Earl the Pearl

by Earl Monroe

  A lot of those players that changed their names who weren’t as famous as Kareem ran into some problems, though. A lot of them didn’t last that long in the league because of the bias against Muslims amongst the powers that controlled the NBA. I remember once a group of black players was invited to a meeting in a hotel room in New York that had been rented by a Muslim faction out of Washington, DC. I think it was in 1972. And during the course of the conversation we were having, I recall one of the guys who was considering changing his name said the reason was that the names we all had were “slave names, given to us by our masters.” So his solution was that we all needed “to go back to our African roots and adopt names that were synonymous with where we came from.” A lot of guys were shocked by this turn of events, and a lot of questions and answers went back and forth. Then I remember someone saying, “Well, I know this much. Unless your name is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, you ain’t going to fare well in this league if you change your name to an Arabic one. So if you want to stay in the league, you better keep your American name.”

  And I think that held true for a long, long time. As for me, I never considered changing mine because of my father and my mother, plus I really like my name. But I never held it against Kareem for changing his name, because that was his right. As a matter of fact, he changed it a short time after he left my house in Baltimore, right after the 1971 Finals. All I know is that he was a helluva player, a dominant one, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer and one of the three or four greatest players to ever lace up their sneakers.

  There were two big men, centers, who could have been really great players if injuries hadn’t brought them down: Ralph Sampson and Bill Walton. Both of those players were really dominant before they suffered knee injuries, so I don’t really know how they would have turned out if they hadn’t gotten injured. But both of those players were really talented, could score, play defense, pass, run the floor, and rebound. Sampson was the taller of the two at seven feet four. He could shoot the jumper, put the ball on the floor and drive to the hoop. He also had a little hook and could play defense. Ralph could have been something else, a truly dominant player in my opinion, if he hadn’t gotten hurt. He was just that talented. He and Hakeem Olajuwon formed what they called the “twin towers” in Houston. I think he could have been an amazing player, but that’s something we’ll never know. Same thing with Bill Walton, who was an amazing player at UCLA and at Portland, where he teamed with “the Enforcer,” Maurice Lucas, and won an NBA championship. Walton was six feet 11 inches and could really run the floor until he hurt his knees. He had a nice little turnaround jumper and a ferocious dunk shot. Walton could really get off the floor, was an outstanding rebounder and passer and a helluva defensive player. But again, we will never know just how good he could have been. Now, most people are left with the memory of him playing for the Celtics, with Larry Bird, when he was a shadow of the player he had once been.

  On the other hand, Hakeem Olajuwon was the real deal when he came into prominence in the mid-1980s. He was a Muslim like Kareem, but he came into the league from Nigeria with his name already in place. He was always a very classy guy to me, on and off the court. But he was a player who honed his game down to what he knew he could do and just did it. Olajuwon was seven feet tall, an elegant player with real nice moves around the basket, and he could rebound. He had great footwork around the basket for a big man, I think because he had been a soccer player, and he was a quick jumper in the paint. Hakeem had a nice little jump shot, had a lot of great ball fakes, and made the game look easy when he played. One reason he was so effective was he knew what his strengths were—his quickness, footwork, quick jumping ability, fakes, his little jumper around the basket, and dunks—and he didn’t try anything he couldn’t do. So his consistency was also very important in terms of his development. And he was so quick.

  I remember when he had that great series against Patrick Ewing in the 1994 NBA Finals, which Houston won in seven games. Hakeem was named Finals MVP. Then the next year he did the same thing to David Robinson and the San Antonio Spurs in the conference finals. Then he badly outplayed Shaquille O’Neal and Houston beat the Orlando Magic in the 1995 NBA Finals to repeat as NBA champions, with Olajuwon being voted the Finals MVP for the second year in a row. Those two championship runs cemented Hakeem’s place amongst the elite of the game.

  Other really fine big men were Dave Cowens, who was a monster, a hard-nosed player that a lot of people didn’t want to go up against. He was a nice cat off the floor, but a madman on it. He was a wonderful player, though, the kind you wanted to play with. He had a nice jump shot, could go to the basket, and had a little hook when he came across the middle. But man, was he tough and a force to be dealt with every time he stepped on the court, because he was utterly fearless. Bob Lanier was a prototypical center, a big guy who took up a lot of space. He could rebound, block shots, had a nice little hook shot and fadeaway jumper, and could go to the hole and throw down dunks as well. For a big guy—he was six feet 11 inches and 250 pounds—I thought he was very, very agile, even though he wore size 22 sneakers. Moses Malone was a player who banged the boards, got a lot of his own—and everybody else’s—rebounds, then would put the ball back up, miss, get it right back—because he was a real quick jumper—and put it up again until he scored. He was relentless, had a lot of energy. Mo was another great competitor—he and Dave Cowens were cut from the same cloth. He had great hands, and since he wasn’t a great shooter all his points came from down deep, close to the basket.

