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Show i by Jim Murray Rick Barry still shoots directly from the hip When he was playing basketball, the word to describe Rick Barry's game was elegant. He never did a clumsy thing on court. He was graceful, stylish, poised. He was never still but he never seemed to get his hair in his eyes, and his shirt never came hanging out. He was a picture player. He would shoot from anywhere on the court. He was fluid, quick, sure, he moved non-stop, like a feeding shark in deep water. If it was standing still, it wasn't Rick Barry. It was some other 6-foot 7-inch 220-pounder. If it didn't have the ball, it probably wasn't Rick Barry either. If he was in the game, he had the ball. He was the deadliest foul-shooter who ever lived. An astonishing 9 out of 10 of his lifetime free throws went through the basket, usually without touching the rim. One year, he had a .947 free throw percentage. He only missed nine all year. He is 15 th on the all-time scoring list in pro basketball but only if you don't county his years in the old American Basketball Assn. Counting those points, he's sixth, with a two-league total of 25,279. He had hands like a pickpocket. His 1,104 steals rank 10th on the all-time list. He is one of anyone's 10 best who ever played the game. He led an otherwise so-so Golden State team to the NBA championship in 1975 when he captained the team and averaged 30.6 points a game. His scoring average and his 2,450 points were second in the league. His free throw percentage was .904 that year. But his trademark was. if he had the ball he shot it. Rick Barry was not a nuance player. He was not your basic playmaker. Rick was a cleanup hitter. No one said of him, "He pounds the boards." He left the scut work like rebounding to the scullery maids and butlers of the sport. Rick lit lights with what he did. It carried over into the rest of life. Rick never went into a stall when anyone asked him a question. He would shoot from any point on the floor then, too. Often from the hip. Rick often played the game with a kind of annoyed frown, as if he had been consigned to an activity and surroundings that were beneath him. The officials, for instance. The man playing him. Rick always managed to behave like a man in a hurry who was being slowed by packs of irritating dawdlers. Rick did everything as if he had two minutes to live. "He drives like he's leading a fast break," his coach, Bill Sharman, once said of him. He ate on the run, answered two telephones at once. He always seemed to be leaving a burning building. He always overbooked himself. He even tried playing for two teams at once. He got in such a tug of war between the old established NBA and the fledging ABA that he had to sit out a year. He became the vagabond player. He was in court more than he was on court. He managed to insult more than individuals, he took on whole regions. He jumped from the NBA's Warriors to the ABA's Oakland Oaks, but when that franchise moved to Washington, Rick balked. "If I wanted to go to Washington, I'd run for President, he told the management. When they wanted to move the franchise to Virginia, Rick had another charging foul. "I don t want my kid growing up saying 'Hi yall, he complained. Rick always went for the hoop. It took several federal courts and two appeals to get him back to the Gold State Warriors, but Barry was unrepentant. To press criticism of his club jumping, he retorted: "I suppose those guys wouldn't go to the New York Times tomorrow if it offered a job?" Rick Barry is now in broadcasting. He does the WTBS superstation telecasts for Ted Turner in partnership with Bill Russell. He's good at it. "I want to get better," he said. "I love this business. I'd like to be a game show host, do soap operas, anything. I love to do play-by-play. I take voice lessons, I try to improve every way." Rick Barry's problem has never been that he couldn't make himself understood. His views are all too intelligible. What Rick has to guard against is terminal honesty. For instance, when he sees Dr. J pile into a cloud of defensive players, Rick Barry blurts: "I don't know what Julius was doing there, or what he thought he could do from there. It was stupid." That's a no-no. Barry has to learn not always to take the shot just because he's open. He has to learn that: The game is never over 'til the fat lady sings. You never say, "Well, the Celtics' lead is now 101-60, read any good books lately?" What you do say is "The Spurs just have to concentrate on getting the ball to Gervin more often." Don't add "Yeah. Let him take the rap." -You don't describe a star's play as putrid just because he's 0-for-19 from the floor. Suggest, rather, that he's got some nagging personal problems. Don't add, "Yeah, the chauffeur forgot to wash the Rolls this morning." You don't criticize the officials. Never say, "If that's not traveling, neither is Amtrak." Say, "It's surprising how often they are right." Don't add, "Yeah. It's surprising they're ever right, what little they know about the game." Fortunately, no one expects Rick Barry III to turn into a tongue-tied apologist for the establishment, ever. There's always been a little voice inside Rick that said: "Shoot!" no matter what the circumstances, no matter where the basket was. No one would want Rick to learn a stall game this late in life. (c) 1984, Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Lof Angeles Times Syndicate. |
