Bird Watching (6 page)
It was a little strange being there in Barcelona, knowing it was the last time I would ever play basketball. I’m sure there were plenty of people that suspected it was true, but the only one I had really told at that point was Dan Dyrek. I didn’t say anything to Michael or Magic or Patrick about it. I do remember warming up for the gold medal game, and we were doing a layup line, and I said to myself, “Well, this is it. This is gonna be my last game ever. I think I’ll dunk one of these layups.” So I go in and come up under the basket to dunk it, and Jordan was coming from the other side of the line to get the rebound. I knew right away I wasn’t high enough up. Michael kind of laughed and said, “Hey, leave that part of it to me.” We switched over to the other side, and I went up again, and I dunked one. It was just one of those crazy things. I was warming up for that game, and I just got it in my head, “You know, I should dunk this ball.”
I don’t know why things like that pop into my head. It used to happen all the time when I was playing. I’d be in the middle of a big game, running down the court, and then I’d start thinking, “I wonder if Granny is watching today.” I’d always catch myself and say, “Stop that. Think about what you’re doing,” but every once in a while I’d be running out there and start thinking, “I’ve got to remember to water my lawn tomorrow,” or, “Oh, wow, I forgot. I’ve got to meet those people after the game.”
I don’t have too many vivid memories of the actual gold medal game. It was such a foregone conclusion we were going to win the whole thing that there never was any real drama to the Olympics, in terms of the competition. I do remember I didn’t play at all in the first half. Dave Gavitt was all upset about that. He said to me afterward, “You deserved to be out there.” But honestly, it didn’t really bother me that much. By that point I just wanted to get out of Barcelona. For me, after playing in the first game, that was it. That was the biggest thrill—to say you were an Olympian. When you know all along you are going to win it, that’s a different kind of feeling. I probably would have cared more if my back felt better, but I was really hurting, and the game didn’t start until eleven o’clock that night so that everyone back in the United States could watch it live. We were leaving that night after the gold medal game, and it was going to be a long, long flight home, and that was on my mind a little bit.
We were in the locker room at halftime and Chuck Daly came up to me and said, “Hey, I forgot about you in the first half.” I told him, “Hey, don’t worry about me.” Of course you want to get in there for a few minutes in the gold medal game. But I played more than I ever imagined I could in the Olympics, more than I should have, actually. I think I averaged around seventeen minutes a night.
The ceremony to receive our gold medals was awesome. Just standing up there and listening to the national anthem was something I’ll never forget the rest of my life. I swear to God, I always wanted to hear that national anthem, and know how it would feel to have a gold medal around your neck, and watch them raise the American flag. It was the greatest feeling ever—the greatest feeling in the world.
I don’t remember exactly where I was standing, but I had to be standing next to Patrick Ewing. Patrick and I became good friends during the Olympics. I had no relationship with him before that, but I always appreciated that he was tough and he played hard and he wasn’t interested in second place. He wanted to win it all, just like I always did. I always hoped Ewing would win a championship. I still hope that, as long as Indiana isn’t playing the Knicks along the way.
I don’t think Patrick liked me very much before the Olympics, which is good. He was a Knick and I was a Celtic, and that’s how it should have been. He was never the kind of guy who would initiate a conversation with you, but he’s a lot different than most people think. He’s a big, imposing guy, but he’s really pretty softhearted. I first got friendly with Patrick in Portland, just from trading wisecracks, really. We went out to eat a couple times, and like so many of these guys, we realized we had a few things in common. He had a buddy of his whose nickname was Baby, who I thought was just the greatest guy. He was one big teddy bear, and he was a blast to be around. I still don’t know his real name. I got the biggest kick out of him, so me and Baby and Patrick were always together in Portland.
We started calling Patrick “Harry,” after this character in a movie called
Harry and the Hendersons
. Patrick had dislocated his thumb and he wasn’t playing, and neither was I because of my back, so the guys started ragging on us, calling us “Harry and Larry.” The team trainer, Ed Lacerte, had these T-shirts made up that read, THE HARRY AND LARRY SHOW … TO BE CONTINUED IN BARCELONA.
