Collision Course

by William Cook

  Then, on February 1, suddenly another problem occurred, Oscar Robertson revealed that he had suffered a groin injury. The Royals’ team physician examined him, confirmed the injury, and recommended that he be out two weeks.

  Following the botched Baltimore trade attempted by Bob Cousy, Joe Axelson, and Ambrose Lindhorst, according to Robertson, everyone, including the Cincinnati Enquirer, turned up the heat to run him out town; Robertson cites in his biography a story in the Enquirer that stated, in part, that the reason the Royals attempted to trade Robertson was because Bob Cousy didn’t think basketball was a one-on-one game. That was the philosophy he carried with him from winning multiple championships in Boston. In the article, it stated, “The Royals would never lose if Oscar and one player from the other team could play one-on-one for 48 minutes. But basketball is not this way and the Royals with Robertson have never been a champion.”25

  Bob Cousy, the Royals management, and Oscar Robertson were at loggerheads in their dispute, and it all seemed to be a complex matter driven by the personality conflicts existing among the parties as much as money. Oscar told the press, “under no circumstances will I play for this organization after this season.”26

  With Oscar Robertson out of the line-up on February 6, the Royals were defeated by the New York Knicks, 135–92. The 43-point margin was the largest of the season for New York. It was the Royals’ fourth loss in a row.

  While Robertson was out, Tom Van Arsdale attempted to kick his game into high gear, and on a couple of occasions, scored more than 30 points, but the Royals only won 3 games while losing 8 during The Big O’s period of recuperation.

  Robertson finally returned to the line-up on February 21. According to Bob Cousy, he was happy to have Robertson back, and Robertson was happy to be back, playing at his customary high level. The Big O scored 28 points and the Royals defeated the Chicago Bulls 127–119. The win left the Royals with a record of 30–39 with 13 games remaining and the season was over for them.

  Oscar Robertson played his last home game for the Cincinnati Royals on March 20, 1970, against his old teammate Jerry Lucas and the San Francisco Warriors. The Warriors won the game 118–111 as Lucas, on those supposedly bad knees, scored 31 points and hauled in 25 rebounds. Oscar scored 24 points and later stated that he didn’t shoot in the final nine minutes of the game out of defiance.

  Following the game, when reporters asked Bob Cousy about Oscar’s noticeable shutdown in the game, he was indifferent: “Leave me alone, will you babe? I pass. There’s one game left. Leave it go, I pass.”27

  The final game for the 1969–70 Royals took place the following day at Madison Square Garden where the Royals beat the New York Knicks 136–120. In his final game with the Cincinnati Royals, Oscar Robertson scored 29 points.

  The transplanted Boston Celtics style of basketball that Bob Cousy attempted to use with the Cincinnati Royals hadn’t worked—while he didn’t have the right players for the offense he wanted, he continued to pretend that he did. As a result, the Royals finished in fifth place in the NBA Eastern Division with a record of 36–46, five games worse than they had finished the previous season under Ed Jucker. It was the third consecutive season that the Royals had failed to make the playoffs.

  Attendance at Cincinnati Gardens had improved slightly by 800 per game with the Royals averaging 4,869 per game while the team continued to play a barnstorming schedule with thirteen games played on neutral courts including four in Cleveland, three in Omaha, two in Memphis, two in Oakland, and one each in Kansas City and Columbia, South Carolina. All of that occurred while Bob Cousy and Joe Axelson traded or attempted to trade three of the most talented players on the team in Oscar Robertson, Jerry Lucas, and Adrian Smith and received no player of equal talent in return in any of the deals.

  During the 1969–70 season, Bob Cousy had played a total of 34 embarrassing minutes for the Royals spread over seven games and compiled a season statistical record of 0.7 points per game, 1.4 assists, and 0.7 rebounds.

  The soon-to-be-departing Oscar Robertson, on the other hand, finished the season scoring 25.3 points per game with 8.1 assists and 6.1 rebounds.

  At least there was a consolation prize for the Cincinnati Royals in 1969–70; after a decade of trying, the Royals finally finished ahead of the Boston Celtics. With Bill Russell’s retirement, the Celtics collapsed, finishing in sixth place in the NBA Eastern Division with a record of 34–48.

  The irony in the fact that Royals finished ahead of the Celtics was that it permitted Boston to have a higher draft pick in 1970 and allow them to select a player that would eventually lead them back to the top of the NBA.

