Long live the Beez

The Birdman did not look like this during his time in Fargo.

The Fargo-Moorhead Beez live on in the NBA Playoffs. Don’t pretend like you didn’t know that.

I mean, it’s common knowledge that the franchise jumpstarted the pro careers of current Miami Heat forward Chris Andersen and San Antonio Spurs assistant Ime Udoka. In fact, they played for the Beez in the same season: 2000-01.

The team was in the International Basketball Association at the time, a league below the Continental Basketball Association. Yes, there was such a thing. Among the better IBA stories that I can remember: A player running off the court and out of the gym in an attempt to avoid arrest and a franchise relocation from America to Canada while the team was on a road trip.

Tracking the changing NBA, through the boxscores

Go to any YouTube video of an NBA game from the 1980s and count the dramatic ways the game is so different from today. The shorts, sure. No one needs to see that much of Bill Laimbeer. But there’s so much more. The players are skinnier. There are more fastbreaks, more scoring but the defense is much worse, much less intense. You could score four points in those games. Big guys play down low and when they try to handle the ball you can tell they’re having flashbacks to the time in 7th grade when the coach screamed at them that anyone who’s the tallest player on the court should never try to dribble. In today’s game 6-11 guys handled it like 6-1 guys did in the past.

It’s all there on the video. But if you don’t have the patience for viewing, simply read the old boxscores.

Injuries. Boo!

Free time is scarcer than ever right now. My wife has returned to work meaning I’m running a daddy daycare – starring three kids under the age of 3 – for a month, while keeping up with my jobby job at night. Needless to say, I’m back off the wagon when it comes to energy drinks.

To the point, I made sure to be able to catch a chunk of the Oklahoma City-Houston game in the NBA playoffs the other night – sleep be damned. But, here’s the thing: I didn’t watch for the sake of watching; I watched to see what the Thunder would look like without one of their stars – newly injured point guard (and askew fashion plate) Russell Westbrook.

Kobe in exile

It’s been two weeks since Kobe Bryant played a game and could be nine months before he plays another one. But on a weekend when the opening round of the playoffs featured dominant performances by the home teams and not much Game 1 drama — save for the Nuggets-Warriors — the injured 34-year-old still managed to be the most interesting story, or at least the most controversial.

Kobe, stuck at home with his Achilles injury, had promised to tweet during the opening game, an intriguing prospect because he’s proven to be an entertaining presence on social media, whether it’s his Facebook post after his devastating injury or his appearance on Twitter earlier this season.

Kobe

Some random thoughts about Kobe Bryant going down with a ruptured Achilles.

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The Lakers had no chance in the playoffs. Everyone, even the people in the league office who have been secretly rigging Lakers games for the past three weeks to ensure they get the eighth seed over those oh-so-boring Jazz — who are from Utah! Can you imagine the 8th seed coming from Utah when a team from exciting LA could make the playoffs (so the argument goes among people who see any free throw differential between two teams as proof of conspiracy, although they remain strangely silent games the Lakers don’t shoot more free throws than their opponents) — knows the Lakers have no chance in the postseason.

Hot Heat

To get an even better sense of what the Miami Heat are trying to accomplish, it’s worth noting that for them to set the NBA record for most consecutive victories, they still have to go on an eight-game winning streak, a feat few teams accomplish each season. But when a team has won 26 in a row eight seems inevitable.

And at this point in this incredible run, victory does seem inevitable for the Heat, no matter who they’re facing and now matter how big the deficit. Last Wednesday I was playing basketball and checked the Heat’s score against Cleveland. Miami trailed by 22 at the time, having already cut into a 27-point deficit. I announced the score to the other guys and all but one guy said, “Heat will win.” One other player hedged a few minutes later when I said the Heat still trailed by nine entering the fourth. It was a nine-point deficit, he noted. That’s still a good lead. Two minutes later LeBron had tied the game and Miami was on its way to another victory.

Last Games: Kevin McHale

Editor’s note: An ongoing series (well, hopefully) that will look at the final games of sports legends. Everyone remembers their careers and great moments but the end is usually mundane, forgettable, if not difficult to watch. The player is usually slower, tired and well past their prime. Their whole careers — and most of their lives — have been spent practicing or playing games. All those passes and free throws and catches and hits and pitches. And then, finally, it’s over. There’s one last basket, one last touchdown, one last game. It ends. It’s not the most memorable chapter in their careers but it is an important one — because it’s the final one. Today: Kevin McHale.

