NBA Dog Days
For reasons that will become clear within the space of about a week, I've been doing a bit of research on the career of former Washington Bullet off-guard Phil Chenier, who was a ringer for Walt Frazier in the mid-70s—and almost as good a player. In the course of my online travels, I came across this piece on Chenier, which contains the shocking revelation (to me, at least) that when the Bullets beat the Sonics in the '78 Finals, they had to play a 1-2-2-1-1 home and away format. Why? There was a previously scheduled mobile home show at one of the arenas. That's right: the NBA had to work around a mobile home show during its biggest showcase of the year. For anyone who thinks the sport is at some sort of nadir, please bear this in mind.
Researching Chenier also reminded me how fucking incredible Elvin Hayes was in his day (and how incredibly fucking stupid the Rockets were to trade him to the then-Baltimore Bullets). Which reminds us that maybe it's not such a foregone conclusion that Tim Duncan is the best power forward to ever play the game, which became a common refrain throughout the course of last year's playoffs. With apologies to Karl Malone, who never won a ring and whose rookie season was nowhere near as impressive as that of either Duncan or Hayes, consider TD's and Big E's respective cumulative averages over their first six seasons. Duncan: a staggering 22.8 points and 12.3 rebounds. But Hayes? 25.4 & 16.3. Take that, Timmy -- and let's re-open the debate.
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