During his career, David Halberstam wrote two books about the National Basketball Association: The Breaks of the Game and Playing for Keeps (concerning the break-up of the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers and the construction of the 1990s Chicago Bulls respectively). Halberstam’s two works – written roughly seventeen years apart – cover a dramatic shift in the game of basketball, a change from a marginal sport without a full television contract to the second most popular sport in the world.
The 1976-77 Portland Trail Blazers may have been the last true team (greater than the sum of its parts) to win the N.B.A. Championship. At the time, the Blazers were so popular in the Association’s smallest market that thousands of fans would pay to watch the team’s home games at a Portland cinema. For a period lasting a little longer than a full season, the Trail Blazers were one of the best teams of all-time.
Bill Walton, between foot injuries, was one of the most talented players in the league, leading the team with defence and sparking the offence with his rebounding and passing. Maurice Lucas and Lionel Hollins were two other great players who played their best for Coach Jack Ramsay. Other role players, like Dave Twardzik, Larry Steele, and Lloyd Neal complemented the stars perfectly.
In 1977-78, the defending Association champions possessed a 50-10 record; by the end of the decade, the team had been dismantled. The team lost its superstar to a stress fracture injury, rebounding and ball handling to contract disputes, and other vital cogs to retirement. A team once known for exceptional chemistry and court-vision became a group of players that played one-on-one offence.
The breaks of the game that destroyed the Portland Trail Blazers affected the entire league. There is something to be said about playing for the love of the game, which was the case when all four North American professional sports leagues were founded. Players maintained part-time jobs in the off-season and didn’t expect to make a living a basketball stars. As salaries increased, a divide emerged between the older generation of players who had experienced the Association’s modest beginnings first-hand and the younger players who felt entitled to six-figure contracts as rookies.
Now, professional sport is a business, to be enjoyed for entertainment purposes only. Decisions are influenced as much by putting the ball in the basket as dollars and cents. The Association grew tremendously in the sixties and seventies but still lacked a viable television contract. As the 1980s began, professional basketball was not the cash cow that it is today. Owners who operated teams at a loss, subsidized by their small businesses, were forced to sell to larger companies.
In time, the Association rebounded, David Stern replaced Larry O’Brien as commissioner and began expanding basketball’s presence in the media. Michael Jordan was drafted in 1984 and dovetailed nicely into Nike’s plan to push a new line of basketball shoes. A new sports cable network, ESPN, was launched and needed programming. Globally, the popularity of the game exploded.
Jordan’s Chicago Bulls won six Association titles but still faced some of the same obstacles that the Trail Blazers did. Halberstam chronicles how Jerry Krause put the team together only to destroy it in 1998 because of ego. The Bulls were a unique team because of Michael Jordan’s tremendous talent and competitive nature and Phil Jackson’s unique coaching philosophy that valued creativity and individuality, allowing Jordan’s gifts to flourish. Krause may have made a number of key signings but he is – rightly – not perceived as the Bulls’ architect.
Michael Jordan is a one of a kind talent who pulled basketball ratings out of the basement and set records for endorsements. He only got paid extremely high salaries during the last few years of his career. Other players expect his salary from the beginning of their rookie season, without the financial and professional accomplishments, and this has thrown the economics of the game out of whack.
One of Halberstam’s insightful themes is the number of players who have short-changed their career on the court, in order to make more money in contracts and endorsements. Jordan re-invented the game, but he deserved to. Fundamentally, Michael Jordan would not let money get in the way of winning.
Another interesting topic covered by both books is how the Association evolved from a close-knit group tied together by the love of the game to a series of adversarial relationships: players vs. media, agents vs. owners, coaches vs. players, fans vs. management, and more. One isn’t automatically worse than the other but if players resent others in the basketball family without understanding the context, they create a negative influence for no good reason.
The goal is to play and win. At a certain point, it’s necessary to make money and get paid and pay rent etc. but if there is not self-actualization or improvement, life and sport are ultimately unfulfilling.
Irrespective of exceptional talent, it’s imperative for teams to be led by a highly-skilled coach, like Dr. Jack Ramsay or Phil Jackson. Coaches help teams execute systems but the anecdotes in David Halberstam’s book cannot underscore enough how important coaches are to a team’s chemistry over the course of a long season. Ask Bill Walton or Michael Jordan.