By TERRY LYONS
BOSTON – I had a dream. No, I’m not ripping-off the historic civil rights speech of August, 1963 by the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. because I really had a dream this week. It was nowhere near as visionary as Dr. King’s speech and its plot was not prophetic. In fact, the dream speaks as much of times gone by but it might illustrate hopes for the future.
I rarely remember my dreams. They are always as clear as Cristal Brut Champagne upon my awakening, but then, the scene and story is gone in an instant. Some say it’s what those who suffer from dementia or amnesia experience everyday of their lives. That complex and fragile human brain of ours, it’s as frightening as it is amazing.
Tuesday, I awoken fresh from a scene of a major motion picture being played out with only once screen in the world, in my sleepy but active mind. I was at the airport and ready to board a plane, a connection home from being on Air Force One where I sat with former First Lady Michele Obama. President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama were attending to other things as we (an NBA entourage) returned from staging another international exhibition game and a series of Basketball without Borders clinics.
The location wasn’t clear but from the mood on AF1, it was quite a successful trip.
We were all in the present, but the scene invoked personal memories of days of future past, days that don’t seem possible with recent foreign relations gone so bad between the United States and China and with Russia versus the countries of the free world. Not all that long ago, we experienced great days of government diplomacy side-by-side with sports diplomacy.
Ping pong diplomacy began in the very early 1970s and continued until 1972 when thenUSA President Richard Nixon made a trip to China in an attempt to establish relations and gain leverage toward negotiating a peace settlement in Viet Nam. The NBA joined the effort in 1979 when the then-Washington Bullets – the reigning NBA champions – accepted an invitation from China’s leader Deng Xiaoping to play two summertime exhibition games in Shanghai and Beijing. The trip came just months after then-USA President Jimmy Carter made efforts to ease tension in the region. The Bullets/Wizards celebrated the effort 30 years later with a return to China spearheaded by franchise governor Abe Pollin.
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The NBA continued its efforts for international relations with multiple players association summer trips to conduct clinics and the NBA reciprocating with a full month-long training effort with the 1985 NBA China Friendship Tour, a combination of practices led by Red Auerbach, Pete Newell, Ed Badger and Bill Blair, along with a full schedule of scrimmages featuring the Chinese National Team against NBA clubs, including an early glimpse of a rookie named Michael Jordan, during training camps.
Now, with Russia at war with Ukraine, it seems impossible and so long ago that the NBA was helping young basketball players representing the then-USSR National Team mature inviting six players to attend the Atlanta and Los Angeles summer leagues to team-up with franchise owner Ted Turner’s Atlanta Hawks in the summer of 1987, a few months before the NBA staged its first McDonald’s Open exhibition in Milwaukee with the same USSR National Team, Tracer of Milan (Italy) and the host Bucks.
In 1988, it was the Hawks, once again, furthering the Glasnost efforts of Russia’s with the late Mikhail Gorbachev a few years before the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and eventual independence for Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia in the Baltics, along with dozens of other break-away countries, many with basketball players who once competed for the USSR.
It seemed the NBA’s version of glasnost was paving the way for Soviet glasnost and players such as Arvydas Sabonis, Sarunas Marciulionis, Alexander Volkov, Sergei Bazarevich, Yaroslav Korolev and Andrei Kirilenko found there way to NBA rosters soon after. Volkov, the minister of sport for the Ukraine, is now enlisted in the army and fighting for his country.
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By 2001, the NBA and FIBA (the International Federation for Fasketball) worked together to reunite the provinces which made up the former country of Yugoslavia – a national team that played as one in the 1988 McDonald’s Open in Madrid, Spain. During that time, a war tore apart Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia. The 2001 Basketball without Borders camp reunited the young campers with NBA players who had not competed together since the 1990 FIBA Worlds.
A year later, the same concept worked to bring together players from Greece and Turkey, at a July 4-7, 2002 camp staged in Istanbul.
By 2004, it was back to China for the historic NBA China Games with 7-4, No. 1 draft pick Yao Ming playing for the Houston Rockets. By 2006, the LA Clippers played a pair of games in Moscow, an exhibition now impossible to imagine.
When you total it up, the NBA has played 155 exhibition games against international teams and 33 regular season games outside the US and Canada. There’ll be another this season when the Bulls and Pistons head to Paris on January 19th.
The 188+ games certainly spread the basketball gospel around the world, helped fuel enough talent to make-up 25% of the NBA’s players while driving the league’s television and consumer products to a global audience of fans.
Looking back at Tuesday’s dream, one can only hope it was the return trip of a world peace conference rather than merely a basketball game or clinic. But as Dr. King said in his famous speech, “Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you, my friends, we have the difficulties of today and tomorrow.”
With just a little help of a bouncing basketball, unrealistic as it is, the wish for 2023 is for WORLD PEACE to ring throughout the Continents this New Year.
HERE NOW, THE NOTES: As WABC-TV great Roger Grimsby might say … some general and sports business notes to bring in the New Year of 2023.
