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In other news, Kenny Anderson said Rick Pitino told him, he wasn't
trying to trade him. That may be a good sign....
Bob Ryan article on DJ deserving to be in the Hall of Fame below:
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[The Boston Globe Online][Boston.com]
[Boston Globe Online / Sports]
COMMENTARY
A good choice, but where's DJ?
Picking one ex-Celtic is nice, but another
deserves it, too
By Bob Ryan, Globe Columnist, 06/24/99
NEW YORK - It
will be
interesting to see whom
Kevin McHale selects to
accompany him en route
to his Hall of Fame
presentation Oct. 1.
Nils Lofgren? Kent
Hrbek? Danny Schayes (A
few of us remember the
night in Denver he
scored the game's first
11 points in about 30 seconds)?
Kevin McHale was not about basketball
obsession. There is no doubt that he was a
competitor. Given a choice between the W
and the L, he had no choice. He was a big
W man all the way. But through it all he
had as much sheer fun as anyone who's ever
played for the Celtics, or any other NBA
team. He could think about anything except
basketball until they threw the ball up,
which used to upset Larry Bird, who, of
course, was Mr. Business the second he
walked into the arena. With Kevin it was,
you know, different strokes, etc.
Too bad it won't be Larry, but he and
Kevin were never buddy-buddy. They were
like two little rival empires who just
happened to work under the same corporate
umbrella. Larry thought Kevin could have
worked harder, and should have been an MVP
at least once. Kevin thought Larry needed
to get a life. So be it.
They were both quintessential Celtics, and
now Kevin will join Bird, John Havlicek,
K.C. Jones, Sam Jones, Frank Ramsey, Tom
Heinsohn, Bob Cousy (we'll forget about
those sorry seven games with Cincinnati if
he will), and, of course, Bill Russell as
players who have entered the Hall of Fame
playing for the Boston Celtics, and only
the Boston Celtics. No other team has
anything close.
Each year it is customary to say that
so-and-so ''leads'' a group of people into
the Hall of Fame. There is no doubt that
the leader of this year's class is Kevin
McHale. There were 19 names on the ballot
and just one was lit up in neon. We will
never know officially, but it's difficult
to imagine that McHale was not a unanimous
choice.
As happy as I am for Kevin, I am equally
saddened for Dennis Johnson. Now one would
think that a member of the voting body
would be someone deeply interested in the
sport. One would think that each voter
would be able to look beyond the obvious,
which, in this case, is DJ's 14.1 points
per game career average. One would think
that someone entrusted with a vote would
understand that the mark of a truly great
player is to leave a singular impression
on the game. There have been a lot of
great scorers. There have been some great
defenders. There have been some great
passers. There have been some great
rebounders. But there have been only a
select handful of players who have
combined all the above skills to a
significant degree, who have clearly
demonstrated a great capacity to excel
when it matters most and who also have
brought a personal stylistic flair to the
game.
Dennis Johnson was one of those players.
A truly great player is a ''type.'' He
becomes a frame of reference. In the nine
years since his retirement there have been
no ''Dennis Johnson types'' to come along.
There have been no big guards who could
stick the key jumper, take it aggressively
to the hoop, defend maniacally, make the
big pass, and come up with the big thought
(never forget that if DJ, watching from
damn near midcourt, hadn't cut to the
hoop, Larry would have been standing there
on one leg falling out of bounds with
nowhere to go after making the steal in
Game 5 of the 1986-87 Eastern Conference
Finals against Detroit) to the degree that
Dennis Johnson did. There is no way to
quantify toughness, but it matters and DJ
was uncommonly tough, physically and
mentally. Dennis Johnson's continuing
exclusion from the Hall of Fame is an
embarrassment to the organization.
Jo Jo White also was nominated, but Jo Jo
White, while a fine NBA player, was not a
Hall of Famer. He just wasn't. He's Dwight
Evans.
While there may be hope for DJ, there is
rather less selection hope for another
special guard of the '70s and '80s.
Maurice Cheeks has even less to offer by
way of sheer scoring prowess (11 ppg
career), but he shot over 50 percent from
the floor nine straight years while never
attempting more than 11 shots per game in
a season, and he could always score if he
had to. He just never viewed that as his
job.
With all due respect to Magic Johnson, who
could play any position on the floor, Mo
Cheeks was the point guard's point guard
of his day. He ran a team flawlessly and
made all the requisite open jumpers.
Defensively, he had the amazing capacity
to double-team without ever getting burned
on a ball reversal. He was a great ball
hawk, and no one went coast to coast with
more reliability on a turnover. If the
Spurs had the vintage Mo Cheeks in their
lineup, this series already would be over.
The most controversial selection will be
John Thompson, about whom few people are
neutral. Those who don't like him will
hold the '88 Olympics against him forever,
without recognizing just how good the
Soviets were. This was, in fact, an easy
call. Few coaches in the past 30 years
have been more influential. He was the
first great black coaching presence in
Division 1 basketball, and there is no way
of knowing how many doors he opened by his
success at Georgetown. Whatever anyone
thinks of his methods, let the record show
that the Hoyas had won three games the
year before he came and had never been a
player on the national scene.
Fred Zollner was an NBA pioneer who has
long deserved recognition. Billie Moore
was one of the first giants of the modern
women's coaching game. But the truly
heartwarming choice to go into the Hall of
Fame this year is Wayne Embry.
An All-Star level player, a great
executive, and simply a superior human
being, Wayne Embry has been a great NBA
treasure for the past 40 years. The phrase
''role model'' gets bandied about in our
national dialogue every day of the year.
Well, here is a principled man with humor
and dignity who would serve as a role
model for anyone, regardless of race,
creed, color, national origin, political
persuasion, or eating habits (Wayne's got
to be tipping 'em at three big ones these
days).
And Wayne Embry, I suspect, knows he
should be going in with Dennis Johnson.
Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist.
This story ran on page C08 of the Boston
Globe on 06/24/99.
© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.
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