basketball, there’s an odd bit of symmetry here. It was 30 years ago that the New York Knickerbockers won its last championship with, among others, Dave, Jerry Lucas, Walt “Clyde” Frazier, Earl “the Pearl” Monroe, Bill Bradley (later to be Senator Bill), and a young Phil Jackson sitting out with injuries. That last championship season saw the Knicks start hot with a 43-13 won/loss record and then cool off to finish 57-25. In the playoffs, the team beat Baltimore, the hated Boston Celtics, and then finally the Los Angeles Lakers in five games, winning the final game 102-93. It was a very satisfying season for me, my dad, and my younger brother, all of whom would dutifully assemble down in the basement whenever the Knicks were on television in order to cheer and moan at the team’s every rise and fall.

DeBusschere was regarded as one of the greatest defensive players of his time. Many people think his finest personal performance came in an exhibition game when he went toe-to-toe with a very much in his prime Dr. J., Julius Irving, the high priest of flying and dunking before Michael Jordan had made his first high school team. As the legendary