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  • trekfan
    Designated Red Shirt
    • Sep 2009
    • 5817

    #1

    Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)

    System/Game: PC/NBA 2K20
    Mode: MyLeague
    Rosters: dmx_133 1989-90 roster (with many adjustments to certain things, but without the base roster that would have been impossible)
    Located here: https://forums.nba-live.com/viewtopic.php?f=258&t=108680&hilit=1989


    Sliders: Shady Mike’s with slight adjustments to progression and major adjustment to contracts (I prefer a sane contract level in the league, circa 2015/16 or so) -- injury frequency set to 34, severity to 35. Will adjust as needed.



    Quarter Length: 10 Minutes
    Sim Quarter Length: 12 Minutes
    Draft Class:


    Classic draft classes, some downloaded, some based on edits I make to the (somewhat lackluster) historic classes, quite a many my own personal edits on Thunder Shaq’s incredible work (as we get further into 90s and such). I’ve upped the injury ratings for some historic players whom we never saw a full career from (like Penny Hardaway and Grant Hill) and have kept some of the random cpu generated guys that looked interesting — since this is an alternate history, the draft classes will not be completely 100% accurate but they’ll be pretty accurate overall for the guys that mattered. How their careers play out may be similar or wildly different, we’ll just have to see who goes down as a legend in this universe.

    Season Length: 82 Games
    Regular Season Rules: 8-15 played, rest simmed.
    Playoff Rules: 2 playoff games (randomly determined by number generator, one must be in first four games) per series.
    2 games allowed in NBA Finals (randomly determined by number generator, one must be in first four games)


    Playoff Format: 5-7-7-7 (first round is 5 games to replicate the rules of the era and, truthfully I like it better at 5 so that’s how it will stay I think).
    Progressive Fatigue: Off (seems to be too much this year, so I've taken it off -- with chemistry and injuries still on, I anticipate the league will be fine, but will adjust accordingly as we go).
    Team Chemistry: On


    Chemistry effects, for both the team and player morale, are turned WAY down.

    CPU Trades: Off
    CPU Trade Approval: Off
    Trade Override: Off
    Control: 30 Teams, CPU automation for lineup/coaching tasks on every team but my primary; total control otherwise (roster moves, drafting, free agency, etc). No on goes to the G-League, as that place ups the the overalls of players far too fast.





    Welcome to my newest dynasty thread. I know, I know — it’s been a (long) while, many months really since I posted in the last thread I started. Real life got in the way — 2021 was just hell, especially at the end.

    But this project was — thankfully — a good ways started before things went off the rails for me. I’ve spent the past 10 days going back through this, editing it, cleaning it up, and making sure it all read fine. This will be the first time I’ve tried this particular style but it seems to come quite naturally to me.

    Rather than do this in the traditional 3rd person POV character/TV series narrative style, this is written more like it’s a deep-dive book — yes, we’ll have characters, but we’re not gonna be so zoomed in on them. Inspired by books written by Jeff Pearlman (I can’t recommend “Three Ring Circus” and his other books enough), this work of fiction is a multi-media deep-dive on an organization and an era of NBA basketball that looks much different than what we know.


    (Disclaimer -- all this is FICTION so don't assume any of it is real in any way, other than the game results and certain real-life details of certain real-life players.)



    The Many-Worlds Theory of quantum mechanics states that any action that has more than one possible result produces a split in the universe, producing a whole new reality that coexists with all the others.

    Our story begins in early 1990



    Part 2 Begins Here, in the summer of 2003:
    https://forums.operationsports.com/f...&postcount=198
    Last edited by trekfan; 12-01-2024, 02:58 PM.
    Any comments are welcome.
    Texas Two-Step (2K20 Alt History)
    Orange And Blue Forever (NCAA 14 Dynasty)
    You Don't Know Jack (2K18 Pacers Dynasty - Complete)
    Second Coming (2K16 Sonics MyLeague - Complete)
    The Gold Standard (2K13 Dynasty - Complete)
  • trekfan
    Designated Red Shirt
    • Sep 2009
    • 5817

    #2
    Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)




    Ch. 1

    There is a theory in quantum-mechanics that states that any action that has more than one possible result produces a split in the universe, thereby producing a whole new reality that coexists with all the others. Scientists haven’t been able to prove this theory as of yet, but there are certainly believers that this theory is, in fact, true.

    Among those believers is noted NBA historian, Stanley Sloan. “There definitely exists a place, a time, where none of what we consider history — of what we know about the world — is true. A different series of events took place … for the NBA, there are a million different ways the league’s history could have unfolded.”

    Indeed there is. Take the date that many NBA fans know by heart — at least those of a certain generation.

    February 9th, 1990. Two days before the All-Star Game, at a hotel in Miami, Florida, the NBA’s owners met to discuss a number of issues: these were the winter meetings. It was, normally, not very newsworthy in the previous decade — under the guidance of Commissioner David Stern, however, these meetings had produced more news than usual.

    “This was a big one,” recalled longtime NBA columnist Sam Gray. “The issues on the table were league expansion — Toronto, Memphis, and New Orleans all had bids … a lot of money was at play. The owners were fluid on the issue, some wanted these new teams in for the huge buy-ins they could charge, others wanted to maintain the league at the current size. Stern was a proponent of keeping things as they were, to allow the recent expansion teams to get their feet under them, but some owners wanted the cash now.”

    Not only was that issue on the table, there were also rumors that one of the owners at the meeting was going to declare their intention to sell their team. “There were levels of intrigue here we hadn’t seen before,” said Gray. “And those levels went through the roof after what happened that evening.”

    The evening of February 9th saw the first day of the meetings go nowhere — the owners couldn’t even agree when to take a vote, so everyone left early to enjoy the Miami night.

    No one would.

    David Stern left the meeting at 5:46 PM and walked across the street from the hotel to a local restaurant on the other side. At the same time, a 1982 Buick would run a red light at 90 MPH, slam into Stern, tossing him into the air like a salad before landing on the ground like a brick.

    The Buick would plow on, causing more destruction as it ran more lights. Driven by a coked out-of-his-mind Omar Green — a 20-year-old running from the cops after he shot a man — the car would injure 13 other people, killing two more, before ultimately running off the side of a bridge. Omar Green and his car would plunge to the ground below — he would die on impact.

    David Stern suffered a similar fate. At the age of 47, the commissioner of the NBA was dead.

    Chaos ensued. The league office in New York was alerted to the situation not by local authorities, but by CNN. “We were in complete shock,” recalled then-NBA communications director Matt Corbin. “We immediately called down to Miami to see what the hell had happened and when they confirmed the news … the office was just silent. It was like someone had told us Pearl Harbor had been bombed again — it was that kind of moment.”

    Stern’s death sent out shockwaves across the league and the sports world. The NBA — Stern in particular — had the foresight to have a plan for succession in place, but almost immediately there was a flaw: the man succeeding David Stern wasn’t ready for the job.

    “Russ Granik was a good man, a great ambassador for the sport,” said Corbin. “But not a soul — not a singular soul — wanted him in the big chair. He was a great deputy, but he didn’t have the necessary wherewithal to be the commissioner of a league with Magic, Bird, and Jordan.”

    Granik was in Miami as well — and had narrowly missed being a casualty. He was due to accompany Stern to the restaurant across the street, but held back for a moment to use the bathroom.

    “To think, you stop to take a leak and then when you come out you’re the commissioner of the whole *ucking league,” Gray said. “This — this was the story of the year, regardless of anything else.”

    The night of February 9th, 1990, went by like a blur for poor Russ Granik. He was put into a room with maximum security as the Miami PD chased down the driver that killed Stern. Rumors swirled that Stern’s accident wasn’t really an accident; that someone had put a hit out on him, not unheard of in Miami during that time period.

