His daughters joined him as he raised the banner to the rafters, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Other tributes came in from Kevin McHale, the Celtics Hall of Famer who was also the Timberwolves general manager who traded Garnett to Boston; the TNT broadcast crew, including Shaquille O&rsquo;Neal and Charles Barkley; Danny Ainge, the general manager who built the '08 championship team; and former teammates Kendrick Perkins and Rajon Rondo. (Former Piston Isiah Thomas, who was in the crowd, was booed.)
&ldquo;You changed the culture of the Boston Celtics. You taught us so much about what it takes to win,&rdquo; said ex-Celtics coach Doc Rivers, who is now coaching the Philadelphia 76ers. "Every coach in America &mdash; in the world &mdash; should have a chance to coach a Kevin Garnett, the greatest team player who ever played the game.&rdquo;
During the game, which the Celtics lost 95-92 to the Dallas Mavericks, videos regaled the fans with stories of Garnett's legendary intensity, including the time he challenged teammate Glen &ldquo;Big Baby&rdquo; Davis to arm wrestle.
Kenny G played &ldquo;Loving You&rdquo; on the saxophone. &ldquo;From one KG to another, congratulations,&rdquo; he said.
As fans filed out about an hour after the loss that snapped a five-game winning streak and was the day&rsquo;s only sour note, the arena rang out with the 1970s-era &ldquo;Gino Time&rdquo; video that the Celtics would play when Garnett&rsquo;s Celtics had wrapped up another victory.

With a couple of curses, a primal scream, and a few tears, Kevin Garnett helped hoist his No. 5 to the TD Garden rafters on Sunday.

Tears, swears as Celtics retire Kevin Garnett's No. 5

As I got heavily into the NBA when I was in high school, I found a particular affinity for the Sacramento Kings. Rudy Gay was the one for me, man. I loved the old UConn highlights and the dunk packages he put on display in Memphis and Toronto, and I was like "Okay, yes." I thought Ben McLemore as Ray Allen was a bit much, but Ben as Wes Matthews with more juice? I was in.
DeMarcus Cousins, he was an anomaly to me.
My entire time growing up as a casual fan of the game, the idea of centers with superlative ball skills never crossed my mind! My dad showed me reels of Kevin McHale, Moses Malone and other post-centric savants, so that was the foundation of what I thought a big man in basketball was.
And then I saw this for the first time!
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That was one of the first earth-shattering moments for me in sports.&nbsp;
All the concepts and boxes I'd placed big men into combusted like an atom bomb as soon as I saw that clip in study hall.
A 6-foot-11 center can run the floor and go for a coast to coast jam like THAT? 
I dove in more. I started to recognize the passing with more regularity. He expanded his game out to the perimter towards the end of his Sacramento tenure, taking over 5 threes per game prior to the trade to New Orleans. (There were a lot of "Is DeMarcus Cousins shooting too many threes?" questions, and I kept the receipts). The flashes of him and Anthony Davis together were mind-bending. That team was going to be my NBA League Pass darling.
Through the first 48 games prior to Boogie's injury, the Pelicans were 27-21 with the seventh-ranked offense in the league. Davis, Cousins and Jrue Holiday were beating teams by plus-6.9 points per 100 possessions when sharing the court. I'm not trying to plunge the knife deeper Pels fans, but man, people need to remember how freakin' good that team was!
New Orleans wasn't a title contender, but it had a foundation that was so enticing. The Pels went on to sweep the Portland Trail Blazers in that 2017-18 postseason in Jrue Holiday's national-coming-out party, and lost in five games to the Golden State Warriors in the second round. All without Cousins, who missed half of the season and the playoffs due to injury. Yeah, I'm choked up reminiscing on a Wednesday afternoon.
Injured again in Golden State the following campaign and bouncing around &mdash; playing in Houston and with the Los Angeles Clippers last year &mdash; Cousins went on to play just 71 regular-season games over the next three years.
However, earlier this season, he played 17 games with the Milwaukee Bucks. And while he wasn't perfect.... *whispers* I think they should have kept him. The physical limitations after his multitude of lower-body injuries have made him most suited as a drop defender; although, he had some interesting moments of playing at the level of the screen. When the Bucks waived him, I was kind of at a loss.
But I think he's more than proven that the decision may have been a mistake on Milwaukee's end as he's played perhaps his best basketball post-New Orleans as a Denver Nugget!
The Nuggets are 13-1 when Cousins plays, and while pointing the finger to him as the sole reason would be ridiculous, he's absolutely played a part in their success.
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In fact, Denver is 16-5 since Jan. 23 (Cousins' first game with Denver) with the sixth-ranked offense and defense in the league, per Cleaning the Glass. While On/Off stats are finicky, Nikola Jokic's plus-20.6-point differential is not a mirage. That number partially paints the picture of his MVP-caliber season as one of the most impactful individuals in the league. Yet, it also leaves brushstrokes of the struggles of Denver's bench this season.
Michael Porter Jr.'s injury pushed depth players into much larger roles than could have been conceived in the preseason. The lack of a true backup center on the roster was greatly felt, as JaMychal Green struggled to find consistency with his shot and Jeff Green at the 5 has been a mostly rough look.
Cousins, on the other hand, has been able to bring some real stability off the bench. The Nuggets can replicate some of their Jokic staple actions with Cousins' passing and court vision.
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0px; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.250%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; overflow: hidden;" src="https://streamable.com/e/wta64l" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" data-mce-fragment="1"></iframe></div>
He can attack off the bounce, his shot is enough of a threat to warrant regular-season closeouts and he makes really solid, quick decisions; defenses almost have to guard him out on the perimeter. He draws two with ease, absolutely feasting on post mismatches, but more importantly, he's drawing them routinely. He can create advantages and stir the drink at times for bench lineups.
Golden State and Houston left those games battered after dealing with Cousins on the interior.
He's been setting some absolutely bone-crushing screens, paving the way for Denver's guards and wings to open shots.
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0px; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.250%;">
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0px; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.250%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; overflow: hidden;" src="https://streamable.com/e/5wdzdk" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" data-mce-fragment="1"></iframe></div>
</div>
Cousins and Bones Hyland (<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/winners-lounge-bones-hyland-joins-the-show-to-break/id1070099369?i=1000553132548" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shout out to Bones and DNVR</a>) have sneakily developed a really nice two-man game in pick-and-roll.
Their chemistry has really seemed to bud over the past few weeks, Bones has continued to grow in his role, and the Nuggets' bench is steadily becoming at least neutral after being one of the worst units in the league earlier this season.
Bones-and-Boogie lineups are pummeling the opposition, scoring 123.2 points per 100 possessions per Cleaning the Glass (98th percentile). It's worth taking that with a grain of salt, as it's only a 198 possession sample, but it tracks with what's played out on the court.
Defensively, Cousins has, again, been solid. He's been fine as a drop defender, but the Nuggets have also tapped into some higher showing with him, or even all-out blitzes on unsuspecting guards. He's still got some short-area quickness that can take ball-handlers by surprise, along with some fantastic hand speed and hand-eye coordination to pick pockets.
<div style="width: 100%; height: 0px; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.250%;"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; overflow: hidden;" src="https://streamable.com/e/x27w1g" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" data-mce-fragment="1"></iframe></div>
That the Nuggets can run more than one base scheme with Cousins on the court has made it even more viable for him to play a significant amount of time.
Is Cousins a 13.2-point, 7.0-rebound, 3.0-assist, 2.1-steal/block-on-64.0%-True-Shooting guy moving forward (his six games since the All-Star Break)? Probably not! But, this stretch, along with his full tenure in Denve, has shown he has more than something in the tank. He's playing quality minutes and filling a void the Nuggets were unable to for half the season.
The Nuggets are 9-1 in their last 10, one-and-a-half games back from the No. 4 seed in the Western Confeerece, and Porter's <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2022/03/03/nuggets-michael-porter-jr-jamal-murray-grand-rapids/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">potential return looms on the horizon</a>. This team is good, and Cousins playing a small part in that has been awesome to watch unfold.
Keep Boogie and the Nuggets on your radar as the season closes.
<div class="mceNonEditable"><spike>&nbsp;</spike></div>
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After a slew of injuries and bouncing around as a journeyman for the past few seasons, DeMarcus Cousins has found a home in Denver.

Boogie's back: DeMarcus Cousins filling much-needed void for Nuggets

The&nbsp;<a class="c-link" tabindex="-1" href="https://www.basketballnetwork.net/heres-how-special-joe-johnsons-return-really-is/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-stringify-link="https://www.basketballnetwork.net/giannis-antetokounmpo-shares-why-he-doesnt-associate-or-practice-with-other-nba-players-in-the-offseason/" data-sk="tooltip_parent" data-remove-tab-index="true">following article</a>&nbsp;first appeared on&nbsp;<a class="c-link" tabindex="-1" href="http://basketballnetwork.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="http://BasketballNetwork.net" data-sk="tooltip_parent" data-remove-tab-index="true">BasketballNetwork.net</a>:
After ending a three-year absence from NBA basketball, "Iso" Joe Johnson is back with the Boston Celtics. He played less than one minute in his return to the NBA, but was able to knock down a late-game jumper for the team that drafted him in 2001.
Now, only he and the prestigious Dirk Nowitzki have scored buckets for the same team as a 20-year old and a 40-year old.&nbsp;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-theme="dark">
Players to score as a 20-year-old and a 40-year-old for the same NBA team: - Dirk Nowitzki, Dallas - Joe Johnson, Boston
&mdash; Tim Reynolds (@ByTimReynolds) <a href="https://twitter.com/ByTimReynolds/status/1473851864584183809?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 23, 2021</a></blockquote>

