A Review of 30 for 30's "Celtics vs. Lakers: The Best of Enemies"
I’ve always felt that I’d rather read something by a great writer about a topic I’m not that interested in than something by a lousy writer doing a subject I’m fascinated by. For instance I’d rather read a Dan Jenkins piece about soccer than “The Inside Story of Bill Belichick by Rick Reilly.” And the same goes with movies and television. On that note, with 30 for 30, ESPN has generally speaking done a pretty remarkable job of telling stories, even the ones that weren’t on my radar. Until now.
Without a doubt, Celtics-Lakers is one of the great, multi-generational rivalries ever. The Larry Bird-Magic Johnson duel in the middle of it is at the top of the short list of greats sports stories ever. EVER. The way two very different personalities hit the NBA at the same time, joined the two best franchises, changed the way their game is played and put basketball into the center of the sports universe is so compelling that it feels like fiction. But with Celtics vs. Lakers: The Best of Enemies, that ran in three parts over the last couple of nights, ESPN doesn’t do the story justice.
It’s all familiar territory, which is fine. No one’s expecting them to break new ground on a story that started in the ’50s. But it deserves to be told better. Celtics vs. Lakers sounds like it was written by a non-fan trying to imitate how sports fans talk. The narration parts – with Ice Cube reading for the Lakers and Donnie Wahlberg for the Celts – is fucking excruciating. All first person pronouns, “We knew nobody could beat us” and the like. Not to mention Ice Cube’s sounds like it was run through an English-to-Urban Dialect translator by the guys who write ad copy for energy drinks. Just this side of “Cuz we was bringin’ Showtime to da NBA and it was LIT, yo.” Whereas Wahlberg is has to read bullshit about the Leprechaun and “the ghost of Don Nelson” and actually was forced to say this about the 1983 “Beat LA” chant at the end of the Sixers series: “It was the first time those holy words echoed off the walls of our basketball cathedral.”
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Try saying that at a bar in North Station and you won’t live long enough to regret it.
Of course ESPN’s not going to present this story without making race a major part of it. And is a factor, without a doubt. To their credit, along with the obligatory stuff about forced busing tearing Boston apart, they remind us that LA wasn’t exactly a multicultural Sesame Streetopia either, with race riots in Watts and widespread abuse of power by the cops. And the scene where a white reporter tells Kareem Abdul-Jabbar about a tribe in Africa where everyone is as tall as him and asks if he plans on visiting them is pure agony. Slightly less cringe-inducing is the one who asks Bird if he’s “The Great White Hope.” Just horrible. Nobody in the show is better at talking about race than Cedric Maxwell, admitting that he flat out didn’t think white boys could play basketball until he ended up as teammates with Bird and Kevin McHale. As always, he’s open, candid and has zero filter. He’s the star of the interviewees by far.
But the problem with focusing as much on race as they do is it misses the larger point. Bird and Magic didn’t save basketball because of their races. It was because they were so goddamned great. The NBA might have suffered in the ’70s because America thought it was “too black.” But also because it sucked. Unless you have a longing for the Gilded Age of Wes Unseld’s Washington Bullets and Dennis Johnson’s Seattle SuperSonics, the brand of basketball blew. Until two rookies with household names came along who could score, rebound, pass like no one else ever had, played total teamball, worked their asses off and loved the spotlight. That was the game changer. Along with their personalities.
Magic and Bird weren’t from their cities, but they were of them. Magic was all about the celebrity life, hanging out with stars and pussyhounding with his creepy, Trump-haired owner. Yes, Boston white people loved Bird because he was white in a predominantly black league. It’d be stupid to deny it. But mostly we loved him because he was an asshole. He was pure Boston with a country accent. The arrogant, cocky, fearless inventor of NBA shit-talking. We respected the hell out of Johnson. Nobody hated him. But the rare times we got to see the smile wiped off his face were some of the great joys in our lives then. Because he was pure Hollywood. And Bird was the anti-Magic. Which is what made it such a great rivalry to witness. A point that gets lost in a documentary that just doesn’t do justice to the great subject matter.
So if you haven’t watched The Best of Enemies yet, you can skip it. You won’t miss anything. My advice is you rewatch the HBO Bird vs. Magic special instead. You’ll thank me.