Counted Out

Harvey Pollack, the last man who had been employed by the NBA since its founding in 1946, has died of complications from a car accident at the age of 93. The OCD freak spent 67 years as a public relations man and statistician with the Warriors and 76ers, with his most notable moment in the sun being scrawling a number on a piece of paper the night Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in a game, which became one of the most reprinted sports photos of all time. Pollack’s statistical analysis revolutionized record-keeping when he had nothing more than an abacus and a slide rule, but laid the groundwork for the sissies of the computer age. Pollack found statistics in the arcana of athletic contests where none had existed before, making the 76ers media guide a must read around the NBA and setting standards other teams copied. He was one of the first to record minutes, offensive and defensive rebounds, blocked shots, assists, steals and created the categories double- and triple-doubles, turnovers and points off turnovers. He combed other teams’ records for statistical gems, finding that Oscar Robertson was the first player to record 800 rebounds and assists in the same season. Even last year, Pollock was aggravated by stories that Kevin Durant was closing in on Michael Jordan’s record of 40 consecutive 25-point games, and remembering that the NBA had existed before Jordan, took it upon himself to actually read box scores to identify that Wilt Chamberlain had done it in 106 straight. Pollock brought a sense of humor to his deep statistical dives, coining the term Trillionaires Club for players who recorded minutes in a game, but managed no other statistics, leaving their stat line as a number followed by a line of zeroes. For his efforts, all 4 Philadelphia teams that won NBA titles – the Warriors in 1947 and 1956 and the 76ers in 1967 and 1983 – presented him with championship rings, and he earned a lifetime achievement award from the Basketball Hall of Fame. He also compiled statistics for all of the city's Division I collegiate basketball teams, the Philadelphia Tapers of the American Basketball League, the WFL’s Philadelphia Bell, the NLL’s Philadelphia Wings, even Mummer’s Parades. Pollack was a living cliché, smoking cigars at the scorer’s table, speaking in a thick Philadelphia accent, hunting and pecking his way to 110 words (and countless mistakes) a minute on the manual typewriters he lugged around with him. After his wife’s death in 2003, Pollack started a streak of more than 4,500 consecutive days wearing a different T-shirt.

Lloyd’s of Lying Down

Imagine if you will, a time when the NBA was so white even Hootie Johnson would have wept tears of joy. You could actually watch the polish on the floor yellow as the honky-filled games, bereft of skill or speed, crawled to their merciful 33-29 conclusions. Why Earl Lloyd even wanted to play remains a mystery, but on October 31, 1950, perhaps in a Halloween prank gone horribly awry, he became the first black man to play in an NBA game, scoring 6 points for the Washington Capitals against the Rochester Royals. Unlike Jackie Robinson, that first game was pretty much the highlight of a non-descript career that saw him average 8.4 points and 6.4 rebounds in 560 regular-season games over nine seasons. Lloyd died of undisclosed causes at the age of 86. 

Warm Up the Buss! Warm Up the Buss!

(An epitaphany shared with Monty)

Or

Buss-ted

Jerry Buss, who made the Hall of Fame by signing the paychecks of some of the best players in NBA history, has died of cancer at the age of 80 as even he couldn’t bear to watch the 2012-13 Los Angeles Lakers any more. Since buying the Lakers in 1979, Buss, a real estate magnate and holder of a doctorate in physical chemistry, built the team into one of the NBA’s flagships, ranked as the second-most valuable franchise by Forbes at $1 billion. Of course, the New York Knicks are the most valuable, so apparently stockpiling talent and winning championships has nothing to do with franchise value. With Magic Johnson scoring a $25 million, 25-year contract after his second year in the league, the Lakers thrilled fans with their Showtime offense, while the Laker Girls, led by Paula Abdul and Tina Yothers, kept fans distracted on off nights. Lakers games became must-see events, with celebrity fans like Jack Nicholson and Dian Cannon holding courtside seats. Buss also owned The Forum, later The Great Western Forum, the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings, the Los Angeles Strings of World TeamTennis, the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA and the Los Angeles Lazers of the Major Indoor Soccer League.

Macauley Culled

Ed Macauley, one of the other guys in one of the most significant trades in sports history, has died at the age of 83. On April 29, 1956 Macauley and the rights to Cliff Hagan were traded by the Boston Celtics to the St. Louis Hawks for the rights to Bill Russell. All 3 players involved in the trade ended up in the Hall of Fame, and the Hawks and Celtics split the next two NBA titles, but the trade still has a Manhattan for beads feel to it. The Celtics won 11 titles with Russell. The Hawks moved to Atlanta.

