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17
Brunching With Legends
Posted February 17th ago via True Hoop
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Just got back from the NBA Legends Brunch. It was a massive hall at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center filled with very tall men with nice suits and bad knees.

Those who spoke included David Stern, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Rick Barry, Branford Marsalis, Teresa Weatherspoon, Julius Erving, the family of Pete Maravich, Chris Paul, Gail Goodrich, Karl Malone, Willis Reed, Bill Russell, Earl Monroe, and Len Elmore.

Some highlights:

  • Former ABA 13th round pick, and Houston Rocket, Eugene "Goo" Kennedy is a titan of foster parenting, and he and his wife Mary are opening an emergency placement center for children in foster care. He received what certainly seems to be a well-deserved humanitarian award today.
  • Teresa Weatherspoon is Allen Iverson-esque in the electricity she brings to anything she does. She is one of those people you want to watch play basketball, speak, or do whatever. She received a career achievement award, and did you know that she coaches the men of the ABA's Westchester Phantoms on a team owned and operated by Elton Brand's family?
  • Bill Russell spoke of "looking around and realizing we are the old people now." He also told an amazing little story about George Mikan, who befriended Russell when Mikan was a professional in an all-white league, and Russell was the local school kid from the projects. At that time it was assumed Russell's skin color would keep him from the NBA. "When you finish college, I want you to play for the Lakers," Russell remembers Mikan telling him. "No one had ever said anything like that to me before. The league and the teams didn't look for players in the projects."
  • Russell then read a list of the NBA figures who had died in the last year. Most of the...

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