WSJ: Juwan Howard trying to break Fab Five "curse"
Darren Everson has a WSJ article about Juwan Howard trying to win an NBA championship with the Miami Heat and thus break what the writer calls the Fab Five "curse":
It remains one of the great curses in sports.
Despite being the most celebrated group of recruits in college-basketball history, Michigan's Fab Five—Juwan Howard, Ray Jackson, Jimmy King, Jalen Rose and Chris Webber—have never won a significant title.
The five, which arrived in Ann Arbor in 1991, came agonizingly close in college, making the NCAA final twice in consecutive years and coming within an overtime of the 1994 Big Ten crown. One of them, Webber, narrowly missed being selected to an Olympic team that won the gold at Sydney. In the NBA, despite playing for 46 collective seasons and earning hundreds of millions in salary, they haven't won a single ring.
Howard and Jalen Rose offered different takes on criticism of the Fab Five for their lack of titles:
"The criticism hasn't annoyed me at all," said Howard, a 6-foot-9-inch forward. "They're right. We haven't won before."
Rose, the most outspoken of the Fab Five, is a little less diplomatic. "People who use that as a knock are idiots," he said, launching into an argument full of history. "Franchises win titles, not individuals. The Celtics have 17 titles. The Lakers have 16, and the Bulls have six. There have only been 64, and that right there puts you at almost 40. I guarantee you that if one of us played with Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe [Bryant], Michael Jordan, I think we would've found a way to get a title."
Perhaps the most interesting part of the article was the economic slant one would expect from the WSJ:
Where the Fab Five did excel is at staying healthy and productive, which enabled them to earn astronomical sums. The four Fab Fivers who reached the NBA made a combined $431 million in salary, based on estimates and news reports—$526 million when adjusted for inflation. That's roughly equivalent to the estimated value of the Swedish auto maker Saab.
Article also says that Howard "plans to come back next season regardless of whether Miami wins it all. 'I'm not leaving until they rip the jersey off me.'"
Weird side note: Eric Riley, their old backup, won a ring with the Houston Rockets.
Rudy T! A very wolverine title!
I don't want even a tiny reason to hope that the Heat win a title. Love me some Juwan, but not going to hope he wins. If they happen to get it, I can at least be pleased for Juwan.
I suppose Juwan winning would be a good hedge against me shorting the Heat? Ok, that may have been a reach...
The multiple state titles that Christopher and J rose each won?
While a state title is a significant accomplishment to people in that state, I'm gonna go ahead and assume when the Wall Street Journal is talking about "significant" they mean national or world titles.
"It remains one of the great curses in sports."
That, my friends, is downright hyperbolic.
Aside: I wonder if any basketball recruiting class has earned more than $431M? It would be interesting to look at HS teams, too (with at least two NBA players). The '90 Detroit Southwestern team:
* Rose: $102.4M
* Lenard: $25.6M (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/lenarvo01.html)
* Eisley: $37.2M (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/e/eisleho01.html)
Total: $165.2M
I'm not sure that hyperbolic is the right word, but I do think the WSJ author, in calling this a curse, misses the crucial aspect of the best sports curses--that the "cursed" party did something to bring on the curse. The most famous example is of course the Boston Red Sox selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees and subsequently failing to win the World Series for decades. There's also the Chicago Cubs' curse of the billy goat and Bobby Layne's curse on the Detroit Lions.
With the Fab Five, the obvious angle is that Webber's involvement with Ed Martin brought on the curse. Any other "reasons" anyone can think of?
Maybe something about how they hated "America's Team" (Duke). But then again, the Dukies haven't won many NBA titles, either.
I mean, to play basketball for a living until you are 35 and can retire a millionaire, granted a hobbled broken down millionaire, but a millionaire nonetheless. Take that fab 5, us working joes and sports journalists get to work a full 50 years behind a desk and would be lucky to make one year of your earnings in our lifetime. So enjoy your curse, fab 5 and about 90 percent of professional basketball players ever.
LOL @ calling it a curse. People love to make things sound so much more interesting/important than it really is.
And as most others here have said... I will never root for the Heat, but if they do win, good for Juwan.
Fuck Ohio
The entire article sounds like one big Saab story.
Foreign automobiles do love to tell big tales.
I didn't realize that Juwan is the 4th oldest player in the league. Damn. He and I were colleagues at Michigan. I feel old!
"Franchises win titles, not individuals"
So what you (and Rose) are saying is, "The Team, The Team, The Team?"
But doesn't Rose contradict his emphasis on franchise over individual when he later says "I guarantee you that if one of us played with Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe [Bryant], Michael Jordan, I think we would've found a way to get a title"? Because that seems to imply that certain individuals--not certain franchises--have been key to winning NBA championships--and it happens that none of those key individuals were Fab Fivers.