ESPN.com recently did a piece where they asked their NBA correspondents to predict how the world would look back on the Spurs many years from now. Let’s just say their answers were as enthusiastic as the actual Spurs players were after they won the championship. You can’t blame them though; the sad truth is that 30 years from now, no one is even going to look at AT the Spurs; they’ll look PAST them. Just like everyone looks past the 94-95 Champion Rockets. And it’s not only b/c they are beyond boring and Ginoboli spends more time on his back then Paris Hilton during her conjugal visits.
It’s because, as many people have mentioned lately, the NBA really HAS peaked! Admit it, the golden years are gone, and a whole generation of kids are growing up on a weak, filtered version of basketball. So allow me to go into my normal “hater” mode and reminisce about a simpler time, when basketball really was basketball (little disclaimer here: only going to discuss the 90’s b/c I feel this was the peak for NBA), rap really was rap, and no one knew who he hell Paris Hilton even was. Yeah, as our grandparents would say, “those were the good ol’ days”…
Lets start at the beginning.
1991. This is where the NBA reached it’s high point and really took off to its ultimate peak. First off, NBC bought the rights to air the NBA, and we were introduced to “my main man” Ahmad Rashad. Inside Stuff was THE best show when I was younger, and I still have tapes and tapes of old “Jam Sessions”. Willow Bay was not hot, but attractive and easy to watch. Tim Hardaway and Larry Johnson made you want to watch the opening of the show over and over. Even more important than that Dream Team combo was the duo of Marvelous and The Czar of the telestrator. Marv Albert and Mike Fratello are still, to this day, THE greatest announcing combo in NBA history. Marv is the funniest, dry humor person there is, and him and Mike go back and forth with each other and Ahmad (and later magic) ridiculously. It was always funny to see Marv interview players and say some very dry jokes and have the players half laugh, half look at him funny. And compared to #### Stockton and Hubie Brown on CBS, they are pretty much Rob and Bigg (except Marv is NOT a 300 lb black man and has a toupe).
Plus, MJ and the Bulls won their first title the same year NBC took over, so it almost seemed too perfect. Obviously everyone knows all about Jordan and the Bulls, so I don’t need to harp on this too much. But look at that first Bulls title team and their playoff run. Jordan and Pippen were in their prime and Jordan was doing some of the sickest dunks, which looked even better because he had started his weight training and put on some muscle. The Bulls swept Patrick Ewing, and treated us to Jordan’s infamous facial over Ewing (and a lesser known Pippen facial over Ewing that was just as sick), they took out Barkley, swept the Bad Boys and Isiah, and beat Magic Johnson in the finals. Every series was literally a marquee matchup of the leagues top stars. There was so much more parity among the superstars and leagues back then.
And to top it all off, you had Bob Costas pulling the ultimate foot-in-the-mouth move of the decade. After the Bulls beat LA and were celebrating in the locker room, Bob grabbed the woman who was hugging Jordan and asked if it was his mother. “No, that’s my wife!” a startled and embarrassed Jordan replied. Then Costas stammered to blame the mistake on all the champagne in the room. Just mad funny.
The Dunk contest was sick too. Dee Brown and the Reebok Pump sneakers (obviously had a pair that were two sizes too big b/c they were sold out of my size) versus the manchild Shawn Kemp. Shawn Kemp was like Clyde Drexler; a great in-game dunker but horrible contest dunker. But it was still a great contest. (I remember Kemp doing one of his behind-the-back dunks from this contest in a later game on MTV Rock-n-Jock or whatever it was called).
Anyways, ’92 was more of the same. A Bulls team that almost won 69 games. The Dream Team. Magic in the All-Star Game. Bulls-Knicks in 7, with the classic Jordan angry outlash at Ewing and McDaniel. Jordan with 6 3’s in the half. I mean, you really don’t have to say much.
You also had some less memorable moments that still were good back then. Like Grandma-ma Larry Johnson and his gold tooth and cross dressing commercials. He was the resident young, bad-#### thug in the L at the time who could do some incredible dunks (see the reference above about Inside Stuff). Mount Mutombo had made his entrance into the NBA (and somehow he is STILL playing well) and no one could understand a word he ever said (and somehow we STILL can’t understand a word he says). He scared the #### out of me when I first heard him speak. Similar to Yao Ming, he sounded like a transvestite Frankenstein.