  For nearly the entire decade of the 1960s, the New York Knicks had been the doormat of the NBA, finishing fourth (last) in the Eastern Division every season from 1959–60 to 1966–67. Then, as a result of each year’s draft and some key trades, the Knicks began to improve. As they steadily added players, such as Willis Reed, Dick Barnett, Walt Frazier, Dave Debusschere, Bill Bradley, and Cazzie Russell, by 1969–70, the Knicks had become NBA champions.

  The key to the Knicks’ success leading up to the 1969–70 championship was having balance in scoring, three regulars with consistent scoring averages every year in Willis Reed, Dick Barnett, and Dave DeBusschere.

  In route to the 1969–70 NBA crown, the New York Knicks defeated the Milwaukee Bucks 4 games to 1 in the Eastern Division Finals, then won the championship finals, beating the Los Angeles Lakers 4 games to 3.

  The Milwaukee Bucks, with NBA Rookie of the Year Lew Alcindor, had collapsed in the playoffs against the New York Knicks. Alcindor had finished the regular season with averages of 28.8 points per game, 14.3 rebounds, and 4.1 assists. He had been asked to do it all as the Bucks outside shooters couldn’t score and the inside men had trouble breaking through.

  In the final game of the Division Finals, Alcindor was dominated by Willis Reed, being pushed around until he fouled out. It fueled speculation that Oscar Robertson might be the player the Bucks needed to put them over the top.

  The Phoenix Suns called Joe Axelson and offered Gail Goodrich, Jim Fox, and Gregg Howard a 6′9″ player from New Mexico who had played in Italy during the past season, but Robertson and his attorney quickly turned down the trade.

  Robertson, with a no-trade clause in his Royals contract, had indicated that he might be agreeable to a trade with Milwaukee. Playing with a big man such as Lew Alcindor might give him a chance to win a championship before his playing days ended.

  On April 21, Oscar got his wish when the Royals traded him to Milwaukee for Flynn Robinson and Charlie Paulk. While Royals fans were familiar with Robinson, they didn’t know much about Paulk. Bob Cousy had never seen Paulk play, but Joe Axelson had and felt that since he could play both forward and center, he might be just the man that the Royals needed. At the time, Charley Paulk, a former NAIA All-American from Northeastern State College in Tahlequah, Oklahoma was serving with the U.S. Army in Viet Nam.

  Oscar Robertson had pretty much self-engineered his trade to the Milwaukee Bucks. The financial aspects of getting him to sign his contract with the Bucks were a piece of cake. All that Robertson asked for was a three-year contract at $175,000 a year, about $50,000 more than he had made with the Royals and the inclusion of the no-trade clause.

  Bob Cousy felt pretty good about the trade if for no other reason than the Royals would now be his team and not Oscar Robertson’s. Furthermore, Robertson had found it difficult to fit into Cousy’s patterns of play and now he could find a player who didn’t.

  In his official statement announcing the trade of Robertson to the Milwaukee Bucks, Bob Cousy said in part, “We are pleased that this situation has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of both Oscar and the Royals. I would like to repeat what I have stated on many occasions this year, that Oscar has done an outstanding job for the Royals and deserves the complete support and loyalty of the fans.”28

  While the press had been highly critical of Robertson in his yea
r of silent discontent with the Royals, Bob Cousy had allowed it to continue. Cousy and Axelson were telling the public and the press that the whole affair was about a new contract that Robertson wanted, one they couldn’t afford. But there was a lot more to it. The fact was that Oscar Robertson had been pushed out the door of Cincinnati Gardens by Cousy and Axelson.

  Bob Cousy said that in games Oscar carried a chip on his shoulder toward referees. “No one could look more startled than Oscar when a foul was called on him,” said Cousy. “It was often said that he went through his career absolutely certain that he had never committed a foul.”29

  As Oscar prepared to leave Cincinnati for Milwaukee, the press in the Queen City didn’t cut him any slack. Jim Schottelkotte of the Cincinnati Enquirer wrote, “The problem with Oscar is that we babied him here too much. He was our first bonafide super sports hero, the best ever to play the game, but nobody dare criticize him. When someone finally did, Oscar didn’t know how to handle it. In the future, those of us in the public media ought to remember it.”30

