I just finished reading former all-star, general manager, and team president Wayne Embry's autobiography The Inside Game. This is a book no one I know has ever mentioned. It got very little press. It wasn't published by Random House, or Simon and Schuster, but as part of an Ohio History and Culture series by the University of Akron Press. At the moment of this writing, it is Amazon's 673,754th best-selling book.
For some reason, it didn't knock anyone's socks off. One marketing flaw: it's packaged as a dissertation on "Race, Power, and Politics in the NBA," but in fact it is a straight autobiography that only occasionally touches on those topics. It creates a mismatched audience right out of the gate.
Whatever flaws it may have, however, I found it to be one of the best NBA biographies I have ever read. Wayne Embry establishes so much credibility throughout the book--he's obviously a straight-shooter--that it makes his tidbits of gossip extremely easy to believe.
For instance:
When Embry was playing for Bill Russell's Celtics, a team employee gave him some prescription amphetamines. Unsure what he had taken, Embry first fought Wilt Chamberlain, then after the game felt like fighting the entire bar. Then he couldn't sleep all night. He reports that he didn't take them again. (page 154)
On January 18, 1973 seven people (five of them children) were killed in a house in D.C. that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar owned. Embry, who ran Abdul-Jabbar's Bucks at the time, says it is thought that the "Black Muslims" a rival to Abdul-Jabbar's Hanafi Madhab sect were targeting Kareem. He skipped the All-Star game that year and traveled with heavy security. That might go a long way to explaining whe he has never seemed as open and happy as a lot of other players. (page 201)
You Seattle fans might be interested to read about Embry's hiring Rick Sund as a whipper-snapper out of college. (page 221)
Don Nelson and Wayne Embry have had some serious bad blood between them. After he retired as a player in the 1970s, Nelson tried for a while to get a job as a referee. But that didn't go well, and he appealed to his old Celtic teammate Embry, who got him a job as an assistant coach. The way Embry tells it, Nelson ended up being instrumental in getting Embry fired from Milwaukee. (pages 254, 276, and others)
When Embry was in Cleveland, some of the beat reporters routinely scrimmaged on the Cav's court for fun. Embry's take: "Burt Graeff, Terry Pluto, JoJo Menzer, Bob Dolgan, and Bill Livingston... not one of them had a decent jump shot. Dolgan still shot free throws underhanded. It was quite a crew." (page 302)
It is the ultimate of ironies that Danny Ferry is running the Cavs now. Embry makes clear that the biggest basketball mistake he made in Cleveland was to ship Ron Harper to the Clippers for Ferry. Before the trade, the Cavaliers felt they were the pride of the East. Afterwards, they never really threatened again. Interestingly, the trade was made, reports Embry, exclusively because of concerns about drugs--at the time of the trade, at least one of Ron Harper's friends was being investigated for drug trafficking. (pages 313-315)
Mike Fratello is insane about his appearance, to the point that he travels with a steamer and an iron, and involves his assistant coaches in selecting his ties. He is rumored to have once requested a police escort to get the shoes he left behind before a game.(pages 366,367)
"I asked [agent Tony Dutt] if Shawn was using drugs. He confirmed there were problems annd pleaded for my assistance..." (page 407) That's long before Portland's Bob Whitsitt traded Brian Grant for Shawn Kemp.
After the 1999 lockout, Kemp reported to the Cavaliers at 315 pounds. He had a clause in his contract that if he weighed more than 275 they could fine him $150,000, but they didn't invoke it that year. They did, however, the following season. (page 413)
There's interesting insight on page 425. Embry basically says that David Stern doesn't understand what it takes to win in basketball, and has set up marketing techniques that emphasize stars and kill teamwork. He also talks about when he was on the committee that recommended allowing zone defenses in the NBA, and is frank that part of the reason he was for it was to give white jump-shooters a place in the league, to keep the rosters diverse.
There's a great anecdote whereby a young Cav's junior executive named Warren Thaler forwarded an article to Embry. At that point, relations between Embry and ownership were tense. The article was about Red Auerbach, and evidently Embry was supposed to learn from the master. "You should know," replied Embry, "I played for Red Auerbach." All Thaler could say was "oh." (page 415)