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Big Apple bias New York spotlight was kind to EwingPosted: Monday April 15, 2002 11:21 AMUpdated: Monday April 15, 2002 11:57 PM
Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor touches on a Hot Button issue each Monday on CNNSI.com. After you read Phil's take, give us yours. Full disclosure: I grew up in New York, a fan of all the teams and athletes who played in the Big Apple. Like many New Yorkers, I dismissed the animosity that fans who lived elsewhere had toward my favorite teams as nothing but small-town jealousy. If the Mets or Knicks were on national TV more than most other teams, or if the Jets or Giants made more Monday Night Football appearances than their records seemed to warrant, so be it. It didn't mean there was some built-in advantage to playing in New York, as those envious fans from everywhere else were so quick to allege. But Patrick Ewing has changed my mind. Doc Rivers, his coach with the Orlando Magic, has been hinting lately that this might be the final season of Ewing's career. Rivers planted that thought partly so his center could receive a hero's farewell when the Magic played for the final time in New York, where Ewing spent the first 15 of his 17 pro seasons. Knicks fans gave him the obligatory ovation, just as they will when his No. 33 is retired someday at Madison Square Garden. In short, the Knicks faithful, who were sometimes harder on Ewing than he deserved when he was in New York, are now treating him as the kind of star he never really was. Ewing was a good NBA center who was perceived to be better than he actually was, largely because he played in New York. He contributed his 20 points and 10 rebounds nearly every game for most of his career, but he was not the kind of player who made opponents worry that he might rack up phenomenal individual statistics on any given night, the way, say, Shaquille O'Neal or Tim Duncan do today. He neither lifted his teammates with his performance on the court nor inspired them with his leadership off it. Yet Ewing is widely considered to be one of the best centers in NBA history and was voted one of the 50 greatest players the league has ever known, a stature that can only be attributed to his having played in the ultimate media center. Like Joe Namath, Don Mattingly and Darryl Strawberry, to name a few overrated New York athletes before him, Ewing was elevated in the public's perception largely because his team was always on television. It didn't matter that his best was never quite as good as Michael Jordan's or Hakeem Olajuwon's, guys who were among those who got the better of him in the big moments. It didn't even matter that Ewing was one of the most uncommunicative high-profile athletes the Big Apple has ever had. He was the finest player on a team from New York, so he had to be a star, didn't he? The best that can be said for Ewing is that he didn't wilt under the pressure of playing in New York, as many athletes who arrived there to great expectations did. But one of the greatest centers ever? If I'm listing the most dominant big men of their eras, I write down Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaq, Bill Walton, Olajuwon , George Mikan, Duncan and Moses Malone before I even consider Ewing, and even then he's in a dogfight with Bob Lanier, Nate Thurmond, Artis Gilmore and Wes Unseld, among others. That's not bad company, but Ewing's name is lumped more often with the big men in the upper tier. If he had accumulated the same statistics and accomplishments in, say, Sacramento or Detroit, he wouldn't be nearly as high-profile a player. That's the kind of point non-New Yorkers have been trying to make for years. From now on, I'll listen. Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor writes about a Hot Button issue every Monday on CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the
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