By:  Michael D. McClellan | The dream starts here, in the gang-infested, drug-ravaged projects of New York’s South Bronx, a place where bullets fly and dreams die in near synchronous rhythm, a concert of violence that plays on a continuous loop next door, down the street, all around.  Murder in the 4-0 – New York’s 40th […]

By:  Michael D. McClellan | Mark Acres played two nondescript seasons for the Boston Celtics, his contributions to the team accelerated by the injury-plagued retirement of backup center Bill Walton, but he remains a cult favorite among the hardcore Celtic fans of the day. To them, Acres represented hope – hope that the team had finally […]

By:  Michael D. McClellan | There is an old saying in basketball, its originator lost to the ages, but one suspects it came moments after the legendary Wilt Chamberlain first walked on a basketball floor for Overbrook High in Philadelphia as a 7-foot freshman. “You can’t coach size,” the saying goes, and it has yet to be […]

By: Michael D. McClellan | He played for the Boston Celtics during a period of nervous change, joining the club just as the Big Three was beginning to break down, its parts worn from too many minutes and too little rest, the post-Bias funk settling in like a fog, thick, heavy and unrelenting.  He played valiantly […]

By: Michael D. McClellan | He is equal parts Kentucky royalty and NBA rank-and-file, a former blue collar big man who played for two of the most storied basketball traditions the game has ever known. How many players can say they’ve won a national championship playing for the Kentucky Wildcats, and then gone on to win an […]

By:  Michael D. McClellan | He was like any other Indiana schoolboy of the day, raised on stories of Bobby Plump, John Wooden, and Oscar Robertson, his free time spent with a basketball in his hands, dreaming of his own chance at basketball stardom.  He was never big nor particularly fast, but he made up for […]