<script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>

For those who don&rsquo;t remember Johnson in a Celtics uniform during their famous Eastern Conference Finals juggernaut run in 2002, there&rsquo;s a key reason. The Phoenix Suns sent Tony Delk and Rodney Ray Rogers (who was once famous for scoring &zwnj;nine&zwnj; &zwnj;points&zwnj; &zwnj;in&zwnj; &zwnj;eight&zwnj; &zwnj;seconds&zwnj; &zwnj;against&zwnj; &zwnj;the&zwnj; &zwnj;Utah&zwnj; &zwnj;Jazz) away to Boston for Johnson in &zwnj;a&zwnj; &zwnj;late&zwnj;-February&zwnj; &zwnj;trade.
Is there a reason the Celtics had no idea that Iso Joe would go on to be one of the most gifted scorers of the 2000s, toppling over 20,000 points for his career and counting? The Celtics coach at the time, Rick Pitino, couldn&rsquo;t recognize young talent even if it started for him. Guess who the Celtics drafted No. 3 overall and let walk before the season even started?&nbsp;
Chauncey Billups! Thanks Pitino...
In the present day, there is a chance Johnson might mentor Jayson Tatum and teach him how to become an even greater iso player than he already is. Of course, this is only inhibiting the part of Tatum&rsquo;s game that doesn&rsquo;t involve teammates and leads to the occasional Marcus Smart callout. But hey, it&rsquo;s not like Johnson can do any harm to the Celtics&rsquo; chemistry and stylistic problems.
Would you have guessed that Johnson was a seven-time All-Star and an All-NBA player in 2010? That&rsquo;s as many All-Star appearances as Scottie Pippen, Kevin McHale and Willis Reed &ndash; all while competing with Allen Iverson, LeBron James, Tracy McGrady, Paul Pierce, Dwyane Wade, Gilbert Arenas, Vince Carter and Carmelo Anthony during his peak in the East from 2007-14.&nbsp;
Even if he doesn&rsquo;t stay past his 10-day contract, he is now on a Mount Rushmore with only Dirk Nowitzki&rsquo;s face beside him. Those accomplishments last forever.
With Lance Stephenson on the Hawks, Isaiah Thomas on the Lakers and now Johnson on the Celtics, it's only fitting to ask when Jamal Crawford is making his return. (He might be too busy with Quentin Richardson doing their &lsquo;NBA Hooper Vision&rsquo; stream for league pass games, though.)
Here's another name that comes to mind...
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-theme="dark">
😂😂😂😂😂 I can&rsquo;t <a href="https://t.co/aRHFJrw44b">https://t.co/aRHFJrw44b</a>
&mdash; DWade (@DwyaneWade) <a href="https://twitter.com/DwyaneWade/status/1473890924694413316?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 23, 2021</a></blockquote>

<script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>

It looks like Wade&rsquo;s already made it clear that you can cross him off of your Christmas wish list.&nbsp;
Check out more articles from BasketballNetwork.net&nbsp;<a href="https://www.basketballnetwork.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.

When Joe Johnson made an isolation jumper late in the fourth quarter for the Celtics, he joined another legend in NBA history.

Joe Johnson's NBA comeback was historically special

PHILADELPHIA (AP) &mdash; D&rsquo;Angelo Russell scored 35 points and had a decisive steal and assist in the final seconds of the second overtime in the Minnesota Timberwolves&rsquo; 121-120 victory over Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday night.
Embiid had 42 points and 14 rebounds in his return to the lineup after missing nine games because of COVID-19 protocols. Philadelphia lost seven of those games without the four-time All-Star and has now dropped eight of 10.
&ldquo;I really thought I wasn&rsquo;t going to make it,&rdquo; Embiid said. &ldquo;It was that bad. So, I&rsquo;m just thankful to be sitting here. I&rsquo;m just glad I got over it.&rdquo;
Tobias Harris returned from a two-game absence due to a hip injury to add 17 points and nine rebounds for Philadelphia.
<div class="Component-dfp-0-2-142">&nbsp;</div>
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s good to have Embiid back,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We missed him for sure.&rdquo;
Russell also made a go-ahead 3 late in the first overtime. Karl-Anthony Towns added 28 points and 10 rebounds but didn&rsquo;t play in the extra sessions after fouling out, and Anthony Edwards had 19 points. Minnesota has won six of seven.
&ldquo;That was probably one of the best (Russell) performances I&rsquo;ve ever seen,&rdquo; Towns said. &ldquo;Multiple times we could&rsquo;ve let go of the rope. We just made it our night. Instead of hoping the game came to us, we took the game. I&rsquo;m just very proud of the way we played.&rdquo;
Embiid scored all seven of Philadelphia&rsquo;s points in the second overtime, and his 12-foot baseline jumper put them up 120-117 with 1:58 to play. Naz Reid&rsquo;s layup pulled Minnesota within a point with 30.8 seconds left.
Then, Russell stole Tyrese Maxey&rsquo;s pass that was intended for Embiid before assisting on Taurean Prince&rsquo;s driving layup that put the Timberwolves up a point.
&ldquo;I wanted to adjust because they kept running that same play,&rdquo; Russell said. &ldquo;I just tried to keep my hand down there and anticipate the bounce pass and we got it when it mattered. (On the assist), I saw him running and saw the clock. We could put the pressure on them and get a layup and (Prince) is more than capable of making a layup, and he happened to make one of the most important ones of the game. It&rsquo;s just trusting teammates.&rdquo;
Philadelphia had one last chance to win it, but Edwards blocked Embiid&rsquo;s 3-point attempt at the buzzer.
&ldquo;Joel was phenomenal tonight, but we still lost the game,&rdquo; 76ers coach Doc Rivers said. &ldquo;Give him credit. He&rsquo;s obviously been working out.&rdquo;
TRAINER&rsquo;S ROOM
Timberwolves: Patrick Beverley (left abductor strain) missed his second straight game in what is expected to be at least a two-week absence after getting injured in Wednesday&rsquo;s 113-101 win over Miami.
76ers: Shake Milton (groin soreness) didn&rsquo;t play. &hellip; Harris returned after missing the last two games with a sore left hip. &hellip; Danny Green also was in the lineup for the second straight game. He had missed seven of the previous 11 contests with left hamstring tightness.
TIP-INS
Timberwolves: Coach Chris Finch grew up a 76ers fan in his hometown of Reading about 65 miles northwest of Philadelphia. &ldquo;I used to tell Kevin McHale all the time I used to come down here on Sundays at the Spectrum and boo him,&rdquo; Finch said. &ldquo;This was my team growing up. It was a heck of a time to be a fan in the late &rsquo;70&rsquo;s into the mid-80&rsquo;s. Dr. J was my favorite player growing up.&rdquo; &hellip; Won for the first time against Philadelphia since Nov. 17, 2016, snapping an eight-game losing streak. &hellip; Naz Reid finished with 15 points.
76ers: Ben Simmons worked out prior to the game. Simmons (personal reasons) hasn&rsquo;t played all season. &hellip; Veteran Philadelphia newscaster Jim Gardner rang the ceremonial Liberty Bell prior to the game. &hellip; Played for the first time in Philadelphia since Nov. 11. &hellip; Dropped to 4-5 at home.
UP NEXT
Timberwolves: Host Indiana on Monday night.
76ers: Host Orlando on Monday night.

Embiid scored 42 points and added 14 rebounds in the loss for the Sixers.

Timberwolves spoil Embiid’s 76ers return with 2OT victory

The NBA released the remaining 25 players of the league's 75th anniversary team Thursday night on TNT.
Here is the official release from the NBA, which lists all 75 players that made the team and the people that voted on the NBA's top 75 players of all-time team:
"A total of 158 NBA championships and 730 NBA All-Star selections. &nbsp;A combined 110 Kia NBA Most Valuable Player Awards and Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP Awards. &nbsp;More than 1.5 million points scored.
Those are just some of the collective accomplishments of the players who comprise the NBA 75th Anniversary Team, which was announced across TNT and ESPN from Oct. 19-21 as the league tipped off its landmark 75th Anniversary Season.
The NBA 75th Anniversary Team was selected by a blue-ribbon panel of current and former NBA players, coaches, general managers and team and league executives, WNBA legends and sportswriters and broadcasters. &nbsp;Voters were asked to select the 75 Greatest Players in NBA History without regard to position. &nbsp;Panelists did not rank their selections. &nbsp;Current and former players were not allowed to vote for themselves.
As a result of a tie in the voting, the 75th Anniversary Team features 76 players. &nbsp;Team highlights include:
&bull; Eleven active players have been named to the 75th Anniversary Team: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Carmelo Anthony, Stephen Curry, Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant, James Harden, LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Damian Lillard, Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook.
&bull; All 50 members of the NBA 50th Anniversary Team, which was named in 1996, have been selected to the 75th Anniversary Team.
&bull; The 75th Anniversary Team includes four players who played in the first NBA All-Star Game in 1951 (Paul Arizin, Bob Cousy, George Mikan and Dolph Schayes), the first winner of the Kia NBA Most Valuable Player Award (Bob Pettit for the 1955-56 season) and the first winner of the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP Award (Jerry West for the 1969 NBA Finals).
&bull; Bill Russell joins Cousy, Mikan and Pettit as the only four players who have been named to all four NBA Anniversary Teams: the 25th Anniversary Team (10 players named), 35th Anniversary Team (11 players named), 50th Anniversary Team and 75th Anniversary Team. (The 25th Anniversary Team was the only one of the four teams that did not allow for the inclusion of active players at the time.)
&bull; Six international players from six countries and territories have been selected to the 75th Anniversary Team: Antetokounmpo (Greece), Tim Duncan (U.S. Virgin Islands), Patrick Ewing (Jamaica), Steve Nash (Canada), Dirk Nowitzki (Germany) and Hakeem Olajuwon (Nigeria).
&bull; The five NBA legends who are serving as ambassadors for the 75th Anniversary Season are part of the 75th Anniversary Team: Clyde Drexler, Magic Johnson, Nowitzki, Pettit and Oscar Robertson. Representing different eras of the league&rsquo;s history, the ambassadors will make appearances throughout the 2021-22 season and have a significant presence at NBA All-Star 2022 in Cleveland.
The NBA 75th Anniversary Team is listed below in alphabetical order, followed by the list of voters. &nbsp;The balloting was tabulated by the independent accounting firm Ernst &amp; Young LLP. &nbsp;For player profiles on each member of the 75th Anniversary Team, click here and visit NBA.com/75."
<table style="width: 95.7926%; height: 464px;">
<tbody>
<tr style="height: 27px;">
<td style="text-align: center; width: 149.879%; height: 27px;" colspan="4" width="691">NBA 75TH ANNIVERSARY TEAM</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Kareem Abdul-Jabbar</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">Clyde Drexler</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">Damian Lillard</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">Scottie Pippen</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Ray Allen</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">Tim Duncan</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">Jerry Lucas</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">Willis Reed</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Giannis Antetokounmpo</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">Kevin Durant</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">Karl Malone</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">Oscar Robertson</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Carmelo Anthony</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">Julius Erving</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">Moses Malone</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">David Robinson</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Nate Archibald</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">Patrick Ewing</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">Pete Maravich</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">Dennis Rodman</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Paul Arizin</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">Walt Frazier</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">Bob McAdoo</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">Bill Russell</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Charles Barkley</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">Kevin Garnett</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">Kevin McHale</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">Dolph Schayes</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Rick Barry</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">George Gervin</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">George Mikan</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">Bill Sharman</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Elgin Baylor</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">Hal Greer</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">Reggie Miller</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">John Stockton</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Dave Bing</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">James Harden</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">Earl Monroe</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">Isiah Thomas</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Larry Bird</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">John Havlicek</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">Steve Nash</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">Nate Thurmond</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Kobe Bryant</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">Elvin Hayes</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">Dirk Nowitzki</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">Wes Unseld</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Wilt Chamberlain</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">Allen Iverson</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">Hakeem Olajuwon</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">Dwyane Wade</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Bob Cousy</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">LeBron James</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">Shaquille O&rsquo;Neal</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">Bill Walton</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Dave Cowens</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">Magic Johnson</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">Robert Parish</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">Jerry West</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Billy Cunningham</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">Sam Jones</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">Chris Paul</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">Russell Westbrook</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Stephen Curry</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">Michael Jordan</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">Gary Payton</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">Lenny Wilkens</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Anthony Davis</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">Jason Kidd</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">Bob Pettit</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">Dominique Wilkins</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 23px;">
<td style="width: 27.0755%; height: 23px;" width="173">Dave DeBusschere</td>
<td style="width: 27.5653%; height: 23px;" width="173">Kawhi Leonard</td>
<td style="width: 19.6609%; height: 23px;" width="173">Paul Pierce</td>
<td style="width: 75.5776%; height: 23px;" width="173">James Worthy</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
&nbsp;
<table style="width: 97.1703%; height: 798px;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center; width: 170.677%;" colspan="4" width="719">NBA 75TH ANNIVERSARY TEAM VOTING PANEL</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Kareem Abdul-Jabbar</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Tim Duncan</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Jack McCallum</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">David Robinson</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Marv Albert</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">David DuPree</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Brian McIntyre</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Bill Russell</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">David Aldridge</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Wayne Embry</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Ann Meyers</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Bob Ryan</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Sam Amick</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Julius Erving</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Yoko Miyaji</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Bill Simmons</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Giannis Antetokounmpo</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Patrick Ewing</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Earl Monroe</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Sam Smith</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Steve Aschburner</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Walt Frazier</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Steve Nash</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Stephen A. Smith</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Charles Barkley</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">George Gervin</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Rachel Nichols</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Marc Spears</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Rick Barry</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Russ Granik</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Dirk Nowitzki</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Erik Spoelstra</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Howard Beck</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Becky Hammon</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Shaquille O&rsquo;Neal</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">John Stockton</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Dave Bing</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Elvin Hayes</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Robert Parish</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Hannah Storm</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Sue Bird</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Ernie Johnson</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Candace Parker</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Sheryl Swoopes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Carol Blazejowski</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Magic Johnson</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Chris Paul</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Isiah Thomas</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Mike Breen</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Sam Jones</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Bob Pettit</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Rod Thorn</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Doris Burke</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Michael Jordan</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Scottie Pippen</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Rudy Tomjanovich</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Jerry Colangelo</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Steve Kerr</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Gregg Popovich</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Peter Vecsey</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Doug Collins</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Bob Lanier</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Shaun Powell</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Bill Walton</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Cynthia Cooper</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Kara Lawson</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Ahmad Rashad</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Rick Welts</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Bob Costas</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Lisa Leslie</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Willis Reed</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Jerry West</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Dave Cowens</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Nancy Lieberman</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Tim Reynolds</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Michael Wilbon</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Billy Cunningham</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Zach Lowe</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Bill Rhoden</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Lenny Wilkens</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Stephen Curry</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Jerry Lucas</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Pat Riley</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">James Worthy</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Clyde Drexler</td>
<td style="width: 24.8663%;" width="180">Jackie MacMullan</td>
<td style="width: 24.5989%;" width="180">Oscar Robertson</td>
<td style="width: 96.613%;" width="180">Jeff Zillgitt</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Some notable snubs include Tracy McGrady, Bernard King, Alex English, Vince Carter, Tony Parker, Chris Bosh, Dwight Howard, Bob McAdoo, and Pau Gasol to just name a few. This list was part of the NBA's marketing campaign for the league's historic 75th season and will surely spark a conversation/debate amongst NBA fans all over the world.

