Then Magic stepped up and the sun came out. “First off, I can’t tell you how excited I am to come in second as Sportsman of the Year,” he began. “I lost to him again.” It was a terrific opening line. Johnson then patiently answered questions for thirty minutes about his foundation, his health, his family, and his views on mandatory AIDS testing (he opposed it) before finally turning the subject back to Jordan and scolding the press, in his gentle way, for making it tough on the world’s best player.
“It seems like this has been Michael’s hardest year,” said Magic, as if it had not also been his own. “It’s too bad that nothing he can do makes it better, and I’m sure my retirement made it worse. Now Michael has it all on him. I wish I could come back and take the pressure off.” (Magic was again demonstrating his extraordinary ability to be humble and self-aggrandizing in the same monologue.)
But remember this, too: Jordan would stay in the backseat for only so long. In both the Dream Team pre-Olympic practice in Monte Carlo and the Games in Barcelona, Jordan rose up from time to time and, in the strongest thus-spake-Zarathustra terms, made sure that everyone—especially Magic—knew who really ruled the basketball world.
CHAPTER 27
THE WRITER, THE JESTER, AND THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER
Monsieur Barkley Will Indeed Take a Hit on 19
My late father-in-law was a straight-shooting kind of guy—he kept the trains running on schedule at a plant that manufactured condensers and pumps, good old-fashioned American stuff like that—so he understandably had trouble getting his mind around the Dream Team’s decision to hold pre-Olympic training in Monte Carlo.
“You don’t go to Monte Carlo to play basketball,” he said. “You go there to gamble and horse around. It’s like Las Vegas, only more expensive, and, you know, dressy.”
“They have gyms there,” I said, not altogether convincingly. “At least I think they do.”
“Anyway, why are you going?” he asked. “If they’re only practicing—and I even doubt that—what are you going to write about?”
“I’m a journalist,” I answered. “I follow the story. Something will come up.”
The negotiating for the team to train in the world’s most exclusive gambling enclave started, believe it or not, with Commissioner David Stern, who at the time was understood to be fervently anti-gambling and terrified of betting lines; he was born in New Jersey but raised in New York and had grown up with the unsavory memory of the college point-shaving scandals that all but killed city basketball for years in the 1950s. But he was also the league’s guardian and recognized that a training camp in, say, Fort Wayne, Indiana, was not the inducement he needed to get players such as Jordan and Magic to buy in. So he began talking to a friend, New York Giants owner Bob Tisch, who also owned the Loews Hotels, including a showpiece property in Monaco. From there, Russ Granik and Loews chairman Robert Hausman negotiated the deal with the principality.
Players, coaches, and schlubs like me said bravo to the decision. The Dream Team did get in some work—and from its stay emerged some of the legendary basketball moments from 1992, those detailed in the next chapter—but on balance it was more like a mini-vacation. The team’s daily schedule called for two hours of basketball followed by twenty-two hours of golf, gambling, and gaping at the sights, nude beaches and models always a three-point shot away, sometimes closer. “I’m not putting in a curfew because I’d have to adhere to it,” said Chuck Daly, “and Jimmy Z’s [a noted Monte Carlo nightclub where Jordan, Barkley, Magic, and Pippen spent many hours] doesn’t open until midnight.”
Speaking for myself, I suffered two of the least sympathetic injuries in sportswriter travel history—a sprained thumb and a chafed thigh, both incurred while riding a Jet Ski in the warm waters of the Mediterranean.
“They both really hurt,” I told my wife in a phone call.
“Shut up,” she explained.
In truth, the Monte Carlo visit wasn’t nearly as sybaritic as it might sound since most of the players brought along wives, children, and babysitters, the whole caravan en route to the Olympics immediately following the days and nights in Monaco.
The Dream Team had flown into Nice at midnight, greeted by the usual throng, and made a literal crash landing at the Loews, Jet Set Central. During a security meeting before the team arrived, Henri Lorenzi, the legendary hotel manager, had complained about the sheer numbers and aggressiveness of the NBA’s security forces, which were already roaming through the hotel.
“Do you realize who is gambling in my casino right now?” Lorenzi said to the NBA’s Kim Bohuny. He ticked off the names of politicians, movie stars, and even tennis immortal Bjorn Borg. “No one will care that much about this team,” he said.