Then, when our training camp switched to Monte Carlo, me and Patrick used to meet up at the pool every day. The girls up there were all topless. Our wives and kids were with us and everything, but Patrick would get up there and put on a pair of dark sunglasses, and we’d be laughing about the whole thing.
So the first day I’m up at the pool, my friend Quinn Buckner is with me, and Dinah was there, and some other people, and we’re all hanging out on one side of the pool, and there’s Patrick on the other side, lying in the shade. He hollers out something to me, and I say, “Hey Patrick, buy me a beer!” because the beers in Monte Carlo were something like eight bucks, and I was having a hard time justifying paying that much. I was just kidding Patrick, of course, but about two or three minutes later a waitress comes over and says, “That man over there would like to buy all of you a beer.” We say, “Okay, great,” but by this time some of our other friends have come up, and it’s getting to be a crowd. A little while later the lady comes back and says, “Would you like something else?” and I say, “No, no, this is fine.” She’s still standing there, and she says, “He says to order anything you want.” So we sat there and we drank some beer, and there were six or eight people. The next time I see Patrick I said, “Geez, I bet that beer bill was pretty steep.” He said, “I don’t know, I just signed it, I didn’t really look at it.” It had to be at least a couple hundred dollars, but he was waving it off like nothing. I said to him, “Do you know how much those beers cost?” He said, “No.” I said, “They were eight bucks apiece.” Patrick looks at me and says, “Yep.” I told him, “Eight bucks apiece, Patrick.” He says, “So what do they usually go for?” I tell him, “Back in the States you pay a buck and a half for a beer.” He says, “Oh, okay.” But to him it was nothing. Here I was dying, all day at the pool, worrying about this bill we were running up, and he could have cared less. That’s when I put my arm around him and said, “Patrick, you can hang around me the rest of the trip.”
Whenever I see Patrick now, I smile and I think about those eight-dollar beers. They were some of the best beers I’ve ever tasted.
On My Time in the Front Office
W
hen I retired and took Dave Gavitt up on his offer to work in Boston’s front office, it was an easy decision. I couldn’t imagine working for any other team. But over time that changed.
I knew my days with the Celtics were over when I told our owner that Sherman Douglas was the most valuable guy on our team, and then he traded him a month later.
That was in October of 1995. I had been working in Boston’s front office for three years at that point, and I was getting more and more frustrated, because Paul Gaston, the owner, and my old teammate M. L. Carr, who was the general manager, would ask my advice about certain personnel moves, then turn around and do whatever they wanted. I mean, why ask my opinion if you don’t really care what I think? Paul Gaston always told me I could have any job I wanted in the organization, but the truth was I had very little input. I think Gaston had trouble looking at me as anything except a former superstar, like some kind of figurehead. In a way I can understand that, because the first couple of years after I retired I wasn’t around much, but whenever I did come to town everyone wanted to know what I thought about this player or that player. There’s no question I had achieved a level of respect in Boston, but I spent a lot of years earning that respect. I think it was hard for Gaston to have me around sometimes, because it seemed like no matter what he did he took a beating in the press, while in their eyes I could do no wrong.
I was named special assistant to the team’s CEO, Dave Gavitt, in 1992, right after I retired. In fact, Dave made the announcement at my final press conference as a player. He told me he was really looking forward to working with me, and talked about how he really thought he could put the Celtics back on top. He had all sorts of great ideas about making the team better. He was also very creative. For example, he was the one that arranged to put all the Celtics legends together for the closing of Boston Garden. He understood about the little stuff too. One of the first things he did when he got hired was have the practice locker room completely done over. All it really meant was a couple of coats of fresh paint, but it meant a lot to the team. Dave Gavitt was a guy who talked to players. He knew which guys needed a little pep talk, and which guys needed a kick in the butt, and he got his message across without seeming like some guy interfering. He was fun to watch. The main reason I was interested in the job at all was because of Dave.
