Masters of the Game

I’m gonna interrupt reading the book I’m reading to tell you about the book I’m reading. 

Because I’m having so much fun reading it—gotta let everybody know. 

It’s Masters of the Game–A Conversational History of the NBA in 75 Legendary Players by Sam Smith and Phil Jackson.

You probably know those names. But just in case…

That’s Phil Jackson, one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time. And Sam Smith, one of the greatest basketball writers of all time. 

As the title suggests, Smith and Jackson tape recorded their conversations about 75 NBA legends they either watched, played against, coached, coached against or wrote about. And then assembled those exchanges behind brief profiles of the players, written by Smith.

The joy of reading the book is riding along with Phil and Sam as they wander on their stream-of-consciousness conversation that takes them everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Much of which has nothing to do with the person being profiled or even basketball for that matter. Consider this commentary by Phil Jackson about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Here goes…

“I had kind of an interesting relationship with Kareem. I had some Muslim friends when I was with the Knicks who wanted to meet him. So I invited him over; I was living in Central Park West then, had food, not drinks. Nice to sit and down and talk with him. That was a great apartment. Bought it for $29,000, which was a steal at the time. Pre-war building, no air-conditioning: They’d tell everybody to open the windows. I sold it for $65,000. My neighbor upstairs was Zero Mostel. They’d have parties all the time, always something going on. They played and sang. They had a dog and I did too, and we became friendly. He had an art studio and loved to paint. He said, `They keep asking me to do Fiddler on the Roof, and it’s going to kill me,’ and it did. The Knicks were the toast of the town then. A few of us did this movie with Woody Allen and he invited us to dinner. When June and I got home, she told me he stared at her tits all dinner.”

They start talking about Kareem and wind up talking about Zero...

Wow! That's got to be one of the greatest rambles–ever. A non sequitur wrapped in a tangent inside a diversion. To paraphrase Winston Churchill.

I mean, I could see it staged as a monologue in a play written by, say, Tom Stoppard. May he rest in peace, by the way.

Just when you think Phil’s going one way, he goes someplace else. Winding up with Woody Allen staring at Mrs. Jackson’s “tits.” An aside I did not, in any way, see coming when I began reading the paragraph.

You’d figure Sam would follow with gentle nudge to get Phil back on track. But, no, since Phil raised the subject of Woody Allen…

“C’mon, Woody was one of my neighbors from Brooklyn. Funnier, more successful, but it doesn’t look like I’m getting thrown out of the country. Sorry, Take the Money and Run and holding up that bank with the misspelled note, Bananas with Howard Cosell? He made me smile as much as Snoopy. I’m still with Woody.”

On a side note–hey, Sam, you do know Woody Allen’s daughter accused him of raping her, don’t you? But now I digress…

They never return to the subject of Phil’s “interesting relationship” with Kareem. But who cares--it's the journey not the destination, right?

Well, I'm gonna sign off to get back to reading their book--which is so much fun, I don't want it to end.