“Well, we’ll see,” said Bohuny.
When the team bus pulled up, there was such a rush forward to see the players that someone crashed through the glass doors at the entrance.
“I get your point,” said Lorenzi.
(A couple of days later, a deliveryman pulling up to the Loews caught sight of the Dream Team boarding a bus. He was so entranced that he got out to gape, forgot to set the emergency brake, and watched in horror as the truck began rolling down a hill and crashed into two cars, knocking them through the window of a fashionable shop.)
For once, though, there was a level of royalty above that of the Dream Team, namely, Prince Rainier, or, if you’re scoring at home, Rainier Louis Henri Maxence Bertrand Grimaldi, Count of Polignac, His Serene Highness the Sovereign Prince of Monaco. What I liked best about Rainier was the fact that his mother, Princess Charlotte, had bedded down with René the Cane, a celebrated jewel thief.
Like everyone else, Rainier wanted to meet the Dream Team, so a dinner in a private room at the Loews was arranged for July 20, which also happened to be the sixty-second birthday of Chuck Daly. Daly, himself a prince, he of the sovereign state of Pessimism, was already antsy about prep time and quite irritable during the protocol meeting that preceded the event.
“You can’t sit down until the prince sits down,” the protocol chief told a delegation of the U.S. team that included Daly, Jordan, Bird, and Magic.
“What if I have to go to the bathroom?” asked Chuck. “I’m at that stage in life.” They were also told that they couldn’t lift fork to mouth until the prince was ready.
When the Dream Teamers assembled, they were kept waiting for a while, something to which they weren’t accustomed. “The Pistons didn’t have to wait this long at the White House,” Chuck whispered, “and we won the championship.”
But the prince, accompanied by his son, Prince Albert, a basketball fan, finally showed up, and positioned himself between Magic and Jordan. (Barkley said later, “They kept me far away from the royalty.”) The dinner went well, and Magic, predictably, spoke for the team. “I always thought the closest I would get to royalty was playing with Michael Jordan,” he said, “but this tops that.” Typical Magic. Chuck’s wife, Terry Daly, had arranged for a birthday cake to be wheeled out at the end, and everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to Chuck, and everyone went home—or back to the casino—happy.
(The crown prince later proved to be a down-to-earth guy. Upon encountering a group of American journalists at Stade Louis XV, he stuck out his hand and said, “I’m Al Grimaldi.” To which the best response would’ve been: “Yeah? I’m Paulie Walnuts from Joisy.” But we all showed the requisite obsequiousness, second nature to a journalist covering the Dream Team.)
The Loews casino was located in the middle of the hotel, thereby serving as a kind of theater-in-the-round when the Dream Teamers were there, the regulars being Jordan, Magic, Barkley, Pippen, and Ewing, the same group that had started playing a card game called tonk back in San Diego and would play right through the last night in Barcelona. Bird ventured down once, heard the price of a beer, which was $7 outside the casino and $18 inside, and rarely appeared again. (Barkley reported that the suds at Jimmy Z’s went for $40.) On one occasion Barkley, feeling like the luckiest
blackjack player in the world, asked for a card at 19; it would be a better ending to the story to say he drew a deuce, but he busted.
Even though the Dream Teamers were the main show, not every casino employee could tell them apart—when Magic went to cash in one night, he was asked to repay the markers for a Monsieur Jordan, which stood at about $50,000.
I traipsed around in a fashion, looking in on the blackjack tables and high-stakes crap games, but, frankly, I was nervous about taking notes, the chronicling of athletes’ free time being an ongoing what-is-news-and-what-is-private? issue in my line of work. But I wasn’t nearly as nervous as the NBA. Though it was Stern who had brought this whole circus to Monaco, the Dream Teamers’ gambling was awkward for the NBA hierarchy since it was only a few months removed from an embarrassing issue that involved its marquee player.
