MY THING IS YORE THING
ALL-STAR EXTRAVAGANZA RETURNS TO CHICAGO, BUT IT CAN’T COMPARE TO GLORY DAYS OF 1988
Get off my lawn! Cue the breathless ninnies on Twitter: ‘‘OK, Boomer.’’ This year, I’ll turn 50. To a good many NBA fans, that makes me ancient. Others, especially some who still read, you know, newspapers (have I told you lately that I love you?), might call me a baby. Truth be told, there’s probably an apt description of me therein: an ancient baby.
But I’m here to tell you, fine people, that the 1988 All-Star gathering at Chicago Stadium — the last time the event was held here — puts whatever might happen at the United Center this weekend to shame.
And that is, as the hashtaggers say: #Facts.
MORE THAN HALF THE PARTICIPANTS in the 1988 All-Star Game would be named to the NBA’s 50 Greatest Players list in 1996, in honor of the league’s 50th season.
They included four-fifths of the Eastern Conference starting lineup: Larry Bird, Moses Malone, Isiah Thomas and — oh, yeah — Michael Jordan.
They included three starters — undisputed all-time greats, each — from the West, Magic Johnson, Karl Malone and, as he was known at the time, Akeem Olajuwon.
They included East reserves Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing and Kevin McHale and West reserves Clyde Drexler, James Worthy and some guy named — hello — Kareem AbdulJabbar.
In 1988, it was still the Celtics’ and Lakers’ world; they’d alternated winning the last four NBA titles. But Bird, Magic and the others in Kelly green or purple-and-gold bore the stench of royalty in mortal danger at the Stadium. The Pistons — on the cusp of greatness — would slay the Celtics to reach the ’88 Finals, then win it all in ’89 and ’90. The Lakers would have to survive three consecutive seven-game series in ’88 to win their last title of the ‘‘Showtime’’ era.
AND THEN THERE WERE the proceedings on Saturday, the day before the big game.
The dunk contest wasn’t merely about Jordan and Dominique Wilkins, who would finish a controversial second to the 24-yearold Bulls superstar. It also featured 5-7 Spud Webb, who had become a celebrity in his own right by winning the contest in 1986, and the poetry-in-motion Drexler. That’s a “Spud,” a “Glide,” an “Air” and a “Human Highlight Film” all in one shebang.
And let’s not forget: Jordan and Wilkins were the NBA’s Nos. 1 and 2 scorers that season. Drexler was sixth. What a spectacle.
In other words, it was something vastly and inimitably more awesome than anything the 2020 dunk contest could hope and pray to replicate.
And that year’s three-point contest? Straight fire. Bird, the realest of real-deal marksmen, was going for victory No. 3 in Year 3 of the shootout. All the best gunners around the league lined up to take him on, but Larry Legend wasn’t to be denied. Between them, Dale Ellis, Craig Hodges and Mark Price would go on to win the next six of these contests.
JORDAN WAS IN THE MIDST of a huge season. Did he have any other kind? We can’t really call it a breakout because he’d captivat
ed basketball fans too resoundingly by then — even as a jaw-dropping, mind-blowing rookie in 1984-85. Still, at 24, he was on the way to his first NBA MVP honor. Magic and Bird would finish second and third, respectively.
Jordan had famously been frozen out, as the story went, in his first All-Star Game in an effort led by Pistons guard — and Chicago native — Thomas. This time, as the East starters were being announced over the public-address system, the last two to be called were Thomas, who’d grown up practically in the shadows of the Stadium, and Jordan. One was booed mercilessly. The other was cheered so hard, the building rocked.
The season before, Jordan had been named to the All-NBA team — with Magic, Bird, McHale and Olajuwon — for the first time. In doing so, he’d pushed old standard Thomas to the second team. It was a harbinger of the bitter Bulls-Pistons rivalry to come.
Jordan rose to the occasion with an everyone-get-the-hell-out-of-the-way 40 points in front of an electric Stadium crowd. He was in his element arguably like never before.
Bird already had called him the best player he’d ever seen and likened him to — no biggie — God in disguise.
Dick Stockton, calling the game on CBS with Billy Cunningham, asked after Jordan blocked a Malone shot and ran in for a dunk: “Is there anything he can’t do?” And after a spin-cycle bucket over Nuggets guard Fat Lever: “What can you do?”
Sideline reporter Pat O’Brien drove it home on the court as Jordan waited to accept the game’s MVP trophy:
“Ladies and gentlemen, the greatest player in the world today has a Chicago address.”
THE BULLS WERE RISING at the time, too, though not at the phenomenal rate of the soaring, tongue-flashing No. 23. The team had two rookies, Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant, who showed real promise. And fans in the upper level of the Stadium were hanging an “R” every time Charles Oakley — Jordan’s protector — snared another rebound.
At the All-Star break, the Doug Collinscoached Bulls were an impressive 27-18. That was good for third place in their division and fourth overall in the East, which had only 11 teams at the time. Not since 1981 had the Bulls been at least .500 at the break; that year, they were an even 27-27.
In a broader sense, too, it was a heyday for basketball in Chicago. The very best of times? One supposes not, for the Bulls were still three seasons away from their first championship. But the sport — the blessed game — cast a much wider net over the city then than it does 32 years later.
DePaul — led by the backcourt of Rod Strickland and Kevin Edwards, who between them would play 28 NBA seasons — was NCAA Tournament-bound. So was Illinois, fueled by Nick Anderson (Simeon), Kenny Battle (West Aurora), Lowell Hamilton (Providence St. Mel) and Kendall Gill (Rich Central) and just a year away from setting the world on fire.
Westinghouse’s Hersey Hawkins — a future All-Star — was leading the nation in scoring at Bradley. In the city, King and Simeon were high school superpowers, each right up there with the best programs in the country.
There was all of the above and — best yet — the overarching, unfathomable potential of Jordan. Where would he take the Bulls? What would he do for the league?
Sorry, 2020, but you can’t touch all that. Now, please — off the lawn. Didn’t I tell you that a long time ago? ✶