The Day The Roundball Died With apologies to Don McLean--the songwriter, not the journeyman forward--we lament a long-lost NBA

A long, long time ago, I can still remember how the NBA would
make me smile/When everyone from Larry Nance/To Muggsy Bogues
wore tiny pants/And pulled their socks up Michael Cooper-style.

But now these guys are choking coaches/Skipping practice, smoking
roaches/While swaddled in Versace/Bejeweled like Liberace.

I can't remember if I spewed/When Rodman first posed in the
nude/But now that everyone's tattooed/The league, we fear, is
screwed/So....

CHORUS

Bye bye Magic, Larry and Mike/See ya later, Granville Waiters,
Dyan Cannon and Spike/And somewhere Grateful Red is riding his
bike/Singing, "Let me tell you what it was like/This is what our
heyday was like":

Did you wear a pair of Cons?/And do you have faith in
leprechauns?/If Dick Stockton tells you so.

And do you believe in Garden ghosts/The Father, Son and Johnny
Most/And Kevin taught me how to play the post.

Well I know that you hate Bill Laimbeer/'Cause when Parish
punched him in the ear/We both got up to dance/And dig my
parachute pants.

I was a lonely '80s teenage nerd/With a pink retainer and a
thing for Bird/But my adolescent heart murmured/Bestirred, by
Celtic Pride/But now I'm singin'...

(CHORUS)

For 10 years now an MVP's/Been better known for HIV/But that's
not how it used to be.

When Magic no-looked to Kareem/With a coach who was three parts
Brylcreem/And the Joker on the sideline, eyes agleam.

At halftime there was Miss Abdul/Arsenio began to drool/But the
Forum was adjourned/Before I got Chick Hearned.

And while Magic and his best friend, Zeke/Kissed each other on
the cheek/Larry abused Dominique/But 'Nique, the freak, could
sky/And now he's singin'...

(CHORUS)

Cinderella in a glass slipper/(Kids, she's not a Gold Club
stripper)/She's what Jordan used to be.

As Bird began to molt his feathers/Mike alit in patent
leathers/And became the favorite son of you and me.

Joining Mike: a gold-haired nudist/Luv-a-Bulls, a coaching
Buddhist/The offense was newfangled/Everything triangled.

And while Jackson read a book on Tao/Jordan studied Charlie
Lau/But returned to take his final bows/And now, we're bored
(and how)/And so we're singin'...

(CHORUS)

The players now who make the news/Are pressing SNOOZE, or baiting
Jews/And LJ said, We're all high-priced slaves....

And though Shaq be nimble, Shaq be quick/Each Shaq foul shot's a
red house brick/And Calvin Murphy's looking very grave....

And as they watched him getting T'd/The crowd was baffled by
Rasheed/And everywhere was bling-bling/And more tattoos than Sing
Sing.

When Bird was sidelined by his back/He sacro-ficed his iliac/So
Kobe could one day dis Shaq/Alack, the game has died. And so
we're singin'...

(CHORUS)

I met a man without a vowel/And asked him if he'd wave his
towel/But M.L. smiled and turned away....

I went down to the parquet floor/Where I'd heard the music
years before/But the man there said the music wouldn't play....

And in the streets the children wept/And J.R. Rider
overslept/But here no sound was uttered/The churchyard, it was
shuttered.

And the three men who were there interred/Magic, Mike and Larry
Bird/They didn't have to say a word/But heard, I'm sure, my sigh.
I started singin'...

Bye bye Magic, Larry and Mike/See ya later Granville Waiters,
Dyan Cannon and Spike/And somewhere Grateful Red is riding his
bike/Singin', "Let me tell you what it was like.... "

COLOR ILLUSTRATION: DAN PICASSO