Word: abdul-jabbar
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...this tulmultuous off-season has been on the Lakers run at Shaq. Los Angeles has made no secret of their desire to bring the 24-year-old superstar to the west coast, unloading players to clear room under the salary cap. O'Neal follows Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as great centers who came to the Lakers in the middle of their careers. Ironically, O'Neal and his Orlando teammate Anfernee Hardaway were often compared with Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson, as the next great center-point guard combination in the NBA. But now that O'Neal has left...
Great athletes reinvent their sport. They reveal that the game can be played in a way that no one before had imagined. In basketball, Bill Russell showed that great defense spelled even better offense. Elgin Baylor showed that basketball was played in the air, not on the ground. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar revealed that a seven-footer could be as graceful and mobile as players a foot shorter. Jordan combined all the exemplary skills of the greats who preceded him in one leaping, gyrating package. Sometimes it seemed as though he did everything better than anyone else had ever done...
...secret to a best seller is getting just the right person as co-writer. Presidential-campaign strategists James Carville and Mary Matalin just snagged writer Peter Knobler (who's worked with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) to help them craft their political chronicle. Other possible subject-writer pairings and the books that might result...
...Magic could be said to have begun in 1979 with the first professional game Johnson won for the Lakers, which ended with his leaping into the arms of his startled and famously reserved teammate, Abdul-Jabbar. In the final game of the championship series that year, with Abdul-Jabbar injured, Johnson played all five positions, and somehow in his rookie season conjured a victory out of thin air. But even when the Most Valuable Player awards and championships became commonplace, and the miraculous expected, Johnson worked overtime to transcend all expectation, developing a three-point shot that was lethal, practicing...
...game but also, and more important, the most popular, whose brilliance played a large part in making N.B.A. basketball one of the success stories of the decade with fans across five continents. He had an appeal that earlier, more complex stars of the game such as Bill Russell and Abdul-Jabbar could never match. Even Michael Jordan, his only serious rival in stature and skill, prompted a few grumbles and questions around the league as Johnson never did. Though Johnson has become famous for his eagerness to parlay his success into a show-biz career and a $100 million business...