    “I was frightened for my life and for my family’s life,” Granik said in an interview many years later. “The thought of dying was foremost on my mind … and it was a thought that haunted me from that point on in the NBA.”

    The owners, meanwhile, were themselves having a crisis — Stern’s death had served as an unlikely catalyst on a number of issues. “Some of the owners were not a big fan of Stern and felt he treated them like dumb kids,” said Gray. “Stern didn’t do it their face, didn’t do it on the record, but you could see where they were coming from … the fact is, some of them were dumb as potatoes about things and Stern had to act as the adult in the room.”

    The adult in the room was gone, replaced by Granik who feared for his life.

    The morning of February 10th came and the winter meetings continued. Granik was stunned. The owners were stunned. The players in Miami were stunned. Security had increased ten-fold and the sports world, big and small, was left asking one question, over and over: what now?

    “I came into that meeting shell-shocked,” Granik admitted later. “I wasn’t sure what I could do.”

    The issues at play — new teams, new ownership, possibly even new uniforms — all intermixed, mingled, rose to the top, and ultimately formed a concoction some NBA fans considered poison.

    “My editor was an old head,” said Gray. “When the news of Stern’s death hit, he was sad. When the news about what went down at the winter meetings hit, he was incensed; legitimately was angry as I’ve ever seen him.”

    Fearing their league was about to enter a new dark age — when they had just gotten out of the last drug-fueled one — the owners made a series of decisions that many at the time thought were short-sighted, fear-driven, and too extreme.

    First, the owners approved the new expansion teams — each of them had submitted a long-shot bid that all of them expected would be rejected — and the NBA was going to grow from 27 teams to 30. Those teams were going to start play in the fall of 1990.

    Next, the owners approved a new uniform provider — Nike. Nike, long the brand of Michael Jordan, had exploded in popularity (and that explosion brought tons of new capital) and had submitted the bid to unify all NBA uniforms under their brand. Their submitted bid would pay the NBA and its owners more money than what they were currently getting, but David Stern — wary of letting one company rule all teams — was against the move and the issue was effectively a non-starter.

    Stern’s death brought that issue back to the forefront and the owners decided to take the money — Nike would the NBA’s uniform designer starting in the fall of 1990.

    Finally, not one but two owners declared their intentions to sell — the owner of the Mavericks and Rockets both wanted out and both had a list of suitors. Both these teams would be sold by the second week of June 1990.

    “It was a lot to take in … in 48 hours, the league had gone from seemingly the most stable it had been in two decades to being wild,” said Corbin. “We at the league office had our heads spinning, almost constantly. I had to figure out how to break this news to the world, but I hadn’t even figured out how I felt about what happened to Stern … it was crazy. Just crazy.”

    Russ Granik, newly appointed commissioner of the NBA, sat there throughout it all and hardly contributed much. “In truth, I was still in shock,” recalled Granik. “I never should have been in that meeting. That meeting should have never taken place … I should have canceled it all.”

    The flurry of moves caught everyone off guard, almost as much as Stern’s unexpected death, and the owners’ decisions brought about a lot of criticism. Wrote Gray:

    The NBA is a league in turmoil — and the owners are being driven by fear. New teams? New uniforms? New owners? All of it has one root cause, all of it has one commonality: money. The owners of the NBA are afraid they’re going to lose money now that David Stern has passed; make no mistake, Stern was amazing for the league for a number of reasons, but he’s made the owners of the NBA lots of cash — now, that cash flow is threatened and the owners have responded to that threat by grabbing any revenue they can.

    Gray’s article was one of many scathing pieces launched by the NBA media, but much of it was lost in the falllout of Stern’s demise.

    On February 11th, 1990, the All-Star game was played. The East won 130-113, Magic Johnson was named the game MVP, and no one cared. The players nearly didn’t take the court but were convinced to do so to honor the late commissioner. Led by Bird, Magic, and Jordan, there was a long moment of silence in Miami for a man that had changed the NBA, fundamentally, for the better.

    David Stern would be sorely missed, perhaps by no one more than his successor.

    Any comments are welcome.
    Texas Two-Step (2K20 Alt History)
    Orange And Blue Forever (NCAA 14 Dynasty)
    You Don't Know Jack (2K18 Pacers Dynasty - Complete)
    Second Coming (2K16 Sonics MyLeague - Complete)
    The Gold Standard (2K13 Dynasty - Complete)

    Comment

    • trekfan
      Designated Red Shirt
      • Sep 2009
      • 5817

      #3
      Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)

      Awards:
      MVP: Michael Jordan CHI
      ROY: Pooh Richardson MINN
      Sixth Man: Ricky Pierce MIL
      DPOY: Michael Jordan CHI


      Final Standings 1989-90:















      Playoffs:



      The Lottery Odds:
      1. LAC
      2. CHA

      3. SAC
      4. NOLA
      5. MEM
      6. TOR
      7. NYK
      8. MIA
      9. HOU
      10. ORL
      11. WAS
      12. ATL
      13. SEA
      14. SA

      Draft Order:






      Any comments are welcome.
      Texas Two-Step (2K20 Alt History)
      Orange And Blue Forever (NCAA 14 Dynasty)
      You Don't Know Jack (2K18 Pacers Dynasty - Complete)
      Second Coming (2K16 Sonics MyLeague - Complete)
      The Gold Standard (2K13 Dynasty - Complete)

      Comment

      • trekfan
        Designated Red Shirt
        • Sep 2009
        • 5817

        #4
        Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)


        Ch. 2

        Russ Granik was commissioner of the NBA. That was now reality after February 9th, 1990, and it was a reality few were prepared for, including Granik himself. “I wasn’t ready,” said Granik years later. “I wasn’t the kind of leader the league needed then.”

        The league had the rest of the regular season to finish, then the playoffs, then the offseason, then all of it again … and on top of that, news reached the league office that the player’s union wasn’t pleased with decisions the owners made during the winter meetings — specifically the addition of three more teams.

        “Their argument was that it was going to make the league more money, but ours was that it was going to negatively impact the players the league already had,” said NBA Player’s Association Director Charles Grantham. Grantham, much like Stern, was concerned about the new teams that had already been added — the Heat, Magic, T’Wolves, and Hornets — and didn’t relish the idea of adding more.

        More teams, in theory, meant more money for everyone, but the operations of the expansion teams left something to be desired. Players, veterans and rookies alike, were concerned that the league was over-expanding and watering down the competition; at least that was the official position. Unofficially, it was known that the veteran players on the expansion teams weren’t really happy in any of those new cities — minus Miami, of course.

        Adding Toronto, Memphis, and New Orleans to the mix wasn’t a winning issue for the NBA. Ownership needed the NBAPA aboard to get things done. Granik was tasked with getting them there. Granik didn’t have much success in the first month of his leadership. Nor did he have success in the second month. Or the third.

        It seemed to go by in a blink, but it was really a slog for Granik, who — try as he might — could not replicate the success of David Stern. The NBAPA sensed weakness, the owners were unhappy, and the league’s playoffs were well-underway — yet there was a pervasive sense in the league office that Commissioner Granik wasn’t up to the task.

        “I thought he was in over his head,” said Matt Corbin, then-director of communications for the NBA. “The talk around the water-cooler, the talk in the bars after work, it all centered around whether Granik could get it done. He was a great number’s guy, he could negotiate a CBA with the best of them, but that was a small part of being a league commissioner.”

        The owners weren’t questioning Granik so much as coming to the conclusion that the former deputy commissioner was, at best, a bridge guy. “I had owners go off the record about Granik often, and almost all of them were on the same page: this guy can’t lead the league,” recalled longtime NBA columnist Sam Gray. “The owners were worried. They needed the NBAPA to buy-in here and the player’s union wasn’t budging.”