LOOK BACK AT 2022 FROM WWYI: Here’s just a few key things we were writing about in 2022:
January 2022:
- Jan. 2 – Happy New Year
- Lucky “7” DIGGIES of Sports
- Fix/Six for MLB
- Jan. 9 – Beijing ‘22
- NBA LaunchPad ‘22
- Willie O’Ree Jersey Retirement
- Jan. 16 – FIBA InterContinental Cup
- NLL Records (Dan Dawson)
- SONY Open – PGA Tour
- Jan. 23 – Tribute to NYI No. 9 – Clark Gillies – RIP
- Bob Fishman Retired
- Jan. 30th – Tom Brady Retired from NFL (only to return)
February 2022
- Feb. 6 – 10th Year Anniversary of Linsanity
- Jose Paneda Won National Sports Media (1st ever Hispanic)
- Feb. 13 – Bruins G Tuukka Rask Retired
- LA Rams vs Cincy Bengals Super Bowl Preview
- Feb. 20 – MLB Lockout Becomes Reality – No Spring Training
- Greatest Voices in Rock History
- March Madness Preview
- Feb. 27 – Russia Invaded Ukraine; Ex-ATL Hawks forward Volkov off to War
March 2022
- March 6 – PGA TOUR Player Impact Program
- Brittney Griner Detained in Russia
- March 13 – BIG EAST Tourney at MSG
- Winningest Coaches (Gregg Popovich Joins List)
- March 20 – “Winning Time” Loses
- Jerry West defended from Coast-to-Coast
- March 27 – March Madness
- Move4Heather – Efforts to Raise $ for Cs Veep Heather Walker
April 2022
- April 3 – Baseball is Back
- *Coach K Retires from Duke
- April 10 – Red Sox Home Opener/Boston Marathon
- The Masters
- April 17 – Sox Fans Hit Panic Button (They were correct!)
- Kareem Enters Full Time Writing Gig
- April 24 – Grim Reaper Hits NHL: Gillies, Bossy and LaFleur – RIP
- Rumble Ponies!
May 2022
- May 1 – Team Bullpen Perfect Games
- Lefty vs The PGA Tour
- May 8 – NBA Playoffs – NO More Bubble
- Run for the Roses
- May 15 – Big Bob Lanier – RIP
- Sox in Basement
- May 22 – SBJ Sports Business Awards
- Anniversary of Jeffrey Goldberg’s 2019 Johns Hopkins speech
June 2022
- June 5 – Boston’s Al Horford leads Celtics; Seeks Ring
- Pro Sports Franchises = $2-$4 billion+
- June 12 – Steph Curry/Coach Bob McKillop
- NHL Stanley Cup to Colorado
- June 19 – GS Warriors earn 2022 NBA Championship
- PGA Tour vs. LIV golf rivalry and plot thickens
- June 26 – 50th Anniversary of Title IX
- SCOTUS Turn USA sports upside down
July 2022
- July 3 – NBA Salary Cap – “Damn the Pandemic, Full Speed Ahead”
- Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest
- July 10 – Red Sox Season At the Half
- Greg “The Shark” Norman in Shark-Infested waters with LIV
- July 17 – MLB All-Star Game
- The Open
- July 24 – Baseball Hall of Fame Inductions
- JJ Reddick Doubles Down on knucklehead viewpoint/ “Plumbers and Firemen” comment
- July 31 – State of Boston Sports Report
- MLB Trade Deadline
August 2022
- August 7 – Bill Russell Passes; NBA Mourns
- MLB Mourns passing of the great broadcaster Vin Scully
- August 14 – Serena Williams – The GOAT At the US Open
- 20 Year Impact of the USA Basketball Dream Team
- August 21 – NWSL franchises Approach $100m value
- PGA Tour FedEx Cup Playoffs Come down to the Final
- August 28 – Red Sox 2022 Season is In the Dumps
- Russian athletes blocked from Competitions
September 2022
- September 4 – LIV in Boston
- Boston College Football Season Lost in Week 1 (Rutgers wins at The Heights)
- September 11 – Basketball Hall of Fame Inducts Manu Ginobili, others
- Dick Ebersol Tribute at Basketball Hall of Fame
- September 18 – Sports for Fun Weekend
- Suns’ team owner Robert Sarver fined $10m and suspended
- September 25 – The ‘window” to win a title
- Robert Sarver of Phoenix meet Ime Udoka of Boston – Bye-bye
October 2022
- October 2 – Ranking of NFL Fan bases
- Various Basketball Halls of Fame / FIBA
- October 9 – BC’s Red Bandana Legacy
- Sports and Rock’s Most Underrated
- October 16 – NHL Season Preview
- Brentford futbol and “Hey Jude”
- October 23 – Memories from 1969
- NBA Preview and Predictions (Yes, GS was in there)
- October 30 – NBA Discipline & Players, Teams
- Dustin Johnson Pocketed $18m
November 2022
- November 6 – College Basketball Preview
- Houston Astros – World Series Champions
- November 13 – MLB Free Agent Market
- RIP – Jane Gross/Fred Hickman
- November 20 – Giving Thanks in Sports
- Willett’s Point NYFC Project – Good Luck in the Muck
- November 27 – Sports Acronyms
- MLB Free Agency Signings Begin
December 2022
- December 4 – College Football Playoff Set
- World Cup Preview – Qatar Concerns
- December 11 – WNBA’s Brittney Griner Return to USA
- BC vs BU Ice Hockey Rivalry
- December 18 – Massachusetts Sports Gambling – Lawmakers Keep Waiting
- Minnesota Vikings Record NFL Comeback
- December 25 – Merry Christmas | Shelby Strother Message\
- NBA Franchise Valuations
- Record cold weather for NFL weekend
*STORY of the YEAR 2022 – The Retirement of Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski
