Posts tagged ‘rory sparrow’

[People joked how Saturday's win in Washington over the Celtics was a road game, but Andray Blatche found some friendly fans courtside to celebrate with after the game ... I doubt he'll get the same reception from Spike Lee in Madison Square Garden tonight.]

{photo: K. Weidie}

The most losses an NBA team has achieved in an 82-game NBA schedule?

The 1990-91 Sacramento Kings went 1-40 on the road … the 2010-11 Washington Wizards are halfway there, in the loss column at least.

But as history is, well, history … the one road win for those Kings came against the Washington Bullets in Landover, MD on November 20, 1990. The zinger is that the 34-year old Bernard King had 45 points that night, but the Bullets fell 87-82 — they played in front of a reported 6,105 fans at the Capital Centre (from Sam Davis’ game report in the Baltimore Sun).

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Most know about the time Ernie Grunfeld spent in the New York Knicks front office. And many probably have an idea that Madison Square Garden was Grunfeld’s home court for the final four seasons of his nine year NBA playing career. But did you know that Big Ern was on the floor the night Patrick Ewing made his NBA debut?

After playing his first two seasons in Milwaukee, and his next three with the Kansas City Kings, Grunfeld began his tenure in NYC in ’82-83 with the likes of Bill Cartwright, Bernard King (Grunfeld’s teammate at Tennessee), Paul Westphal, and one of my all-time favorite NBA names, Rory Sparrow. Grunfeld was 10th in minutes per game on a Hubie Brown led, 44-win Knicks team that made it to the Eastern Conference semifinals. But the Philadelphia 76ers, with Moses Malone, Julius Erving, and Mo Cheeks, swept the Knicks, advanced to beat Sidney Moncrief‘s Milwaukee Bucks in the conference finals, and swept the LA Lakers to win the ’83 NBA title.

Grunfeld and the 47-win Knicks fell short in the ’84 playoffs as well. This time going down in seven games to the Boston Celtics led by Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and the Chief Robert Parrish. Just as the 76ers did the previous season, the Celtics subsequently beat the Bucks in the East finals, and won the ’84 NBA championship, taking the Lakers in seven.

Tough times found the Knickerbockers in ’84-85. Cartwright missed the entire season and King only played 55 games. Not even Darrell Walker, in his second season and averaging a career-high 13.5 ppg, could help. A mere 24 wins and a frozen envelope later, Patrick Ewing magically landed in the Big Apple.

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