        The season ended on June 3rd, 1990, and the Detroit Pistons took the crown. The season wasn’t over for the owners, the NBAPA, and Russ Granik, however; the lack of progress on negotiations with the NBAPA over the new expansion teams reached a boiling point.

        The owners demanded Granik get the NBAPA aboard. The NBAPA demanded concessions. Granik was caught in the middle of an increasingly hostile situation.

        “Things got heated,” Granik recalled years later. “The owners and I had differing opinions on how to handle the NBAPA … and ultimately they made a decision I couldn’t agree with.”

        Two days after the season officially ended, June 5th, 1990, the owners went for the nuclear option: they re-opened the CBA and locked out the players.

        Charles Grantham was stunned, as was senior leadership of the NBAPA. Though the owners had the ability to do this, in theory, at any time they wanted, it was understood by all parties that a lockout was among the worst things for the sport as a whole. “Lockouts were things that no one really won … sure, sides got concessions, but ultimately it hurt the bottom line. Fans hated it, sponsors hated it, the PR was always bad … it really wasn’t worth the hassle most of the time,” said Grantham.

        Granik was also stunned — the owners had made the move without him. “A unilateral, unwise choice,” Granik told The New York Times a day later. Effectively flanked by the people he represented, embarrassed, tired, and scared, Granik submitted his resignation by fax to the league office on June 6th, 1990.

        “I was done,” Granik said years later. “I still hadn’t coped with David’s loss, I had nightmares about that night in Miami … it all could have gone so differently for me. I was ready to leave and what the owners did showed me they were ready for me to go.”

        The league office was, once more, left without a leader. At least, that’s what they thought. “Granik resigning was probably best for him but terrible for the perception of the league,” said Corbin. “We were really struggling to convince the rest of the sports world that we could move on after Stern, and when Granik left, it really made it seem like we were a house of cards falling in on itself.”

        But Granik, like Stern before him, had appointed a deputy commissioner — a man now in charge of a mess. That man was Dillon Terrell. Terrell was a man who had rocketed up the ladder at the league office after Stern’s death; he was, in Granik’s own words, “a fixer of problems” and had earned Granik’s trust time and time again in dealing with issues Granik himself didn’t have time for.

        A year before, Terrell had just been one of the league’s many bright minds. Now, he was the man in charge of a league that seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

        “No one had really heard of the guy,” recalled Gray. “He was a smart guy, a Stern type in that regard, good with numbers, good with people, but Stern kept a lot of guys like that around in the league office. How was he different? That was the question that dogged us as journalists, because his resume` read like three dozen other guys at the league office.”

        Indeed, how was Terrell different?

        “He was ambitious as hell,” said Corbin. “Terrell was a shark. Not in a bad way, really, but in a good way … he saw problems before they became problems and attacked them. He smelled blood in the water somewhere, anywhere, and he’d charge towards it. He had ideas.”

        Now, Terrell not only had ideas, he also had power and he was ready to put that power to use.

        June 7th, 1990. Dillon Terrell is introduced as commissioner of the NBA to a room full of reporters, each with a dozen questions, each with a deadline, and not a one of them knowing exactly what to make of the man. 40-years-old, 6’1”, and rather generic looking — if one were to think of what a lawyer would look like, Terrell would be that man — Dillon Terrell was now in a position no one believed he would ever be in.

        Terrell gamely answered every question put to him, but his first press conference was more an exercise in cliches than anything else.

        “He and I met and I gave him the cheat sheet; it was a set of non-answer answers we always had ready,” said Corbin. “He took it, thanked me, and stuck to the script. He had never had a press conference like this before and after we got out of there, I thanked him for not going rogue.”

        Terrell’s first press conference was a nothing-burger; his first day on the job wouldn’t be that. Immediately after leaving the press conference he met with the owners — and he laid down the law.

        “He chewed them out,” said Gray. “The owners had voted, just barely, to declare the lockout and Terrell knew who voted which way. He chewed out the ones that voted for it … he wasn’t cruel, but he was pointed. He made every owner who voted for the lockout feel immense shame.”

        Terrell declared that he would end the lockout as soon as possible but he wasn’t going to end it for nothing. They were in this now and if they didn’t get something out of it, there negotiating power for future CBAs would be crippled.

        Terrell spent almost two hours with the owners before leaving them and meeting with Charles Grantham.

        “He was pretty direct. He told me, ‘Charles, it’s a *hitshow and the owners have made it that way. But we can get out of this with minimal pain.’” Terrell and Grantham preceded to spend the next seven hours together talking, just the two of them, about how to extract the league from the situation.

        What, exactly, was said behind those closed doors is lost to the sands of time. Neither man has ever divulged the exact words or tone. But both have confirmed that a rough gameplan was drawn up in that first meeting, a gameplan they held to. “We had to have a plan to get out of the mess,” said Grantham. “If we didn’t, we were bound to be *ucked even worse.”

        Grantham took the plan to the senior leadership of the player’s association, an executive committee made up of players and experts alike. Terrell took the plan to the owners, including two new ones (we’ll get to them) of the Rockets and Mavericks respectively. Selling the plan to the parties at play wasn’t easy.

        “The players weren’t happy this was even happening, so naturally they were distrusting,” said Grantham. “I spent days and days lobbying. The executive committee and I had to be in agreement before we took any of this to the rest of the union — we had to have a united front.”

        Terrell’s job was, in some ways, harder. The owners wanted to save face but also didn’t want to look weak. “They were a prideful bunch, and that pride was threatening to cost them a lot,” said Terrell. The new commissioner spent many long days lobbying, tweaking, pulling, pushing, and cajoling the owners that they couldn’t afford to have this lockout go on for months. It had to be over by the end of June; had to, he insisted.

        The short timeline was on purpose and done for two reasons; one, the lockout was ill-conceived and was damaging. The sooner it ended, the better for everyone. Two, the longer the lockout dragged on, the more Terrell feared the NBAPA would recognize the leverage they would gain. If the lockout dragged on and on, the owners would be blamed — and they’d be rightfully hammered.

        “That was a consideration, tactically speaking,” Grantham admitted. “We had those discussions, we debated whether or not we had been handed a gift. Ultimately, the players weren’t ready for a lockout and weren’t willing to risk any paychecks being missed.”

        Terrell and Grantham had an agreement in place by the end of June; by July 7th, the lockout was over and business was back on in the NBA.

        It wouldn’t be business as usual, however, and that was due to a few reasons. Firstly, the league had managed to convince the NBAPA that rookies needed to have a salary scale imposed on them; the veterans of the league agreed, knowing that less money for rookies meant more money for them.

        Secondly, the league had two new owners — one for the Rockets and one for the Mavericks (a team barely a decade old). Houston’s previous ownership had sold the team for nearly 70 million dollars — Dallas’ price was slightly more modest (just 60 million). What made the situation unique was that both new owners had previously been partners.

        In marriage.

        The NBA had, unknown to them, inserted themselves into the middle of a Texas-sized feud that, for better or worse, would play a pivotal part in the league’s history from that point forward.

        Any comments are welcome.
        Texas Two-Step (2K20 Alt History)
        Orange And Blue Forever (NCAA 14 Dynasty)
        You Don't Know Jack (2K18 Pacers Dynasty - Complete)
        Second Coming (2K16 Sonics MyLeague - Complete)
        The Gold Standard (2K13 Dynasty - Complete)

        Comment

        • trekfan
          Designated Red Shirt
          • Sep 2009
          • 5817

          #5
          Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)


          Ch. 3

          They say all great things come from small beginnings. The NBA is a testament to this, as it was once a league that could barely pay its players, then grew. The United States of America originally started out as 13 colonies but soon expanded to include many more states.

          The intense dislike — perhaps even hatred — between the owners of the Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks started out as a tiny event that expanded into a major conflict.

