Dime Magazine

NO68 2012

Dime is the premier basketball magazine, covering the NBA, NCAA, High School, Playground and International basketball - as well as sneakers, fashion and music.

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son who's going to sit on the bench? Couldn't he develop in college? Now, people will say, "You fought all the way to the Supreme Court for this." But times change, and I can see where things are different. I just don't like seeing players sit on the bench when they could be developing in college. Let the veterans stay in the league one more year. That's why you have some teams that are top-heavy in young players but they can't seem to get out of the blocks. Dime: So looking back, were you really ready when you went pro? SH: Oh, I was ready. I was the No. 1 high school player in America (Pershing H.S. in Detroit). From there I was the Junior College Player of the Year (Trinidad State in Colorado), then I went to the 1968 Olympics and was MVP of the Olympics. From there I went to the University of Detroit as a sophomore and was the Outstanding College Player of the Year. I was getting about 33 points and 23 boards a game, so I'm not a good example. (laughs) Mentally, I was ready for sure. Remember, before I was allowed to play in the NBA, I was still traveling with the team. I was being booed and being thrown off the court. They would announce me in the arena and say, "There is an illegal player on the floor. Number 24 is ineligible." They wouldn't even say my name. And then I'd get marched off by security. I went through that for a year. So it wasn't like I just walked into the league and started playing. Dime: Why do you think the negative response was so strong, especially from the fans? SH: You see, it wasn't just the NBA. The NCAA would be losing revenue if I won my case, in basketball and football. So they saw me as a common enemy trying to break the four-year rule. The NCAA had years of slavery, basically, with players. The universities could sell products and do whatever they wanted to do with players, and then you'd get into your senior year and they'd toss you aside when another young stud came in. You're outta there. Dime: Even guys like Dwight Howard don't average anywhere near 20 rebounds a game anymore. But you, Moses Malone, those types, you pulled down 15-20 boards a night routinely. What's changed? SH: These guys today, they're city guys. They didn't pick no cotton. It was harder times back then, brother. I used to pick cotton from sun-up to sun-down. Brutal work. That sack weighs 100 pounds when it's full of cotton, and you had to fill it at least three times a day. Then you had to walk a mile back and forth with the sack. So I'm doing that at the My own school, the University of Detroit, sued me for millions of dollars, and I'm not even receiving any money at the time. I'm sup- posed to be there for an education, right? But my mama was still down in Mississippi picking cotton for $2 a day. That was the life she had. I went to Detroit and was able to live a little bit, but my family couldn't move up there. That's why they called it the hardship rule. So now all of a sudden I'm the almighty Satan, destroying college basketball and college football as we know it. I'm destroying the ABA as we know it. Destroying the NBA. What the heck? So that's how I was portrayed by the media. When you paint that kind of picture, that's how the fans are going to see it. They called me "nigger-head," they called me all kinds of things. But that wasn't uncommon, me being raised in Mississippi. Dime: How would you describe your style on the court? SH: It would be like LeBron James in terms of the body type. It would be like Kobe Bryant in terms of offensive deadliness. It would be like Dwight Howard in terms of rebounding and blocking shots. I averaged 26 and 13 my first full year in the NBA with Seattle, and in Denver I was doing 30 and 20 in the ABA. Go back and look at the '68 Olympics: I have the all-time field-goal percentage record (71.9 percent); I was the youngest player in America to make the Olympic team and the youngest to win the gold. I scored more points and grabbed more rebounds than anybody in the history of the Olympics. So yeah, I was all of those guys in one. And I would be like Kevin Garnett in terms of a tough mental stance. I'm not saying I'm better than any one of them now, but I was first. And being the first is a motherfucker. 72

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