The NBA released the final 25 players of the 75th anniversary team Thursday on TNT.

Final 25 members of NBA's 75th Anniversary Team announced

The GOAT argument has heated up in recent years, with a growing contingent claiming LeBron James over the incumbent greatest of all-time, Michael Jordan. But no matter if it&rsquo;s Jordan, James, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, championships are a prerequisite.
Of course, team success is predicated on talent, and in basketball, one player impacts outcomes more so than in football or baseball. Still, the idea that the best player ever should inevitably be a decorated champion is oversimplified.&nbsp;
Ultimately, I posit that great players can achieve only so much on their own. A great supporting cast is also necessary. And if you examine the GOAT list, it becomes clear that great supporting casts are also a prerequisite. And with that being said, let&rsquo;s identify the best supporting casts of all time.
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5. Boston Celtics, 1980-1988
Key role players: Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Cedric Maxwell, M.L. Carr, Danny Ainge, Nate &ldquo;Tiny&rdquo; Archibald, Dennis Johnson
Championships: 3 (1980-81, 1983-84, 1985-86)
These teams saw some turnover, but the core remained mostly intact throughout the '80s &ndash; Bird, McHale, Parish and Archibald or Johnson. The 1983-84 and 1985-86 iterations had five players average 30 or more minutes per game, and all three championship teams featured five players averaging double figures in points per game. They were incredibly role-oriented and players were intimately familiar with those roles. But ultimately, the main case for the Celtics is that they boasted three of the 50 greatest players ever for their entire run in the '80s.
Side note: Despite having a reputation for being banged up, Bird missed very few games in his prime, making it incredibly difficult to examine how the Celtics fared in his absence. In fact, between the 1980-81 and 1985-86 seasons, Bird missed only five regular-season games. While that&rsquo;s clearly a ridiculously small sample size, the Celtics were 5-0 in those games without Bird. It&rsquo;s not enough to make the case that the Celtics&rsquo; supporting cast achieved anything significant in his absence, but it&rsquo;s something.
4. Miami Heat, 2012-2016
Key role players: Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Ray Allen, Udonis Haslem, Mike Miller
Championships: 2 (2011-12, 2012-13)
The Heat were a surprisingly deep team. All we really remember is the Big Three and Ray Allen&rsquo;s clutch three-pointer in Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals. But there was far more depth in Miami than we care to remember. Udonis Haslem, Shane Battier, Mike Miller, Mario Chalmers, Chris Anderson and Norris Cole all played big roles for the Heat. While there was a high degree of turnover in Miami in the 2010s, the key contributors were mostly the same. And they utilized lots of players; the 2011-12 team played 12 guys for 13 or more minutes per game, and the 2012-13 squad did so with 11 players.&nbsp;
But clearly nothing was more important for Miami than the Big Three. James was obviously the team&rsquo;s engine, but Wade and Bosh were crucial to Miami&rsquo;s success. Wade averaged more than 21 points per game in both championship seasons, whereas Bosh averaged slightly less than 20 points per game while taking on significantly more defensive responsibilities than in Toronto. Wade and Bosh combined to make the best one-two punch of any of the supporting casts on this list, making their inclusion here obvious.&nbsp;
3. Golden State Warriors, 2014-2018
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Key-role players: Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Ande Iguodala, Shaun Livingston
Championships: 3 (2014-15, 2016-17, 2017-18)
This team is the hardest to write about, mainly because calling Durant a role player feels like it's backwards. Durant has half as many MVP awards as Curry and more scoring championships. But the premise of the article is that the great teams have supporting casts and that great supporting casts support starts &ndash; and Curry is that star. He was in Golden State for their first championship without Durant, and he remains there following Durant&rsquo;s departure. In total, Golden State won three championships in a relatively short amount of time, and in the one year which they did not win the championship, they set a new single-season NBA win record (73).&nbsp;
But however you view this team, it accomplished a great deal &ndash; and it was not predicated on one star. On the contrary, the Warriors spread the wealth. The 2017-18 Warriors, for example, averaged 113.5 points per game, 73 of which came from Curry, Durant and Thompson. And everyone on this team felt like part of the supporting cast at times. Further, 14 players averaged 13 or more minutes per game &ndash; which is more than any other team on this list.&nbsp;
2. Chicago Bulls, 1995-1998
Key role players: Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Ron Harper, Toni Kukoc, Steve Kerr, Luc Longley
Championships: 3 (1995-1996, 1996-1997, 1997-1998 &mdash; six in total, but the teams and supporting casts are distinctly different, separated by Jordan&rsquo;s retirement)
Eras make a difference. And the 1990s Bulls, featuring Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman, were just flat-out better than every other team in the NBA in the 1990s. Want proof? The Bulls were one of only five teams with two starters in the All-Star games in 1996, 1997 and 1998. Oh, and their second All-Star, Pippen, was second runner-up for MVP in 1993-94, leading the Bulls to the third-best record in the Eastern Conference in 1993-94 without Jordan. Ironically, Pippen was probably the most equipped to go head-to-head with Jordan.
Jordan, Pippen and Rodman brought unmatched defensive versatility, and Jordan and Pippen were unstoppable, thanks to an unprecedented combination of size and skill. Add in a 6-foot-6 point guard (Harper), a big, ultra-skilled wing (Kukoc) and a dead-eye shooter (Kerr), and it was just too much for teams in the 90s to handle. Bottom line: Jordan was obviously unstoppable. But one player can&rsquo;t do everything on his own, and the fact that this team is still arguably the best team ever more than 30 years since they were dismantled speaks to just how great their supporting cast really was.
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1) Los Angeles Lakers 1979-1988
Key role players: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Byron Scott, James Worthy, Mychal Cooper, A.C. Green and Mychal Thompson.
Championships: 5 (1979-80, 1981-82, 1984-85, 1986-87, 1987-88)
The Showtime Lakers are about as unique a team as you&rsquo;ll come across in basketball history. Their most important player was unquestionably their point guard, Magic Johnson, evidenced by his leading the Lakers to a championship as a rookie while filling in as center in a decisive game. Abdul-Jabbar is the NBA&rsquo;s all-time leading scorer and arguably, at his peak, the best player ever. James Worthy is also an all-time great, having been named a member of the NBA at 50&rsquo;s top 50 players of all time.&nbsp;
But nothing speaks to the team&rsquo;s versatility more than this &ndash; Byron Scott led the Lakers in scoring in 1987-88 (21.7 points per game) despite the presence and health of Johnson, Abdul-Jabbar and Worthy.&nbsp;
Great players are clearly the building blocks on which great teams are built. But great supporting casts are a necessary part of all dynasties, too. Without them, teams run out of gas and get out-maneuvered by complicated defensive schemes. At the end of the day, you need both &ndash; and sometimes more &ndash; to win championships in the NBA.

