Simmons on Maravich. Yes, it's good.

I think it's crazy that anyone hear is trying to say what another person can and can't remember. You obviously can't remember everything, but certain things do stand out. I remember when I was 8 going to my town's championship football game, and I've never seen a tape of the game but I still vividly remember the game. (It was a wild game that game down to the last play). Now perhaps those memories have been reinforced after the fact, the way Simmons might think he remembers Maravich really well from when he was young, but it's actually that he remembers his dad getting excited about him so that as he got older and realized how special he was he had fonder memories of him. But regardless, it's certainly possible for someone to remember something from when they were that young. I honestly could still tell you about 10 names from that roster and that was 20 years ago. And that was high school football, not an all-time legend.

 

He was every bit as mercurial as a Jason Williams. If he was indeed on the top 50 team of all time, it was a fraudulent pick. His stats would not have been nearly as good in the pros if he didn't make it onto an expansion team for which he was the freak-show scoring machine. And if he had been in college basketball about 6-7 years later, when the dunk was allowed back into the game, he wouldn't have been as impressive in college, either, because the inside game would have been a bigger part of the game.

 

Jason Williams? I'd say more like Dominique Wilkins than Jason Williams.

 

OK, I'll buy that, reserving the right to say it's not accurate (Pete never said a bizarre thing until late in life) nor particularly intriguing (as if we hadn't noticed the ravenous media?) and even sixth-grade themes that use Skip Bayless as a touchstone are subject to an automatic two grades down....

 

So if you're 40, you can't address anything pre-1972.

I think you're problem with it is that you don't agree with his take.

 

Write anything you want from any era but don't create the impression with reader that you were there. More importantly state the facts accurately. Don't be lose with your observations.

Maravich fever hit its peak in 1970-71 off his 3rd year in college of averaging 44 pts per game he was drafted by the Hawks. Simmons would have been age 2.

There was nothing wrong with the NBA in the early 70's as Simmons states.
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I was at that NIT too ya old goat and I am the one who came up with Danny Hester but I know it would loath you to give me credit.

 

Again with this, Boom? You made the same mistakes with Gopnik.

Simmons doesn't say "early 70s." He writes the following:


His 10-year pro career spanned the depressing '70s, a decade marred by drug and alcohol abuse, overpaid head cases, tape-delayed playoff games, violent fights and sagging attendance. We always hear that Bird and Magic saved the NBA. Doesn't that mean they saved it from people like Pete Maravich?

Of course, I plowed through both Maravich books in a week. When my family owned Celtics season tickets in the 1970s, I cared about seeing only five visiting players: David Thompson, Bill Walton, George Gervin, Julius Erving and Pistol Pete. Maravich was like 12 Globetrotters rolled into one. No pass was too far-fetched, no shot too far away. He'd glide across the court -- all rubbery limbs, ball attached to his hand like a yo-yo, blank expression on his face -- and nobody knew what would happen next. The scoreboard never seemed to matter as much as the show. Kids from that era remember his appearances on CBS's halftime H-O-R-S-E contests more fondly than any of his games. Even his basketball cards were cool, like the one from 1975, when he sported an extended goatee and looked like a count.

Which parts of this are confusing to you?

 

I'm a year younger than Simmons. I remember Maravich from CBS' halftime HORSE contests. I also vividly remember players that I saw in person when I was 6 or 7. Maybe not minute details of games, but I certainly remember players I saw during my early live sports experiences. Like Kirk Gibson as a football player, Earvin Johnson and Jay Vincent as MSU freshmen, 18-year-old Morten Andersen booting kickoffs through the Spartan Stadium uprights in 1977. I vividly remember Mark Fidrych and all his mannerisms from seeing him on TV in '76 when I was 6. I have very clear recollections of Pete Rose, Willie Stargell, Joe Morgan and Dave Parker from a game at Three Rivers with my grandfather in 1977.

So from my perspective, it's not far-fetched to think that seeing Maravich in person circa 1976-77 would have made an impression on Simmons. Hell, Jud Heathcote doing the double-slap to his forehead every time he got disgusted made an impression on me at the same age.

 

I won't say others can't remember stuff from that early ... but I sure didn't.

My earliest sports remembrances are watching the Mets on Channel 9 when I was 8 (Castro Convertibles and Ballantine ads) ... and crying when Bart Starr scored from the 1 when I was 9.

 

Would gladly have given you credit for the Danny Hester mention, Boom, if I had remembered who mentioned him.
Seriously, in the few NIT games I remember from '71 it seems he fumbled about 20 of Pistol's "where the hell did that come from?" passes.
That's the part of Pistol's game that gets overlooked. He was an amazing ball-handler and passer and still scored 40+ a game.