Unfortunately, by the time I was really ready to become a factor in the front office, Dave Gavitt was gone. Officially, he resigned, but the Celtics owners kind of forced him out, which is really too bad, because Dave Gavitt is a genius. He is very straightforward, which I’ve always liked in a person, and he treated me great. I guess in a way he was sort of a father figure to me. I know he’s the one that pushed for me to be part of the Dream Team, which is one of the most memorable experiences I’ve had. Plus, he understood the game. He never would have traded Sherman Douglas!
When Dave first hired me I would have been more enthusiastic about my contributions if my back wasn’t so bad at that time. People kept asking me if I missed playing, but I couldn’t have played anymore even if I wanted to. Every time I made any kind of sudden movement, this burning pain would shoot down my leg. I kept thinking that since I was retired, one day I would wake up and the pain would finally be gone, but I was wrong. The doctors were hoping my nerves would calm down, and I tried all sorts of treatments and stretching exercises to make that happen, but I was still miserable.
Finally I called up Dan Dyrek and said, “Dan, I can’t handle this pain anymore. Mentally, it’s really gotten to me.” Dan told me it was time to have fusion surgery. It’s a pretty serious operation. In my case, it meant removing pieces of bone on the side of my spine where the nerve exits, which would widen the canal from where the nerve exits to my leg. They were also going to have to put screws into my L-4 and L-5 vertebrae to act as anchors, then attach rods to the anchors to stabilize my back. The danger of an operation like that is suddenly you are asking the segments above the disc area to handle all the motion in your back. That means a significant amount of added stress to that area, and nobody can ever be sure how long it will hold up to that stress. That’s why shortly before I had the fusion surgery, Dan told me, “Larry, you better go out and play golf, because you may never play golf again.”
I had the surgery, which wasn’t scary at all to me, because I just wanted the pain to stop. It took me a good nine months before my body started to feel the same again, but it was worth it. That searing, burning pain is gone. I can jog, play tennis, play golf. I still can’t push it, though. If I went out and scrimmaged with my team for twenty minutes, the small of my back would start having spasms. The difference is those spasms are nothing compared to what I had experienced before. But my Indiana players can rest easy. I won’t be challenging any of them to a game of one-on-one.
During the time I was recovering from my surgery, I wasn’t really doing that much for the Celtics. I’d make an appearance here or there for them, and sometimes I’d scout a player off the television from my home in Naples. I’d show up for the draft and a couple of games a season, but that’s all I could handle for a while.
When I felt strong enough to be around more, I started hearing all sorts of rumors from people in the office that Dave was in trouble. I was hoping they weren’t true. It wasn’t Dave’s fault that my back gave out, or that Kevin McHale’s foot was never the same. I think one of Dave’s biggest problems with the Celtics was that he didn’t tell Red Auerbach and the owners every little move he was making. He was his own man, with his own ideas, and that was something new to the Celtics. The old general manager, Jan Volk, never did anything without running it past the owners and Red and the coach and who knows who else. Everything had to be done by committee. When Dave took the job, he was given total control, and that meant he was going to make the final decisions, even if everyone wasn’t in total agreement. Back then the team was owned by Alan Cohen, Paul Dupee, and Don Gaston, Paul’s father. They were a group with a lot of strong opinions. I think they were also a little impatient about turning things around, and when it didn’t happen right away, because of retirement and injuries, they made Dave take the fall for that.
I remember being in the office one day and Dave telling me he had a meeting with Paul Gaston, who was taking over controlling interest of the team. I’m not sure how long that meeting lasted, but when Dave came out I could tell what had happened by the look on his face. Dave was really shocked, and so was I. He shook my hand and said, “They want me gone.” It wasn’t justified. They hadn’t given Dave enough time or support to run the team the way he wanted. I’m still not really sure why everyone changed their minds about Dave, since they all agreed he was a terrific hire when they brought him in. I knew that one of the owners, Alan Cohen, was frustrated with him because he’d make suggestions and Gavitt would end up doing his own thing. With Don Gaston I think it was a matter of being impatient and wanting results more quickly. And there was certainly a split that developed between Dave and Red Auerbach, although I never did find out what that was all about. Red is the one who brought Dave to the Celtics in the first place. But, like I said, Red was used to being in on everything, and that didn’t happen with Dave.