Anyways, you had just overall ri-donkulous players back then. Shawn Kemp was by far the most jaw-dropping dunker next to MJ at this time. He was a descendant of Dominique and a pre-cursor to Vince Carter. Everyone loved Kemp because he not only facialized people, but he literally talked the most #### to everyone immediately after he did it. He was the only guy who would catch an alley-oop, swing his nuts into your face, land on you, and then top it all off by screaming in your face or swatting the ball at you. He was one of THE most electrifying dunkers of the era (watch the Kemp segment on NBA Superstars tape; the setups are mad corny, but the highlights are worth it). But even better than Kemps dunks was his one-of-a-kind haircut. I seriously had never seen anyone cut their hair like that and fade the TOP of their head and leave a little puff at the end. It was funny too b/c a bunch of my friends even copied his hair but could never pull it off like him.
I’m sure there’s a lot more im forgetting, but ####, it was almost 15 years ago so cut me some slack.
1993 was the end of an era for the NBA. MJ and Pip came off the Dream Team and led the Bulls to a hard-fought 3-Peat (and greatly increased Pat Riley’s bank account every time someone said the patented phrase “Three-Peat”). I think THAT by far is the most visionary move ever, patenting a phrase as a head coach. Only Riley would even think of that.
The All-Star Game that year was particularly good, going into Overtime and featuring some classic Jordan moves and dunks. Latrell Sprewell made his first of many All-Star games. People forget how good Sprewell was back then. He led the league in minutes played and was so athletic. He had some nasty dunks and a great jumper too. Shawn Kemp popped his cherry too for the Popular dance, but didn’t do too much during the actual game.
But the biggest story of the year was the entrance of….THE SHAQ!
LOL. It’s so funny now to watch old games from his first few years, b/c literally EVERYONE called him “The Shaq” back then, and every announcer seemed to be in a contest for who could suck his #### more. During the entire All-Star Game, #### Enberg made me wonder whether he was on Shaq’s payroll. But the biggest culprit by far was Earvin. Johnson worked out with Shaq and tried to get him to come to LA (he would later succeed), so he seriously was all over his nuts on everything. And people didn’t talk about him as a player; they spoke about him like he was a martian, and every comment was in this amazed, whisper-like reverent tone. I can’t hate because back then I probably did the same thing (obviously my memory is horrible so god knows what I was doing back then). It’s just one of those things that when I look back now, it’s just mad funny. Jordan welcomed The Shaq Attack with a 64-point game against the Magic (I have it on tape).
Christian Laettner and Alonzo Mourning also made their debuts. Zo and LJ seemed like an unstoppable combination at the time, but as we know, it was doomed to sel####estruction. Christian Laettner never achieved his stature from college in the Pros.
Harold Miner had started to get the monikor “baby Jordan” and won the Slam Dunk Contest, bringing some fame to my hometown HEAT. Of course, Jordan swatted the #### out of Miner in one of their games as a “I aint dead yet” statement.
The ’93 Playoffs were especially memorable. It seemed like EVERYONE had the magic touch, with Barkley, rookie ‘Zo, and Jordan hitting Game-winning shots. Jordan scored 54 against the Knicks in Game 4, then scored a classic 55 against the Suns in Game 4 of The Finals. ####, he averaged over 40 points a game the entire Finals series. It’s funny, b/c everyone had Lebron-mania when he beat Detroit in Game 5 (everyone forgets he SUCKED every other game of the series), but Jordan did that in every game, literally. He was always scoring the Bulls last 15-20 points.
Plus he did it against that year’s MVP, Charles Barkley (who also was in the best shape he would ever be in thanks to the summer with The Dream Team). Barkley was hysterical during that series too, and showed us glimpses of what was to come on “Inside the NBA”. Anyways, I know I sound like an old-timer with all this reminiscing and looking back, but ####, what else can I do. I’ve got another summer of no basketball, and even when there IS basketball, I’m not that impressed with what I’m seeing. Thankfully, I’ve got tons of old games on tape to remind me of a time when substance mattered, NOT potential.
You may be wondering why I’m stopping at 1993. Well, b/c Jordan retired and 94 and most of 95 weren’t the same without him (although Pip blossomed into a top superstar during this span). And then when he came back, the league expanded North of the border, and the talent disparity suffered, and the league got older. The All-Star games were the same players as 5 years ago, just older.
To me, the greatest year of these was 1992 because of The Bulls absolute dominance of the League, Jordan and Pippen at their best (before all the jealousies from Horace Grant and the mental fatigue). You had the Dream Team. Magic made a dramatic comeback. Just a lot of things that put this year up there as the best ever…
