Lex Nihil Novi - C's Stay on a Roll, Destroy Rick Adelman and the Blazers

C's Stay on a Roll, Destroy Rick Adelman and the Blazers



January 17, 1973








bob



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Hey, Sidney Wicks had 19 points to go along with his destruction of team chemistry.

John Wooden has many notable accomplishments in coaching, but one of the most remarkable is that he was able to make Wicks a productive player within the team concept and win three NCAA titles with him. No one in the NBA was able to replicate that feat.

A further mark of Wooden's greatness was that Wicks's teammate at UCLA was Curtis Rowe.

I assume that the "Martin" on the Portland side of the boxscore was Larue Martin, perhaps the biggest bust ever taken as the #1 pick.

But that's not his fault. He didn't ask Portland to take him #1 in the entire draft.

Sloopjohnb wrote:I assume that the "Martin" on the Portland side of the boxscore was Larue Martin, perhaps the biggest bust ever taken as the #1 pick.

But that's not his fault.  He didn't ask Portland to take him #1 in the entire draft.

Olowakandi, anyone?

I recently read The Breaks of the Game, by David Halberstam, and he had a sympathetic take on Larue Martin. Halberstam portrayed him as a nice person and decent player who had, as you pointed out, the misfortune of being drafted number one overall in a weak draft and being unable to live up to the expectations that came with that. If he'd been drafted in the second round, his production would've been considered decent, and he likely would've had a longer career. Not that it's saying much, but his per-36-minute stats are better than Olowokandi's.

Halberstam wrote many sympathetic and balanced portraits in The Breaks of the Game, the best basketball book I've read.

One passage I found really fascinating. Portland was the first team to have draft candidates interviewed by a shrink. It was an idea that came from management and was belittled by the coaches.


This was especially true after the psychological profile of Sidney Wicks came out. The shrink retained by the team found Wicks to be very intelligent but also a mass of contradictions at war with himself. The shrink opined that Wicks would never be a force in the league.

Of course, Wicks won rookie of the year and made several all-star teams. The coaches took this as confirmation that this psychobabble mumbo jumbo was all a waste of time.

And of course, Wicks's game declined every year and reached its nadir after her came to Boston.

When we started this forum, I wish we had set a rule that Wicks' name could never be mentioned.  The problem is that I've mentioned it many times.  But only to emphasize what a cataclysmic cancer he was.

Sam