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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Rich Cohen
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March 21 - April 3, 2025
Most fans today don’t remember Isiah as he was in the late 1980s, when he was the best player on the best team. Say what you want about Michael and LeBron, but, pound for pound, inch for inch, grading on a curve, Isiah was the GOAT.
There were more future Hall of Famers in action that season than in any other single season; among them were young stars who would continue on in the league for years, and old stars who’d debuted in the distant past. At twenty-two, Scottie Pippen and Reggie Miller were the youngest. At forty, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was the oldest. Between them, youngest to oldest, were twenty-nine other future Hall of Famers: Michael Jordan (24), Chris Mullin (24), Karl Malone (24), Joe Dumars (24), Charles Barkley (24), Hakeem Olajuwon (24); Patrick Ewing (25), Clyde Drexler (25), John Stockton (25); Dennis
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different stage of development, competed in 1987–88. The Celtics, who won three titles in the 1980s, were beginning to slip but were still the Celtics. The Lakers, who’d won five titles that decade, though slightly past their peak—call it five after midnight—were still among the best ever. The Pistons were just reaching cruising altitude and might well have been the best team in the game that year, even if few realized it. And the Bulls, in whom, though nascent and very much in the act of becoming, the contours of the great dynasty—six titles in eight seasons—could already be seen.
Kareem is 7'2". At its point of release, the skyhooked ball was twelve feet off the ground, two feet above the rim. “Even if you dropped from the ceiling,” Oscar Robertson said, “you couldn’t block that thing.”
The shot is famous not because of the physical accomplishment—it was an everyday jumper—but because of the context. At nineteen, Michael hit the winning basket of the NCAA Final with fourteen seconds left.
The Celtics swept the Bulls in the 1986 playoffs, beat the Hawks in five, swept the Bucks to reach the finals—their third straight appearance—then beat the Rockets in six to win Boston’s sixteenth NBA championship.
“Those Lakers beat the ’91 Pistons, the ’85 Celtics, the ’95 Bulls, anyone,” Trail Blazers All-Star Terry Porter told me. “Kareem, Worthy, Magic? As good as Jordan was, he never had teammates like that,” said Sam Perkins. “He had Scottie, but there never really was a bona fide third player. The Lakers had four Hall of Famers in the same lineup.”
The Lakers appeared in eight finals in the 1980s. They lost three, falling to the 76ers, the Celtics, and the Pistons.
1987–88. That’s the year it all came together. That was the NBA’s version of Mickey, Willie, and Stan the Man.
“MJ was the best player but the Lakers were the best team, the greatest offense of all time. They could run the floor, or fall into an unstoppable half-court offense with Magic feeding Kareem.”
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar quit the game for the most traditional reason. Because he’d become woefully, painfully, majestically old. The Lakers celebrated his career in 1988–89, Kareem’s twentieth and final season. He was fêted and showered with gifts before road games. He sat imperially, often in a rocking chair that had been dragged to center court, as testimonials were given. Some consider Abdul-Jabbar the best to ever play—more dominant than Michael, Kobe, or LeBron. The people who think this tend to be the people who truly know basketball.
Bird was unique only in that his big injury came not on-court but off. In the summer of 1985, he wrenched his back while shoveling gravel for his mother in French Lick. He was never the same. Many of us remember Bird stretched on the Boston sideline, waiting for the spasms to subside. He signed a contract for the 1992–93 season, but returned the money when he realized he couldn’t be effective. He wanted to be remembered as he’d been at his best.
As for Jordan, we were lucky to have him in the city, the league, the world. I have yet to see another player, in any sport, in his class. At times, it seems like I have spent my entire life watching him. I was in high school when he played his first season with the Bulls in 1984. I was covering the NBA for Rolling Stone when he played his last season in 2003. I came across him one morning at the Nets’ stadium in the Meadowlands. Alone on the floor, middle-aged but still beautiful, Jordan was shooting free throws. He looked at me when I came through the tunnel. Our eyes met. Then he turned
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