          It all began in 1948. Sam Hale and Lindsay Lewis were the eldest children of two very wealthy, very different Texas dynasties. Hale was a cattle rancher, born and bred, and his family had been in Texas since the day the territory was founded; the Hale family tree was vast, rooted, and well-known.

          The Lewis family tree was a transplant from New York. Lindsay Lewis, the eldest daughter of Fredrick Lewis, was a rich oil-baroness. Her father arrived in Texas in 1934 with only a few dollars to his name and a dream of striking it rich; he did in a big way, stumbling (as the story goes, drunkenly) into one of the biggest oil deposits the state had seen.

          The two families weren’t exactly rivals, but the Hales considered the Lewis’ to be of “carpet-bagger” stock. The Lewis’ thought the Hale family to be slightly more-evolved than the cattle they raised. But Sam Hale and Lindsay Lewis thought the world of each other — a chance meeting at a mutual friends party in early 1948 began a whirlwind romance that swept Lindsay off her feet and made Sam feel things no woman had ever made him feel.

          The two family patriarchs put aside their differences and gave the couple their blessings. On November 1st, 1949, Sam Hale and Lindsay Lewis married and united two of the most-powerful families in Texas. It was, as one Houston Chronicle columnist put it, “a marriage destined to change the fates of both families and perhaps the state itself, should it all work out.”

          It didn’t exactly work out.

          Immediately after the extended honeymoon, the couple realized the two of them had very different ideas on how domestic life was supposed to work. Sam woke up, every day, at five in the morning to tend to his ranch and only came back inside the house for lunch during the day — when he reported back for dinner, his day was effectively done and he’d spend the rest the evening relaxing, before heading to bed no later than ten at night.

          Lindsay wasn’t about that life at all. Her day wasn’t going to revolve around a ranch or the schedule of it; her mornings began at nine, maybe ten. She wouldn’t be cooking anything, that’s what chefs were for. She would spend her day doing light shopping but mostly socializing — there were always events going on and friends needing her to stop by. She’d dine out at one of her favorite restaurants for dinner before heading home for the night — if she didn’t have somewhere else to be.

          It was a contrast in styles that produced multiple clashes.

          “It was one of the most unexpected pairings in Texas history,” said longtime Houston Chronicle gossip columnist Susan Langford. “Sam Hale was a man who worked and enjoyed that. Lindsay Lewis was a woman who enjoyed everything else but work. It was oil and water.”

          The two would clash, often, but equally their passions would remind them why they were together in the first place — they had two children in the course of their marriage. The oldest, Trent, was born in 1954 and their youngest, Nate, was born in 1956. Both would take after their parents in some respects, and the two had a close bond.

          At least until the divorce in 1959. With neither parent willing to give up total custody to the other, a sharing agreement was made and the boys spent the remainder of their childhood years jumping between homes. Trent would blame his father for the divorce (when he reached adulthood, he would legally change his last name to his mother’s), while Nate was unwilling to pick a side — something that annoyed the elder brother.

          The seeds were planted and, in 1990, the rivalry sprouted. Sam Hale, on the advice of his son Nate (who had made both his parents a lot of money thanks to his stock-market wizardry) bought the Rockets. He had been careful not to let the news leak out but, as with all things like this, the news did indeed leak.

          Unwilling to be left out and encouraged by her son Trent, Lindsay Lewis used some of her family’s wealth to buy the Mavericks. Trent Lewis was incredibly competitive, especially with his father (Trent had his own, rival, ranching business that had been routinely overshadowed by his father’s), and bet that his father would be unfamiliar with this new arena.

          His bet, initially, looked like a good one as Sam Hale named his son, Nate, General Manager of the Rockets.

          “People around the league were watching this go down and scoffing at it,” recalled longtime NBA columnist Sam Gray. “This Texas cattle baron had bought a team and immediately, in a huge display of nepotism, named his youngest son the defacto decision maker. Nate Hale had no basketball experience, no executive credentials … he was a very talented stock trader. Good with numbers, with money, but running a basketball team? It was a joke.”

          In comparison, the Mavericks kept the Dallas front office and coaching staff intact. Trent Lewis, acting as the owner of the Mavericks (Lindsay had no interest in running the team at all and appointed Trent her representative), wasn’t going to make any major shakeups.

          “Trent, wisely, kept on the GM who had helped get Dallas to 60-wins, Saul Mathis,” said Gray. “The other league executives saw this and liked it; anytime a new owner comes in, there’s a chance for chaos … blood in the water. Dallas wasn’t going to be the chum, but Houston sure looked tempting.”

          The reports out of Houston weren’t comforting. Wrote Houston Chronicle columnist Chris Judge:

          The biggest question the Rockets have is what to do about Hakeem Olajuwon. The Dream is, without a doubt, the franchise’s single most important player and after a year that saw the Rockets go 38-44, miss the playoffs, and watch Dallas become the best team in Texas, Hakeem may want out. Rumors of a trade request swirled, but never materialized last season — previous ownership was unwilling to make that move. Will Sam Hale and his son feel differently? Will Hakeem?

          That was the question that dogged Hakeem Olajuwon. A legend in Houston, both for his amazing college career and his incredible NBA career, Olajuwon was without a ring — he made the Finals in 1986, losing to Larry Bird and the Celtics, and hadn’t been back since. Drugs had sunk that team and left Olajuwon with years of frustration.

          “He carried bad teams as far as he could alone,” said Gray. “And his frustration in the summer of 1990 was at an all-time high.”

          A meeting was arranged between Olajuwon, his agent, Sam Hale, and the new GM of the Rockets, Nate Hale.

          Years ago, Olajuwon was asked about that meeting and how he would rate it, on a scale of one to ten.

          “No, no, none of those. Zero. Zero,” answered Olajuwon. The meeting was a legendary faceplant and it was, largely, because of how Sam Hale approached it.

          “My father,” Nate Hale recalled with a shake of his head, “opened our meeting with telling Hakeem about his prized bull, Howitzer, and how he could recognize his greatness. He compared Hakeem to Howitzer — and he meant it as a compliment, you have to realize that — but Hakeem took it poorly. He told us he ‘was not cattle’ and would not be treated as such, got up, and left.”

          Sam Hale was a cattle rancher. A wealthy, well-spoken, cattle rancher — but a cattle rancher who wasn’t part of the world of basketball. The blow up at the meeting reinforced this and Hale felt so bad that he sent Olajuwon a hand-written letter of apology and a promise that he’d honor whatever request the prized-center (not bull) would make.

          Olajuwon accepted the apology, didn’t make a mess of it in the press, and requested a trade to a contender.

          Just like that, the greatest center — nay, basketball player — in Houston history was ready to go.

          The news got out, as it does with these things — maybe it was Olajuwon’s agent, maybe it was a staffer looking for a quick payday, but the news hit the press all the same. Hakeem Olajuwon wanted out and the Houston Rockets had to find him a new home.

          The request was disappointing, but not surprising to Nate Hale. “I expected it — the first meeting was bad, so that didn’t help, but really he had been stuck on bad team after bad team for years, and he wanted a title. Houston was his home but sometimes you become your best away from home.”

          Nate Hale would know about that; unlike his brother, Nate wasn’t really interested in cattle ranching. He was interested in numbers; money-making numbers. He graduated high school and college early and at just 20-years-old made his way to New York City to trade stocks on Wall Street and make his family (more of) a fortune.

          Most stories like that end poorly, but Nate Hale’s story was a success almost from moment one; he was a savant. Or lucky. Or both. Stock traders came in many shapes and sizes, but almost all of them had a method that could be replicated — someone could always copy someone else’s playbook. But Nate Hale’s playbook seemed unique to the point of disbelief; he’d bet big, bet small, and still make bank.