Drew Maresca takes a look at some of the best supporting casts around NBA GOAT candidates.

Which NBA teams had the best supporting casts of all time?

Free-agent signings have the potential to alter the NBA landscape. They can swing the balance of power dramatically in one direction or another, and there isn&rsquo;t much that other teams can do to stop it.
To the victors go the spoils. To that point, free-agency signings can reshape the trajectory of a team or a player&rsquo;s career. However, some signings were so monumental that they became folklore &ndash; causing rule changes, influencing generations, turning friends to enemies and so on.
Let&rsquo;s explore five signings that reshaped the free-agency process and the entire league.
1. LeBron James to the Miami Heat, 2010
The summer of 2010 featured what was undoubtedly the most anticipated free-agency period of all-time. James was the prize of the 2010 class, and a new rumor seemed to surface every day, connecting him to the Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers, New York Knicks or Cleveland Cavaliers. But it was the Miami Heat who swooped in, signing James away from the Cavs and Northeast Ohio. The Heat also added Chris Bosh and re-signed Dwyane Wade, ushering in a new era of super-teams. However, James didn&rsquo;t announce his signing through a press release or a tweet. Instead, he opted for "The Decision," a live event that was televised from the Boys &amp; Girls Club in Greenwich, Connecticut. The totality of the move set James and the Heat up to be the villains of the NBA for some time.
James led Miami to two straight championships, and he also won his first two NBA Finals MVP awards. James would later describe his stint with the Heat as his college years. "Miami, for me, has been almost like college for other kids. These past four years helped raise me into who I am,&rdquo; James <a href="https://www.si.com/nba/2014/07/11/lebron-james-cleveland-cavaliers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote in Sports Illustrated</a> when he returned to Cleveland. &ldquo;I became a better player and a better man. I learned from a franchise that had been where I wanted to go&hellip; Without the experiences I had there, I wouldn&rsquo;t be able to do what I&rsquo;m doing today."
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2. Kevin Durant to the Golden State Warriors, 2016
If signing with the Heat made LeBron James a villain, signing with the Golden State Warriors made Durant peak-MCU Thanos. In 2015-16, Durant averaged 28.2 points, 8.2 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game for the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Warriors were fresh off a 73-win season and a trip to the NBA Finals. Still, when Draymond Green called to recruit Durant, it had enough of an impact to open the door for a meeting. The Warriors ultimately wooed him in the Hamptons over the Fourth of July weekend in 2016, and Durant decided to sign with Golden State.
This move infuriated fans even more than LeBron-to-Miami. Fans and analysts questioned Durant&rsquo;s competitive instinct. The fact that close friends James and Wade wanted to play together was understandable. But the thought of Durant joining forces with Stephen Curry and the loaded Warriors &ndash; the team that had just defeated Durant and the Thunder in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals a few weeks earlier &ndash; didn&rsquo;t sit well with many spectators. It made Durant seem like a mercenary, hunting for a championship. But love it or hate it, this was a major move in terms of player freedom. Durant signing with the Warriors was the clearest sign yet that basketball is a business, and it also showed the consequences of rings culture and constant discussions about an active player&rsquo;s legacy. &nbsp;&nbsp;
Without this signing, Durant doesn&rsquo;t win back-to-back championships, and he&rsquo;s short two Finals MVPs too. Had he re-signed with Oklahoma City, the Thunder likely would have struggled to win a championship given the high-degree of competition in the Western Conference in the mid-2010s, so who knows when (or if) Durant wins his first championship.
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3. Shaquille O&rsquo;Neal to the Los Angeles Lakers, 1996
In the 1990s, max contract extensions stretched for as long as seven years and players rarely made trade demands. As a result, player movement via free agency was limited. And that brings us to the Los Angeles Lakers and Shaquille O&rsquo;Neal.
O&rsquo;Neal was drafted first overall by the Orlando Magic in 1992. Alongside co-star Penny Hardaway, the Magic advanced to their first NBA Finals berth in 1995. O&rsquo;Neal hit free agency in 1996, at which point the league&rsquo;s salary cap was $24.3 million, but there was no luxury tax or max salary. It appeared that O&rsquo;Neal would re-sign with the Magic, but Orlando made the fatal decision of opening negotiations with a four-year, $54 million offer &ndash; significantly less than the seven-year, $112 million deal that Alonzo Mourning (the No. 2 overall pick in 1992) had just received. The Magic further hurt their credibility by continuing to low-ball O&rsquo;Neal, and a poll released by The Orlando Sentinel showed that 90% of local fans felt O&rsquo;Neal was not worth $115 million hurt too. O&rsquo;Neal was essentially driven into the arms of Jerry West and the Los Angeles Lakers, who signed him to a seven-year, $120 million deal.
Without this signing, the Lakers don&rsquo;t win three-consecutive championships. Conversely, the Magic may have won a championship or two, and who knows what happens with Kobe Bryant&rsquo;s career. Either way though, Shaq&rsquo;s legacy is probably the same.
4. Joe Smith to the Minnesota Timberwolves, 1999
Smith was the No. 1 overall pick in the 1995 NBA Draft. After a few above-average seasons, he turned down an $80 million extension with the Golden State Warriors. He was then traded to Philadelphia, hitting free agency the following season. He signed a one-year, $1.75 million deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves after the 1998 lockout, which was well-below fair market value. He re-signed with Minnesota after the season, signing another one-year deal worth $2.1 million.
You may be wondering: Why is Smith on this list? He was a fine player, but not as impactful as the other names featured. Under normal circumstances, Smith wouldn&rsquo;t be included here. However, Smith qualifies for this list due to the fallout from the attempted transaction with Minnesota. The deal was premeditated, and therefore illegal.
Essentially, Minnesota asked Smith to sign these one-year deals for three-consecutive seasons so they&rsquo;d have additional cap space. Then, after the three years, the Timberwolves would have his Bird rights and could go over the cap to re-sign him (giving him a deal worth roughly $86 million to pay him back). Ultimately, the NBA found out. Minnesota was fined $3.5 million and had to forfeit its first-round picks for five consecutive seasons (although the team's 2005 first-rounder was <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120901224939/http:/www.nba.com/news/twolves_draft_pick_011228.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">returned to them</a>). Smith&rsquo;s contract was voided, Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor was suspended and VP of Basketball Operations Kevin McHale took a leave of absence.
This one set a precedent. If a team tries to circumvent the salary cap, the league takes it very seriously. It&rsquo;s very difficult for the NBA to investigate and prove these kinds of arrangements exist. So, how did they prove that Smith&rsquo;s deal with Minnesota was premeditated? Smith's agents had a messy split that prompted a lawsuit and documents spelling out the illegal arrangement were made public.
&ldquo;There are 8-to-10 teams that do this all the time,&rdquo; McHale <a href="https://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/01/nba-joe-smith-illegal-contract-timberwolves" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re just good at it. We&rsquo;re bad.&rdquo;
Had this signing not happened, the Timberwolves probably could&rsquo;ve done a better job surrounding Kevin Garnett with a formidable supporting cast in the early 2000s. But more impactful, this trade set a precedent for the NBA in its willingness to punish teams over salary-cap circumvention.
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5. LeBron James to the Cleveland Cavaliers, Los Angeles Lakers &ndash; 2014, 2019
This probably feels like a cop out, especially since James also holds the top spot in these rankings &ndash; but it&rsquo;s not. James&rsquo; fingerprints are all over modern free agency, from ushering in super-teams to popularizing players recruiting their peers. Each of these signings is significant and unique. James going back to Cleveland in 2014 was huge. It went a long way in repairing his image, completing his return to NBA darling. It also resulted in the city&rsquo;s first sports championship in 50 years. James&rsquo; return also resulted in the most impressive championship of his career, one in which he led a comeback from a 3-1 series deficit over a 73-win Golden State ensemble &ndash; needless to say, James won his third NBA Finals MVP award with Cleveland.
His signing with the Lakers was also monumental. It was the culmination of a long history of James&rsquo; flirtations with major markets. It, too, resulted in another championship and NBA Finals MVP. And it should result in a major showdown of super-teams, with James&rsquo; Lakers and Durant&rsquo;s Nets on a collision course for NBA supremacy as soon as this season.
Without these signings, James would be stuck with two championships and two Finals MVP awards, 3-1 wouldn&rsquo;t be a thing and the Warriors might have won four-straight championships (imagine?!). Further, the GOAT debate would be dramatically different, and who knows where James would have played in his prime years?
***
Fans are captivated by free-agent signings for a reason. They regularly influence championships. But they obviously have the potential to be even more impactful, shaping the league&rsquo;s power dynamic for a decade or more with a single stroke of a pen.
In recent years, the best players have been more prone to signing extensions and demanding trades if their team fails to build around them, meaning that these top-tier signings have been happening less frequently. But fear not drama fans, there will always be player movement. After all, there&rsquo;s always someone who wants out of their current situation.

Drew Maresca examines five free-agent signings that ended up altering NBA history.

