Sports Poets Society

by  Tarpley Hitt Reporter Updated Apr. 27, 2020 2:11PM ET / Published Apr. 26, 2020 5:09AM ET It has been 46 days since the NBA suspended its season and 44 days since nearly every other sports franchise followed suit, leaving fans to busy themselves with intermittent horse races , online chess , and betting on the weather . Then on Sunday night, The Last Dance debuted on ESPN. The 10-part Michael Jordan docuseries following the Chicago Bulls’ ’97-98 season became the channel’s most-watched documentary ever, drawing more than 6 million viewers that night alone. The success was no surprise. Jordan, who declined interviews for David Halberstam’s bestselling book about the same season, sat down for three in the series. But The Last Dance’s viewership was also a tell of how the sports vacuum has elevated the stories around them, how sports- and culture-starved fans are jumping for historical miscellany, old commentary, and the details on the fringes. That’s pretty much why, earlier t...

https://www.nba.com/pistons/features/truebluepistons_111025.html (Editor’s note: Jack McCloskey made every move in building the Bad Boys from his hiring in December 1979 to their winning consecutive NBA titles in 1989 and ’90. Pistons.com looks at the 10 biggest moves he engineered, concluding with the stunning – and daring – move to trade Adrian Dantley to Dallas for Mark Aguirre at the trade deadline in 1989.) Pistons.com August 7, 20122:54 PM EDT In Jack McCloskey’s mind, the trade of Adrian Dantley for Mark Aguirre had to be made – no ifs, ands or buts about it. But it didn’t take him long to understand just how far out on a limb he’d gone with Pistons fans in trading Dantley with the team seemingly on the precipice of winning the first NBA title in franchise history. “I can remember my wife and I driving up the street,” McCloskey said. “We stop at a red light and there were two guys in the other car. They both looked and saw me, then they pointed their finger toward me with their ...

https://www.nba.com/pistons/features/truebluepistons_111020.html (Editor’s note: Jack McCloskey made every move in building the Bad Boys from his hiring in December 1979 to their winning consecutive NBA titles in 1989 and ’90. Pistons.com looks at the 10 biggest moves he engineered, continuing with the 1988 trade-deadline deal that brought James Edwards to Detroit. Up next: The final piece.) Pistons.com August 7, 20122:51 PM EDT The wise man takes advantage of every opportunity to nourish his curiosity, filing away seemingly random bits of information for the day they need to be accessed and applied. So it was in the fall of 1977 that an assistant coach for the Los Angeles Lakers couldn’t help but think that the third-round rookie center out of Washington was doing a pretty fair impersonation of the NBA’s most dominant center, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, while the superstar missed the first several weeks of the season due to injury. More than a decade later, that assistant coach was well down...

https://www.nba.com/pistons/features/truebluepistons_111013.html (Editor’s note: Jack McCloskey made every move in building the Bad Boys from his hiring in December 1979 to their winning consecutive NBA titles in 1989 and ’90. Pistons.com looks at the 10 biggest moves he engineered, continuing with a major trade made in the summer of 1986. Up next: A jolt of athleticism.) Pistons.com August 7, 20122:47 PM EDT For practically every championship celebration, there is a near-miss story of a player who did much of the heavy lifting but wasn’t around to feel the sweet sting of champagne in the eye. Kelly Tripucka was twice removed from Detroit by the time the Pistons he helped make respectable through the mid-’80s had been dubbed Bad Boys and won their two NBA titles in 1989 and ’90. It was almost cruel that Tripucka, the 12th pick in the same 1981 draft that saw Jack McCloskey pluck Isiah Thomas with the No. 2 pick, spent those two Detroit championship seasons toiling for the expansion Cha...

https://www.nba.com/pistons/features/truebluepistons_111018.html (Editor’s note: Jack McCloskey made every move in building the Bad Boys from his hiring in December 1979 to their winning consecutive NBA titles in 1989 and ’90. Pistons.com looks at the 10 biggest moves he engineered, continuing with the 1986 draft that saw McCloskey add John Salley and Dennis Rodman. Up next: The most overlooked move of all.) Pistons.com - August 7, 2012 There is no such thing as a sleeper in today’s NBA, where even players with roots in Africa and obscure professional leagues in Asia and the Middle East are known commodities by the time June’s draft rolls around. But a generation ago – before the explosion of sports on cable TV and the advent of the Internet and the information gusher it spawned – it was still possible to uncover hidden basketball gems, even those who spent four years at American universities. Such was the case with Dennis Rodman, who played at a tiny NAIA school in the rural plains, ...

https://www.nba.com/pistons/features/best-trader-jack-part-vi (Editor’s note: Jack McCloskey made every move in building the Bad Boys from his hiring in December 1979 to their winning consecutive NBA titles in 1989 and ’90. Pistons.com looks at the 10 biggest moves he engineered, continuing with a gold strike in the 1985 draft.  Up next: Taking the next step .) Keith Langlois  ●  @keith_langlois  Web Editor June 2, 2017 It was one of those file-it-away moments. Jack McCloskey was scouting the UNLV Holiday Classic in December 1984 where the two headliner teams were the host Runnin’ Rebels and San Diego State , being coached by Smokey Gaines – the guy who took over at the University of Detroit for Dick Vitale when Vitale left for the Pistons. McCloskey might have been there expecting to scout the talent on those two NCAA tournament-bound teams – as fate would have it, they would be first-round opponents three months later, UNLV winning 85-80 to improve to 28-3, ending...

