The regular season is over and on we go to the playoffs. Our final TV 20 games were with the Magic, Knicks and Milwaukee and there were thought provoking elements in each of them.
What got me about Orlando was the change in Darko Milicic. He stopped by the hotel the day of the game to see his old teammates and seemed so utterly happy. It was a stunning change. I rarely saw him smile at all in Detroit. He brooded here, unable to accept his role on a championship caliber team. He’s still a kid, and he needed to earn his playing time. I believe he was treated fairly here, but lacked the maturity to accept the situation.
It was also sad to see Grant Hill hobbling again. The hernia operation he had before the season didn’t hold and it’s been another terribly frustrating season in which he missed 60 more games. He’s had a shocking six operations since leaving Detroit in August 2000 – five on the ankle and then the hernia. He said that more surgery was recommended and he’s had enough. I get the impression that if he can’t rehab it without surgery, he’ll call it quits. After the game, he walked in pain, holding his daughter’s hand, as they headed to his car. He’s only 33 and in the six seasons since he left the Pistons, has played only 135 games.
As Grant, Darko and Carlos Arroyo chatted with Piston players after the game, it struck me what a small world these guys are in. Each NBA game is like reunion. Some of these players have known each other since high school All-American games, or played against each other in college. They are in an elite class, and after attacking one another for 48 minutes on the court; you see afterward how they share such profound professional respect and friendship.
Larry Brown’s absence was powerful when the Knicks came to town. He had it made in Detroit. He could have retired here and won more championships before he did. Instead, he followed his maniacal wanderlust and created an unnecessary professional hell for himself. We’re aware of some of Larry’s oft- discussed demons – like the fact that he can never sit still and is always grasping for something else. I don’t doubt that his flare-up of acid reflux caused him to miss this game. I just wonder if it was the thought of coming back to Detroit that contributed to the bout with acid reflux.
I quoted the age-old adage of the discontented on our broadcast: “Be careful what you wish for – it just might happen.” That’s Larry. He couldn’t maintain the status quo with a great franchise here in Detroit. He felt compelled to go to New York and just recorded the worst season in Knick history – and got a stomachache the size of Manhattan to go along with it.
In Milwaukee, a guy from La Crosse Wisconsin approached me and wanted me to be aware that he’d given Flip Saunders a videodisk that morning. It was footage of Flip’s 1992 La Crosse Catbird celebration video after they won the CBA championship.
Flip is 50 and has been coaching for 29 years – ever since he left the University of Minnesota to take over the coaching reins at Golden Valley Lutheran college in Ohio in 1978. The guy has paid his dues and didn’t just “show up” here. Can you even imagine how badly he wants to win an NBA championship?
If that happens, he might be as excited as Amir Johnson was after his amazing second half performance in Milwaukee when he went 6-6 from the field and 4-4 from the line. Amir won’t even turn 19 until May 1. He would have been a college freshman this year, but there he was, dunking, bombing a 3-pointer and calmly sinking everything from the foul line. He tried to act cool about it in the locker room – like he’d done all of this before, but he didn’t do a very good job of masking his glee. He’s still real uncomfortable doing interviews. But that should come.
All good things take time – just ask Flip.
Comments