by Earl Monroe
The players of today who I think could have played well during my era, in no particular order, are Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, the Dirk Nowitzki of a couple of years ago, Kevin Love, Tim Duncan, and maybe Tony Parker and Rajon Rondo.
A few months ago I was watching either ESPN or NBA TV and the commentators were talking about who the top ten backcourts of all time were. They ranked Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars as the number one backcourt of all time, Magic Johnson and Byron Scott the second best duo, and Walt Frazier and me as the third best. First of all, I don’t think this kind of ranking serves any useful purpose because it only pits players against each in a sort of battle royal. But the networks seem to think they need to do these kinds of false comparisons to generate audience participation and excitement. The hype and media frenzy that began in the 1980s and treats talent like a product is full-blown today. It can also be seen in the entertainment-industry awards shows like the Oscars and the Golden Globes. It is not about who’s really the best, but about who a small group of people think is the best product to commercialize in the marketplace. It’s the same operative model in the world of sports today.
This national sports media hype began to hit on all cylinders, in my opinion, when Magic and Byron and Isiah and Joe arrived on the scene in the early ’80s. Now, I will admit to the fact that because I played in Baltimore and Clyde played in New York, he received more media scrutiny than I did when we both first rose to prominence. The reason for this was because the Big Apple was one of the top media centers of the world, even back then. So he benefited from being in New York, but also had more pressure on him playing in this city, which I found out later when I came to play with the Knicks. When those other two duos came along, those players had to live up to the hype bestowed upon each of them once all that promotion, publicity, marketing, and commercialization kicked in. So, in my opinion, those players became more outward oriented in the things they had to do, like selling products for companies—becoming brand names, so to speak, in a way that wasn’t as prevalent back in the early ’70s. In the ’80s, however, the hype was whether a talent was cool or not, or whether he was a winner—and you had to be a winner in order to sell products. That determined who was the best in any given sport.
But in response to that ranking of the best backcourts of the modern era, I will give you my ranking of the best three. First let me say that I know what I’m about to say will be disputed by some as not being objective, but I have thought about this deeply and I think fairly, and I would rank Walt Frazier and myself as the best NBA backcourt of all time, especially when we were both playing injury free. After us are Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars of the Detroit Pistons and then Magic Johnson and Byron Scott of the Los Angeles Lakers.
The reason I rank Clyde and myself on top boils down to the fact that both of us were the leaders of our two different teams before we joined forces: Clyde with the Knicks and me with the Bullets. Now, I think that counts for something, because it was the meshing of two great talents—both of us in the top 50 NBA players of all time—when we came together in 1972. When looked at in this light, Isiah Thomas and Joe Dumars were both great talents, but Isiah was the leader of that duo. The same thing can be said for Magic Johnson and Byron Scott: Magic was the clear leader of that Lakers team. Also, both Clyde and I were amongst the originators of a style of play that was passed down to the other two duos.
Another factor is that Clyde and I came along at a time when the national media coverage had not yet reached the frenzy it evolved into when both Magic and Byron and Isiah and Joe came into prominence. What I mean by this is that before we became teammates, Clyde and I battled each other somewhat out of the national spotlight, because we played before the rise of ESPN and all the sports shows that now thrive on comparing and pitting athletes against each other. This symbiosis of media promotion, marketing, and the commercialization of talent—whether it’s of athletes, movie stars, artists, whatever—was just beginning to form when Clyde and I entered the spotlight. Clyde and I didn’t have to worry as much about being better than other players in the eyes of some critic or analyst who never played the game, because the era of frenzied hype had not yet arrived. So Clyde and I just went out and played basketball every night without worrying about what someone thought of us, about how we were being promoted and whatnot.
See, Clyde and I didn’t have to be the best in the eyes of the media. What concerned us was how we felt about ourselves and each other and our reputations among the players and coaches in the league. Now, I’m not trying to take anything away from Magic and Byron and Isiah and Joe—they were all great players both individually and as two all-time great tandems. But I think Clyde and I were better, although I can say this much: if Clyde and I had played against those other two tandems, it would have been something to watch.
