Reggie Harding: The Original Detroit Bad Boy, 1972

By the end of the season, the Pistons had fined Reggie nearly $3,000 of his $15,000 a year salary and suspended him indefinitely. “After Reggie made the professional league,” his wife Nadine said, “he felt he was ‘The Man’ now, and no one had the right to tell him what to do.”

Reggie Harding: Jackson Prison Blues, 1970

[In January 1969, two Baltimore reporters got “locked up” in an airport waiting more than six hours to board their connecting flight to cover the NBA Bullets. To fight the boredom, the two embarked upon selecting their unconventional assortment of all-time NBA teams: All-Crybaby, All-Bald, All-Schoolyard, All-Hatchet, and All-Ugly (“the entire Seattle team”). Reggie Harding,Continue reading “Reggie Harding: Jackson Prison Blues, 1970”

Rick Mahorn’s Roman Holiday, 1992

Mahorn  goes on, attending daily practices, playing one game a week, cultivating the mystery that has always been his calling card, Big Man, Big Mouth, yet with an underlying kindness that keeps you coming back to him, because you’re sure there’s a decent guy underneath all that bluster. 

Dave Bing: Going Through Changes, 1970

Pain has become a constant in Dave Bing’s basketball life. Even in the 1968-69 season—his third NBA campaign in which he went through multiple changes—bodily ache remained a verity of his working hours.

David Greenwood: A Teammate for All Seasons, 1980, 1984, 1990

David Greenwood would find it funny he’s getting backslaps and handshakes for his five rebound performance Sunday afternoon. As far as he’s concerned, he should have had eight.

Don Ohl: For Ohl Lang Syne, 1962  

Now, Don’s confidence has returned. Understandably cautious early in the 1964-65 season, his first in Baltimore, he finished with a rush and was named the Bullets’ most valuable player.