Questions about Jordan’s gambling and off-court associations had come to the surface when three of his checks totaling $108,000 were found in the briefcase of a murdered North Carolina bail bondsman named Eddie Dow. To be clear, there was never any association established between Jordan and Dow or the Dow murder. But Dow’s lawyer said that at least some of that $108,000 was payment from Jordan for gambling debts incurred at golf and cards, and Jordan acknowledged having paid about $57,000 to one James “Slim” Bouler of North Carolina. Bouler had formerly done time for selling cocaine, was then under indictment on six counts of money laundering, and had a handle and a personality right out of an Elmore Leonard novel. He was an acquaintance not just of Jordan but also of other NBA players. Jordan said that the money was a loan to Bouler to help him build a driving range. But a U.S. attorney in Charlotte said that that money, too, was to pay off gambling debts.
The NBA investigated the issue for two weeks before releasing a statement that read in part: “There appears to be no reason for the NBA to take action against Michael.” Saying that it would take no action and completely believing in his innocence are two different things, and privately, Stern and others were concerned about Jordan’s choice of playmates and his penchant for heavy gambling. But there was Jordan in Monte Carlo, gambling the night away, Horace Balmer, the NBA’s security man with him much of the time. (The players called Balmer “Bam” for the exclamation he uttered when he threw down his cards; this was before Emeril Lagasse.) From time to time Jordan even had his own blackjack table reserved and played all five hands. Jordan was breaking no laws, remember, although the casino couldn’t have been thrilled that on some occasions a mysterious man stood behind him at the blackjack table. “Michael’s personal card counter,” someone in the Dream Team party described him.
Each afternoon, workout and lunch behind them, a gaggle of players trod through the foot-thick casino carpeting in golf shoes, sticks on their backs, bound for the Monte Carlo Golf Club, a twenty-five-minute ride outside the city. The course wasn’t a jewel, but it was mountainous and commanded wonderful views of the sea and the French and Italian Rivieras. There were worse places on earth to spend an afternoon.
There was a golfing hierarchy: Jordan, Daly, Rod Thorn, P. J. Carlesimo, and whatever touring pro was around. Barkley worked his way into their group from time to time, but he wasn’t at their level, and Jordan, as much as he would’ve enjoyed busting Charles, preferred the company of good players. Magic, who could’ve broken into any foursome simply by announcing that he was going to do so, was not a golfer. He had decided long ago that, given his competitive personality, he had better not start. “It would’ve become an obsession to me, just like it is with Michael,” he told me, “and would’ve distracted from the other things I wanted to do.” That was a man who always had his eye on the prize.
One day after practice Newsday’s Jan Hubbard arranged a foursome with Barkley, Drexler, and me. Barkley was at that time unencumbered by the as yet undiagnosed neuropathic/psychosomatic disorder that has come to plague his golf game, which at this writing remains a wretched smorgasbord of tics and stops and twists and turns. He hit the ball far and had a decent short game, though, need it be said, he was subject to lapses in concentration. Drexler, whom Barkley called “Long and Wrong,” was just learning the game. With a full, aggressive coiled swing—he was at that time one of the best athletes in the world—he routinely hit 300-yard drives, usually 150 out and 150 to the left or right.
Hubbard and Drexler (who were both from Texas) played against Barkley and me (Philly guys), though it quickly became apparent that accurate scorekeeping might be an issue. Hubbard remembers that, for a while at least, Drexler and Barkley changed personalities, Clyde talking nonstop and Barkley quiet, the result of too much golf the day before and too much clubbing after that.
Hubbard and I pushed our rented clubs, while a single caddy, who weighed all of 140 pounds, lugged around the bags of both players. I can still see the poor guy, head down, heavy bags on his back, slinking across two fairways to retrieve a geographically challenged Drexler drive. Clyde was playing with clubs he’d borrowed from Jordan, adorned with the Jumpman logo, and after the round Hubbard stole all of the logo balls.
“Why did you do that?” a visibly irritated Jordan asked Hubbard later.
“Think about it,” said Hubbard, who saw the long-range possibilities. Then Jordan quickly understood. “Twenty years later,” Hubbard says now, “and I’m still telling the story.”
Our merry group played nine, then picked up David Robinson at the turn. He was fairly new to the game and, in the fashion of a naval officer who had built televisions with his father, was working on it with consummate dedication.
“David,” I said to him, “you hitting those irons with impunity?”
“Man, you never let me forget that, do you?” he said.
In the Spurs locker room after Robinson’s first game as a rookie in 1989, I asked him about his ability to protect the basket. “Well,” he answered, “I just can’t let people come into the lane with impunity.”