In my opinion, the greatest teams of the last 60 or so years would have to be:
The 1957 to 1969 Boston Celtics with Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, Bill Sharman, Frank Ramsey, Tommy Heinsohn, Sam Jones, K.C. Jones, and John Havlicek.
The Saint Louis Hawks teams between 1958 and 1965 that had Bob Pettit, “Easy” Ed Macauley, and Cliff Hagan.
The 1966–1967 Philadelphia 76ers team with Wilt Chamberlain, Hal Greer, Billy Cunningham, Chet Walker, and Wali Jones that went 68 and 13.
The 1970–1971 Los Angeles Lakers with Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Gail Goodrich, Happy Hairston, and Jim McMillian that won 33 straight games and the NBA championship.
The New York Knicks teams of the early 1970s with Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Dave DeBusschere, Bill Bradley, Dick Barnett, and myself.
The Baltimore Bullets from 1968 to 1971.
The Milwaukee Bucks with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson, and Bobby Dandridge from 1970 to 1972.
Two other Lakers teams: The 80s-era squad led by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Byron Scott, Jamaal Wilkes, Norm Nixon, and James Worthy, and the 2000 to 2002 squad led by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant.
The 1989–1990 Detroit Pistons team led by Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Bill Laimbeer, Dennis Rodman, John Salley, Mark Aguirre, and Vinnie Johnson.
The 1991 to 1998 Chicago Bulls led by Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman.
The 1999 and 2003 San Antonio championship teams, led by David Robinson and Tim Duncan.
And the 1994 and 1995 Houston Rockets, led by Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler.
There are other great teams, like some of the New York Knicks teams that battled for championships during Patrick Ewing’s career with Charles Oakley, John Starks, Greg Anthony, Anthony Mason, Charles Smith, and Doc Rivers. But these are my choices for the great teams over the past 60-some-odd years.
I think the best teams in the game right now—though things could change due to a number of things like injuries, trades, the draft, salary caps, and coaches—are the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Miami Heat. The New York Knicks could have a very formidable team if they stay healthy, as could the Los Angeles Clippers. And depending on Derrick Rose’s health and fitness, the Chicago Bulls could possibly contend, as could the Memphis Grizzlies. But the Thunder with Durant, Westbrook, and the rest of that team look to already be very good, with the potential of getting better because they are so young—assuming they don’t break up the team because of financial reasons. The Heat, with LeBron, Wade, and Chris Bosh, are the defending champions, but they don’t have a great bench or a very strong big man, although they did get Ray Allen, a great shooter, from the Celtics in an off-season trade. But I just don’t see the Lakers getting themselves together this year, despite all the talk, because of all the mistakes management made over the last few seasons regarding players and the coaches they have picked. So I think it’s all over for them, but again, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Maybe a miracle will happen and they’ll pull a good-luck rabbit out of a hat, but I don’t think so, at least not this sea
son. So we will just have to wait and see who comes out on top. But those are my picks.
I would like to close by addressing a couple more topics, and the first one is what I’ll call “the Golden Era of Basketball in the 20th Century.” Now, things could change, but I have boiled it down to the 10 years between 1965 and 1975. Why those years, you might ask? I have picked that decade because if you look at all the players who played during that time, you will see that most of your Hall of Famers and the 50 greatest players of all time come from that era, that decade. There were no more than 17 teams playing in the league then, so you had a concentration of talent on squads, unlike what you have today. You had the great Boston, Saint Louis, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Milwaukee, and Golden State teams during that period. The competition every night was so very high, and the players were veteran players who knew the fundamentals of the game. Nobody could take a day off for fear of not only being embarrassed, but also of losing the game. So that’s my reason for picking this decade.