5 free-agent signings that changed NBA history

The NBA&rsquo;s trade season usually ramps up on draft night and intensifies on the first day of free agency. So far this offseason, we&rsquo;ve seen Lonzo Ball and DeMar DeRozan traded to the Chicago Bulls, Spencer Dinwiddie dealt to the Washington Wizards and Russell Westbrook moved to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Teams are always discussing possible trades and doing their due diligence &ndash; seeing who&rsquo;s available around the league and gauging interest in their own players. Every now and then, these talks lead to a major trade that shakes up the power structure of the NBA. Other times however, for various reasons, the talks fizzle out, leaving fans to dream about what could have been.
So with that being said, let&rsquo;s examine five of the biggest trades in NBA history that almost happened.
HONORABLE MENTION
Amar&rsquo;e Stoudemire to the Golden State Warriors &ndash; This one is really more of a Steph Curry trade, but Curry hadn&rsquo;t yet played a game as of the rumors, so we&rsquo;ll file it away as a Stoudemire trade. The deal would have sent Stoudemire and the 14th pick in the 2009 draft to Golden State in exchange for the rights to Curry. Had this deal happened, Curry and then-Suns general manager Steve Kerr would have found themselves working together far sooner, but it would have undone the Warriors&rsquo; dynasty. This one would have rocked the league.
Scottie Pippen to the Toronto Raptors for Tracy McGrady &ndash; The Chicago Bulls have received a lot of bad press since &ldquo;The Last Dance&rdquo; aired in 2020, and it became public knowledge that they tried to trade Pippen, and rightfully so. The less explosive of the two deals was this one, a 1997 draft-day deal that would have sent Pippen to Toronto in exchange for McGrady. According to McGrady, Michael Jordan ultimately nixed the deal. In a vacuum, this one wouldn&rsquo;t have been that bad for Chicago, but in reality it could have led to Jordan retiring or leaving Chicago sooner and, thus, leaving a championship on the table.
Chris Paul to the Golden State Warriors &ndash; This one is another Curry near-trade, and it was allegedly instigated by Golden State. In 2011, the Warriors tried to package Curry and Klay Thompson in exchange for Paul. The Warriors planned to also add Tyson Chandler to create a quasi-super-team. Imagine that? Some people close to the Warriors still deny this rumor, as they should. Either Curry trade happening probably wouldn't have resulted in Golden State winning a championship, but it also probably would've pushed Kevin Durant to either remain in Oklahoma City or sign elsewhere. Who knows how far the butterfly effect reaches?
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5. Charles Barkley to the Los Angeles Lakers
Los Angeles Lakers to receive: Charles Barkley and Ron Anderson
Philadelphia 76ers to receive: James Worthy and Elden Campbell
This one is interesting because of the immediate impact it had on Barkley once it was clear it wasn&rsquo;t going through. According to Barkley in a conversation with Zach Lowe on <a href="http://www.espn.com/espnradio/podcast/archive/_/id/10528553" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Lowe Post</a>, Barkley responded to a call from his agent alerting him of the deal by celebrating over drinks with friends. Later that day, Barkley received another call from his agent, letting him know that the deal wasn&rsquo;t going through. &ldquo;And I&rsquo;m drunk as [expletive] and we got a game that night,&rdquo; Barkley said.
Ultimately, Barkley was dealt to the Phoenix Suns later that season. He led the Suns to the NBA Finals the following year. Comparatively, the Lakers&rsquo; roster was relatively barren by 1992, so it probably worked out better for Barkley that he wasn&rsquo;t dealt to Los Angeles. Still, it resulted in one of the weirder trade-related stories in NBA history. And just imagine Barkley in Los Angeles&hellip;
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4. Scottie Pippen to Seattle for Shawn Kemp
Seattle SuperSonics to receive: Scottie Pippen
Chicago Bulls to receive: Shawn Kemp and Ricky Pierce
The Pippen-for-McGrady rumor was in 1997. Pippen-for-Kemp was a rumored draft-day deal in 1994, shortly after Pippen refused to go back into Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the New York Knicks &mdash; and long before Pippen, Jordan, and the Bulls reconnected for the second three-peat. It&rsquo;s a good thing that this never went through. According to <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/halloffame10/columns/story?columnist=adande_ja&amp;page=100812-pippen" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ESPN&rsquo;s J.A. Adande</a>, when asked if he would have returned to the Bulls with Kemp, Jordan said, &ldquo;Probably not. I could have played with Shawn, but I wouldn't have been as comfortable as I was with Scottie."
Had this deal been approved, does Jordan return to the NBA? If he doesn&rsquo;t, is he still widely regarded as the best ever (with just three championships)? Or does he stick with baseball? Thankfully, we&rsquo;ll never know.
3. Kevin Garnett to the Los Angeles Lakers
Los Angeles Lakers to receive: Kevin Garnett
Minnesota Timberwolves to receive: Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum
This one&rsquo;s pretty straight forward. Garnett wanted out of Minnesota, and the Timberwolves subsequently began accepting bids for Garnett&rsquo;s services. Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor told Lakers owner Jerry Buss that he&rsquo;d like to make the swap with the Lakers, but he needed Minnesota's general manager at the time, Kevin McHale, to sign off.
According to an <a href="https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2445357-kg-the-oral-history-part-2-glory-in-boston-quirky-traits-and-returning-home" target="_blank" rel="noopener">oral history of Garnett&rsquo;s career</a> from Bleacher Report&rsquo;s Howard Beck, Taylor &ldquo;&hellip;didn&rsquo;t know if I wanted [KG] in the West&rdquo; &ndash; so who knows how close this was to going down. On <a href="https://twitter.com/alexkennedynba/status/1305612441796120577" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Posecast</a>, Ray Allen said that Garnett to Los Angeles was looking likely, and that KG was leaning toward joining the Lakers, but he ultimately changed his mind once Boston acquired Allen. Had this trade happened, the impact could have been tremendous, robbing Boston of the 2008 championship and probably gifting at least one more title to Kobe Bryant and the Lakers.
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2. Chris Paul to the Los Angeles Lakers
Los Angeles Lakers to receive: Chris Paul
New Orleans Pelicans to receive: Lamar Odom, Kevin Martin and Goran Dragic
Houston Rockets to receive: Pau Gasol
While Paul was nearly dealt to the Warriors for Curry and Thompson, this deal is higher profile because of the drama surrounding it. This deal was done. Paul was set to join Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles. Instead, NBA commissioner David Stern vetoed the trade on behalf of the Hornets because the deal didn&rsquo;t return adequate value to New Orleans, a franchise that was being run by the league due to former owner George Shinn&rsquo;s unprecedented move to sell the team to the NBA. If you weren&rsquo;t an NBA fan in 2011, you missed a hell of a situation.
Ultimately, this one may have robbed a championship from the Lakers, too. The deal would have enabled Los Angeles to keep Kobe Bryant and Andrew Bynum while adding Paul. The team lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder in the second round (4-1), but would the addition of Paul have given the Lakers enough firepower to overcome the Thunder (and LeBron James and the Miami Heat)? We&rsquo;ll never know.
1. Kobe Bryant to the Chicago Bulls
Chicago Bulls to receive: Kobe Bryant
Los Angeles Lakers to receive: Luol Deng, Tyus Thomas, Ben Gordon Joakim Noah
In 2007, Kobe Bryant was nearly traded to the Chicago Bulls. Why? Bryant was incredibly frustrated with the inactivity of the Lakers&rsquo; management. It escalated to the point where, according to Bryant, he and his family were looking at houses and schools in the Windy City. When some fans asked Bryant if he was staying in Los Angeles, he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/sports/basketball/29kobe.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told them</a> to &ldquo;buy a Bulls uniform.&rdquo;
Back in 2018, BasketballNews.com&rsquo;s Alex Kennedy spoke with Bryant <a href="https://hoopshype.com/2018/06/12/free-agents-lebron-john-williams-oscar-shaq-chicago-bulls/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on The HoopsHype Podcast</a> about how the trade would have impacted his career.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Ah, yeah, it would&rsquo;ve changed things a lot,&rdquo; Bryant said. &ldquo;I believe we still would&rsquo;ve won championships in Chicago. That&rsquo;s what I think, but I do feel like everything happens for a reason. Honestly, the biggest shock to me was that Shaq didn&rsquo;t know that [I wanted to be traded]. That was the biggest surprise to me, that he was unaware of that! I think had he known how serious I was about going someplace else, he never would&rsquo;ve demanded a trade [from the Lakers]. But when he got traded, that stopped me from going anywhere else, because there was no way that Jerry Buss was going to lose Shaq and me in the same summer. So if he had known how serious I was about leaving, I don&rsquo;t think he ever would&rsquo;ve demanded a trade.&rdquo;
Ultimately, the timing worked out in Bryant&rsquo;s favor. Shaquille O&rsquo;Neal was traded to the Miami Heat in 2004, which led to Bryant working things out with management. And things worked out just fine for Bryant professionally, as he went on to win two more championships in Los Angeles and he remained with the Lakers for the rest of his career.
***
Trade rumors captivate sports fans more than anything. Most don&rsquo;t come to fruition, and that&rsquo;s fine. They captivate us, distract us and allow us to imagine ideal outcomes for our favorite teams, even if they were never really that close to happening.
Each of the deals mentioned above would have shaken up the league, leading to far different outcomes for a number of franchises.

Drew Maresca examines five blockbuster trades that almost happened, and how they would've altered NBA history.

5 blockbuster trades that almost changed NBA history

The Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP award is often one of the most confusing additions to a player's legacy.
Logically, it doesn't make much sense to apply so much weight to an award tied a tiny seven-game sample size at most. But Finals MVP recognizes the ability to elevate one's game to new heights while on the greatest basketball stage in the world. It's a touchstone for the series, and that season, and its place in the history of the NBA.&nbsp;
But the small sample also allows some players to make a surprising mark on a Finals. These five award-winners may not have been the odds-on favorite entering the showdown, but they all took command in high-stakes moments and became X-factors for their respective franchises. Though these are the most "unlikely" Finals MVP winners, all of them deserve praise for contributing to success.
Magic Johnson, 1980 Los Angeles Lakers
When Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was ruled out for Game 6 of the 1980 NBA Finals with an ankle injury, the Lakers had to turn to one rookie point guard from Michigan State to bring home the title. Magic Johnson was less than a year removed from being selected first overall, but was already blazing his trail as a basketball legend.&nbsp;
In that pivotal Game 6, Johnson put up 42 points, 15 rebounds, 7 assists and 3 steals -- as the team's center -- in a 123-107 championship-clinching win over the Philadelphia 76ers. At age 20, he is still the youngest Finals MVP winner in league history and the only rookie to receive the award. Johnson's star would only continue to rise; he took home three Finals MVP trophies in his illustrious career.
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Jerry West, 1969 Los Angeles Lakers
Only one player has ever won Finals MVP as the leader of a losing franchise. Ironically, it came in the first year of the award, and even as trophy namesake Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics won in seven games. But it's tough to go against West's unreal series, in which he averaged 37.9 points (without a three-point line!), 7.4 assists and 4.7 rebounds per game.
West scored 53 points in the Lakers' Game 1 victory and 42 points in the 108-106 Game 7 loss. He beat out John Havlicek, who put up 28.3 points and 11.0 rebounds per game for Boston, to win the award. I'd bet against seeing another losing MVP winner for now, unless they can put up the same gaudy numbers as West.
Cedric Maxwell, 1981 Boston Celtics
Maxwell is the lone winner before 2000 to not be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. During his 11-year career, the small forward made an impact as a dynamic scorer and rebounder, but never made an All-Star team or averaged over 20 points per game.&nbsp;
But Maxwell did capitalize on a sluggish Finals between the Celtics and Houston Rockets. As a 25-year-old, he put up a team-high 17.7 points to go with 9.5 assists and 2.8 rebounds per game. Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish were all on the roster, but all three were still growing into their roles as a Big Three. Maxwell carried the torch in advance while helping hold Houston to just 38% shooting as a team during the series.
Andre Iguodala, 2015 Golden State Warriors
During the 2014-15 regular season, Iguodala was no more than a serviceable bench piece for the Warriors, averaging just 7.8 points and 3.3 rebounds per game. But he transformed in the Finals, putting up 16.3 points, 5.8 rebounds and 4.0 assists while helping the Warriors begin their dynasty with the 2015 championship.
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6 YEARS AGO, The Golden State Warriors won the title &amp; Andre Iguodala took home Finals MVP!<a href="https://t.co/LjXLhg1HOa">pic.twitter.com/LjXLhg1HOa</a>
&mdash; Fadeaway World (@FadeawayWorld) <a href="https://twitter.com/FadeawayWorld/status/1405140602744836109?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 16, 2021</a></blockquote>

