John Havlicek

Charlie Ward

Some NBA players also competed in other sports in college and even in the pros. Here's the story of two of them.

• John Havlicek starred on the hardwood for Ohio State from 1960-2. At Bridgeport (OH) High School, he had made All-State not only in basketball but also in football (as a QB), and baseball. However, at OSU he played only basketball after his freshman year when he competed on the diamond, hitting over .400. The 6'5" 210 lb "Hondo" was drafted by the Boston Celtics in the first round. But imagine everyone's surprise when the Cleveland Browns also took him in the seventh round of the NFL draft that same year (1962). Havlicek actually went to training camp with what would turn out to be Paul Brown's last Cleveland squad. After playing WR and DB in several exhibition games, Havlicek was cut by the Browns. Cleveland's loss was Boston's gain as Havlicek forged a Hall of Fame career with the Celtics until his retirement in 1978. He made the All-Star team 13 times. In 1997, he was selected as one of the 50 Greatest Players in the first 50 years of the NBA. His jersey has been retired by both Ohio State and the Celtics.
• Charlie Ward was also drafted by two pro leagues, but neither one of them was the sport for which he gained fame in college! He won the 1993 Heisman Trophy and the Davey O'Brien Award after QBing Florida State to the national championship. He had also played PG for four years for FSU. So he announced before the NFL Draft that, if he was not taken in the first round, he would sign with the NBA. With concerns about Charlie's size and arm strength, no NFL team drafted him in any round. So he signed with the New York Knicks, who took him in the first round. Charlie played in the NBA until 2005. He was a member of the Knick team that lost to San Antonio in the 1999 Finals. But our story of Charlie's athletic ability doesn't end here. He was also drafted not once but twice by MLB as a P (Brewers 1993, Yankees 1994) even though he hadn't played baseball since high school. He was also an outstanding tennis player, shining at the Arthur Ashe Amateur Tennis Tournament in 1994.

Donald Sterling has owned the Los Angeles Clippers since 1981. When he bought them, they were the San Diego Clippers but after three seasons, he moved the team to LA. During the 29 seasons he has owned the franchise, the Clippers have:

• Fashioned a 701-1,317 record (.347).
• Finished with a .500 or better record only three times.
• Had a winning percentage of less than .300 ten times (including 19-63 for .232 in 2008-9).
• Lost 60 games in a season seven times.
• Made the playoffs only four times (1991 and 1992 under Larry Brown, 1997 under Bill Fitch, and 2006 under Mike Dunleavy).
• Won only one playoff series – over the Denver Nuggets (4-1) in 2006 after which they lost to the Phoenix Suns in seven games.

Sterling, born Donald Tokowitz to Russian Jewish immigrants, made his fortune as a personal injury and divorce attorney who invested his earnings in real estate.

• He first entered the NBA as a minority partner for Jerry Buss when the latter bought the Lakers in 1979.
• It was Buss who suggested Sterling buy the ailing Clippers two years later.
• When Sterling moved the team to LA, the NBA fined him $25 million for doing so against league policy. When Sterling contersued for $100 million, the league cut his penalty to $6 million and allowed him to pay it out of his share of expansion fees.
• Sterling is the poster child for sports owners who, thanks to revenue sharing, milk profits out of their franchises without spending the money necessary to put a quality product on the court.

Read the article referenced below to find out more about Sterling's life, including his personal legal battles.

Joe Fulks, early star of the BAA

Harlem Renaissance

The first season of what is now the NBA is considered to be 1946-7. Ten teams competed in two divisions, East and West, in the Basketball Association of America (BAA). However, attendance was disappointing, even in New York and Philadelphia. So the league and team front offices came up with ideas to put more fans in the seats, including experimenting with longer games.

• The previous summer, the Executive Committee of the new league decided on 12-minute quarters. The idea was to give customers more than they would get at a college game (10-minute quarters) and "the same return for their entertainment dollar as they would get from a Broadway play, a movie, or a baseball game."
• However, with attendance lagging midway through the initial season, Arthur Wirtz, owner of the Chicago Stags, proposed 60-minute games. Commissioner Maurice Podoloff polled the owners and got their consent for a trial of the longer games by interested teams. Podoloff himself was skeptical, fearing a demand from the players and referees for more money for the longer games. Three one-hour games were played and "proved to be prolonged exercises in tedium." Podoloff attended the first one, between the Stags and the Detroit Falcons in Chicago and concluded that "the game would have been boring even if it had lasted only 40 minutes." When attendance at the three longer games was below average, the experiment was dropped.
• The 48-minute games had already posed a problem for clock operators. The arenas were set up for hockey with its 20-minute periods, and 12-minute clocks were expensive to have custom made. So creative methods were used to time BAA games. Podoloff suggested every team use the Madison Square Garden approach.