  There was a subtle ambiguity expressed by Oscar Robertson about leaving Cincinnati. He stated that when his basketball-playing days were over, he would return and make the city his home. In a response to the circumstances surrounding his trade to the Milwaukee Bucks, Robertson stated, “The attitude here was one in which I could not go on with. They traded me in mid-season. I just wasn’t wanted. I knew then it was time to get away.”31 Then, in response to having criticized the city and the Royals, Oscar said, “I’ve never knocked the town. The fans were driven away. The Royals never made a draft choice that helped the team. Only two of their No.1 draft choices remained around for a while, me and Lucas.”32

  Whatever the case may have been, if he criticized the city or not, one thing was certain, Oscar Robertson was absolutely blind to one aspect of his exodus from Cincinnati—the sentiment of the fans. Oscar Robertson never fully comprehended his status as a Cincinnati sports hero. He was always concerned with what the sportswriters were saying about him rather than what the fans thought about him. Even though the University of Cincinnati won two consecutive NCAA National Championships and narrowly missed a third, losing in a double overtime after he had graduated, The Big O was considered Cincinnati Bearcats basketball and still is to this very day. It would be nearly impossible to find one person today in Cincinnati that would argue that Oscar Robertson doesn’t deserve the statue of his likeness that sits on the University of Cincinnati campus. He’s the man!

  The only other athlete that could possibly challenge Robertson’s huge historical popularity in Queen City sports history is Pete Rose.

  Had Oscar Robertson left the NBA in the spring of 1970 and ran for Cincinnati City Council in the fall, he would have won in a landslide…and immediately would have become the most popular politician in the city—hands down. The people of Cincinnati loved him. But the only way Oscar could see the world was through a victim’s lens.

  It made no difference if Bob Cousy and Joe Axelson felt Robertson could not be part of their system, most of the Royals’ fans would have preferred to lose with Oscar rather than win without him. Still very few of those fans believed that Oscar should have stayed—they knew under the circumstances it was in his best interest to go. They sympathized with his plight and openly criticized Bob Cousy as being arrogant and self-serving. Oscar was the franchise. The overwhelming majority of Cincinnati Royals fans felt cheated with Oscar Robertson going to Milwaukee for Flynn Robinson and some unknown guy who was serving his country fighting in the jungles of Viet Nam. The Robertson trade became a trivia question in Cincinnati taverns for years to come: “Who Was Oscar Robertson Traded For?”

  But The Big O turned his back on his fans. To bring closure to his fourteen years on the hardwood in Cincinnati, Oscar Robertson needed to say goodbye to them, and he never did.

  ———

  * After winning his first NBA Championship in 1971 with the Milwaukee Bucks, at the age of 24, Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Jr. adopted the Muslim name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

  ** According to urbandictonary.com, Frick and Frack are defined as “two people, usually employees of a company, who are deemed to be incompetent, lazy, or wasting time continuously by doing things other than working.”

  12

  The Royals Move to Kansas City & Bob Cousy Resigns

  With Oscar Robertson traded to Milwaukee and Jerry Lucas traded to San Francisco, Bob Cousy could now begin to build the Royals into the team he wanted. The first step in the process was for Cousy and Joe Axelson to get players in the 1970 NBA draft they hoped to build around.

  Bob Cousy wanted a center that could mirror the extraordinary abilities of his former Celtics teammate Bill Russell. He wanted a player like Russell who had the ability to grab rebounds, protect the rim, and start the fast breaks for the racehorse guards that he preferred.

  The player that Cousy coveted was Dave Cowens, a 6′9″ center out of Florida State University. Cowens had grown up across the Ohio River from Cincinnati in Newport, Kentucky and played high school basketball at Newport Central Catholic High. The upside on Cowens was that he was strong, could jump, and was extremely fast for a big man—just the kind of center Bob Cousy wanted to lead his fast break. The downside on Cowens was that he had a tendency to foul out of games.

  But there was a problem, according to Bob Cousy, Dave Cowens had sent him a letter informing him that he did not want to play for the Royals, and therefore, not to draft him.

  The Cincinnati Royals had the fifth draft pick right behind the Boston Celtics, who, by virtue of finishing behind the Royals, had the fourth pick. Regardless of how Cowens felt about being drafted by the Royals, Cousy was determined to draft him if he was available when the Royals’ first pick was up.