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There's skepticism around this award, as Warriors superstar Stephen Curry also dropped 26.0 points, 6.3 assists, 5.2 rebounds and 1.8 steals per game in the series. But Iguodala was the front man for defending LeBron James, and led a Warriors fortress that kept the Cavaliers from surpassing 100 points in any game. Both Curry and Iguodala deserve praise for delivering Oakland a title.&nbsp;
Wes Unseld, 1978 Washington Bullets
Of all the awards handed out, this one stumps me. Unseld was no-doubt an amazing NBA player, a well-deserved Hall-of-Famer and a key piece for the Bullets. But the power forward won Finals MVP in 1978 while averaging just 9.0 points, 11.7 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game. Scoring isn't the only way to impact the game, but Unseld was seventh on his team in that category, and others such as Elvin Hayes and Bob Dandridge consistently stepped up in the seven-game series win over the Seattle SuperSonics.
In fairness to Unseld, he is one of the supreme connectors in league history. Unseld's play often transcended the box score, which was especially limited back in the 1970s, and his defense against Jack Sikma and the SuperSonics was notable. It's just such an outlier from other MVP-caliber performances. Hayes and Dandridge each shouldered the scoring load and pushed Washington ahead in some gritty contests.

Throughout NBA history, some surprising names have left their mark and won the Finals MVP award, writes Ethan Fuller.

Who were the most unlikely Finals MVP winners in NBA history?

In the latest BasketballNews.com roundtable, we asked our writers the following question:
Which player from a previous era would be a perfect fit in today&rsquo;s NBA?
Alex Kennedy: Rather than selecting a legend like Larry Bird who would obviously be incredible in today&rsquo;s NBA, I chose a player who was solid in his era but whose career would&rsquo;ve played out very differently if he was drafted today: <a href="https://youtu.be/faK8ElMK2B4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jamal Mashburn</a>. In his prime, Mashburn averaged 21.6 points, 6.1 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 1.5 threes and 1.0 steal while shooting 38.9% from three. He was 6-foot-8 and roughly 250 lbs. (the same size as Julius Randle). Here's how a 1993 pre-draft scouting report described him: &ldquo;Mashburn is a jack of all trades. He can play either inside or outside. Inside, he has a variety of moves, a la Kevin McHale, with all sorts of head fakes and turnaround moves. He can be virtually unstoppable in the low post. If that isn't enough, he can take his game outside, where he can easily stroke the three-pointer. He is an excellent ball-handler, and he can score from a set shot, posting up, and off the dribble.&rdquo; In today&rsquo;s NBA, Mashburn would play multiple positions; he would be a terrific stretch-four and small-ball five. But back in the day, he played 84% of his 16,217 NBA minutes at small forward. These days, he&rsquo;d also attempt more than just 3.6 threes per game. A team could run their offense through Mashburn since he could create his own shot and get his teammates involved. Today, he&rsquo;d be highly coveted due to his versatility, athleticism, shooting, touch around the rim and playmaking. He was incredibly talented (and underrated), and it&rsquo;s unfortunate that he wasn&rsquo;t born a few decades later.
Spencer Davies: It's not as if Rashard Lewis had a poor career -- especially judging by his contributions over a decade with the Seattle SuperSonics and Orlando Magic, where he averaged 18 points and nearly six rebounds per game on 39.4% from long distance -- but it is so easy to picture him in the modern NBA stretching the floor and jacking up 8-to-10 threes and nailing 40-plus percent of them. Later down the line, he was a bigger body with more strength, however, in the mid-2000s, he just had the length that would bother you defensively. Lewis would probably be able to easily average 20-plus points these days. He was quite adaptable despite being a 3/4 tweener, but in June 2021, he would be exactly what these teams are frothing at the mouth for: length, athleticism and most importantly, shooting.
Moke Hamilton: Definitely an interesting question. Vlade Divac and Arvydas Sabonis are two that immediately come to mind for me, with Sabonis being particularly interesting. For those of you who are younger than me, Sabonis &mdash; the father of NBA All-Star Domantas Sabonis &mdash; is a great &ldquo;what if?&rdquo; in NBA history. Without taking a long stroll down memory lane, Sabonis was a truly gifted big man whose NBA career never became what it should have been. He was able to make plays from the interior, had magnificent court vision and shot 32% of his career looks from more than 10 feet from the basket. He shot over 100 three-pointers in each of his first three seasons in Portland and connected on about 34% of them. But when Mike Dunleavy took over head-coaching duties prior to Sabonis&rsquo; fourth year, things changed, to say the least. Seriously, go Google Arvydas and check out his personal story. It&rsquo;s incredible&hellip; And he would&rsquo;ve fit right in with today&rsquo;s NBA&hellip; Just like his son.
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Nekias Duncan: I&rsquo;ll go off the cuff: I would&rsquo;ve loved to see how scalable Detlef Schrempf&rsquo;s game would&rsquo;ve been today. A 6-foot-10 forward who could shoot (criminally low three-point volume), and play-make the way he could would&rsquo;ve been incredibly valuable.
Jannelle Moore: Scottie Pippen is the quintessential choice for a player from a previous era who would be great today. Why? Because Scottie would kill on defense -- a versatile wing who could guard all positions. Furthermore, he can facilitate. And Pippen in transition with today&rsquo;s space and tempo would be scary.
Ethan Fuller: I beg younger basketball fans to go watch highlights of Dana Barros in the 1990s. Barros was a simply unreal shooter caught in an era where three-point shooting took a back seat. He shot at least 39% from three in 10 of his 13 full seasons while flying around off screens and off the dribble. At his peak with the 76ers in 1994-95, Barros averaged 20.6 points, 7.5 assists and 1.8 points per game while hitting 50 points in one contest. But Barros only attempted at least 5.0 threes per game in one season. If he played today, he'd be a premier shot-making point guard and absolutely lethal with the emphasis on floor spacing. Think peak Isaiah Thomas with even more shooting upside.

Which player from a previous era would be perfect fit in today's NBA? BasketballNews.com writers shared their thoughts.

Roundtable: Which former player would fit perfectly in today’s NBA?

