A Personal Project: A Guest Post by Sam Smith
Legendary sports writer Sam Smith and NBA champion Phil Jackson team up for an in-depth analysis of the all-time greats and their lasting impact on the sport. Read on for an exclusive essay from Sam Smith on writing Masters of the Game.
Hardcover
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$32.00
Masters of the Game: A Conversational History of the NBA in 75 Legendary Players
Masters of the Game: A Conversational History of the NBA in 75 Legendary Players
By Sam Smith , Phil Jackson
In Stock Online
Hardcover
$29.00
$32.00
The legendary sportswriter and the Hall of Fame, eleven-time NBA champion coach separate the music from the noise in the stories of the greatest who ever played and their impact on the game
The legendary sportswriter and the Hall of Fame, eleven-time NBA champion coach separate the music from the noise in the stories of the greatest who ever played and their impact on the game
When the NBA released its 75 greatest players list, it occurred to me that I’d seen almost every one of those players in person. As a New York City kid, I’d frequented the Madison Square Garden balcony pretty much every Tuesday for NBA doubleheaders. The history of the NBA has been a personal project for me, if also a playful passion. I figured I’d better keep collecting stories about these great players. Many were dying, and in recent years their skills and accomplishments were being dismissed, because people tend to diminish what they never have seen. Some of the greats were known for their numbers – 100 points, 73 points in the playoffs – 11 titles – rather than who they were as players and people.
I’ve been covering the Chicago Bulls since the 80s, and I got to know Phil Jackson well, even before he became the head coach. You meet many talented, but uninteresting, people in sports, but Phil was a ball – he had a sneaky sense of humor and a boundless curiosity, really more basketball nerd than Buddhist philosopher, though the Zen thing was good copy. Phil would offer observations that seemed off, and then you’d think about them and, yeah, I can see that, that does make sense!
A couple years ago, I mentioned to Phil I was gathering stories about the greatest players in NBA history. I always prided myself as a journalist on never asking for anything—something Phil always said helped him immeasurably with Michael Jordan by never seeking a favor, autograph, or souvenir, when everyone around was trying to pull him in all directions—but I sort of blurted, “Would you want to do this with me?” After all, Phil had basically played or coached against them all. “Sure,” he said, to my surprise, and I thought, “Well, I don’t know if there’s a book here, but, heck, it would be fun to have a reason to hang out with Phil.”
I visited Phil a handful of times for three-and four-day stretches. We turned on the tape recorder and sat around sharing experiences and basketball. We’d find an out-of-the-way diner for lunch, then come back for an afternoon nap, which everyone who’s ever been in or around the NBA knows is daily routine, and then go out again for dinner. Sometimes Phil cooked for us, soup or paella.
The most frequent question I get from fans is, What’s Phil really like? That’s what I’ve tried to do with my books: take readers behind the ever-thickening curtain separating them from their warriors. So this book isn’t about who’s the GOAT, or who’s the best shooting guard, or any number of greatest-of lists. This is two people who have seen the history of the NBA up close, me from the journalist perspective and Phil as explorer and questioner. Spending time with Phil isn’t always linear. We’d joke in Chicago about Mayor Daley never leaving the same sentence he entered. With Phil it’s more expansive, a name leading to a story leading to a digression about literature. I’d mention a name from the top 75 and we’d talk, and when I mentioned Moses Malone, Phil recalled how his Knicks had played Malone’s then-ABA Utah Stars in Salt Lake City, and Phil’s Pentecostal mother drove down to see him play basketball for the only time in his life, and off we were on a discussion about family strictures and structures. And when we got to Pete Maravich it was about a State Department trip to China, and how Pete made everyone smile. And Jerry Lucas’s shot was intentionally like a hand grenade throw for accuracy reasons, and why the Knicks really made that DeBusschere trade. But mostly we talked about our experiences with these great players whom we knew personally as journalist and contemporary – not the numbers everyone can look up, but the humanity and special moments we shared and witnessed.
