Among the myriad news items overwhelmed by the twin terrors of a global pandemic and national civil unrest over the past few weeks were the deaths of two NBA legends: Jerry Sloan and Wes Unseld.
Since “legend” is often thrown around loosely, let’s qualify it. Sloan was drafted in 1965 and was a part of the NBA virtually uninterrupted from then until his death – over an 11-year playing career, a 26-year coaching career and a lifetime ambassadorship with the Utah Jazz. Unseld came into the league in 1968, spent 13 seasons playing for the Bullets and later served as coach and general manager spanning their relocation from Baltimore to nearby Washington and forever will be the face of the franchise.
They’re both in the Hall of Fame, of course, and unofficially they’re on any list of the toughest players to ever lace up a pair of basketball sneakers. In fact, if you were to whittle that list to two, it’s tough to think of anyone who would supplant either Unseld or Sloan to make the cut.
Rick Mahorn was a rookie, a second-round draft pick out of obscure Hampton Institute, when he joined the Bullets in 1980 for what would be Unseld’s final season. With the same body type – cut from a block of granite, short by the standards of NBA centers – Mahorn could not have had a better role model if he’d custom ordered one.
“That’s my daddy. That was my mentor,” Mahorn said Wednesday, one day after Unseld, 74, died of pneumonia and other illnesses. “He was a huge part of what my NBA career has been about – how to prepare, basically how to learn Basketball 101. How to defend, different styles of play. For him to be 6-7 – and he was really maybe 6-5½, 6-6 – and in the valley of the giants and able to tear it down, he’s one of the greats.”
Unseld was not only Rookie of the Year but league MVP in 1968-69 after being the No. 2 pick out of Louisville. Only the great Wilt Chamberlain ever won both awards in the same season. He averaged 13.8 points and 18.2 rebounds that season, but numbers never adequately quantified Unseld’s contributions, just as they wouldn’t explain Mahorn’s role in helping the Pistons mature into NBA champions for the first time nearly a decade after learning the pro game at Unseld’s knee.
Unseld was a master of the nuances of the game and unbelievably strong.
“Let me just say this to you,” Mahorn said. “I’m a strong man. I feel I can handle mine. But that dude. … He taught me the little things like how to place your finger on a guy’s waist and how to irritate him. He was amazing at what he did. He taught me about playing against different players like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bob Lanier, Artis Gilmore, Moses Malone. There were no nights off back then, especially at the center position.”
Mahorn remembers being in awe of Unseld and another future Hall of Famer, Elvin Hayes, for his rookie camp with the Bullets two years removed from their 1978 championship. As backup to Unseld, he went against him in practices.
“My first impression was that I know I couldn’t beat him,” Mahorn said. “How can I be in this world? The first hit was like, wow, oh my gosh. I felt like my bones were shaking. When I say a cinder block or running into the side of a building, that’s what it felt like. This was every day, that training camp.”
One day, Mahorn and a fellow rookie, Carlos Terry, decided they were going to prompt a reaction from the stoic Unseld.
“We would ride together to practice and one day we decided we were going to get to Wes,” Mahorn recalled. “I was talking to (Unseld’s widow) Connie yesterday and I asked, ‘Do you remember the day we went at Wes?’ We were hitting Wes. I would hit him, Carlos would hit him. It didn’t shake him or nothing. One time, he says, ‘This is what I like.’ Went home after practice, couldn’t lift our arms to eat. We were so sore. We beat ourselves up trying to beat him up. Came back the next day in practice, we were so sore we couldn’t do anything. He didn’t let us know, but he was just as sore as we were.
“That dude, he was indestructible.”
Mahorn’s reputation, of course, always will be as Bill Laimbeer’s tag team partner, the rugged duo at the heart of the “Bad Boys” persona of the teams that won the first two NBA championships in Pistons history. That’s fine as far as it goes, but it obscures Mahorn’s basketball IQ. He was a worthy successor to Unseld in the dark arts of NBA interior defense.
“The pull-the-chair, that was from him,” Mahorn said. “How to position, making sure nobody comes across the lane, those things were invaluable. The only thing I didn’t get from him was that damn outlet pass.”
Teeth-rattling screens and those majestic outlet passes – grabbing a defensive rebound and in the blink of an eye flicking two-hand chest passes 50 or 60 feet effortlessly and on target, a manifestation of his otherworldly strength – were Unseld’s calling cards. A Bullets teammate, Stan Love, would ask Unseld to be godfather for his son, Kevin, whose outlet passes today are the closest thing the NBA has seen to Unseld’s.
As Mahorn’s profile was raised by joining the Pistons to play for a contender and the spotlight grew more intense, scrutiny over the damage he tended to inflict became a hot NBA topic. Unseld, in a 1988 Sports Illustrated story, came to his protégé’s defense: “Ninety-nine percent of the guys don’t want the job Rick has. A lot of people have problems with the way he plays. I have no problem with it. If you come in there weak, Rick will make you pay.”
Mahorn didn’t have nearly the same relationship with Sloan that he did with Unseld, but knew there wasn’t much separating them from everything he observed and was told. A Washington teammate who had played for Sloan gave Mahorn insight into him.
“I respected him. He was in that backcourt with Norm Van Lier and he would bring the pain,” Mahorn said. “I learned a lot from Ricky Sobers who played in Chicago at the time. That dude’s crazy. I loved him. He came to work every day.”
When the Pistons and Bulls played in a phenomenally competitive 1974 playoff series that went seven games – the four Pistons losses came by a combined 12 points – Bulls coach Dick Motta, in a Q&A with Detroit Free Press reporter Curt Sylvester as the series opened, spoke of Sloan’s essence.
“I don’t like to talk about this but when I came to Chicago, Jerry Sloan was here and I built the franchise around him,” Motta said. “If you could coach a player like that just once, then you’d know what basketball is all about. There are 100 players in this league with more ability but his determination and drive and desire have made him a great player. A lot of people say he’s dirty, but he’s the most marketable product I’ve got. Any team would like to have him.”
As true today as it was then. The NBA got almost a half-century out of both Jerry Sloan and Wes Unseld. They made it a better place every day they spent a part of it.