50 Reasons This Was Nostalgic

OK, the NBA has next season’s motif: a celebration of the top 51 players, commemorating its first 51st seasons.

No way it’s turning loose of something this good. In a halftime ceremony that overshadowed the game, the 50 best players, more or less, were honored, a moment so nice it cast a glow over the weekend and a league that needed a respite from current events.

For a moment, attention was diverted from tattooed, cross-dressers and pistol-packing point guards. For a moment, everyone looked at the members of this living hall of fame and thanked them for the memories.

How moving was it? Michael Jordan, perhaps the greatest player of them all and one of the 50, turned into a little kid.

“I was in awe pretty much the whole time,” Jordan said later.

It was that kind of weekend, even if the locale wasn’t glamorous, the weather wasn’t good, the celebrity count barely moved the needle and a lot of club officials skipped out before the game, as soon as their committee meetings were over.

Greats like Wilt Chamberlain, whose prodigious feats were performed before smaller audiences--remember, as late as 1980 when Magic Johnson played center in the final game of the NBA finals, it wasn’t on live TV--got today’s big treatment, a press session in a hotel ballroom, with each player at his own table, surrounded by reporters from all over the globe.

“Well, it wasn’t anything like this, Ill guarantee you,” said Jerry Lucas.

“I remember my first All-Star Game [in 1964]. In those days, we came in, we had a little practice the day before, we went out and played the game. There was nothing like this. There was no great media attention, there was no fanfare, there were no special things like they have today.

“Matter of fact, my first All-Star game almost didn’t occur. We had no players’ union in those days. Here I am, I’m so excited, and all of a sudden, the Western players come over to the Eastern locker room and then all the veterans start to talk and they say, ‘We’re not going to play.’

“The game was delayed an hour and we finally played and that was probably the beginning of the impetus of the ball rolling that got the players their bargaining agreement.”

Of course, too much nostalgia is dangerous, too.

Lucas reminded anyone who ventured near that he’s the only forward ever to post a 20-point, 20-rebound season.

Walt Frazier said he’d be better today than he was in the ‘70s when 6-4 still made him a big guard.

Rick Barry vented.

Moses Malone and Elvin Hayes, who went entire careers without saying a sentence longer than “Get out of my face,” regaled crowds of reporters.

Young players? In that room, the subject of youth in the NBA was like a shuttlecock in a badminton game.

Hayes, for example, ripped Generation X poster boy Allen Iverson, although let’s face it, if that’s Iverson’s worst problem, he’ll be OK.

Comissioner David Stern, asked about it the next day, said, ironically: “Elvin Hayes.” As if Stern doesn’t have enough problems.

For sure, this youth angle got a workout. On Sunday’s Meet the Press (this is not a gag), those eminent statesmen, Jordan and Charles Barkley were invited to indict young players, which they did with gusto. Of course, role models Mike and Charlie blew off the Friday press session, as usual, to play golf in Las Vegas and the league fined them the usual $10,000.

For his part, Iverson, who is actually as engaging as he is untamed, did his part to enliven things by acknowledging at his press session that he carries a pistol for self-protection, a Glock 9 mm.

Said Stern, the trial lawyer, beating a hasty retreat at hearing that one: “That’s a subject that we have, in the past, asked the players association to put on the agenda for quiet discussion.”

However, if hoop legends were plentiful, stars of stage and screen were hard to find. The Cleveland Plain Dealer ran a celebrity watch but was reduced to boldfacing fans’ names and publishing unconfirmed sightings like this:

“Rumor City: Snoop Doggy Dogg rented the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum for a Saturday night party and Mike Tyson and chums were taking over the Old Arcade. Would we check it out? It all depends on how demoralized we are after being shooed away from the Ted Turner party at the Diamondback Brewery.”

There have been better All-Star games too, even if Glen Rice set a scoring record (for a quarter and a half, anyway) and Jordan posted the game’s first triple-double (“I couldn’t make a jump shot so I had no choice but to rebound and play an all-around game.”)

But the old guys marched out there and hearts were warmed all over icy northeastern Ohio.

“I was very nervous,” said Jordan. “I haven’t been nervous in these situations in a long time but I was like a fly on the wall. I sat back and looked at all the great players who paved the road for myself and the other players who played today. It’s a great feeling to go out there and pay gratitude to them.

“And at the same time, to see yourself among those players was truly an accomplishment.”

Congratulations. You earned it. See you in a year with the top 51.