The following is an excerpt of L. Jon Wertheim's book, &ldquo;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Glory-Days-Changed-Culture-Forever/dp/1328637247" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Glory Days: The Summer of 1984 and the 90 Days That Changed Sports and Culture Forever</a>,&rdquo; which is out today <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Glory-Days-Changed-Culture-Forever/dp/1328637247" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on Amazon</a>. 
In Indianapolis, a popular 1984 parlor game entailed coming up with the best comparison for the Hoosier Dome, the white monstrosity that had sprouted to blight the city&rsquo;s skyline. It&rsquo;s like a giant biscuit made from scratch. No, it looks more like a giant pile of white deer crap. The indoor venue was built with the intent of enticing a professional football team to relocate to town&mdash;and on those grounds, it was stunningly successful. On March 28, 1984, the Colts organization had loaded up a fleet of moving vans, left Baltimore under cover of darkness, and decamped to Indianapolis.
But with the 1984 NFL season still weeks away, the first event held inside the Hoosier Dome was, appropriately, a basketball game. As Bob Knight, the unofficial emcee, told the crowd that night, July 9, 1984, &ldquo;I heard today that basketball was invented in Springfield, Massachusetts, and that is true.&rdquo; (Pause for effect.) &ldquo;God had it invented there so we could import it to Indiana.&rdquo; Deafening applause followed.
Knight and his minions had come to Indianapolis as part of a pre-Olympic summer barnstorming tour. In order to help the team coalesce into a unit, in order to simulate real competition under international rules&mdash;and in order to get them the hell out of southern Indiana in the summer&mdash;USA Basketball had arranged for a series of games against makeshift teams of NBA players. Like a summer concert tour, the circuit threaded its way through an assortment of cities, some (Minneapolis) more logical than others (Iowa City?).
Apart from offering an entertaining summer basketball exhibition, the games doubled as an exercise in patriotism. Knight had already stressed this aspect with his players. Time and again, he reminded them that they were playing as representatives of America, which, as the coach put it, was one of the great civilizations in world history. Knight also constantly reminded them of recent Olympic basketball history. Though 12 years had elapsed, Knight often invoked the gold-medal game in the 1972 Olympics, when the Russians &ldquo;won&rdquo; an atrociously officiated contest 51&ndash;50, the outcome so dubious and controversial that the American players never accepted their silver medals.
With the Soviet boycott of the 1984 Games, there would be no Cold War flashpoint or baked-in rival this time. Still, these were our boys&mdash;the same age as soldiers&mdash;going off to do battle in an international theater, representing their country and wearing uniforms emblazoned in red, white, and blue.
This patriotic strain was especially vivid in Indianapolis on this night. It was the Monday after Fourth of July weekend. And the unit was led by Knight, a man nicknamed the General, who had started his coaching tour of duty at West Point and fancied himself a military historian. The ragtag mix of NBA players forming the opposition were coaxed into interrupting their summer on the grounds that they were fulfilling a patriotic duty, serving as sparring partners for the American unit.
At the entrance to the Hoosier Dome, local Girl Scout troops handed out miniature American flags to the 67,596 fans who attended, at the time the largest crowd ever to watch a basketball game indoors. During the pregame ceremonies, Knight welcomed the crowd and then handed the stage over to none other than Ronald Reagan. The president had taped a message that played on the video board, declaring that Knight&rsquo;s collection of players was &ldquo;not just a team. They&rsquo;re the American team.&rdquo;
Amid all this patriotic (jingoistic?) fervor, few fans noticed a small interlude on the court. During the pregame warm-up, Michael Jordan, shod now in the Fastbreak model by Converse, the sponsor of the Olympic team, unspooled a series of jump shots. After one errant attempt, his ball squirted away from him, crossed the DMZ of half-court, and bounded into enemy territory, the opponent&rsquo;s side of the floor.
It found its way into the hands of Larry Bird. Fresh from winning the NBA title a few weeks earlier, Bird had, somewhat grudgingly, paused his off-season ritual&mdash;consisting mostly of beer drinking and fishing&mdash;to take part in this exhibition, a few hours&rsquo; drive from his famed hometown of French Lick, Indiana.
For Bird, though, there were no exhibition games. Only competitions. Jordan wore a sheepish, congenial My bad, Larry, smile as he came to retrieve his ball. Bird, the NBA&rsquo;s reigning MVP, was less congenial. Sneering dismissively, he kicked the ball over Jordan&rsquo;s head and back to the other end of the court, the indoor equivalent of Get off my lawn, kid. Jordan walked back, shaking his head, interpreting it as a bit of validation. He was already worthy of Larry Bird&rsquo;s mind games. See you in the NBA, pal.
That night, the U.S. women&rsquo;s basketball team served as something of a warm-up act. Led by Cheryl Miller&mdash;whose kid brother Reggie would be drafted by the Indiana Pacers three summers later and leave as the franchise&rsquo;s most decorated pro basketball player&mdash;the U.S. women cruised to a 97&ndash;54 win over a patchwork team of former college players. &ldquo;Not much to complain about,&rdquo; said the coach, Pat Summitt, who had turned 32 a few weeks before.
As for the main event, the men&rsquo;s game, Bird tricked Jordan into a pair of quick fouls and the NBA All-Stars&mdash;featuring most of Bird&rsquo;s Celtics teammates as well as the Detroit Pistons&rsquo; star guard Isiah Thomas, who had played for Knight at Indiana&mdash;took a 16&ndash;10 lead. But then the Olympians took over, benefiting from superior depth, cohesion, and ambition. They pulled away in the second half and won 97&ndash;82. Bird had 14 points. Jordan had 12. Seven months later, when Jordan next appeared at the Hoosier Dome, he and Bird would be on the same side of the court, teammates representing the Eastern Conference at the NBA All-Star Game.
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Apart from simulating battle, the barnstorming tour gave rise to a certain esprit de corps, a chemistry among the unit. Knight experimented with lineups and was intentionally vague and erratic about his rotation.
Players also experienced Knight&rsquo;s brutal, military-style authority. Within a few years, autocrats like Knight would be subject to the equivalent of court-martial&mdash;&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t handle the truth!&rdquo; we might have later said&mdash;for breaches of basic human decency. But in 1984, Knight&rsquo;s M.O. was still acceptable, perhaps especially heading into an international competition.
For Knight, basketball was never about missed shots or made shots. It was about manifestations of character. Were you tough and durable and courageous and unswerving in your convictions? Or did you play with what Knight perceived to be the twin curses of softness and indecision?
Some players recoiled from Knight&rsquo;s style. (That included Larry Bird, who, recruited by Knight in the mid-seventies, had gone home after a homesick month on campus in Bloomington and then transferred to Indiana State.) Others responded to it. Jordan was not merely unbothered by Knight; he warmed to his discipline and his combustible personality and saw value in both. It was all in service of winning. And what&rsquo;s wrong with the alpha acting like the alpha?
Patrick Ewing would later tell the story that one night he and Jordan began play-wrestling in the living quarters. Nothing malicious, just two bored and athletic kids fooling around. Though Jordan spotted Ewing six inches and perhaps 50 pounds, he got his man in a headlock. Ewing capitulated. Neither thought much of it, but the next day Ewing couldn&rsquo;t move his neck.
Worse, he had to tell Knight what had happened and that Jordan had been the culprit. &ldquo;Coach Knight was mad,&rdquo; Ewing recalled to the writer Jack McCallum in his excellent book Dream Team. &ldquo;But only at me. Michael? Nothing happened to him. Nothing ever happened to Michael.&rdquo;
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Which wasn&rsquo;t entirely true. Knight went after Jordan plenty. But sometimes it was to test Jordan&rsquo;s resolve. Other times it was to send a message: No one is above the law. (On these occasions, Knight would sometimes warn Jordan what was coming.)
Jordan&rsquo;s college coach, Dean Smith, was a strong authority figure who brooked no bullsh**. But this was at an entirely different level. Which was fine by Jordan. Asked&mdash;as he invariably was throughout the tour&mdash;to compare coaches, Jordan smiled and offered a winning line: &ldquo;The only different thing is the vocabulary. From Coach Smith I learned the four-corner offense. From Coach Knight I learned the four-letter word.&rdquo; (Wait for laughter.) &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve heard some of the words before that he&rsquo;s used, but never from a coach.&rdquo;
Referring to Knight by his first name, he continued, &ldquo;Bobby doesn&rsquo;t scare me. I&rsquo;m taller than him.&rdquo; (Wait for more laughter.) &ldquo;But I see what gets him mad, and I make sure I don&rsquo;t do it. He&rsquo;s taught us all a lot, and his way of getting a point across doesn&rsquo;t take the fun out of this. Now, if you ask me whether I&rsquo;d want to play for him for four years, I&rsquo;d have to think about it.&rdquo;
Jordan was more amused than anything else by Knight&rsquo;s eruptions. He often confided in [George] Raveling&mdash;who had known Knight since the late 1960s and counted him as a friend&mdash;jokingly referring to Knight as &ldquo;your boy.&rdquo; As in: You&rsquo;re never going to believe what your boy did today. Or: Check out what your boy called me this morning.
All bullies, though, need a target, and Wayman Tisdale, a silky lefty forward from Oklahoma, was a particular victim of Knight&rsquo;s. Confidants of Knight&rsquo;s explain that he didn&rsquo;t hold Tisdale&rsquo;s college coach, Billy Tubbs, in especially high esteem. Tubbs&rsquo;s teams played a high-scoring, defense-free style, absent of structure. (By received wisdom, Tubbs played comparably fast and loose with the NCAA rule book.) Knight was going to impose discipline and, by proxy, repudiate Tubbs and his slapdash approach to basketball.
During a practice before an exhibition in Greensboro, Knight stopped the session and demanded a black Magic Marker. He then bent down, wrote an X on the floor, and added a date. As Knight knelt on the court for this art project, the players exchanged quizzical looks. When the coach finished, he declared, &ldquo;I just wanted to mark the time and place that I first saw Wayman Tisdale take a charge.&rdquo; More than once, the General kicked Tisdale out of the gym, leaving the player in tears. Asked what he thought of Knight&rsquo;s methods, Tisdale would say, &ldquo;When I go back to Oklahoma, I&rsquo;m gonna find everyone I used to think was mean, and I&rsquo;m gonna hug &lsquo;em.&rdquo;&nbsp;
While it wasn&rsquo;t quite the Harlem Globetrotters vs. the Washington Generals, with scripted outcomes and storylines, everyone knew the rules of engagement for these exhibition games. The NBA players were expected to try hard, but not their hardest, and keep the games close. They were not supposed to win. So they didn&rsquo;t. But the games were often competitive, sometimes intensely so.
On July 12, the Olympians played an exhibition game in Milwaukee. Before the game, Tim Hallam, a young staffer in the Bulls&rsquo; public relations office, drove up from Chicago with a photographer. His task: get Michael Jordan to pose for a portrait photo in a Bulls uniform. Hallam introduced himself to Jordan for the first time and was impressed when the kid smiled, looked him in the eye, and seemed to grasp the exercise. Hey, a team needs to sell tickets. I&rsquo;m the new draft pick. This comes with the territory.
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But with tip-off looming, there was no time to set up proper lighting. So there, in the middle of the locker room in Milwaukee, surrounded by teammates, Jordan changed out of the Olympic uniform and into the Bulls uniform and sat for the damn photo. While he would later razz Hallam about this imposition on his time&mdash;this, the very first of countless requests the Bulls&rsquo; public relations staff would make over the years&mdash;on this night, Jordan could not have been more accommodating.
While Jordan was posing for the photo shoot, Knight was in the other locker room, encouraging two of the NBA stars, Mike Dunleavy and Doc Rivers, to knock his players around a lot. They obliged. So did their teammate, Mickey Johnson, of the Golden State Warriors, who took advantage of the tour&rsquo;s unlimited fouls policy, committing 13 infractions. But when the game turned from physical to violent, Knight reconsidered, screaming at the referees to get control of the game: &ldquo;Too much is at stake.&rdquo;
In the second half, Jordan went in for a breakaway dunk. Dunleavy swooped in, extended his right hand, and raked Jordan across the face. After thudding to the ground, Jordan popped up like a jack-in-the-box, glowering and looking to fight Dunleavy. By the time he was restrained by teammates, he was already cocking a fist. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t come out here to not play hard,&rdquo; Dunleavy said. &nbsp;(Seven summers later, Jordan would get his revenge, winning his first NBA title in 1991 as the Chicago Bulls defeated the Los Angeles Lakers, a team coached by&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Mike Dunleavy.)
After the game in Milwaukee, Knight was still hot. He declared Charley Vacca, a college official, &ldquo;the most incompetent sonofabitch I&rsquo;ve seen referee. . . . What do you want me to do, sit on my ass and let a million-dollar player&rsquo;s career be ruined by some a**hole with a whistle?&rdquo;
Apart from a**holes with whistles, the tour was a smashing success that achieved its goal. Some games were blowouts, the team playing in harmony. Other games were close, and the Olympians were forced to show some mettle, scoring baskets and making critical stops on defense. But the Olympians played against the best and brightest in the NBA (Bird in Indianapolis; Magic Johnson in Minneapolis; Clyde Drexler in Iowa City; Alex English and Kiki Vandeweghe in Phoenix). In the end, the Olympians won all eight games; roles and responsibilities became more clear; collectively and individually, confidence swelled.
But the tour also did something else: it highlighted the lavish skills of Michael Jordan. The games foreshadowed just how seamlessly Jordan&rsquo;s game, his explosive athleticism, his position&mdash;for that matter, his disposition&mdash;would translate to the NBA.
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Jay Bilas had finished his sophomore year at Duke and played sporadically on the basketball team. He&rsquo;d harbored interests beyond basketball and that summer served as a production assistant for ABC for Olympic basketball telecasts. While most of his work came at the L.A. Games, Bilas was also assigned to work some of the exhibition games between the Olympians and the NBA players.
Having played against Jordan at the rival school less than half an hour away, Bilas had seen Jordan put up 20 points a game in the Atlantic Coast Conference. He was unsurprised when he attended a pregame practice in Minneapolis and it was abundantly obvious that Jordan was the best player on the team.
But then the game started. Jordan was competing against the likes of Magic Johnson, Kevin McHale, Isiah Thomas, and Mark Aguirre. &ldquo;He was still the best player&mdash;by far,&rdquo; says Bilas. &ldquo;It was pretty clear that there wasn&rsquo;t anybody in the NBA or internationally that could hang with him. Jordan did stuff where it was like Are you kidding me? And I saw him do it in college a little bit, but this was a different level. I remembered, as a kid, people used to say that when Mickey Mantle made contact, his bat made a different sound from everyone else&rsquo;s. It was like that. He was making moves and you were like It&rsquo;s just different. No one else is doing that.&rdquo;
Toward the end of the tour, the U.S. team played a collection of All-Stars in Phoenix. After Jordan dropped 27 points and the Olympians won their eighth-straight game, 84&ndash;72, the opposing coach was visibly slack-jawed. How good was Jordan? &ldquo;He&rsquo;s as gifted a player as any I&rsquo;ve ever seen play ball,&rdquo; responded Pat Riley, the Lakers&rsquo; coach&mdash;who was, bear in mind, just a few weeks removed from watching Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Magic Johnson, James Worthy, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar duel for seven games in a classic series. &ldquo;What happened here and then through the Olympics will only make him better. I don&rsquo;t think he realizes how good he really is.&rdquo;
<a href="https://twitter.com/jon_wertheim" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Follow L. Jon Wertheim on Twitter: @jon_wertheim</a>
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Glory-Days-Changed-Culture-Forever/dp/1328637247" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Buy this book on Amazon: Glory Days: The Summer of 1984 and the 90 Days That Changed Sports and Culture Forever</a>
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Jon Wertheim details the ascent of Michael Jordan, who was no longer a college player and not yet a pro, in the summer of 1984.