Inka Dinka Done

Manute Bol, who brought The Gods Must Be Crazy to the NBA, has died of Stevens-Johnson syndrome at the age of 47. Seven feet, six inches and about 112 pounds of arms and legs, Bol was a blocking machine, setting a rookie record with the Washington Bullets with 397 and finishing his career 14th on the all-time list with 2,086, and with the second-best blocks per game average (3.34), despite averaging less than 19 minutes a game through his career. Offensively, he was the black Shawn Bradley, scoring about as often as Mother Teresa despite being able to touch above the rim flat-footed. Renowned for his long-range shooting, Bol was a bit of a long shot himself, the son of a Dinka chief from Sudan who once used a spear to kill a lion threatening his herd before being discovered by a coach from Farleigh Dickinson University. Bol never forgot his homeland, spending everything he earned in the NBA and doing extensive fund-raising work to build schools and hospitals as part of the rebuilding effort following Sudan’s lengthy civil war, and even moving to Kansas post-retirement to recreate the desolate surroundings. Bol was willing to do anything to raise money and awareness for Sudan, boxing William “the Refrigerator” Perry, signing a one-day contract with the Central Hockey League’s Indianapolis Ice, and serving briefly as a horse jockey.

The Pollin Weed Feeder Classic

Or
Bullet Bites It
(Props to Jon)

Or
Number One With A, Um, Wizard
(Huzzah for Joe)

Or
Abe Stinkin'
(Additional accolades for Joe)
Abe Pollin, the only man to fire Michael Jordan, has died at the age of 85 of progressive supranuclear palsy. Until this afternoon the longest tenured NBA owner, Pollin bought the Baltimore Bullets in 1964, moving them to the nation’s capital when the Capital Centre was completed, then building them a new home in 1997 with his own money, rather than holding a financially destitute city hostage as his fellow owners were doing around the country. Thinking that Washingtonians would rather be reminded of the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis than the daily gun violence, he renamed the team Wizards and offered up a stylized swastika with a hat as a logo that same year. Other highlights of his tenure included the 1978 NBA Championship, the first championship for the district in 36 years and a testy co-ownership with Jordan and his ill-advised second comeback. Pollin formerly owned the NHL’s Capitals, seeing them go from awful to never quite good enough, and the WNBA’s Mysticks.

Hoops, Coupes, Nazi Oops

Bye, George
Before anyone wanted to be like Mike, everyone wanted to be like Mikan. Before there was Shaq, before there was Wilt, there was George Mikan, the first dominant big man and basketball’s first superstar who died last week at the age of 80 of diabetes-related complications. Named the greatest player of the first half of the 20th Century, Mikan was a member of the inaugural class of the basketball Hall of Fame. Mikan led the Minneapolis Lakers to 3 NBA championships as well as titles in the National Basketball League, an NBA precursor. Mikan’s dominance began in college, where he took DePaul to an NIT title in the days when that didn’t stand for “Not in the Tournament” and he forced the NCAA to adopt the goaltending rule. He continued shaping the rules in the pro ranks, where the lane was widened from 6 to 12 and then 16 feet to move him farther from the basket. After the Fort Wayne Pistons beat the Lakers 19-18, primarily by holding the ball to keep it out of Mikan’s hands, the NBA introduced the 24-second clock to keep other teams from doing the same. The league even considered raising the basket to 12 feet to counter his skills and played a regular season game at that height. Mikan helped Minneapolis join the ranks of the major sports cities, and his contribution was remembered with the addition of a statue in his honor outside the Target Center where the Minnesota Timberwolves now play. Mikan often traveled ahead of his team to drum up interest in road games, and one game at Madison Square Gardens famously was billed as the New York Knicks vs. George Mikan. When he arrived in the locker room, he found his teammates were standing around, not changing. He asked what was going on, and was told that they had seen the marquee and wanted to see how he’d do. After his retirement, Mikan’s stature was tapped as the first commissioner of the upstart American Basketball Association. Mikan had devoted the last years of his life to haranguing the NBA about the measly pensions of $1,000 a month afforded players who, like Mikan, played before 1965.

Cotton Kickin'

Cotton Fitzsimmons, who spent most of the last 30 years working for the Phoenix Suns in some capacity, has died at the age of 72. In three stints with the Suns, plus Atlanta, Buffalo, Kansas City and San Antonio, Fitzsimmons racked up 832 wins, 10th on the all-time list, and was twice Coach of the Year. In the 1980s, the Suns were involved in one of the worst drug scandals in NBA history, and there was talk the franchise might be moved, but Cotton came back to town, taking the franchise to 4 consecutive 50-win seasons and securing its place in Phoenix.