          “He was truly gifted,” recalled Nate Hale’s former boss, Leo Spencer. “I’d never seen anyone with his talents. In the span of a few years he was among the top traders at our company … if he had stayed on, he’d be a living legend on Wall Street.”

          Nate Hale didn’t stay on, though — he wasn’t interested in conquering the stock market or even making ungodly amounts of money. He wanted to be in charge of an NBA team and he knew the quickest path to that was through the Hale family fortune; it had been sitting there, building up higher and higher, and he knew that the money would need to be invested in something one day.

          He wanted that investment to be a basketball team; specifically, the hometown Rockets.

          “I looked at the markets and realized that money alone wasn’t going to be enough soon. It was going to be about assets,” said Nate Hale. “Assets would generate far more money than money alone, assets would be what people would want to invest in … we, as a family, had to have something more than just the cattle ranching business.”

          Convincing his father was a challenge, but one that proved easier than Nate expected; Sam Hale had entertained similar thoughts for a few years. “I told my boy, if he could get a number that wasn’t too crazy, I’d consider it,” Sam Hale said in an interview immediately after buying the team. “The number he got me was just crazy enough to get me to agree.”

          Now, that number looked questionable; how valuable could the Houston Rockets be without its greatest player, Hakeem Olajuwon?

          “That was the question that haunted me,” said Nate Hale. “Truth be told, I wasn’t sure where to go … we had an idea of how valuable Hakeem was, the league had an idea of how valuable Hakeem was, but who among the contenders were willing to pay something like that? The list was pretty short.”

          Thanks to the lockout, league business was behind by almost a month and the draft was scheduled to happen on July 18th, 1990 — Houston, thanks to their losing season, had nabbed the first overall pick, so in that regard they were negotiating from a position of strength. But teams around the league were convinced the Rockets were going to bungle that pick, much like the Hakeem situation.

          “We really had little respect,” Nate Hale recalled. “We had to earn it and we got that, but some of the trade offers that other teams gave us … we just had to laugh, if we didn’t we’d punch a hole in something.”

          Nate Hale didn’t let the poor offers distract him nor did he let the media guide him; his list of potential suitors was short. He began with the contenders that could offer him something tangible — younger players that were proven to a degree, but not necessarily superstars.

          There were the defending champions, the Pistons, but they had veteran players and not very valuable picks. The Cavaliers were possible — certainly they had the younger, star players but sending Hakeem to Cleveland seemed like a punishment. Boston was possible if they were willing to include Reggie Lewis and multiple picks, but that seemed unlikely.

          Nate Hale’s thought processes virtually eliminated any team in the Western Conference — he and his father both agreed that Hakeem in the West was going to be a problem.

          “We could have sent him to the Lakers or the Suns, hell even Portland,” said Nate Hale. “But every time we spoke of that scenario, the fear was we would get burned by Hakeem — that he’d be the obstacle we’d need to clear to achieve a playoff berth or advance in the playoffs and we’d be unable to get by him. We were guided by that fear.”

          Trade rumors swirled — the league was abuzz with potential deals, but no solid offers were on the table.

          At least, no official offers. Unknown to virtually all the NBA, a team had used a back-channel connection to inform Nate Hale that there was interest from their side in a deal — a deal that would solve problems for everyone, a rare win-win in the NBA.

          It was a deal that was shocking at the time and became more legendary — and infamous — as the years went on. It was a deal that would define the NBA, one that was the first in a growing arms race that would make the league the 24/7 sensation it is today.

          NBA historian Stanley Sloan put it this way: “This was an event that everyone knew would usher in a new era. It was the basketball equivalent of a nuclear bomb being deployed, except no one could escape the fallout — it covered everything, everyone, every team. It reverberates to this day.”

          Any comments are welcome.
          Texas Two-Step (2K20 Alt History)
          Orange And Blue Forever (NCAA 14 Dynasty)
          You Don't Know Jack (2K18 Pacers Dynasty - Complete)
          Second Coming (2K16 Sonics MyLeague - Complete)
          The Gold Standard (2K13 Dynasty - Complete)

          Comment

          • RMJH4
            Retro NBA Nut
            • Jul 2008
            • 1592

            #6
            Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)

            Yes he's back!! Loving this so far trek! Really looking forward to seeing where Hakeem goes to. Jordan and the Bulls, or Knicks for Ewing?! So many possibilities!! Major turbulent seasons ahead with so many new/poor teams!
            Nowhere to Hide - Mike Hobbs Story.

            Comment

            • trekfan
              Designated Red Shirt
              • Sep 2009
              • 5817

              #7
              Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)

              Originally posted by RMJH4
              Yes he's back!! Loving this so far trek! Really looking forward to seeing where Hakeem goes to. Jordan and the Bulls, or Knicks for Ewing?! So many possibilities!! Major turbulent seasons ahead with so many new/poor teams!

              Yeah, this is gonna get fun -- some things people were speculating might happen with the big names in the 90s actually end up sorta/kinda happening. The Hakeem trade is gonna set off a chain reaction ...


              Happy to be back and happy you like it so far.
              Any comments are welcome.
              Texas Two-Step (2K20 Alt History)
              Orange And Blue Forever (NCAA 14 Dynasty)
              You Don't Know Jack (2K18 Pacers Dynasty - Complete)
              Second Coming (2K16 Sonics MyLeague - Complete)
              The Gold Standard (2K13 Dynasty - Complete)

              Comment

              • studbucket
                MVP
                • Aug 2007
                • 4588

                #8
                Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)

                Fascinating stuff Trek.

                I can tell you are basing this on historical events (Olajuwan did ask for a trade), which is making me wonder what Eastern team has notable problems in 1990ish. The Celtics had injury issues, Jordan had personality issues (but not sure this makes the cut), and the Sixers had Barkley issues, but maybe trading Hakeem and pairing him with Barkley makes them a contender - because they weren't a great team outside of Charles.
                ?The Bulgarian Brothers - a story of two brothers (Oggy and Dinko) as they coach in the NCAA and the NBA.

                ?Ask me about the Xbox Ally handheld - I'm on the team that made it.

                Comment

                • trekfan
                  Designated Red Shirt
                  • Sep 2009
                  • 5817

                  #9
                  Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)

                  Originally posted by studbucket
                  Fascinating stuff Trek.

                  I can tell you are basing this on historical events (Olajuwan did ask for a trade), which is making me wonder what Eastern team has notable problems in 1990ish. The Celtics had injury issues, Jordan had personality issues (but not sure this makes the cut), and the Sixers had Barkley issues, but maybe trading Hakeem and pairing him with Barkley makes them a contender - because they weren't a great team outside of Charles.

                  There were a number of interesting possibilities on where I should send Hakeem. I had a lot of trade packages to consider for multiple contender teams, but I eventually settled on one that provided good value back plus a very intriguing storyline (which just turned out to be even more intriguing as the seasons went on).



                  Season 1 really, really took some turns I didn't expect and just had a number of games that took this little side project -- which had been just a kind of "what if" experiment I wasn't really planning on doing much with -- and turned it into a classic dynasty. It had games that, if they had occurred in real life, would have turned an entire generation into hardcore fans of the team.
                  Any comments are welcome.
                  Texas Two-Step (2K20 Alt History)
                  Orange And Blue Forever (NCAA 14 Dynasty)
                  You Don't Know Jack (2K18 Pacers Dynasty - Complete)
                  Second Coming (2K16 Sonics MyLeague - Complete)
                  The Gold Standard (2K13 Dynasty - Complete)

                  Comment

                  • trekfan
                    Designated Red Shirt
                    • Sep 2009
                    • 5817

                    #10
                    Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)


                    Ch. 4

                    They say a picture is worth a thousand words — the deal struck by the Houston Rockets might have generated a million (and counting).



