The loss of art in odd places

Basketball seasons are ending with the final championship series. When I was young, back in the late sixties and early seventies, I loved pro basketball. My first favorite team, the Boston Celtics, ended their championship run from the fifties on into the late sixties when I was on the verge of becoming a teenager. Their teams included Cousey and Sharman and Russell and K C.Jones and Don Nelson. Their series with the Lakers were like the battles of the Titans in Greek mythology. The names on those teams were filled with Hall of Famers. At the end of the sixties they were replaced by the Knicks of Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley, Dave Debuscherre, and Willis Reed. I loved the cool larceny of Walt Frazier. I loved the discipline of Bradley and Debuscherre. I loved the heart of Willis Reed.

The Hawks drafted Pete Maravich when I was a young teenager, a truly amazing basketball talent. Someone whose abilities were clearly a mix of genetics, diligent practice and his love for the game which took on a sort of religous frenzy. I remember watching him play for LSU on the SEC game of the week on Saturday afternoons, scoring at will from anywhere, making passed which seemed to be blindly tied to the players he passed to, his handling the ball like it was a part of his person, willing LSU to victories. His only real weakness was that he was virtually alone. When LSU played against teams with a balance of talent, like Kentucky or Tennessee or Georgia Tech, they fell short.

Unfortunately, his talent didn't translate all the time to the pro game. He was amazing quite often for the Hawks or the Jazz or even the Celtics,late in his career, but not enough to move those teams into the upper echelons of talent.

Living in the Atlanta area during the late sixties through the seventies, the Hawks were a good team, but always lacking something that could push them past the championship teams like the Celtics, Lakers, Knicks, Bucks and even the old Bullets. There were moments when it looked like the Hawks were going to push on to championship teams they had in the late fifties and early sixties, when they were in St. Louis. I remember when they drafted Tom Payne, a seven foot center from Kentucky, the first great black player to go to Kentucky. But he couldn't handle the pressure and ended up in jail for a rape charge in Fulton County. Then the Hawks drafted Julius Erving, who just happened to have been drafted by the New York Nets of the ABA. When the Nets joined the NBA, Erving was given to the Nets and the Hawks lost a Hall of Famer. There were other examples.

Nobody remembers the Hawks from back in those days. No one remembers Lou Hudson and Bill Bridges and Jo Caldwell. They were so close. No one remembers the Hawk teams with John Drew and Tree Rollins and Armand Hill. I remember one year when the Hawks took the Baltimore Bullets to seven games in the semi-finals and could have, should have won. Baltimore went on to win it all instead. Then there were the teams with Dominique Wilkins and Kevin Willis, who came close to beating the Celtics of Larry Byrd and Kevin McHale in the early eighties. As much as I loved the Celtics, I would have loved to have seen the Hawks in the championship series.

Now I must say I enjoyed the Celtics of the Dave Cowens era. The big red head from Kentucky was one of my favorites,even though he jumped ship to play college ball at Florida State. I guess he did have a coach from Kentucky there. I remember when Cowens and Alvin Adams of the Phoenix Suns squared off in the championship series. Their battles were titanic. Maybe not in the sense of Russell and Chamberlain or Chamberlain and Jabbar. But they were working hard and playing tough against each other and doing things that other centers didn't do.

But what really killed it for me were the teams that came later. I hated the Pistons with Lambeer, the Sixers with Barkley and Malone. Those teams were allowed to beat on the opposition unmercilessly. It seemed like the referees were taught to let them play to the point where there didn't seem to be a limit to the physicality. And then the average teams lost the ability to shoot jump shots. Their statistics were terrible. It just became an effort to get the ball the nearest guy above the rim, who would slam it home, without finesse or style.

I know that basketball is difficult to master. The level of dexterity required to be good is unbelievably high. At its best, basketball becomes an art like ballet or dance. The players move around in concert, working against space, movement and gravity. The movement is not orchestrated like dance,but it becomes sort of freelance version, in which the grace is held in time and becomes a crack in time and space where the body becomes an art work and the ball and the basket become tied together as if they were magically connected.

The last play that I can remember having that feel about was the move Michael Jordan made against Craig Ehlo at the end of the championship game back in the 90's. As he moved across and away from the basketball, Jordan drove his body up into the air and stopped, releasing the ball towards the basket, and time was halted as the ball moved in its trajectory toward the basket, Ehlo's body moving away from the basket as he attempted futiley to block or deflect the ball's path. But Jordan stood frozen in air, as if his body would not dare to distract the ball from its mission to find the orange circle. And finally, the ball entering the basket, without touching the rim, releasing Jordan from his frozen state to allow him to celebrate the moment.

Its what I enjoy about it. But the way they are allowed to play these days drives me crazy. No art, no magic. No rules. Thank God for March Madness.