The other thing that I have been thinking about is that we will ultimately have to expand the list of the 50 Greatest Basketball Players in NBA History to maybe 60, 75, or even 100. Because how else can you make room for Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and all the other great young talent coming along today that will have to be included? So I think that list has to be expanded, and soon. I also think that the great coach John McLendon has to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach, not as a contributor. What? Are you kidding me? Not having Coach McLendon in the Hall as a coach is not only insulting to his name and to the great legacy he left behind, but also to the integrity of the Hall of Fame. Because how can you have my Winston-Salem coach, Big House Gaines, in there as a coach and not have his mentor in there on the same level? He’s the only one who was mentored by James Naismith, the inventor of the game. It’s stupid and demeaning to John McLendon’s name, memory, and legacy, and it must be addressed really soon, if not immediately.
I want to close this book with a postscript on what’s happened in my life since 1973. First, after a long relationship, Tina and I mutually ended it in the 1980s. She has gone on with her life and I wish her well. As for me, Marita and I have been together since 1983. As you may recall, I met her at a party in the summer of 1972, while she was a student at Manhattanville College. After she finished law school in Washington, DC, she moved back to New York in 1976 and began doing legal work with me for the music production company I started. Over time, however, our relationship grew into a romantic one and as of today we have been together as friends and loving companions going on 41 years now. We live together in Harlem, New York. We were blessed with the birth of a daughter, Maya Monroe, born in 1983, who in December of 2011 blessed us again with the birth of her son and our grandson, Monroe, who is now the apple of all our eyes. My oldest daughter, Sandy, has two children of her own, Carlia, 20, and Harvey—we call him Champ—who is 23. My other daughter, Danielle, has a 19-year-old daughter named Darian. My son, Rodney, doesn’t have any children. So if you count them all up I have four grandchildren, which is a total blessing.
My interest in music has grown over the years. I formed my own entertainment company that is involved with film production, brand marketing consulting, sports management and development, and technology, and I continue to be involved in music production. One other thing I want to mention here is that I have had more than 30 operations mostly on my back, hips, feet, and knees because of my love of playing basketball over the years. So, being a professional athlete comes with a health cost a lot of the time. But as they say, that is the price of admission for playing a game I love. I wish the injuries hadn’t happened, but they did, and as I have always said, “It is what it is,” so I just deal with it. I have had, for the most part, a wonderful and blessed life. I don’t think too much about regrets.
But the biggest of my few regrets, the one that hovers over my life even to this day, is that I truly wish my mother not only had lived to see me win an NBA championship in the year that she died, but also that she had been physically with me a lot longer. Because it was my mother who showed me every day, by her example, how to be strong. It was my mother who first made me believe in myself, and in my ability to make it. It was my Ma who gave me that little blue book when I was 14 and instructed me to cross off the names of my opponents as I improved and got better than them at playing the game of basketball. That lesson stayed with me for the rest of my life. It was she who sacrificed so much for me, who told me to stop whining and just go out and play. It was her wisdom that lifted me up so many times so I could persevere and help win that NBA championship. I just wanted to hear the joy in her voice had I been given the chance to call her from my Los Angeles hotel room that night in April 1973, after I had finally reached the NBA mountaintop. And later, too, when I would have gone down to Germantown to visit her, I wish I could have been able to see that beautiful smile of hers when she held me close and then looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “I told you, Earl, you were going to win that championship.” Those lost moments are my biggest regrets. Other than that, it’s all good, and I’m looking into the future with optimism.
Life is good.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’D LIKE TO ACKNOWLEDGE the special efforts of those who helped make this book a reality: Jennifer Gates, my agent; our personal editor, Jane Rosenman; Mark Weinstein, our Rodale editor; and Margaret Porter Troupe. Also, I wish to thank Theresa Smith, Tijuana James Traore, Marita Green-Monroe, Sonny Hill, Lenny Clay, Ernie Browne, Sahib Abdulkabir, and Teddy Blunt for their contribution of additional content and George Kalinsky, the Winston-Salem State University Office of Athletic Media Relations, and the Washington Wizards/ NBA Photos for the use of their photos.
No one succeeds by themselves. With that said, I’d like to acknowledge those who, in their own way, helped me on my journey. I’d like to start with the people who live on Alter Street in Philadelphia; my friends from South Philly, who helped me learn the game of basketball; my teammates at Audenried and Bartram; and those whom I played with and against in the playgrounds and leagues in Philly. Also, Coach Gaines and his wife, Clara, Claudette Weston, Sahib Abdulkabir, George Clisby, Edwin Wilkerson, John Anderson, Ronald Reese, Ernie Browne, Eugene Smiley, Joe Cunningham, James Reid, Bill English, John Lathan, Johnny Watkins, Donald Williams, Vaughn Kimbrough, David Green, and all my teammates, the faculty, and the administration during my stay at Winston-Salem State University.
My teammates on the Bullets: Gus Johnson, Wes Unseld, Kevin Loughery, Jack Marin, Fred Carter, Barry Orms, Bob Ferry, Stan McKenzie, Phil Chenier, Rich Rinaldi, Ray “Chink” Scott, Leroy Ellis, John Tresvant, as well as Skip Feldman, our trainer, and the others who played with me.
My teammates on the Knicks: Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley, Jerry Lucas, Willis Reid, Phil Jackson, Dave DeBusschere, Dick Barnett, Dean Meminger, Henry Bibby, John Gianelli, Luther Rackley, Hawthorne Wingo, Charlie Paullk, Eddie Mast, and others who played with me in New York. Also Danny Whelan, our trainer; Frankie Blauschild, our road secretary; and Jim Wergeles.
Special acknowledgment to my coach in Baltimore, Gene Shue, who allowed me to be me, and to Red Holzman, who taught me to be me.
There are a myriad of others that I could mention, but neither time nor space will allow me to do that. Hopefully, you all know who you are.
You all have been instrumental in my development as a basketball player and as a person, and I appreciate you all for being a part of my life!
—Earl
I’D LIKE TO OFFER special acknowledgment to my agent, Jennifer Gates, Jane Rosenman, and our editor, Mark Weinstein, for all of their efforts on behalf of this project.
I’d also like to acknowledge Teddy Blunt, Ernie Brown, Theresa Smith, Marita Gail Green, Sonny Hill, Sahib Abdulkhabir, Lenny Clay, Tijuana Traore, and Aaron Hill for their time and insights.
—Quincy
INDEX
An asterisk (*) indicates th
at photos are shown in the insert pages.
A
Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem, 283–84, 379–80
Acrobatics, 365, 366, 367, 369–70
Alcindor, Lew. See Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem
Ali, Muhammad (Cassius Clay), 115, 193
Allen, Bobby, 175
Allen, Nicey (aunt), 8–9, 38
Anderson, “Leaping John,” x, 33–34, 58
Announcers. See Media coverage
Anthony, Carmelo, 396
Archibald, Nate “Tiny,” 388
B
Baker League, 165–66, 169–73, 214–15, 217–19, 288–90
Barnett, Dick, 302, 331–32, 393
Barrett, Monroe, 45, 47–48
Barry, Rick, 335
Baylor, Elgin, 198
Bing, Dave, 383
Bird, Larry, 377, 386
Black Magic (film), 360, 375
Blaxploitation films, 347–48
Blunt, Teddy, 104–5, 126–27, 130, 135, 136
Borgia, Sid, 371
Bradley, Bill, 217–18, 281, 302
Bridges, Bill, 270–71
Bryant, Joe “Jellybean,” 90
Bryant, Kobe, 365, 366, 368, 393
Burke, Solomon, 31–32
C
Card, Frank, 79, 170–71
Carter, Fred “Mad Dog,” 79, 180, 235–36
Chamberlain, Ollie, 77
Chamberlain, Wilt*
competitive nature of, 201
at Eastern Conference Finals (1973), 350–51, 354–56
“hunter socks” of, 77–78
100-point game of, 170, 375
records set by, 170, 377–78
Shaq compared to, 383
skills of, 198–99, 377–78
Clark, Archie, 243, 290, 388
Clark, Melvin, 151
Clay, Cassius (Muhammad Ali), 115, 193
Clay, Lenny, 241, 324
Clisby, George “Clis,” x, 37, 53
Coma, Tony, xii–xiii, 84