                    It was a deal few in the NBA thought possible — the Bulls, Jordan’s team, grabbing Hakeem Olajuwon? The Bulls, run by Jerry Krause, giving up prized players Pippen and Grant? The Bulls, owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, paying both Jordan and Olajuwon?

                    “Game-changer, game-breaker, that was the nature of this trade,” said NBA columnist Sam Gray. “No one in the league had it happening. Hakeem was seen as just too valuable to be sent away for the likes of Pippen and Grant then … especially after what happened in the playoffs.”

                    Ah, yes, the playoffs — where Michael Jordan and the Bulls … lost to Cleveland? In the first round? In a sweep?

                    “Embarrassed and tired of it,” Jordan said after the last game in that series. Jordan had, as usual, performed brilliantly — 31.0 PPG, 7.2 RPG, 5.5 APG, on over 50% shooting from the field and another 36% from deep. Michael Jordan was, by all accounts, not the problem. So if the Bulls lost and Jordan wasn’t the problem … well, that only left the rest of the team.

                    And in the pecking order of the Bulls, the next two players up were Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant. A quick look at the stats show that Pippen, who made his first all star team in 1990, only put up 14.3 PPG in the playoffs on middling efficiency — he scored 19.1 PPG in the regular season. Grant went from 14.5 PPG in the regular season to 11.3 PPG in the postseason and saw his shooting percentages drop noticeably.

                    Michael Jordan was well-aware of this. While he was putting up his numbers and commanding double and triple teams, Pippen and Grant weren’t converting open shots. The Bulls lost Game 1 by a score 125-111, never leading. They lost Game 2 by a score of 109-104, having … never led. The Bulls, in Game 3, were finally home in Chicago and the fans rallied around their team — a brilliant 1st quarter had the Bulls leading 30-21, their first lead in the whole series, and you could feel the momentum shifting.

                    And then Michael Jordan took a quick rest on the bench early in the 2nd quarter, Pippen was allowed to run the floor, and the Bulls got shellacked 44-21 before the half mercifully ended. They never led again and lost 129-116 in one of the most deflating playoff defeats of Jordan’s career.

                    Jordan didn’t hide his displeasure; he unleashed it. In a scathing post-game press conference, Michael Jordan declared that he “couldn’t score sixty every night” and that he “needed help, someone to step up” and that “it takes a team to win a title, not a collection of high draft picks and hope.”

                    Jordan was clearly unhappy and he had painted a target on the backs of every member of his team and his front office; the biggest targets were on the backs of Pippen, Grant, and Jerry Krause.

                    “He was angry, angrier than I’d ever seen him,” recalled Chicago Sun-Times columnist Greg Bender. “That press conference was a man releasing steam as a last-ditch effort to avoid exploding. He had played his heart out and the team failed him.”

                    Bender — and Jordan — weren’t alone in that analysis. Virtually the entire city of Chicago agreed that the Bulls, as constructed, were flawed; sports radio shows had caller after caller lambasting Pippen, Grant, and the man who selected them, Jerry Krause. The local papers, big and small, all had some variation of “Jordan has no help” across their sports pages immediately after the series.

                    If you were in the city of Chicago, not named Michael Jordan, and were a Chicago Bull, your life was — at the very least — unpleasant following that playoff loss. If you were named Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, or Jerry Krause, your life was probably hell.

                    Bulls coach Phil Jackson, in his first year on the job, wasn’t happy that Jordan had gone to the press to express his grievances, but he understood. “Great players demand greatness,” Jackson would later say. “Michael was a great player and he was surrounded by other players who weren’t on his level; he knew this, he was aware of this, but after that Cleveland series he just didn’t have the patience to contain it anymore. He was emotional and those emotions dictated his actions.”

                    Jackson, later known as “The Zen Master,” had spent the season trying — and somewhat succeeding — at teaching his players the triangle offense and teaching them how to play with one another. The Cleveland series had proven to be a test that the Bulls weren’t ready to pass, however; Cleveland was a well-oiled machine while Chicago was trying to reinvent their own wheel.

                    The triangle was effective during the regular season, but the playoffs were a different beast. “The pressure made our discipline break down, Michael included,” Jackson recalled. “A lot of one on one, isolation ball … not winning plays. Too much dribbling and too little movement.”

                    Jackson may have been the only Bull who didn’t feel Jordan’s wrath, but that was cold comfort as the head coach of the team watched the city tear his players apart. The Detroit Pistons — longtime Bulls rivals — winning the title (and beating Cleveland in the ECF to do it) only made the sting worse.

                    Jerry Krause knew something had to be done. Krause was a big believer in both Pippen and Grant; these were two players he personally selected, two pieces of a puzzle he believed he nailed. But Jerry Krause could read and he could listen and he could watch … and all those things told him that Jordan didn’t believe in Pippen and Grant. Certainly, the city of Chicago didn’t.

                    And neither did Jerry Reinsdorf, the Bulls owner. In a rare edict from atop the mountain, Reinsdorf reached out to Krause and asked him to explore upgrades for the team; specifically, there was no one on the roster that was untouchable except Jordan.

                    On the face of it, this seemed preposterously obvious: of course anyone else on that team is expendable. But to Jerry Krause, the words may have well been engraved in stone and dropped on his head, because Krause hadn’t been willing to include Pippen or Grant in past trade discussions. They were his picks, his players, his guys … trading them would be tantamount to admitting a mistake, not only to the league, but to Jordan himself.

                    An entire book could be written about the relationship between Jordan and Krause, but the very simplified dynamic was this: Jerry Krause wanted Michael Jordan’s respect. Jordan didn’t give that freely, to anyone, and less so to a man he considered slovenly and a hindrance.

                    “It was a tough order to swallow for Krause,” said Bender. “He confided in me, years later, that he had written a long treatise on why trading Pippen and Grant was a terrible idea … he almost sent it, but then things happened in Houston.”

                    The Houston situation had been a lifeline for Krause, as finding takers for Pippen and Grant who were willing to part with assets Krause coveted was hard. Krause drove a hard bargain to pry his two prized picks away from him — it wasn’t crazy to wonder if Krause was purposefully trying to scuttle any trade just to save face, tell Reinsdorf he tried, and run it back next season when everyone had cooled down.

                    But when Hakeem Olajuwon hit the market, Krause couldn’t resist — here was a team run by a new owner, a completely inexperienced GM, and had an unhappy, star player, locked in on a contract that would keep him on his new team for at least three seasons. It was too delicious an opportunity to pass up, but it couldn’t be done in broad daylight — Krause wanted to keep his options open and his plausible deniability intact.

                    “The deal started off thanks to Krause reaching out not to Nate Hale, but to the team’s head trainer — Harvey Ross,” recalled Bender. “Ross was a guy who had worked with the Bulls during the 87-88 season, one of the best trainers and medical minds around, but an arrogant *uck. He and Michael got along best when the two were gambling, golfing, or hitting the town. Reinsdorf thought Ross was a bad influence on Jordan and got rid of him.”

                    Harvey Ross was essentially banished from the Bulls, and it was a banishment that, in Ross’ mind, was well-deserved. “Yeah, I was having too much fun,” Ross later admitted. “Me and Mike, we enjoyed ourselves a bit too much for guys who were at the top of their professions. Getting canned from the Bulls sucked *ss, but it also gave me time to look at myself hard. I realized I needed to do more work and have less play … I became a 50-50 guy. Well, maybe more a 60-40 guy, favoring play, but way better than my 80-20 years.”

                    Ross spent the next two years running his own private practice, catering to the best and brightest athletes the country had. He was comfortable there, but missed the challenges that came with the NBA — so when his old New York City roommate, Nate Hale, landed the Rockets job, Harvey was among the first people who called him.

