In the wonderful NBA Finals in the year 2005 who faced the San Antonio Spurs with the Detroit Pistons, resolved in Texan territory in the seventh game, one of the things that I remember most happened to me in Auburn Hills. A woman approached me and upon seeing my press credentials asked me where I came from. When I responded that she Barcelona She was delighted and commented to me, almost implored me:
–Speak well of Detroit, please. Speak well of us.
The topic is not trivial. The first time I was in the motor capital in the year 1989 I was unpleasantly impressed. Downtown, generally the business center of American cities, modern, luxurious; It was there semi-abandoned and next to it you could see a kind of ghost neighborhood, with huge buildings almost demolished, which gave an impression of lacerating destruction. They were the consequences of the riots of the 60s, the racial conflicts that devastated a good part of the country left their most terrible mark on Detroit. To everyone’s shame, no one had even taken care of demolishing the ruins.
With the automobile business in full swing regressionunemployment knocking on the door of thousands of workers, one of the few prides of the citizens was undoubtedly their beloved Pistons. Of course, to see them you had to go to Auburn Hills, in the fifth heck, fifty kilometers from the reviled Downtown.
And if there was a city that could house the Bad Boys that was, without a doubt, Detroit. Everything was in line. The playoffs in the late 80s, early 90s against the Celtics or the Bulls were a real war, To dog face. Write down the starting five: Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Mark Aguirre, Dennis Rodman and Bill Laimbeer. Mare de Déu, what a great team. Let’s go one by one:
Isiah Thomas, an intelligent, enormously effective point guard, and, by many accounts, a bad person. His initial kiss with Magic Johnson Every time they faced the Lakers it is part of the iconography of the NBA. So much affection, however, did not prevent Johnson from lifting a finger to avoid the boycott that Michael Jordan He played Thomas in the ’92 Games. Also Chuck Daly He looked the other way: “I was not involved in the selection of the players,” he answered me in 1994 over a few glasses of pomace in a Galician castle (this, by the way, would be another great story to tell you another day).
Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas stare at each other during one of their duels in the nineties
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Joe Dumars, the silent killer; a huge player and a good guy. Through those vicissitudes of life, he formed a good friendship with my colleague at TV3 Rafel Bagot and was in Catalonia a couple of times, so we were able to do good and slow reports. Without Dumars, Detroit would not have won two titles.
Mark Aguirre. They say that it was Thomas, who was a friend of his, who imposed it in exchange for Adrian Dantley, who at that time was a great figure in the NBA. This generated a huge controversy that was quickly relegated when Aguirre fit into the team. The Americans called him Aguair and I called him Aguirre, of course, which amused him greatly, although he didn’t speak a lick of Spanish. And the Basque speaker didn’t even know what he was, of course.
Dennis Rodman. Chuck Daly brought out the best in this player, without a doubt. He still had black hair and his eccentricities didn’t clash. A wonderful rebounder and terrible shooter, he made his rivals crazy, which delighted the fans.
Y Bill Laimbeer, bad among the bad. The first tall center, 2.12 meters, to shoot admirably from three, which made the Pistons also the first to place all five players outside the triple line, something so common in recent years.
Laimbeer was a daddy’s boy, rich family, he played because he wanted to. He played in Italy one year –“It was very easy, we only played one game a week”, he told me once. I managed to interview him on a couple of occasions, which has enormous merit, believe me: journalists were terrified of him. On another occasion he also told me that he was “a really nice guy.” Demà m’afaitarás.
To this very select group we could add Rick Mahorn, whom the franchise placed in the expansion draft three to win the first title, which caused solemn anger on his part. Mahorn was almost as bad as Laimbeer and the two really made a terrifying couple.
Chuck Daly, coach of the ‘Dream Team’
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And all of them trained by an extraordinary guy, a true gentleman, who dressed like an elegant Italian and spoke with great education: Chuck Daly, also coach of the Dream Team in Barcelona-92. “Chuck – I told him in that Galician castle to which I have referred, in the company of my longed-for Toni Comas – Chuck, tell me, what were the Bad Boys like?”. And he answered me with the glass of pomace in his hand: “They were very good kids”
The next day he had to go play golf before going to the clinic in Pontevedra, but because of those things in life, he couldn’t get out of bed. The pomace is a traitor.
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2024-03-26 10:42:39
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