There’s something pure about the hatred a 9-year-old sports fan feels about anyone standing in the way of his favorite team, especially if the hate is directed at a 6-10 guy from northern Minnesota with a bad haircut and an odd body. When the Lakers met the Celtics in the 1984 Finals, I didn’t have memories of Kevin McHale’s appearance in the Minnesota state basketball tournament or of his time at the University of Minnesota. All I knew was that he was unstoppable in the post, whined about every call, grabbed a towel from under the basket after every foul and nearly killed Kurt Rambis.

Last Games: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Editor’s note: The first in an ongoing series (well, hopefully) that will look at the final games of sports legends. Everyone remembers their careers and great moments but the end is usually mundane, forgettable, if not difficult to watch. The player is usually slower, tired and well past their prime. Their whole careers — and most of their lives — have been spent practicing or playing games. All those passes and free throws and catches and hits and pitches. And then, finally, it’s over. There’s one last basket, one last touchdown, one last game. It ends. It’s not the most memorable chapter in their careers but it is an important one — because it’s the final one. Today: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar stood above everyone else from the time he stepped onto a basketball court as an unusually tall Manhattan schoolboy. He was the best high school player in the country, perhaps the greatest college basketball player ever (depending on your views of Bill Walton) and the most prolific scorer in NBA history. He dominated from his days at Power Memorial in New York to his legendary first game on the UCLA freshmen team, when he led the first-year players to a rout over the varsity Bruins, who happened to be the defending national champs. He arrived in Milwaukee and led the Bucks to a title in his second year. He won five championships with the Lakers and even at the age of 38 he won the Finals MVP in a six-game victory over the Celtics in 1985. At 39, he was voted first-team all-NBA, in a league that included a young Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing. In 1987 — now 40 but looking fierce with a newly shaved head — he scored 32 points in the clinching Game 6 of the Finals. The next year, as the Lakers saw their attempt at becoming the first repeat champion since Russell’s Celtics slipping away in the final seconds of Game 6 against the Pistons, the Lakers dumped the ball to him on the right block as they trailed by 1. Kareem went up for the hook for the millionth time in his life, drew a questionable foul on Bill Laimbeer and drained the two free throws. They repeated in Game 7. He was always The Man, from the time he was a boy until he was the oldest man in the league.

Then came the 1989 season.

Fancy passing no passing fancy

Ricky Rubio’s made three more jump shots than I have this season, and his team remains below-average. He’s still recovering from his torn ACL, and it might not be until next season when he’s back to feeling fully comfortable on the court.

But he remains one of my favorite players to watch in the league. It remains thrilling to watch Rubio with the ball in his hands because you never know how he’s going to get it in the hands of a teammate. He’s fundamentally sound so it could be a simple chest pass to a man beyond the 3-point line. Just as likely? Rubio will effortlessly flick an alley-oop pass or bounce a pass between his legs — or an opponent’s — for an easy layup. Sunday against Golden State — in another one of those frustrating Wolves losses that sees them break out to a double-digit lead before giving it up and falling short in the fourth quarter — Rubio had numerous highlight-reel passes, the types of plays that lift you off the couch or have you saying “wow” in an empty apartment.

Rubio provides nightly reminders that in a game of jumpers, dunks, steals and blocks there’s still nothing that captures the beauty of the game like a perfect pass.

Jerry Buss’s LA life

Jerry Buss won an NBA title in his first year as an owner and in his 31st. In between his teams won eight other championships, appeared in 14 other Finals and only missed the playoffs twice. The numbers themselves form the best resume of any owner in sports history. But Jerry Buss’s Lakers were never simply about the results. They had movie stars watching basketball stars, dramas and controversies, feuds and tragedies. And most importantly they had a style that defined the franchise. Showtime didn’t simply describe a Magic Johnson-led fastbreak — it captured what the Lakers were all about.

Showtime ended on the court when Magic retired, even if the title-winning ways eventually continued. Now, with Buss’s death following a lengthy battle with cancer, the era that started in 1979 truly is over. No one knows what comes next, off the court or on. The on-court success is anything but guaranteed and for the first time in 34 years there are doubts about the judgment and instincts of the man in the owner’s box. It’s worth remembering what Buss accomplished — not just because of the unparalleled accomplishments, but because the level of success might never be seen again, in LA or anywhere else.