                    “Harvey and I went way back and we were close,” recalled Nate Hale. “He was a like a brother … he helped me settle in and figure out who I was in New York when I got there in 1976.”

                    Ross took the job as the Rockets’ head trainer almost as soon as the Hale’s bought the team — and, in early July, 1990, got a phone call he never expected from Jerry Krause.

                    “Krause wasn’t a man who called just to chat about the *ucking weather,” Ross said. “When he rang me up, I knew it had be to be something major — and when he told me what his idea was, I realized just how crazy things were about to get.”

                    Ross took Krause’s initial idea to Nate Hale, who himself had been fielding less-than palatable offers for his superstar center. After a lengthy discussion between Ross and Hale, the GM of the Rockets called up the GM of the Bulls the next day with a counter offer. The two men haggled for nearly three days before finally arriving at the deal that shook the league.

                    “Krause came away from those negotiations impressed with Hale,” said Bender. “When Hale sent back that first offer and the idea to include a third team, Krause knew he was dealing with someone who may have been inexperienced, but definitely wasn’t dumb.”

                    The trade was received well in Chicago, not so much in Houston. Wrote Houston Chronicle columnist Chris Judge:

                    The trade breaks down as follows:

                    HOU received SF Scottie Pippen, PF Horace Grant, Chicago’s 1990 1st rounder, and Washington’s 1992 1st rounder.
                    CHI received C Hakeem Olajuwon, SF Buck Johnson, and Houston’s 1990 2nd rounder.
                    WAS received PG Sleepy Floyd.

                    What we’re looking at is nothing less than an undersell; Hakeem Olajuwon has to be worth more than this, doesn’t he? Two Jordan sidekicks and a couple of first rounders that probably won’t turn out to be anything. Unloading Floyd, a player who added 14.5 PPG and 10.8 APG as a starter, is just the icing on the cow-patty cake. The Hale family taking over the Rockets seemed like a life-raft for a struggling franchise, but more and more it looks like an anchor. Houston, we have a problem.


                    The local press in Houston wasn’t thrilled with the return, but the sentiments were split roughly 50-50; either the trade was an undersell or the trade made the best out of a bad situation. Some in Houston were done giving the benefit of the doubt to seemingly incompetent ownership, even if it was new ownership.

                    Hale expected the blowback. It wasn’t the superstar for superstar trade the league had expected, and it certainly looked like he had been hoodwinked in his first ever deal. “I had my doubts, too,” said Hale. “But I was swayed by Harvey, who spoke glowingly of Pippen and Grant — he knew these players from his brief time with the Bulls and Harvey wasn’t a man who guessed wrong often. Between that, looking at the market, and the chance to grab two good players and picks … I felt like I wouldn’t get a better deal.”

                    Jerry Krause had done it. He had gotten Michael Jordan, the biggest star in the league, a true superstar teammate and nabbed a solid replacement for Pippen in Buck Johnson. He could use free agency to fill in whatever holes remained and players would be lining up to join the team.

                    “Krause was thrilled with the deal — he knew that one of the reasons they lost the Cleveland series was because of how porous the paint was. Bill Cartwright just wasn’t good enough to keep Brad Daughtery away from the rim … they needed someone better. You weren’t getting much better than Hakeem,” said Bender.

                    With the trade done, Nate Hale wanted to talk to Pippen and let him know that the Houston Rockets would take care of him and put him in a position to succeed. One small problem:

                    No one knew where Scottie Pippen was.

                    Any comments are welcome.
                    Texas Two-Step (2K20 Alt History)
                    Orange And Blue Forever (NCAA 14 Dynasty)
                    You Don't Know Jack (2K18 Pacers Dynasty - Complete)
                    Second Coming (2K16 Sonics MyLeague - Complete)
                    The Gold Standard (2K13 Dynasty - Complete)

                    Comment

                    • R1zzo23
                      Cupcake Coach
                      • Jul 2005
                      • 5694

                      #11
                      Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)

                      MJ and Hakeem?!? Together?!?!

                      Comment

                      • studbucket
                        MVP
                        • Aug 2007
                        • 4588

                        #12
                        Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)

                        Amazing, what great writing, it had me hooked the whole article. This is cool and exciting and sets up in a fascinating way for both teams.
                        ?The Bulgarian Brothers - a story of two brothers (Oggy and Dinko) as they coach in the NCAA and the NBA.

                        ?Ask me about the Xbox Ally handheld - I'm on the team that made it.

                        Comment

                        • trekfan
                          Designated Red Shirt
                          • Sep 2009
                          • 5817

                          #13
                          Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)

                          Originally posted by R1zzo23
                          MJ and Hakeem?!? Together?!?!

                          Oh yes, it's the Dream uniting with His Airness -- I was pretty damned hesitant to do it, BUT I wondered what would happen. Will they dominate the league? Are they as compatible in practice as they are in theory?



                          Will Pippen and Grant develop on Houston like they did IRL on the Bulls?



                          Lots of questions. It's turned out to be a really fun set up and triggers a seismic wave of changes in the NBA. It's gonna be fun.


                          Originally posted by studbucket
                          Amazing, what great writing, it had me hooked the whole article. This is cool and exciting and sets up in a fascinating way for both teams.

                          Really glad you're enjoying this so far -- there's no real gameplay here, this is all the background information/character work, but its important stuff and adds a sense of depth as the seasons go along. It's gonna be fun.
                          Any comments are welcome.
                          Texas Two-Step (2K20 Alt History)
                          Orange And Blue Forever (NCAA 14 Dynasty)
                          You Don't Know Jack (2K18 Pacers Dynasty - Complete)
                          Second Coming (2K16 Sonics MyLeague - Complete)
                          The Gold Standard (2K13 Dynasty - Complete)

                          Comment

                          • trekfan
                            Designated Red Shirt
                            • Sep 2009
                            • 5817

                            #14
                            Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)


                            Ch. 5

                            Scottie Pippen has been called many things throughout his NBA career — he’s been recognized as supremely talented, one of the game’s best defenders, a player whom other players enjoy playing with. He’s also been called moody, a choker, and someone who shrinks in the spotlight. The opinions on Pippen are as wide-ranging as Pippen’s basketball skills but what can’t be argued is that Scottie Pippen was important.

                            He was important to the Bulls. He was important to his teammates, particularly Michael Jordan, and he was important to the city of Chicago. Pippen’s history prior to his NBA career is well known (and if you don’t know, this author highly encourages you to research it) but few knew at this time just how much Scottie Pippen was hurting.

                            It wasn’t just about the Cleveland series — though that was definitely a part of it — it was about everything else. The 1989-90 season hadn’t been kind to Pippen and what happened in the Cleveland playoff series seemed to be the universe shoving his bloodied, broken face, further into the dirt.

                            “I wasn’t in a good place,” Pippen admitted years after his career ended. “Mentally, emotionally, that season had been hard on me in ways few people knew … and I wanted it that way. I was trying to handle it quietly. I wanted to be strong.”

                            It began in the fall of 1989. Scottie Pippen and his wife, Karen McCollum, were not happy newly weds anymore. Married for just over a year, the couple already had one child (Scottie’s oldest, Antron) and their domestic life wasn’t peaceful. It was filled with fighting, it was filled with drama, and it wasn’t pleasant. Pippen looked forward to going on the road with his teammates because, at least there, he’d get a measure of peace — even if he had to put up with the road fans.

                            This, in of itself, is not an unusual position to find a professional athlete. Most pro players end up struggling in their first marriage and some end up in a divorce; it’s a necessary, sometimes vital lesson — life isn’t as easy as marrying, having children, having lots of money, and living in a great house. Television and film glorify these things, but the realities of life make that mixture of money and celebrity toxic to those unprepared for it.

                            Pippen and his wife weren’t prepared for it. The idea of divorce had been broached by both parties but neither was ready to give up just yet, especially with a young child at home.