  Another gifted big man was Patrick Ewing, a powerful seven-footer, a warrior who came to play every single night. Patrick was a great rebounder, defensive force, shot blocker, and scorer in his prime. He had a good jumper, could take it to the hole, had a nice little hook, and could dunk the ball, and he was a fierce competitor. The same is true of David Robinson, only he wasn’t as fierce as Ewing, but instead was more of a finesse player. Robinson had a lot of offensive skills, like he could take it to the basket and either lay it up or dunk the ball, and he had a nice little left-handed jumper and hook shot. And he could block shots, rebound, and pass the ball. No doubt about it, David was a very skilled player.

  Then there’s Shaquille O’Neal, aka Shaq. He was the dominant big man of his day. I would love to have seen Shaq in his prime go against Wilt in his, because both of them are seven feet one. Shaq outweighed Dip by about 50 pounds, but they both were very strong. So it would have been an epic battle down in the paint to see who could get in position to rebound or score. Wilt was a little bit quicker than Shaq and could have matched him in strength. But that would have been a battle of dunks and will and strength. Shaq, when he was in his prime, was the dominant big man of the last decade and a half. I think Dwight Howard is a good player but not a dominant one, at least not yet. He’s a much better player when the team revolves around him and the ball is going to him all the time. But in LA, he’s not the go-to guy because Kobe Bryant is, even though he’s led the league in defense and been the Defensive Player of the Year.

  When you talk about the great guards and forwards in the NBA, especially from my time in the league, I’ve already discussed Jerry West, Hal Greer, Pete Maravich, Rick Barry, Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor, and a few others. But I didn’t discuss one of the great guards from my time in depth. That player is Dave Bing, who was an exceptional talent. Dave was a high-jumping player who had finesse to his game. He wasn’t an overpowering player, but because he could jump so high and because of the way he moved so gracefully with the ball, he was an exciting player to watch and to play against. And man, could he shoot the ball. He could shoot it from anywhere and he could also get to the basket really well and score. No question. He led the league in points scored in my rookie season, and he could handle and pass the ball as well. He was the kind of guy—a good, solid person—that I wouldn’t have minded being in the trenches with. He was a pleasant person off the court, was always soft-spoken, but you know he didn’t take no stupid stuff
because he always had something else besides basketball on his mind. Today he is the mayor of Detroit.

  Connie Hawkins was another player that could do anything he wanted with the ball. “Hawk,” as everyone used to call him, had very big hands. He could hold a basketball like someone with normal hands held a baseball, which came in handy when he made those swooping, graceful moves to the basket that he was famous for. He was a finesse player who everyone said could jump out of the gym, but I didn’t see him when he was young. His career was cut short because he was allegedly involved in a point-shaving scandal and was blackballed from playing in the NBA, so he became a star in the ABA. Later it was proven that he wasn’t involved in it, so the powers that be allowed him to play in the NBA, where he was a very good player and a force for several years. I can only imagine what a player he could have been had they not blackballed him.

  Julius Erving, who emulated Hawkins’s moves to the basket, is one of the all-time great players. He was six feet seven and lean but strong, and he could really get up off the ground. I mean, he could soar and swoop in a very graceful way and throw down the most ferocious dunks. He could hang in the air and make all kinds of brilliant shots in close around the basket, holding the basketball in one of those huge hands of his. He could handle the ball and dribble and take the ball to the hole, had a good midrange jump shot, and could pass the ball well, too. He was one of those players I used to love to watch. I don’t think too many players in the history of the game could outjump Dr. J. I mean, he could do spectacular moves high in the air and the fans just loved him.

  I watched Bob Love develop as a player out in Chicago. He was another small-black-college player (out of Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana) who didn’t play a lot when he first came into the NBA with Cincinnati. Then I think he went to Milwaukee, where he didn’t play much, before joining the Bulls in Chicago. It was there that he found a home with Norm Van Lier and Jerry Sloan and became a monster scorer. Everybody called him “Bean” because he was so slender. He was six eight and didn’t have a lot of strength, but man could he shoot the ball! Jump shots from the top of the key to both corners. He could play forward and shooting guard. He was deadly. And he could score points in bunches. That was his strength: He could put up big numbers and carry a team on his back with his scoring.

  Bobby Dandridge is another really good player who hasn’t gotten the due he deserves, probably because he played in the shadows of Kareem and Oscar Robertson. But Bobby was a helluva of player, won two rings, could shoot the ball, rebound, pass, and play defense, and he was a great teammate, an integral member of that great Milwaukee Bucks team. I think he and Bob Love should all be in the Basketball Hall of Fame. Bob McAdoo was another great shooter. He understood how to score the ball. I mean, you talk about a three-point shooter and whatnot—I know McAdoo would have been really happy to be playing today, because he could hit that jumper from anywhere. He was a Kevin Durant–type player in terms of size, you know, six feet nine inches and real slender, but he could also run the floor. I have an interesting story about Bob McAdoo. He’s from North Carolina and I was there when Coach Gaines tried to recruit him to Winston-Salem. But he chose to go to the University of North Carolina instead. So when he entered the league at Buffalo, I went up to him after we played them one night and said, “Bob, you turkey, man, I thought you were coming to play at Winston-Salem!”

