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The Purest Jump Shot in Springfield

It was the early 80s, IBM had something called a PC, Chrysler had something called a minivan and McDonald’s had something called a McNugget. Do you remember where you were? What you were doing? Chances are Chris Mullin was in the gym and he most definitely had something called a jump shot. This weekend he followed the trajectory of that lethal leather into the NBA Basketball Hall of Fame.

This was a time when ESPN was still vying for a sliver of market share and Big East basketball was their meal ticket during the winter months. The sideline generals looked a little less Goldman Sachs and a little more basketball coach back then with the personalities to match. Louie Carnesecca (St. John’s) with the vintage sweater, Jim Boeheim (Syracuse) with the coke bottle glasses, Rollie Massimino (Villanova) sweating alfredo, and John Thompson (Georgetown) with the white towel stuck to his shoulder. Consider this, at the height of the Big East, three of the teams to make it to the 1985 final 4 hailed from the same conference. Even more impressive, during this time Chris Mullin (of St. John’s) was Big East Player of the year for three straight years and remains the only player in league history to achieve such a feat. Stardom had no chance of renting space in the blockhead of Mullin. The sycophants that provide the helium to athlete’s egos didn’t have the time or the key to gym that Mullin had growing up. An empty gym is where honesty breathes and as his talent grew the gym stood quiet, Mullin pounding away on the hardwood, his own personal xanadu. Furthermore, with three Irish American brothers the corned beef never would have made it to his plate had he forgot to check the pretension at the door.

The Golden State Warriors took notice of Mullin’s fabled run in college basketball and selected him in the 1985 draft.  Mullin grew up in Brooklyn on the other side of the country where everyone close to him was a bounce pass away. Phone calls home to his dad and his girl now 3,000 miles away just solidified the isolation. His oldest friend, the empty gym even offered a slice of malice as the veteran Warriors thought the rookie was showing up their practice habits by staying late. Soon his apartment was decorated with empty beer cans. Mullin’s hang time was falling victim to his hangovers. The nadir was reached when Warriors coach, Don Nelson, convinced him to take a leave of absence to attend rehab in Los Angeles. Mullin completed the program and supplanted his previous habit of boozing with a new one, exercising like a mad man. He started churning up swimming pools, running every morning before practice and then pounding Stairmasters into submission afterwards.

Jump shot by jump shot Mullin rebuilt his game replacing his cottonmouth with a cotton touch. He soon would be turning Western conference defenses into his own personal slinky. This allowed the genius of mad basketball scientist Don Nelson to shine through, complementing Mullin’s shooting prowess with the shake and bake invasion of Mitch Richmond and Tim Hardaway. The T and M of Run T-M-C feasted on these gaping holes with a deft midrange game and killer crossovers. This troika would prove to be the apogee of bay area basketball over the last 25 years. A reminder of this offensive bombardment aired on NBA TV last week. Game 2 of the 1991 playoff match up between the Warriors and Lakers took the viewer back to a young Warrior squad (including a lunging Tom Tolbert sporting a haircut any Pearl Jam roadie would applaud). The Lakers simply had no answer for Mullin who was a one man fire hazard on his way to 41 points and a 125 – 124 Warrior victory. Chick Hearn, the Lakers consummate commentator who spent the better part of his life watching NBA basketball was apropos as ever screaming after another Mullin scorched net, “The greatest outside shooting exhibition I’ve seen in years, maybe ever, maybe ever!”

The beauty of Chris Mullin’s game lies in the fluid repetition that ironically lulled defenders to sleep through tireless movement. With hands twice as quick as his feet and mind to balance the relentless offensive attack he always seemed two moves ahead. He recognized a defender on his heels before the rest of the arena knew it and by that time it was too late or as Randy Moss said, “straight cash homey.”  Mullin provided a different type of allure compared to most NBA stars. There is no denying the indelible impression Michael Jordan left on anyone who dribbled a basketball. There is a certain gravitational reality that takes hold at some point though when dunking on Patrick Ewing is not quite in the realm of possibility. Watch Mullin though and you see the fundamentals come alive, the craft becomes conspicuous and the true skill of the marksman unfolds.

In a racially unbalanced game it is the alabaster assassin that crosses over all boundaries, the flat top from Flatbush Avenue that everybody agrees with. Mullin’s dogged work ethic eviscerated body fat, burned through just about everything except that dripping wet homeboy New Yawk accent. It became endearing, the crew cut and auditors tan with the voice from a Spike Lee joint. The inflection didn’t match the mug; it was tougher than airline sirloin. To see Mully the man though look no further than his late teammate, the Senegalese stilt Manute Bol. Bol towered well over seven feet with a complexion darker than night and was first viewed as a sideshow. He later would go on to be one of the games greatest diplomats fighting civil war in his native land. Long before that occurred though he was a lost player in a foreign land and Chris Mullin was his first true friend. There in rests Mullin’s legacy; whether you are from the Bronx, the board room or the bush he treats you with respect and shows you how to view the bottle half full while it stares back at you empty.

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