  The first two minutes of the first quarter were taken care of by stop watch, the [scoreboard] clock being started at the beginning of the third minute in each quarter, so that when the clock showed ten minutes, the first quarter was over, and when twenty minutes was showing, the second quarter was over. The same performance, of course, was repeated during the second half of the game.

• Another stimulus that had some positive effect was scheduling preliminary games matching teams of local interest. If teams from boys' clubs, city leagues, or YMCA competition played, their families would attend. Basketball teams featuring pro football players from the New York Giants and Philadelphia Eagles added to the attendance in those two cities. The most successful preliminary game pitted the Philadelphia Sphas and the Harlem Renaissance, "a colored team," before a Washington Capitols-Philadelphia Warriors contest in The City of Brotherly Love. The gate receipts that night totaled $10,000, which was double what the Warriors took in the previous week against the New York Knicks. Surprisingly, only about $400 of the take came from negro attendance, which was carefully monitored.
• The league staggered to the finish. However, only eight teams competed in 1947-8. Toronto, Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh folded, and only Baltimore was added.

Some facts about Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets.

• Chris grew up in Winston-Salem NC in a middle-class family. His parents stressed grades and character. Tattoos and piercings were forbidden. "My mom always said she'd be the only one putting an earring on in the morning," says Paul.
• As a teenager, he worked at his grandfather's service station, pumping gas and changing tires
• Chris didn't make the varsity team until his junior year. He made up for lost time, becoming North Carolina Player of the Year and a McDonald's All-American as a senior in 2003.
• Although he didn't win a high school state championship, Chris led his AAU team to the 2002 national championship.
• He stayed in Winston-Salem to play for Wake Forest for two years. The Demon Deacons made the NCAA tournament both seasons, reaching the Sweet Sixteen once.
• He made ACC Newcomer of the Year and was named National Freshman of the Year by several publications. As a sophomore, he made First Team All-American and the All-ACC Defensive Team.
• The Hornets selected Chris with the fourth overall pick in the 2005 NBA Draft. GM Allan Bristow actually wanted Deron Williams of Illinois but the Jazz took Deron at #3.
• Playing in Oklahoma City after Katrina, Paul won Rookie of the Year honors over Williams. His second season, the Hornets again played the vast majority of their games in Oklahoma City. For 2007-8, playing back in New Orleans, the team came within one game of reaching the Western Finals.

Chris has experienced tragedy in his young life but uses it as motivation to help others.

• The day he signed with Wake Forest, his grandfather, whom he called "my best friend," was killed by five teens in his home during a robbery. Chris says, "I feel no hatred towards these boys. What I hate is that they are wasting their lives in prison."
• When he turned pro, Paul created the CP3 Foundation, which gives away $500,000 a year for charitable works. The first time he visited New Orleans after the draft, he thought "it didn't look like the United States." He quickly got to work in his adopted home, feeding 200 needy families on Thanksgiving Day and taking 100 kids on a Christmas toy shopping spree.
• NBA Commissioner David Stern says, "New Orleans was in such need. Turned out you had the right player in the right place."
• Paul's 6' size led to a humorous incident on one of his first visits to the Crescent City two months before Katrina. He and another player went to Best Buy, where team members received a discount. A woman at the checkout counter refused to give it to him. "You don't play for the Hornets; you're too small," she said.

Christian Laettner

Grant Hill

One of the most famous plays in basketball history occurred in the 1992 NCAA East Region final.

• Duke trailed Kentucky 103-102 with 2.1 seconds left in OT. The Blue Devils had to put the ball in play from under their own basket.
• After a timeout, Grant Hill threw an 80-foot pass to the other foul line to Christian Laettner, who turned and sank a 17-foot jumper as time expired.

Watch on YouTube.

Laettner revealed many years later that the play hadn't worked well on a previous try.

• "I remember that we tried to run it one time against Wake Forest and Grant's pass was like a curveball. It took me out of bounds, and I wasn't able to shoot it."
• "We went back to the drawing board and practiced it a few more times when, lo and behold, we needed to use it two or three weeks later in the Kentucky game."
• "I had time to stay calm and be relaxed and take a nice, easy shot at the bucket. I had time to not rush, and that is very important."
• "Then the last thing I remember thinking is that I had to catch the ball ... because a lot of the time on a play like that, the defense knocks or tips the ball away."

Rick Pitino was criticized for the D he set up on the play.

• Why didn't he put a defender on Hill to hamper his pass? Pitino explained that his two tallest veteran players, Jamal Mashburn and Gimel Martinez, both 6'8", had fouled out. Hill later recalled that, when he went to the baseline and saw that his pass would not be obstructed, he breathed a sigh of relief.
• Why didn't KU contest Laettner's reception? This is a bogus charge. If you watch the video link above, you will see that 6'7" John Pelfrey did jump for the ball but the taller Laettner grabbed it.

Reference: "I Remember ... Christian Laettner," Sporting News March 16, 2009