  And he said with a smile, “Earl, you know what happened? When I came for my visit with you and Coach Gaines, y’all served me salads. When I went over to the University of North Carolina, they served me steak and salad. So I went there.”

  Man, that shit cracked me up! You don’t feed somebody and lose.

  Another player who could really jump was Spencer Haywood, who was six feet eight, had a strong body, could run the floor, had a good turnaround jumper in the paint, and could really take the ball to the basket. When he was on, he was a great scorer. He’s also important because, as I mentioned briefly in Chapter 15, he was the one who challenged the draft and made it possible for underclassmen to come into the league early, so he changed the game in that way also. He was a great talent, and from Detroit. Some people thought he was a selfish player, that he thought every play was for him. Still, Spencer could really play and it didn’t hurt that he married the international supermodel Iman.

  Many people already know about Larry Bird because he was a great player. He wasn’t the fastest guy in the world, or the highest jumper, but he could play the game real well because he was a student of basketball. His greatest strength was that he could shoot the ball so well that his defenders always had to come out to try and stop him. When they did that, he was able to go by them and get to the basket with an assortment of tricky shots and score. Larry’s other biggest assets were his knowledge of the game and his feel for doing the right thing at the right time. He had that rocking thing, you know, he could rock in front of a player behind the three-point line, with the ball over his head in the shooting position, and if his defender didn’t come out on him Larry would just shoot it and make a three pointer. Now, that really just started it off. Because if the defender came out after he’d made a couple of long shots, Larry would step in as the defender was coming out and fill up the space he’d just left and then, with the defender behind him, it would be all over. So he understood how to do things and how to make it happen for him. Plus, he was a great rebounder, and out in the open court he was a wonderful passer. He was just an all-around great player, one of the best ever.

  Karl Malone, aka “the Mailman,” was a tremendous player. Though he never won a championship ring, Malone was a champion talent over many years, the second-leading scorer in league history behind Kareem. He was a very big man, six feet nine inches and 250 pounds of muscle. But despite his weight, he could get up and down the floor, jump out of the arena, take the ball to the hole off the dribble, and shoot a nice little soft jumper from either side of the floor, and he was a ferocious dunker and could rebound with the best of them. Malone running the pick and roll with John Stockton, a tenacious little guard who could pass the hell out of the ball, was a thing of beauty to watch. I mean, those two worked that play almost to perfection. Karl Malone and Gus Johnson set the standard for what a power forward should be.

  Another great player who doesn’t get talked about a lot today is George Gervin, aka “the Iceman.” The Iceman could have played anywhere, anytime, because he was just that cool of a player. He was another guy who could really put up big numbers on anybody. You couldn’t stop him, you just had to hope he was off and had a bad game. He was great in the ABA and in the NBA too, where he led the league in scoring with the San Antonio Spurs four out of five years. He is one of the greatest shooting guards to ever play the game and was named one of the 50 greatest players of all time. Ice was another skinny guy at six feet seven inches and 185 pounds, but he could shoot the jumper from anywhere. He also perfected and popularized the finger roll (although Wilt’s shot was called the funnel, the finger roll looked prettier), and he was another player who could put a team on his back and take them wherever they had to go. He was so smooth, could handle the ball and pass, and was one of those players I used to love to watch, even when I was playing against him.

  Other forwards who I think deserve some notice are Gus Johnson, Dave DeBusschere, Chet Walker, Elvin Hayes, Jamaal Wilkes, James Worthy, and Bernard King, a tenacious player I once coached in a high school all-star game. I think he should be in the Hall of Fame also, and he probably would be if, like Ralph Sampson, he hadn’t injured his knees.

  All of those players, with the exception of George Gervin, a big shooting guard who could at times play the small forward position, were centers and forwards. Now I am going to turn my attention to pure shooting guards and point guards, though players like David Thompson, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and Kobe Bryant all possessed the ability to play multiple positions.

  But I want to begin with a player, Nate “Tiny” Archibald, who I thi
nk was the epitome of what I would call a true point guard and the prototype of the kind of player current NBA teams are looking for to play that position. They listed his height at six feet one, but he was probably shorter than that, maybe five eleven. Tiny was a player who could set up guys, was a leader, and could score points in a hurry and pass the ball like nobody’s business. He’s the only guy to lead the league in scoring and assists in the same year, averaging 34 points and more than 11 assists a game in 1972–1973. He had great peripheral vision and an innate ability to find his teammates when they were open for shots. He was super-quick, fast, and shifty and could blow past defenders and score all kinds of layups because of the way he positioned his body. Now, Tiny wasn’t a great jumper, but he was so quick that he could charge at his opponents and with his speed, he’d have them backpedaling. Then he’d pull up and hit his mid- to short-range jumper, which he shot with great accuracy. He was something else. Tiny was Allen Iverson, Kyrie Irving, Brandon Jennings, Chris Paul, and a new guard for Portland named Damian Lillard decades before they came into the league. Then he changed his game when he joined the Celtics and basically became a playmaker, though he could still score points when he needed to.