  The 1970 NBA draft was held at 11:00 a.m. on March 23 in New York via a telephone hook up with all the teams. As they waited for the draft to begin, Bob Cousy, Draff Young, Joe Axelson, and assistant general manager Larry Staverman huddled together in the Cincinnati Gardens Lancer Room listening to elevator music coming over the phone line. Finally, at 12:30 p.m. commissioner Walter Kennedy announced that the time to begin was at hand.

  Detroit picked first and chose Bob Lanier.

  San Diego was second and selected Rudy Tomjanovich.

  Atlanta was next and a muffled response came over the phone line. Walter Kennedy told Hawks general manager Marty Blake to talk louder. He stated again that the Hawks take Pete Maravich.

  Playing at LSU, Pete Maravich had become the all-time college scorer, averaging more than 40 points a game for three years in a row.

  Nonetheless, Bob Cousy was relieved when Atlanta took Pete Maravich. There were still two big centers available, Dave Cowens and Sam Lacey. “This is how ludicrous this thing has become,” said Cousy later. “You sit there and hope you don’t have to take Maravich.”1

  Boston was next, and Cousy could feel his heart sink in his chest as he heard Red Auerbach bark over the phone line that the Celtics chose Dave Cowens of Florida State.

  Dave Cowens would revitalize the Boston Celtics. Along the way to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, between 1970–71 and 1979–80, Cowens would be an eight-time NBA All-Star and lead the Celtics to two NBA Championships in 1974 and 1979.

  The Royals drafted next and took Sam Lacey, a 6′10″ center out of New Mexico State.

  In the second round, using the 19th pick obtained from San Francisco in the Adrian Smith trade, the Royals selected Nate “Tiny” Archibald, a 6′0″ guard out of the University of Texas in El Paso.

  Other than Dave Cowens, the only other players that Cousy and Axelson really wanted and did not get were former Cincinnati Bearcat center-forward Jim Ard, who was selected by Seattle, and Gregg Howard from New Mexico, who was selected by Phoenix. But the Royals were relieved when the Suns drafted Howard. There had been reports that while he was playing in Italy the previous season, he was arrested on drug charges and also a rape charge. As it turned out, Howard was
a bust in the NBA, playing only two seasons.

  The rival ABA had held its draft in January, and some of the biggest college stars available had already signed contracts such as Dan Issel of Kentucky, Charles Scott of North Carolina, and Rick Mount of Purdue.

  The ABA, hoping to force a merger with the NBA, was driving player’s salaries up considerably. The New York Nets had offered Bob Lanier $1.3 million and that forced the Detroit Pistons to sign him for $1.2 million over five years.

  Because the Carolina Cougars had offered “Pistol” Pete Maravich a substantial contract, it forced the Atlanta Hawks to sign him for $2 million over five years.

  Oscar Robertson had been an All-Star every one of his ten years in Cincinnati. One of the reasons that Bob Cousy traded Oscar was that he was concerned that he was going to ask for a contract calling for $200,000 a year for three years. Due to pressure coming from the ABA, to sign Nate Archibald the Royals had to pay him $465,000 for three years. Nonetheless, for just $135,000 more the Royals could have kept Oscar Robertson. Sam Lacey signed for less than Archibald.

  In 1970–71, to keep pace with the ABA and not cede any potential market to the rival league, once again the NBA expanded. It awarded three new franchises to Cleveland (Cavaliers), Buffalo (Braves), and Portland (Trailblazers). As the NBA was now a 17-team circuit, it divided the teams into two conferences with four divisions. In the East Conference were the Atlantic and Central Divisions, and in the West Conference were the Midwest and Pacific Divisions. The Cincinnati Royals joined the new Central Division with Baltimore, Atlanta, and Cleveland.

  The 1970–71 Cincinnati Royals roster included nine players (57%) that had not been on the roster the previous year. Of all the players drafted by Bob Cousy and Joe Axelson, only three rookies made the team, Sam Lacey, Nate Archibald, and Greg Hyder, a 6′6″ forward from East New Mexico.

  Bob Cousy felt that with Norm Van Lier playing alongside Nate Archibald at guard, Tom Van Arsdale and Charlie Paulk as the forwards with Sam Lacey in the pivot, and Johnny Green coming off the bench, he had the players necessary to play his intense defense/fast-break offense game.