Final Wrap on All Things NBA 75
By TERRY LYONS
BOSTON – The “official” NBA75 listing was published by the league this week.
There were nine NBA legends that made the While We’re Young (Ideas) list that DID NOT MAKE the official listing. Obviously, the Denver Nuggets and Kentucky Colonels’ alum, and the ABA overall, made much more of an impression on this reporter than the NBA committee members, as three Nuggets greats and four former ABAers were with us and none with them. Here’s the full list cross-referenced:
While We’re Young (Ideas) had:
- Vince Carter
- Alex English
- Artis Gilmore
- Connie Hawkins
- Tommy Heinsohn
- Dan Issel
- Bernard King
- David Thompson
- Jamaal Wilkes
Looking at it the other way, the NBA 75 had:
- Carmelo Anthony
- Anthony Davis
- Dave DeBusschere
- Damien Lillard
- Jerry Lucas
- Chris Paul
- Gary Payton
- Dennis Rodman
- Dolph Schayes
- Bill Sharman
Note: The one person discrepancy lies with the fact the NBA named 76 players.
COACHING TREE: To tie this all in a sweet, 75-year-old bow, two additional aspects of the anniversary team should be examined – Coaching and Play-by-Play broadcasters.
At the NBA@50, only 10 coaches were honored. They were:
- Red Auerbach
- Chuck Daly
- Bill Fitch
- Red Holzman
- Phil Jackson
- John Kundla
- Don Nelson
- Jack Ramsay
- Pat Riley
- Lenny Wilkens
Since only 10 coaches were named at year 50, WWYI will add only THREE more to the list above for NBA 75. The opinion here places these two coaches into the hall of glory:
- Hubie Brown
- Gregg Popovich
- Erik Spoelstra
While the great, Sports Emmy award winner in Turner Sports studio anchor Ernie Johnson Jr. was noted as a key contributor to the successes of the NBA in our listing last week. That prompted a final NBA at 75 list of 12 of the league’s Greatest Play-by-Play commentators, a list of artists who brought the games to millions of fans. Here’s one columnist’s opinion of the best of the best in the industry:
- Marv Albert
- Mike Breen
- Jim Durham
- Ian Eagle
- Marty Glickman
- Mike Gorman
- Chick Hearn
- Al McCoy
- Brent Musburger
- Johnny Most
- Dick Stockton
- Joe Tait
There are MANY other deserving (radio and TV) voices of the NBA teams over the years, far too many to mention but Eddie Doucette, Hot Rod Hundley, Bill Schonely, and Bob Wolff are listed with apologies while Bob Costas and Curt Gowdy are to be honored in Baseball. There are also a fair number of NBA team play-by-play commentators who were somewhat exposed by the advent of NBA League Pass (TV and audio) and the amount of complaining about referee calls is second only to the players themselves who seem to whine about every call.
HERE NOW, THE NOTES: According to France’s L’Equipe and Spanish EuroPresse, EuroLeague Basketball denied possible creation of “an NBA division in Europe,” although it has admitted a three-way meeting last month with the NBA and the FIBA. The intention of the meetings were, “joining forces to increase the popularity of basketball in Europe,” confirmed related parties attending the meeting. As both the NBA and FIBA have confirmed, executives from the three parties (FIBA, NBA and EuroLeague Basketball) met in Madrid in September. … Spain’s highly regarded sports section in “Marca” ran a front page story with banner headline, “The NBA Lands in Europe,” but EuroLeague Basketball quickly shot down the possibilities.
FIBA (International Basketball Federation) went a bit further with a statement that specified the meeting was only to discuss “the unification of European basketball, divided between the Euroleague, the private professional league, and International Federation competitions such as the Champions League (BCL). The International Federation also said in a statement that monthly meetings would now be held on the subject.
The NBA commented, but kept the discussions close to the vest, stating: “We were recently invited to initiate discussions on how we can work together to develop basketball in Europe. We look forward to participating to further these discussions in the future.”
Said Marca, “A European NBA with a Western Conference (clubs in Spain, Italy, France, United Kingdom, the Benelux region, Germany, Austria and the northern countries such as Poland or Sweden) and an Eastern Conference (with clubs in Russia, Turkey, Greece, the Baltic States, Israel, Romania etc. “would be fire.”
The speculation of the idea was presuming the entity would run on its own and not interact for in-season games with the NBA in North America. In other words, it would run similar to the Basketball Africa League (BAL) that began this year on the African Continent.
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