Post by edafan on Jun 6, 2005 9:05:38 GMT -5
Remember our beloved David Ruffin couldn't even afford his own funeral
A poor effort by those getting rich via NBA
By Bob Ryan, Globe Columnist | June 6, 2005
Oh, sure, they'll say such nice things about George Mikan now that he is dead, but where were they when he really needed them?
They should be utterly ashamed of themselves, and I mean all of them. I'm talking about David Stern and Players Association head Billy Hunter and anyone else who could have done something about the insipid exclusion of pre-1965 NBA players from any decent pension money. Did any of them see the 80-year-old Mikan in that ESPN piece last month, his body ravaged by diabetes, sitting in his wheelchair (his right leg had been amputated in 2000) and making a plea for a decent pension, not just for himself, but for the other pre-1965 players who set the table for the bazillionaires of today?
It is all a sick, pathetic joke. How much money would anyone be talking about if they doubled or tripled the pension for the ever-dwindling number of eligible players? Funny how everyone's hands are always tied when it comes to this matter, isn't it?
Gene Conley knows. The former Celtics, Knicks, Red Sox, Phillies, and Braves player -- yes, young 'uns, you read that correctly -- along with his wife, Katy, have been fighting the good fight for years now, and they have the stationery, telephone, and postage bills to prove it. But their pleas for fairness and justice, and, yes, compassion, have not been honored.
It is now too late for Mikan, pro basketball's first true superstar. The Minneapolis Lakers were the first post-war professional basketball glamour team, winning five available championships in a six-year period from 1949 through 1954, and their centerpiece was Mikan, a 6-foot-10-inch, 250 pound center who brought a new authority to the position.
The issue with Mikan is not how he would fare today, but how he measured up against the standards of his time. In that context, George Mikan's impact on basketball ranks at the top of the list, along with Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Elgin Baylor, Oscar Robertson, Julius Erving, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Michael Jordan, all of whom either brought a special creativity to the game, or were so devastatingly effective that either people were imitating them or rules were being made to counteract them.
Imagine modern basketball, for example, if goaltending were allowed, if the foul lane were 6 feet wide, or if there were no 3-second rule. Along with Oklahoma A&M great Bob Kurland, Mikan gets at least half the credit for the goaltending rule and all the credit for the altering of the lane and creation of the 3-second rule. Kurland, who never entered the NBA, but who was a collegiate, AAU, and Olympic great, was a college contemporary of Mikan during the mid-'40s. Before them, the concept of goaltending was an irrelevancy. But they were the first two legitimate big men to come along, and after watching them guard the nest, a goaltending rule was written.
But the credit for the widening of the lane and the creation of the 3-second rule is Mikan's alone. Mikan averaged 28.3, 27.4, and 28.4 points per game from 1948-49 to 1950-51, and the Lakers, who also had such great players as Jim Pollard, Slater Martin, and Vern Mikklesen, won championships in '49 and '50. Even though Rochester won the 1951 title, Mikan was such an unstoppable individual force that the league decided something had to be done.
To understand his place in the game at that time, consider that in 1950 he had been voted as the greatest basketball player ever in an Associated Press poll to determine the best athletes of the half-century. Thus, he was a certified living legend when the league reacted to his greatness by widening the lane from 6 to 12 feet before the 1951-52 season.
As Norman Markov wrote in a 1959 Sport Magazine profile, ''He was so good that when every other possible defense against him, fair or foul, had been tried and found wanting, the league had to widen the lanes under the baskets from 6 feet to 12. All that succeeded in doing was cut Big George's scoring average from 28 to 24 points per game." And the Lakers won the next three NBA titles, anyway.
So how did he do it? He was a hook shooter primarily, but what he also brought to the table was a competitiveness and ferociousness that prior big men had lacked. He recognized that playing in the pivot was for Capital M Men, and he therefore dished it out and took it down there in equal proportion. The partial litany of Mikan injuries, as reported by Markov: ''Each of George's legs was broken once. His right foot, the arch of his left foot, his right wrist, his nose, and his thumb also suffered broken bones. Three of his fingers were broken. His nose was ripped open twice. He has a total of 166 stitches, ranging from three to 16 at a sitting."
But George could give it, too.
Explained Leonard Koppett in ''Total Basketball, The Ultimate Basketball Encyclopedia": ''The Lakers would bring the ball up slowly, waiting for the lumbering Mikan to get into position in the pivot. They would concentrate on getting the ball to Big George, whose huge left elbow would open a swath as he turned to the basket."
Again, Markov: ''No sissy himself, Mikan could give out as much punishment as he took when the occasion warranted. His usual method was to hurl his massive body at a particularly annoying guard, either going in for a shot or up for a rebound. Nobody could ever outmuscle him under the basket."
Mikan retired at age 29, citing the desire to spend more time with his family. He had been going to law school during the offseason. Those were, as you can see, decidedly different times. This was a man who had gone to DePaul University in Chicago (he was born and raised in nearby Joliet) because he still could live at home and help out at the family restaurant. More evidence that those were different times.
He did un-retire briefly in 1955, but he quit for good at age 31, his legend intact.
George Mikan brought honor and dignity to the game by simply being George Mikan for the rest of his years. He was a warm, charming, gracious, honest, and guileless man who just happened to have carried the league on his broad shoulders for a good half-dozen years. Using the word ''pioneer" to describe the role played by him and his contemporaries is not inappropriate. Mikan was merely the most prominent among them, but all the men who played in the NBA before 1965 deserve a share of this ludicrously large pie.
I will exempt Shaquille O'Neal, who offered to pay for Mikan's funeral. Everyone else getting rich off the NBA should be ashamed. Hey, guys, look at it this way. There's one less player you'll have to pay for. Perhaps if you wait long enough, they'll all die off on you, not just the best one of them all.
Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com.
A poor effort by those getting rich via NBA
By Bob Ryan, Globe Columnist | June 6, 2005
Oh, sure, they'll say such nice things about George Mikan now that he is dead, but where were they when he really needed them?
They should be utterly ashamed of themselves, and I mean all of them. I'm talking about David Stern and Players Association head Billy Hunter and anyone else who could have done something about the insipid exclusion of pre-1965 NBA players from any decent pension money. Did any of them see the 80-year-old Mikan in that ESPN piece last month, his body ravaged by diabetes, sitting in his wheelchair (his right leg had been amputated in 2000) and making a plea for a decent pension, not just for himself, but for the other pre-1965 players who set the table for the bazillionaires of today?
It is all a sick, pathetic joke. How much money would anyone be talking about if they doubled or tripled the pension for the ever-dwindling number of eligible players? Funny how everyone's hands are always tied when it comes to this matter, isn't it?
Gene Conley knows. The former Celtics, Knicks, Red Sox, Phillies, and Braves player -- yes, young 'uns, you read that correctly -- along with his wife, Katy, have been fighting the good fight for years now, and they have the stationery, telephone, and postage bills to prove it. But their pleas for fairness and justice, and, yes, compassion, have not been honored.
It is now too late for Mikan, pro basketball's first true superstar. The Minneapolis Lakers were the first post-war professional basketball glamour team, winning five available championships in a six-year period from 1949 through 1954, and their centerpiece was Mikan, a 6-foot-10-inch, 250 pound center who brought a new authority to the position.
The issue with Mikan is not how he would fare today, but how he measured up against the standards of his time. In that context, George Mikan's impact on basketball ranks at the top of the list, along with Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Elgin Baylor, Oscar Robertson, Julius Erving, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Michael Jordan, all of whom either brought a special creativity to the game, or were so devastatingly effective that either people were imitating them or rules were being made to counteract them.
Imagine modern basketball, for example, if goaltending were allowed, if the foul lane were 6 feet wide, or if there were no 3-second rule. Along with Oklahoma A&M great Bob Kurland, Mikan gets at least half the credit for the goaltending rule and all the credit for the altering of the lane and creation of the 3-second rule. Kurland, who never entered the NBA, but who was a collegiate, AAU, and Olympic great, was a college contemporary of Mikan during the mid-'40s. Before them, the concept of goaltending was an irrelevancy. But they were the first two legitimate big men to come along, and after watching them guard the nest, a goaltending rule was written.
But the credit for the widening of the lane and the creation of the 3-second rule is Mikan's alone. Mikan averaged 28.3, 27.4, and 28.4 points per game from 1948-49 to 1950-51, and the Lakers, who also had such great players as Jim Pollard, Slater Martin, and Vern Mikklesen, won championships in '49 and '50. Even though Rochester won the 1951 title, Mikan was such an unstoppable individual force that the league decided something had to be done.
To understand his place in the game at that time, consider that in 1950 he had been voted as the greatest basketball player ever in an Associated Press poll to determine the best athletes of the half-century. Thus, he was a certified living legend when the league reacted to his greatness by widening the lane from 6 to 12 feet before the 1951-52 season.
As Norman Markov wrote in a 1959 Sport Magazine profile, ''He was so good that when every other possible defense against him, fair or foul, had been tried and found wanting, the league had to widen the lanes under the baskets from 6 feet to 12. All that succeeded in doing was cut Big George's scoring average from 28 to 24 points per game." And the Lakers won the next three NBA titles, anyway.
So how did he do it? He was a hook shooter primarily, but what he also brought to the table was a competitiveness and ferociousness that prior big men had lacked. He recognized that playing in the pivot was for Capital M Men, and he therefore dished it out and took it down there in equal proportion. The partial litany of Mikan injuries, as reported by Markov: ''Each of George's legs was broken once. His right foot, the arch of his left foot, his right wrist, his nose, and his thumb also suffered broken bones. Three of his fingers were broken. His nose was ripped open twice. He has a total of 166 stitches, ranging from three to 16 at a sitting."
But George could give it, too.
Explained Leonard Koppett in ''Total Basketball, The Ultimate Basketball Encyclopedia": ''The Lakers would bring the ball up slowly, waiting for the lumbering Mikan to get into position in the pivot. They would concentrate on getting the ball to Big George, whose huge left elbow would open a swath as he turned to the basket."
Again, Markov: ''No sissy himself, Mikan could give out as much punishment as he took when the occasion warranted. His usual method was to hurl his massive body at a particularly annoying guard, either going in for a shot or up for a rebound. Nobody could ever outmuscle him under the basket."
Mikan retired at age 29, citing the desire to spend more time with his family. He had been going to law school during the offseason. Those were, as you can see, decidedly different times. This was a man who had gone to DePaul University in Chicago (he was born and raised in nearby Joliet) because he still could live at home and help out at the family restaurant. More evidence that those were different times.
He did un-retire briefly in 1955, but he quit for good at age 31, his legend intact.
George Mikan brought honor and dignity to the game by simply being George Mikan for the rest of his years. He was a warm, charming, gracious, honest, and guileless man who just happened to have carried the league on his broad shoulders for a good half-dozen years. Using the word ''pioneer" to describe the role played by him and his contemporaries is not inappropriate. Mikan was merely the most prominent among them, but all the men who played in the NBA before 1965 deserve a share of this ludicrously large pie.
I will exempt Shaquille O'Neal, who offered to pay for Mikan's funeral. Everyone else getting rich off the NBA should be ashamed. Hey, guys, look at it this way. There's one less player you'll have to pay for. Perhaps if you wait long enough, they'll all die off on you, not just the best one of them all.
Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com.