Gee, Dad, That’s a Souvenir

The last basket of Dan Issel’s 15-year professional career was a three-pointer for the Denver Nuggets in the fifth and final game of the Western Conference playoffs against the Lakers last season at the Forum.

At that point, the game was stopped and referee Earl Strom gave the ball to Issel as the crowd rose and gave him a tremendous ovation.

In his book, “Parting Shots,” Issel tells about showing the ball to his 6-year-old son, Scott, after returning to his home in Versailles, Ky.

“ ‘This is the basketball,’ ” I said to Scott in my most serious schoolteacher voice, ‘that Daddy played with in his last game. The one that he made the three-pointer with on his last shot.’

“Scott, obviously impressed, studied the ball momentarily, rolling it in his hands, then looked up and said: ‘You mean this basketball was touched by Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?’ ”

Trivia Time: Name the only three players in NBA history who have won the league scoring title and played on a championship team the same season. (Answer below.)

Would-you-believe-it dept.: Onetime vegetarian Bill Walton does a radio commercial with Larry Bird for the Scotch ‘N Sirloin restaurant in Boston. He’s also made his mark as a customer, causing Bird to remark, “He can really pack it away.”

Don Lessem of the Boston Globe, likewise impressed by Walton’s capacity, wrote: “Not long ago, on one reporter-sponsored lunch, Walton consumed three large sandwiches with a half-gallon of cider. On another, he downed a dinner-sized portion of sashimi, a bowl of rice pilaf, a dozen oysters, a dozen clams, his companion’s fried onions, washed down by four draft beers.”

Add Walton: Admitting he remains shy, he told Lessem, “I never wanted to stand out.” Said Lessem: “To reporters he once defined 7 feet as a freakish height and to this day lists his height as 6-foot-11, though he stands above 7-foot teammate Robert Parish.”

From John McGrath of the Denver Post, noting that the name Crosby does not appear in brochures for the AT&T; Pro-Am: “If Bing Crosby can be purged from Pebble Beach, if his association with golf can be appropriated and packaged and put away in a thick vault to rest, in air-tight secrecy, along with his pipe and houndstooth hat, what next? The Gulf & Western Kentucky Derby? The Bank of Tokyo Rose Bowl?”

Says Vince Tobin, the man who has succeeded Buddy Ryan as defensive coordinator of the Chicago Bears: “We are going to review what we have here and we’re going to do things differently.”

Why?

Add Tobin: At least one member of the Bears thinks Tobin will be a worthy successor to Ryan.

Says defensive lineman Tyrone Keys, who played for Tobin in the Canadian Football League in 1981-82: “He reminds me of Buddy in the way he changed the game plans and changed on the sidelines.

“We had different coverages and different fronts every week. It wasn’t as complex as Buddy’s system, but we would attack people.”

Trivia Answer: Joe Fulks (Philadelphia Warriors), 1946-47; George Mikan (Minneapolis Lakers), 1948-49, 1949-50; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Milwaukee Bucks), 1970-71.

Quotebook

Dan Issel, on former University of Kentucky basketball coach Adolph Rupp: “Most coaches kick you in the butt one minute and pat you on the back the next. Rupp just kicked you in the butt all the time.”