https://www.nba.com/pistons/features/best-trader-jack-part-v (Editor’s note: Jack McCloskey made every move in building the Bad Boys from his hiring in December 1979 to their winning consecutive NBA titles in 1989 and ’90. Pistons.com looks at the 10 biggest moves he engineered, continuing with his quest to plug a big hole in the Pistons’ lineup at power forward.  Up next: Striking gold in the 1985 draft .) Keith Langlois ● @keith_langlois Web Editor June 2, 20173:19 PM EDT When Jack McCloskey came to Detroit in December 1979 , free agency was the least likely implement in a general manager’s toolbox to spur a turnaround. So unless the draft coughed up a lineup solution, trades were the avenue to pursue to plug holes. The Pistons had many holes when McCloskey took over for Dick Vitale. But in his first few years on the job, McCloskey performed yeoman’s work in plugging a few big ones. He drafted Isiah Thomas with the No. 2 pick in 1981 to play point guard and Kelly Tripucka at No....

https://www.nba.com/pistons/features/truebluepistons_111004.html (Editor’s note: Jack McCloskey made every move in building the Bad Boys from his hiring in December 1979 to their winning consecutive NBA titles in 1989 and ’90. Pistons.com looks at the 10 biggest moves he engineered, continuing with his hiring of Chuck Daly following the 1982-83 season. Up next: Solving the hole at power forward.) Pistons.com August 7, 20122:39 PM EDT First things first. Jack McCloskey did not fire Scotty Robertson because of anything Isiah Thomas said or didn’t say to him. And he didn’t hire Chuck Daly because he thought his personality would mesh better with Isiah than Robertson’s did. “It wasn’t that (Daly) had to get along with Isiah,” McCloskey scoffed. “Isiah had to get along with him.” The NBA of that era was turning more and more into a player’s league. It was widely speculated that Magic Johnson was behind the firing of Paul Westhead early in the 1981-82 season, though it was later divulged tha...

https://www.nba.com/pistons/features/truebluepistons_110929.html (Editor’s note: Jack McCloskey made every move in building the Bad Boys from his hiring in December 1979 to their winning consecutive NBA titles in 1989 and ’90. Pistons.com looks at the 10 biggest moves he engineered, continuing with his February 1982 trade-deadline deal for Bill Laimbeer. Up next: Hiring Chuck Daly.) Pistons.com August 7, 20122:37 PM EDT Long before “Moneyball” and its basketball equivalent flooded the sport with statistical analysis, Jack McCloskey devised his own numbers-based system for player evaluation. He rated them on a 10-point basis across 10 different categories . After a while, he discovered that players who merited a composite score of 80 or above, almost invariably, turned into good NBA players. And his numbers told him that Bill Laimbeer was going to be a very good NBA player. The rest of the world thought that Kenny Carr was the object of McCloskey’s desire when he engineered a multiplaye...

https://www.nba.com/pistons/features/truebluepistons_110927.html (Editor’s note: Jack McCloskey made every move in building the Bad Boys from his hiring in December 1979 to their winning consecutive NBA titles in 1989 and ’90 . Pistons.com looks at the 10 biggest moves he engineered, continuing with his addition via trade of Vinnie Johnson.  Up next in Part III: Trading for Bill Laimbeer .) Pistons.com August 7, 20122:30 PM EDT Dick Vitale ran two drafts for the Pistons and, all things considered, his draft record was the highlight of Vitale’s 94-game tenure . His coaching record was 34-60 and his trade record is blotted by the botched acquisition of Bob McAdoo that crippled the Pistons while simultaneously restoring the luster to one of the NBA’s flagship franchises, Boston. Vitale didn’t have a No. 1 pick in 1978, yet managed to pluck two players out of the second round who would go on to long and productive careers – both Vitale recruits from the University of Detroit, Terry T...

https://www.nba.com/pistons/features/best-trader-jack-part-i (Editor’s note: Jack McCloskey made every move in building the Bad Boys from his hiring in December 1979 to their winning consecutive NBA titles in 1989 and ’90. Pistons.com looks at the 10 biggest moves he engineered, starting with the drafting of Isiah Thomas. Up next in Part II: Trading for Vinnie Johnson .) Keith Langlois  ●  @keith_langlois  Web Editor June 2, 20171:47 PM EDT The enduring legacy of the Bad Boys, the hard-edged bunch assembled by Jack McCloskey and coached by Chuck Daly to the first two NBA championships in Pistons history, will be their indomitable collective will, a bunch of hard hats swinging picks and wielding shovels to elbow their way past glamorous rivals in the NBA’s golden age. But first among equals was Isiah Thomas, so good out of the gate that he was that rare NBA rookie who played in the All-Star game, the first of a remarkable 12 straight All-Star berths en route to a Hall of F...

https://www.upworthy.com/john-salley-interview-vegan-disney Four-time NBA champion John Salley is a true renaissance man. He's who you'd be if you were bright, thoughtful, charming, intellectually curious, and had millions of dollars at your disposal and the experience with which to make savvy business investments. He's also a vegan chef, restaurateur , philanthropist, health coach, a girl-dad of three daughters, actor, TV host, technology freak (we'll talk more about that), owns a cannabis company with his 25-year-old daughter Tyla Salley, and he's met the Dalai Lama. Did I mention he was charming? We Zoom'd with Salley about his busy life and plethora of pursuits while he sat patiently waiting for his wife of 28 years, Natasha Duffy, to finish an appointment with her ophthalmologist. Most people of his stature would likely have canceled the interview, but Salley's not your average celebrity. Upworthy: What was your interest initially in becoming vegan? J...