LeadPro (Flickr)
For my project on basketball history over the next few weeks, I’ll be tweeting out the following questions and hope y’all leave some good answers here in the comments or at my Twitter feed.
In the interest of integrity, please answer the questions only with your current knowledge as you see the questions.
Questions:
1) When did the 1st pro basketball leagues form in the United States?
2) In your opinion, what is the biggest scandal in NBA history?
c_richca (flickr)
A few nights ago watching the Cleveland Cavaliers take on the Miami Heat, I found myself incensed and enraged at what was taking place.
I’m not a Miami Heat fan. So, I wasn’t perturbed by Cleveland leading for most of the night. I wasn’t disturbed by the endless turnovers and bonehead plays that kept Cleveland ahead.
I’m not a Cleveland Cavaliers fan. So, I have no lingering antipathy for LeBron James. I wasn’t devastated by not seeing Kyrie Irving play.
What had me pissed, however, was a particular player of the Cavaliers, who I had yet to see play for an extended period of time this year. This player took a never-ending stream of off-balance, contested, unfathomably awful shots.Worse yet, he seemed delighted in his spectacle. Truculent in doing all that chucking.
And seeing this horrific scene brought to mind one frightening thought: MY GOD! DION WAITERS IS THE NEW VERNON MAXWELL!!!
Unfortunately, to paraphrase and adapt Rasheed Wallace, the numbers don’t lie…
As someone who grew up watching Vernon Maxwell, this is an unfortunate turn of events for Cleveland fans and folks who enjoy intelligently played basketball. Mad Max was drunk on the power of delivering a hot streak. Oh sure, he’d get it every once in a while to bring the Rockets back or surge them ahead. But these streaks of fools’ gold belied the fact he was a terrible shooter.
(Maxwell was a good, if not stellar, defender, though.)
Watching Waiters against Miami was like watching Maxwell resurrected. I fear this Reincarnated Zombie Maxwell will bring fear and depravity to the shores of Lake Erie for years to come.
But…
THERE’S A BUT?!
Yes, there’s a but…
He could still learn the fine art of judicious shot selection. He can lay down the grail of selfish hero-ball and drink from the righteous cup of prudent shooting. This is Waiters after just 13 games. No one should ever write an article genuinely concluding and comparing a rookie after a handful of games to a player who’s been in the league for ages. But the frightful seeds are there with Waiters. Just hope they never blossom into a Maxwellian lotus of despair and fright.
Nikon Nutter 2009 (flickr)
Like that empty lot full of void and despair, Cedric Simmons gave the world a shot of desperation and disappointment.
Prior to this season, 107 NBA or ABA players have attempted at least free throw, but have failed to make one. In other words, they finished the season shooting an abysmal 0% from the free throw line. Now, I shouldn’t say these players finished the season. For the most part, they were finished while the season continued. Their level of play was better suited for Euroleagues, minor leagues, or the local rec center.
But one man stands low below all of the others in the 0% FT club: Cedric Simmons.
In 14 games evenly split between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Chicago Bulls in the 2007-08 season, Simmons attempted 10 free throws and missed every single one of them. These are the most free throw attempts by a player in NBA/ABA history without actually making one. Certainly going oh!-for-ten is a bad streak, but it wasn’t far off Simmons’s career acumen. He shot 49% in 2006-07 and 44% in 2008-09.
Simmons is now playing for Enel Brindis in the Italian League and apparently carries Bulgarian citizenship now. I’ve no idea what his stats are over there, or how he enjoyed visits to Sofia, but I hope he’s performing well. Whatever else happens though, he’s already cemented his place in North American Pro Hoops History as the most futile free throw shooter ever.
Corbis Images
Yesterday was the 52nd anniversary of Wilt Chamberlain grabbing 55 rebounds against the Boston Celtics. The Philadelphia Warriors’ big man in the process set the all-time record for rebounds in a single game. How Herculean was the Big Dipper’s performance?
Looking at the boxscores from last night’s games, 16 teams were in action and only one team grabbed more rebounds last night than Chamberlain did that night in 1960. As you see, the Los Angeles Lakers snared 61 total rebounds against the hapless Dallas Mavericks who shot an abysmal 37% creating a wealth of rebounding opportunities.
And this is just how Wilt also pumped up his rebounding numbers. The NBA of his era was operating at warp speed as team’s jacked up lots of shots, but also missed a good share of them. Still, to grab fifty-five rebounds is nothing I’m going to belittle. Just another one of Wilt Chamberlain’s larger-than-life accomplishments.
Reggie Evans flopped a little too hard (smthng via Flickr)
In his 11-year journeyman career, Brooklyn Nets forward Reggie Evans has finally made history: He is the first NBA player to be fined for flopping.
Evans was fined $5,000 for his second flopping offense, a league source told Yahoo! Sports on Wednesday.
I take humbrage at Woj’s assertion that this is the first historic moment for Reggie Evans. Remember that one time he tried to castrate Chris Kaman?
Anyhoo, Reggie is the first NBA player fined for flopping and in his sorry honor,I give you Midnight Star’s “No Parking (On The Dance Floor)”, except imagine the chorus as “No flopping, Reggie, no flopping on the hard court.” A stretch but I haven’t posted anything in weeks, so enjoy the funky filler material.
The three-time all-star turns 41 today and I felt it appropriate to share with everyone this amazing finger roll from the Temple product. In addition to his great defense and slashing offense, Jones was one of the suavest and coolest players in the league during the 1990s and early 2000s. It was exemplified in his spectacular mustache. The finest of the era.
Yes, even better than Kevin Ollie’s.
Editor’s Note: this article first appeared at Hardwood Paroxysm on November 9, 2011, the day of Macauley’s death
Photo via Life Magazine
“Ed matured quicker than most of us. He was an all-around type of guy who had a stablizing effect on us as a leader. We all learned something from him.” – Bob Cousy
Via 100 Greatest Basketball Players of All-Time by Alex Sachare
This is the trouble in idolizing and adoring legends from bygone eras when you’re a 20-something like me. The shrouded mystique and the tantalizing aura of what these people did draws me in. I thoroughly enjoy the play of LeBron James, Kevin Durant and other greats of today’s NBA. The music of Erykah Badu and the Black Keys thrills me too. But there’s something about catching deep-from-the-vaults archival footage of James Brown & the Famous Flames taking impassioned begging to new heights or the shrouded mystique and aura of players from the 50s captured primarily in still photos like the one above.
Even when you know the era wasn’t totally charming and had its flaws, there is still a sense of quaintness about these rare snippets of a departed era. And like those eras, we all eventually depart. On Tuesday, Ed Macauley took his leave.
From Leroy Edwards to LeBron James, it’s the history of professional basketball in North America!
3x NBL MVP Leroy Edwards and 3x NBA MVP LeBron James / photos courtesy of bigblue.net and sfgate.com
After a year-long, and still on-going, stint at Matt Moore’s Hardwood Paroxysm, I’m founding this blog to unearth, re-tell and bring forth some of the best stories, players and issues produced by the National Basketball Association and its three predecessor leagues, the National Basketball League (NBL; 1937 – 1949), the Basketball Association of America (BAA; 1946 – 1949), and the American Basketball Association (ABA; 1967 – 1976). Other leagues, like the American Basketball League (ABL), and independent barnstormers, like the Harlem Rens, will get face time here as well.
New posts will be coming soon, as well as my back catalog of material produced for Hardwood Paroxysm over the last 14 months. In the meantime follow me on Twitter @prohoopshistory to get the word on when official content is up and ready to go!
