30 for 30 running thread

Ali and Holmes in their prime is a much better fight than many would think in my view. Ali fought plenty of studs of course but how many of them with almost the same skill set he had? Holmes was just as big, his jab was a dominant weapon and he could hurt guys with his right hand. Ali was quicker but Holmes moved very efficiently. Ali would have won but Holmes would have made a fight of it.

Holmes owns Tyson with his jab if they fought in Larry's prime. Holmes would not have been afraid of Tyson which was such a huge part of Mike's game back in the day.

Ali-Tyson? No contest. Imagine the mind games Ali would have played on Tyson. If he could rattle bad ass guys like Liston and Foreman he would have had a field day with the fragile psyche of Tyson. It would have been over before the opening bell.

 

Anything Ali did post-war isn't the real Ali in my opinion so it's hard to say. The pre-war layoff Ali was lightning quick and didn't take a lot of punches. He moved, he was solid with the defense. Anything he did in the 70s was at a stage where he wasn't as strong defensively and didn't have the same footwork. He used to wear guys out running them around the ring.

 

I read The Courting or Marcus Dupree - to say that opened my eyes is an understatement. This was the early 80s, before players were signing letters of intent on live TV, and even then it was out of hand. I wasn't surprised when the walls came crashing down on Switzer later in the decade.

 

Jimmy The Greek's doc is next week. That will be a must-see. So will the one on Charismatic and Chris Antley.

 

Apparently one of the big reveals in the Bias doc tonight is that it wasn't true that Bias died after trying coke for the first time. I'm shocked.

 

Bias doc was pretty well-done. All the principals participated for the most part, including Lefty Driesell, both of Bias' parents and everyone who was in the apartment with him with when he died.

I would have liked to have seen more explication of how Bias' death affected the Celtics, though I guess that would have taken another hour. How exactly did Boston wind up with the No. 2 pick the year after winning the title? That was never really explained.

 

I'd forgotten about the sudden push for stiffer drug sentences. But how weird was it to see Marion Barry interviewed about drug use in the mid-80s?

I'd also forgotten about Bias's brother. And how the Maryland athletic department got turned inside out after Bias died.

 

I was wondering that, too.

In 1984, Boston traded Gerald Henderson to Seattle for a future first-round draft pick. That pick turned out to be No. 2 overall two years later.

I found this pretty cool: In 1986, Henderson was also a part of another deal involving draft picks that were used to select Mark Jackson and Scottie Pippen.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hendege01.html

 

I caught most of it and thought Tribble was the 'get' of the story. It was hard to watch, and yet it was hard to look away.

 

I DVRed Without Bias. Going to try to sit down and watch it before Game 6 tonight.

 

The guy who made it is releasing a DVD version of Without Bias that will be about 20 or 30 minutes longer. He had a ton of footage and ESPN cut it down.

He's also trying to turn it into a movie for release maybe sometime next year.

I was flat-out riveted by Without Bias. Very, very well done. Bias' parents couldn't have come off as better people. Truly amazing people.

I thought the best nugget was the fact that the coke that killed Bias was 98 percent pure. That's ridiculous. NO ONE gets that kind of pure coke except the hardcore dealers.

 

Didn't see this yet. Simmons's book, of course, has a section on a what-if with Bias. How great the 87 Celtics would have been, how Bird and McHale's careers would have been extended, how Bias would have been a true rival to Jordan, etc.

But if you're doing those what-ifs, isn't it just as likely that he would have flamed out, like Roy Tarpley, William Bedford or Chris Washburn?