                            The couple had a fine Christmas and a decent New Years, and when Pippen made the All-Star Game in February, they were ecstatic — but that weekend in Miami was not a good one for the NBA. David Stern’s death was a shock to everyone, but it hit Scottie Pippen harder than he expected it to.

                            “I was in my room, looked out the window at what all the noise was about, and saw Stern just lying there in the street … that image stuck with me. I had talked to him about two hours before, he was asking me if I wanted to join him for dinner, but I told him I already had plans,” said Pippen.

                            Pippen canceled those dinner plans, like many of the NBA players on site, and the weekend was forever marred by Stern’s death. That weekend in Miami was the weekend Pippen decided it was time to end it with his wife: he wasn’t happy and neither was she, and life was — as Stern’s death reminded everyone — very short.

                            “We both wanted it to work and wanted to try to make it work,” said Pippen. “I don’t blame either of us for any of it … we were too young when we got married and we really weren’t ready. I didn’t know how to balance my career with my home life, and she wasn’t prepared to deal with everything that came with being an NBA player’s wife. We were best apart.”

                            The divorce was amicable, but hard on their child. It turned out to be harder on Pippen than he expected, questioning throughout the rest of the season whether he had made the right decision; basketball became a refuge, an escape, but it soon turned into a house of horrors during the Cleveland series.

                            The divorce was finalized the day before the series started and Pippen’s mind wasn’t right from that point on.

                            “I wasn’t really there,” admitted Pippen. “I shouldn’t have been starting, I shouldn’t have been playing probably … I just wasn’t into it.”

                            When the series ended and Michael Jordan lit into his teammates, Scottie Pippen became an enemy of the people in Chicago. Already feeling guilty over the series and the divorce, the press peppering him with questions about what Jordan said — and what it meant for him — was just too much.

                            Pippen went back to his house in Chicago, packed some things, told his agent he was going home (and to let no one know that if he wanted to remain employed), and left Chicago six hours after the end of the Bulls’ season. Like a thief in the night, Scottie Pippen had stolen away and was going off the grid to try and find some space for himself.

                            Pippen was going home, back to Arkansas, and there in his old stomping grounds, Pippen committed himself to doing two things: first, staying in basketball shape. Second, disconnecting from anything to do with the NBA — he wanted to be left alone. With those simple directives in mind, Pippen began a much-needed sabbatical.

                            His agent, Jarrod “J-Dog” Mitchell, handled the drama in Chicago. Scottie Pippen became unavailable for interviews, unavailable for team functions, unavailable for virtually everything. The outside world assumed Pippen was hiding in his luxurious Chicago home, unwilling to face the music — the truth was, Pippen was no where near Chicago and had no idea what was going on.

                            Mitchell kept it that way. “He wanted to get away from it all, so I made sure it happened,” said Mitchell. “He was pretty clear he was willing to fire me if I screwed this up — I was his third agent at this point and he was my biggest client. My only client, actually.”

                            Mitchell wasn’t a very successful agent at this juncture. A former point guard, Mitchell assumed he’d play in the NBA one day but wasn’t drafted. He spent a few years playing overseas before coming back to the USA to become an agent. Except, Mitchell had no real experience — he took a job in a firm and was barely making enough to support his limited existence in his limited studio apartment. It was all depressing and not like Mitchell had imagined it.

                            At least until a chance meeting with Pippen in March of 1990. At a local Chicago establishment, Mitchell spotted Pippen at a table and took a chance to make his pitch. His mixture of humor, charm, and style (Mitchell spent more money on his clothes and jewelery than anything else) swayed Pippen; Scottie had a new contract coming up and his current agent had gotten nowhere on a big deal, so Mitchell got the job.

                            The job soon entailed more than a new contract, especially after the Cleveland series and then the lockout. Mitchell realized Pippen needed someone to watch his back while he got himself right, so that’s what Mitchell did — he was the wall that kept everyone out, even himself.

                            “I promised him I wouldn’t take his time with BS. He told me the only time I was allowed to call him was if I got him a new deal,” said Mitchell. Mitchell held true to that when the lockout occurred, he held true to that when the trade rumors started, but he faltered when the trade was made official. This, Mitchell surmised, was too big a deal not to call about.

                            The day the trade went through, Mitchell called the number his client gave him and found, much to his surprise, that the number was disconnected.

                            “I gave him my parents old number,” Pippen admitted. “It was a test, to see whether he would really not call — I knew as soon as he called the number and found it disconnected, he’d fly out to Arkansas and find me. The fact that he didn’t make that call for over two months impressed the hell out of me.”

                            Mitchell knew none of this and wasn’t just surprised; he was scared *hitless. “I thought he had gone and offed himself,” Mitchell said. “I was beside myself, losing my *hit, freaking the *uck out. Even now it makes me anxious … he was my only client, my big ticket and I had let him fly away, into the night, in a poor state of mind. He could have been dead for weeks and I wouldn’t have been the wiser and if the story got out about how I let it happen … my life would have been *ucked in so many ways.”

                            July 12th, 1990, saw Jarrod Mitchell fly to Hamburg, Arkansas, and begin a frantic search for his one and only client. Scottie Pippen was not hard to find. Mitchell found his client practicing at his old high school gym, a hot and humid place that made anyone sweat buckets.

                            Pippen was surprised to see him, flashed a big smile, and welcomed him to Arkansas. Mitchell, relieved beyond words, could only hug his very sweaty, very tall client. When Mitchell finally released Pippen from the embrace, he relayed the news of the trade.

                            Scottie Pippen couldn’t believe it. When he had left Chicago, he knew Michael Jordan was angry — that much was clear to everyone — but in no universe did Pippen play that badly in the Cleveland series. He didn’t play well, but he wasn’t putting up goose-eggs on the scoreboard. During the season he and Jordan — after the team practice — spent time practicing against each other, going one-on-one.

                            “Iron sharpening iron,” Pippen recalled. “We had some intense battles, just the two of us — we didn’t let press in, we didn’t let our teammates sit there and watch, we were there to do the work. We made each other better.”

                            Now, all that was over. Jordan had lit into him with the press and instead of cooling off, Pippen knew that Jordan had signed off on this deal. The Bulls front office wouldn’t have made this deal unless Jordan signed off on it. The divorce with his wife earlier in the year had been amicable, but this … this wasn’t that.

                            Pippen was angry and felt betrayed.

                            “From that moment on, I had one goal,” said Pippen. “I’d have it till the end of my career. I’d carry it with me every time I picked up a basketball.”

                            Pippen, informed of the Rockets attempt to contact him, left his old high school gym, found a phone, and dialed up Nate Hale. The conversation was short, but the message delivered has become NBA lore.

                            “He called me,” said Hale, “and told me, ‘I’m going to win a title before *ucking Jordan and I’m going to make him a fool.’ Those were his exact words.”

                            Pippen was now a Houston Rocket and, more than that, he was motivated to be more than what Michael Jordan, Jerry Krause, or the city of Chicago thought of him. He was ready to step out on his own and embrace a role few in the NBA believed he was ready for it.

                            Exit Scottie Pippen, Michael Jordan sidekick.

                            Enter Scottie Pippen, star of the Houston Rockets.

                            Any comments are welcome.
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                            • studbucket
                              MVP
                              • Aug 2007
                              • 4588

                              #15
                              Re: Texas Two Step: An Alternate NBA History (NBA2K20)

                              Mitchell is a good agent, glad he kept Scottie's trust.

                              I love the format of this in a retrospective, telling stories like in a past news article format.
                              ?The Bulgarian Brothers - a story of two brothers (Oggy and Dinko) as they coach in the NCAA and the NBA.

                              ?Ask me about the Xbox Ally handheld - I'm on the team that made it.

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