DREAM TEAM

by Lewis Cole ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 15, 1981

The dream team is the New York Knicks squad that won the 1969-70 NBA title, beating the Los Angeles Lakers (Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West) in a dramatic seven-game series. In this evocative, nicely paced appreciation, Cole recounts the high points of the championship season and looks at what the key players are doing today. The starters were: Willis Reed, ""the center of the team, both literally and figuratively""; burly forward Dave DeBusschere; cerebral Bill Bradley; Dick Barnett, the off guard; and supercool Wait Frazier, playmaker par excellence. Cazzie Russell was the so-called sixth man, a gunner who could come off the bench and ignite rallies. General manager Eddie Donovan is credited with having drafted or traded for the playing talent molded by coach Red Holzman into a remarkably unselfish crew that looked for and invariably hit the open man. With a new supporting cast, Reed, Frazier, DeBusschere, and Bradley stayed to triumph again in 1972-73. Within a few years, however, the stars as well as the spear carriers were gone, and the Knicks went into decline. When Holzman retired after the 1976-77 season, Reed signed on as coach. He was summarily fired early in his second year on the job, and the old pro--voted Coach of the Decade in 1980 by the Basketball Writers' Association--was recalled by a new management to restore past glories. Bradley, meanwhile, was elected to the Senate. His rival and sub, Russell, waived out of the league two years ago, now drifts along as a fringe celebrity. Frazier was dealt (by Reed) to Cleveland, where he hung on for two unsatisfactory seasons; he now runs a lucrative firm that handles athletes' financial affairs. After a brief stint as Commissioner of the rival ABA (since merged into the NBA), DeBusschere launched a successful TV-production business. Alone among the dream team's starters, Barnett refused to talk with the author (perhaps because of ongoing IRS problems that have kept him out of the limelight). Cole carefully, but unobtrusively, puts the club's achievements in the context of the period. Mostly, though, he sticks to the then-and-now story of the young men who were briefly the toasts of their adoptive town. A modest effort--by comparison, especially, with Halberstam's Breaks of the Game (p. 1202)--but on its own terms, widely appealing.

Pub Date: Dec. 15, 1981

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Morrow

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1981

Categories: NONFICTION