How the summer of 1984 foreshadowed Michael Jordan's NBA greatness

After a 13-year NBA career, Corey Brewer made the transition to coaching last offseason when he joined the New Orleans Pelicans as a player development coach. He wrote this article about his first season as an NBA coach and his work with the Pelicans' young core.
I wasn&rsquo;t quite ready for my playing career to be over just yet, but when I was presented with the opportunity to join Stan Van Gundy&rsquo;s staff as a player development coach for the New Orleans Pelicans last offseason, it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. I always wanted to become a coach and I never imagined I&rsquo;d get to cut my teeth in New Orleans, but here I am.
After my first season, I&rsquo;ve learned quite a bit. I consider myself lucky to have the opportunity to learn from Stan, who&rsquo;s a master of detail. I played 13 years in the league and had some outstanding coaches &mdash; Kevin McHale, George Karl, Rick Adelman and Mike D&rsquo;Antoni, to name a few. I&rsquo;ve learned so much from each of them and have been able to blend their teachings with what I&rsquo;ve learned from Stan. And I can tell you, it takes a lot of hard work and commitment to be an effective head coach in this league.
In New Orleans, we have such a talented group of young players, the sky is truly the limit. Even though this is my first season on a coaching staff, I know that 2020-21 was unlike any we&rsquo;ve seen before. As a player, I looked at practice as an opportunity to work with my coaches and learn my teammates&rsquo; tendencies &nbsp;The practice time was definitely limited this season.
Funny thing is, though, I actually played with a few of our players, and since they were my former teammates, I think it gave me an advantage. I played with Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball and Josh Hart in Los Angeles and with Steven Adams in Oklahoma City. The trust and familiarity with those guys is already there, so that definitely helped.
Being around Zion Williamson helped, too. It&rsquo;s hard to not be excited when you're&nbsp;around someone like him. You can&rsquo;t truly appreciate him unless you&rsquo;re around him every day. He&rsquo;s just incredible.
As for the rest of the guys, B.I. is a budding All-Star, Lonzo just had his best season and Josh is getting better every single day. Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Kira Lewis Jr. and Jaxson Hayes are going to have long, productive futures in this league. With all of these guys, I&rsquo;m so happy to be able to play a small part in their success.
As a player development coach, I&rsquo;ve worked with these players and tried to help them reach their full potential. In all facets of their game, the goal is to go from being &ldquo;okay&rdquo; or &ldquo;good&rdquo; to &ldquo;excellent,&rdquo; and that&rsquo;s true whether you&rsquo;re talking about shooting, passing or ball-handling.
Improvement requires a lot of work during the season as well as in the offseason. So we&rsquo;re just taking it one day at a time and trying to be the best that we can be. We&rsquo;ve made some great progress.
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Zion Williamson
Zion truly puts the work in. He&rsquo;s been working on his shot a lot and is so diligent; he really goes hard. He&rsquo;s already so great at attacking the basket and being physical, so the next step for him is to add some midrange and continue to develop his three-point shooting. If he&rsquo;s able to become consistent out there, it&rsquo;ll open up things for him and his teammates. It&rsquo;ll also make him literally unstoppable.
What&rsquo;s incredible about him is the fact that even though he&rsquo;s been getting so much attention for so long, he&rsquo;s so humble. He really wants to be a great player and is really willing to put in the work. If you didn&rsquo;t know him, there&rsquo;s no way you&rsquo;d ever know that he&rsquo;s been a household name for so long.
You can tell that he&rsquo;s not satisfied with where he&rsquo;s been or what he&rsquo;s achieved. He approaches his career as if it&rsquo;s just beginning, and that&rsquo;s so refreshing. His positive attitude along with his unprecedented combination of size and athleticism is scary.
He&rsquo;s one of one. I&rsquo;ve never see anything like him. But the best part is that you know he&rsquo;s not satisfied.
Brandon Ingram
Brandon gets better each game. He&rsquo;s only 23 years old, and his focus for a young player is incredible. Along with Zion, they&rsquo;re going to make New Orleans a force to be reckoned with for years to come. Brandon himself is going to be one of the top players in this league for a long, long time. What&rsquo;s been most reassuring about him is that even though he&rsquo;s been getting individual attention and accolades, his focus is always about what he needs to improve on to make the team better.
At the end of the day, he knows that in order for the team to get to the next level, he needs to continue to improve, and that&rsquo;s his priority. We&rsquo;ve been working with him on making quicker decisions, getting to his spots and learning how to counter the looks that defenses are giving him. He&rsquo;s not a secret anymore; other teams are building defensive gameplans around him and his ability to adjust and learn how to read coverages is really what&rsquo;s going to help him remain productive and help the team compete every night.
He and Zion give us a one-two punch of young All-Stars that a lot of teams don&rsquo;t have. We&rsquo;re grateful for that.
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Lonzo Ball
If there&rsquo;s one thing that everyone has been wanting Lonzo to do, it&rsquo;s shoot more. His shot has come such a long way, and assistant coach Fred Vinson is especially proud since he&rsquo;s been working on it with &lsquo;Zo so much. The improvement has been amazing. Whenever I talk to Lonzo, the main thing I tell him is to be more aggressive and keep opposing defenses honest. He has all the tools to be an effective scorer in the league, but he&rsquo;s such a willing passer that sometimes he comes across as being a little passive.
This past season, he took a major step forward, though, not only with his shot, but also his ability to play at different speeds and see the floor. He&rsquo;s a budding floor general.
At the end of the day, the more aggressive Lonzo is, the more aggressive the team is and that&rsquo;s a net-positive for us. His game fits so perfectly with Zion and B.I. that, with those three, we have a chance to be a really good team. It&rsquo;s exciting!
I had the opportunity to play with Lonzo in Los Angeles and his shot has come such a long way since then. He plays the game at his own pace and doesn&rsquo;t really force anything; it&rsquo;s just a matter of balancing his patience with some aggression, but overall, he has all the qualities of a truly great point guard.
Nickeil Alexander-Walker
Nickeil is going to be a big-time scoring guard in the league for years to come. He doesn&rsquo;t really get the same kind of attention as some of our other players, but he&rsquo;s gonna get there, trust me. He has a lot of stuff in his game, and even though he&rsquo;s still figuring out his strengths, he&rsquo;s going to be a dangerous, dangerous player.
Earlier this season, he scored 37 points against the Clippers in Los Angeles, so you can see the potential. He&rsquo;s had some other big games, too, so you know his future is bright. Even right now, he has a good midrange game, and once his finishing gets better, he is going to be really tough to stop.
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Josh Hart
I&rsquo;ve watched a lot of film with Josh, and like B.I. and Lonzo, I played with him in L.A.
When you're playing with Brandon and Zion, you&rsquo;ve gotta be able to move off the ball and be a good cutter, because they just attract so much attention. I think that&rsquo;s the main thing that will help him get some easy buckets for us, and that&rsquo;s what most of our film studies have focused on.
Josh is probably the best rebounding guard in the NBA today and his jumpshot is getting better every day. He&rsquo;s been incredibly receptive to the pointers we give him on both ends of the court, and defensively, he can effectively guard 1-4. He&rsquo;s also a good ball-handler and, overall, a very versatile player. He can literally go to any team in the league and be super effective, but I&rsquo;m happy we have him.
Kira Lewis Jr.
Kira is one of the fastest guys I have ever seen. His speed is elite. At this point, he&rsquo;s still trying to learn the game a bit more and learn how to slow down while maintaining his aggression, and it&rsquo;s a process. We know he can get to wherever he wants on the floor, and that&rsquo;s something that&rsquo;s going to help him have a productive career in the league, but he has to get better at reading situations.
In terms of his shooting, he&rsquo;s improved quite a bit, and once he puts it all together, he&rsquo;s going to be really tough.
In some ways, he reminds me of young point guards like John Wall and Derrick Rose. When they first came into the league, they would rely on their speed more than anything else, and even though that&rsquo;s a dangerous weapon, you&rsquo;ve gotta have other assets in your game. Kira understands that. I will say that this year has been so tough for rookies because there wasn&rsquo;t much practice time. Learning in games is tough, so I give him a lot of credit for the strides he&rsquo;s made.
Jaxson Hayes
Jaxson is an elite athlete, especially for someone with his size. He&rsquo;s just 20 years old and I think the main thing for him is to get stronger. Steven Adams&rsquo; arrival has taken some of his minutes away, but he has continued to work hard and he has all the tools necessary to be a difference-maker for our team.
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One thing I learned very quickly is how hard coaches have to work. It&rsquo;s literally around the clock. In New Orleans, we have individual development plans for each of our players where we give specific things to work on. That obviously requires us to spend a lot of time watching their game film to properly analyze their strengths and weaknesses. We have to know each player's game intimately in order to help them.
It&rsquo;s funny how after 13 years, I became a rookie again. I&rsquo;ve learned firsthand that coaching is no joke, but I&rsquo;m so thankful to be part of an organization that has such a bright future.
One year down, hopefully, many more to go.

NBA veteran Corey Brewer learned quite a bit during his first season as a player development coach with the New Orleans Pelicans.