The Popcorn Stand: 50 years ago today, Sharman set standard
In my latest take of Six Degrees of Separation of Porterville, today is the 50th anniversary of a major milestone in which Porterville’s own Bill Sharman set the standard.
Sharman, a 1944 Porterville High graduate, of course went onto a legendary playing career with the Boston Celtics. After his playing career he also went onto become a pretty accomplished coach, too.
In 1971-1972 Sharman became the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. I don’t think it’s unfair to say the consensus was Sharman was making a mistake.
When Sharman took over the Lakers he was considered to be taking over a team, to put it blunt, that was a bunch of aging, underachieving superstars on their way down in their careers. And again I don’t think it’s unfair to say the consensus was those aging superstars hadn’t shown they could win a title.
Nothing could be further from the truth. And it was thanks to Sharman. His strategy was simple — Turn the Lakers into the Celtics teams he played for.
Jerry West became Bob Cousy. Gail Goodrich became Bill Sharman. Wilt Chamberlain became Bill Russell. Sharman asked Chamberlain to sacrifice his scoring and focus more on his defense, rebounding and passing.
I’ve written before Sharman is one of the most underrated people ever in professional sports considering all of his innovations which just happen to include the three-point shot when he coached in the ABA.
He also came up with another innovation that’s now accepted in the NBA today and that’s the morning shootaround the day of a game. Sharman was a big believer in muscle memory and believed the morning workouts the day of a game definitely helped his players during their games.
He must have been right because the Lakers won a thenrecord 69 games during the 1971-1972 season. More on that and today being the 50th anniversary of a major milestone in a little bit.
Back to Chamberlain. It’s no secret Chamberlain liked the night life so it was obviously a question if Chamberlain would ever buy into Sharman’s morning workouts on game days.
Chamberlain did. During the whole season, Sharman said Chamberlain may have missed a couple of morning workouts and had a valid excuse each time.
There is, though, still a question if Chamberlain actually made the first morning workout. Jim Cleamons, who was a member of that 1971-1972 team, says Chamberlain was definitely at the first workout.
Others, including West, weren’t so sure. Sharman admitted he didn’t remember.
Before the milestone that was set 50 years ago today, Sharman’s Lakers set a major professional sports record 33-game winning streak that still stands today. While records are made to be broken that’s one record that truly may never ever be broken.
In 1971-1972 legendary Los Angeles Times sportswriter Mal Florence, a character — and a great guy — covered the Lakers. It wasn’t common for sportswriters to go on the road with teams back then but during the winning streak the Times sent Florence on the road to cover the Lakers.
After the Milwaukee Bucks ended the winning streak, the story goes Sharman saw Florence in the hotel room leaving with a suitcase and asked him where he was going. Florence replied, “I don’t cover losers.”
There’s also one of my all-time favorite stories involving Florence and Sharman I love to share and have shared many times. Florence was covering the Lakers at the Forum and a female intern at the Times came with him.
The female intern noticed Sharman was writing his game story as the game was going on. She asked Florence how he did that.
Florence replied he would just signal to Sharman to call timeout to give him time to write his story also knowing the female intern didn’t know how timeouts during dead balls were done during games. So during a dead ball timeout, Sharman stood up and emphatically signaled timeout as if he was signaling to Sharman to call timeout.
Sure enough Sharman stood up as if to signal he had received Florence’s signal. The female intern was astonished.
The next day at the Times, the female intern announced to the staff, “You won’t believe, it, Mal tells Bill Sharman when to call timeout!”
Oh yeah the point of this article. On this day, March 26, 1972, the Lakers won their then record 69th game to finish the regular season with a 69-13 record. And that Lakers team went onto win the NBA title.
And it was all thanks to Sharman.