“That’s the first recorded use of impunity in NBA history,” I told him.
Robinson was as enthusiastic as anyone about being a Dreamer, this being a redemptive journey for him as the only member of the failed 1988 team with another chance. Everybody on the Dream Team liked and respected Robinson, and he had struck up a friendship with Drexler and also with Malone and Stockton, which surprised him since their Jazz and his Spurs were bitter rivals, mirror images of each other’s hard-boiled, competitive style. “John’s photo was on the Spurs’ refrigerator as one of the most hated guys in the league,” said Robinson.
(Years later I asked Robinson if, after the Dream Team experience, Malone was less likely to throw an elbow at him during skirmishes under the basket. “Probably not,” he said, “but you didn’t take it as personal.”)
But Robinson was, to a large extent, a loner. I always thought he existed on a slightly different competitive plane than the other Dream Teamers. “Music was what was really in David’s DNA,” Jordan says. “He wasn’t driven like myself and most of the other players were.” He didn’t mean it as an insult; it was merely fact. And years after Barcelona, as we talked about some of his teammates, Robinson still seemed unable to fully comprehend the thirst-for-blood style of his teammates.
“When I first got into the league, Karl tested me every time we played, knocking me down, trying to intimidate me,” Robinson said. “I said, ‘What the heck is going on with him?’ ” (Yes, he said heck.)
“And Larry? In my rookie year? I switched out on him near the three-point line, and I hear him say, ‘This is in your eye, David.’ I mean, who says stuff like that?”
Larry Bird, I answer. Then I ask if Bird made the shot.
“Of course,” Robinson says. “It was Larry Bird.”
Robinson continued with a Jordan story from the first time they met, which was in a 1988 exhibition game when Robinson was playing with the national team.
“I go back to meet Michael because, like everybody else, I’m a big fan, and you know the first thing he says to me? ‘I’m going to
dunk on you, big fella. I dunked on all the other big fellas and you’re next.’
“And he said it almost every time we played. I’d go back at him: ‘Don’t even think about it. I will take you out of the air.’ ” (Even the tone of Robinson’s threat sounds churchlike.) “And Michael would always promise to get me.”
And did he?
“Eventually. It was a two-on-one with him and Scottie, and one of them was going to get me. Michael took the shot and I went up to block it because that’s how I played. I went after shots. But I didn’t get there and he dunked it and the crowd went crazy. It wasn’t really a poster dunk, but he got me. And he remembered. ‘Told you I was going to get you one day,’ he said.”
Robinson shakes his head. “Man, what a competitor. He never forgot anything, never let you get away with anything.”
By Dream Team time, Robinson had, as he puts it, “been born again in Christ.” He had gotten married six months earlier to a deeply religious woman named Valerie Hoggatt, who is still his wife. David didn’t drink or swear and was finding it uncomfortable to be around those who did, just as some found it uncomfortable, at times, to be around him.
“I first got saved in 1991,” he told me years later. “It was something that was really emerging in my life, and I was just trying to understand it myself. I probably did talk about it a little too much in the locker room. Larry Brown [the San Antonio coach at the time] and some other people didn’t like it. Guys are like, ‘Christians are soft. They’re not going to cut your throat out when it’s throat-cutting time.’ That was the thinking.
“But my mentality was, I want to help my teammates. If I can stop someone from running around in circles in their private life, I want to do that. I just had to find the right way to go about it. I was struggling about when to say something and when to keep my mouth shut.”
Robinson’s overt faith was never an issue on the Dream Team, a mature group (you can point to Barkley as an exception to that, but by now you understand how he blended in) that was able to gather in all the individual foibles, expose them to some kind of cleansing process, and have it all come out okay. But a golf course—certainly one with Charles Barkley on it—is a very tough place for a true believer. Our fivesome went on, insults flying like molecules under heat, four-letter words our lingua franca, at least for Barkley, Drexler, Hubbard, and me. I could tell Robinson was getting squirmy with all the blue being thrown around, and at one point he complained to Hubbard about Drexler’s cussing and also wanted Barkley to tone it down. Charles seemed to comply, but then at one point—I believe around the fourteenth hole—he let loose with another barrage, all of it in good humor, of course, but salty.
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