THERE’S so much I’d forgotten I never knew about Earl Monroe, I’m sorry to admit.
By this time, you would expect I had him down fairly cold -considering I first caught Black Jesus’ supernatural act at Winston-Salem State in 1966 (Pistol Pete Maravich was playing another rather unrecognizable style of ball at a nearby Raleigh HS) when stationed downstate (Carolina On My Mind) at Fort Bragg. Above all, because we developed a friendship in 1973 (when I jumped leagues, switching from covering my beloved ABA Nets to the Knicks beat) that has remained faithfully untainted.
There has not been a single instance where I’ve reached out to Earl for assistance regarding a personal project or a charity that he hasn’t been there for me. Not once. Not ever.
A chill of fulfillment swept over me several days ago upon receiving an e-mail from Earl’s wife hoping I’d be in Washington last night for the retirement of Monroe’s No. 10 Baltimore Bullets jersey.
“You’re family,” Marita Green wrote.
With that in mind, you’d think I would’ve had an inkling why it took so long for his former franchise to pay the ultimate tribute to its most precious work of art. I never caught on that Abe Pollin, its original co-owner and still firmly in charge of the now Washington Wizards, carried a grudge these many years. “The wounds had to heal,” Earl replied to the first of many lame questions. “More or less, I forced them to trade me.”
Yeah, sure, I guess I knew that; why else would the Bullets assign the simonized services of their four-year-plus, 23-point scorer to the Knicks, their most combative conference rival, in exchange for Dave Stallworth, Mike Riordan and cash?
Still, I certainly had no idea how contentious things had gotten.
Let’s put it this way; when Stephon Marbury recently bolted the Knicks, a reporter called Monroe for a statement.
“I thought about it for a second, but knew I couldn’t comment,” Earl said, emitting his signature staggered snicker. “Because one time I didn’t travel with the team to a game. My agent [Larry Fleisher] told me to stay home and to stay away from the phone.”
That was the season after the Bullets out-gasped the Knicks in seven spectacular games in the ’71 conference finals, only to get rolled over by the Bucks in four straight.
The situation, an attempt to force the Bullets to pay Monroe substantially more than he was on their books for, got very ugly very quickly once Earl went AWOL. Pollin was gravely offended. Declarations of dishonor were issued. Everything said or insinuated was taken to heart. Fleisher demanded he be traded.
“It wasn’t so much I wanted to leave,” Earl said. “I loved playing for the team. I loved my teammates. I loved playing for Gene Shue, who allowed me to play my game and be myself, just like Big House [Gaines had done at Winston-Salem]. And I loved the city of Baltimore.”
Still, Monroe felt he’d been taken advantage of when he came out of school in ’67 as the NBA’s No. 2 pick overall, and signed a two-year contract for $20,000 per … without an agent.
“I didn’t even look at the numbers,” he said. “That’s how naive I was.”
To compound that exploitation, Shue took Monroe out for a drive one fine day during his second season and told him how happy everybody was with the way things were going. So happy that Pollin wanted to enter into a new three-year agreement at the completion of the old deal and raise him up to 25G, 30G and 35G.
By the time Monroe hired Fleisher, who doubled as attorney for the newly formed Players Association, he had one year left on his contract, and was fully prepared to sit it out a year unless the financial odds were significantly evened up. So he sat around and waited for the Bullets to come across. That’s when his weight ballooned to 210.
“I remember a team picture that appeared in Sports Illustrated that year. I tried to hide my
weight by crossing my arms over my stomach. That became my bumping weight, drive into my man, bump him hard and spin.”
Such unnatural swiveling and severe smash-ups (as well as years of playing on concrete) resulted in five hip replacements.
Once, the Bullets and Fleisher, who did all Monroe’s woofing for him, reached an impasse, the red, white and blue league, naturally, was all over Earl. It was felt the best chance of luring him over to the dark side was to link him up with the Pacers, the ABA’s poster team. Overpaying him was the key, however. Their offer was overly generous, 100G-per-year for three. But the decorations in the dressing room made him cringe.
“The players had guns above their small lockers,” Earl said, cackling. “It was my understanding the Klan was big in towns not that far from Indianapolis. I found the nearest pay phone and told Larry I didn’t think this was for me.”
Meanwhile, trade talk with the Knicks had gotten very serious. Team president Ned Irish recognized Monroe’s allure at the gate and made the deal over Red Holzman’s stiff objections, a fact I discovered only recently. Never in Holzman’s wildest imagination did he conceive Monroe’s unorthodox individuality would fit into his team concept.
But Red was wrong. Loud wrong! Monroe left Indy and stopped off in his hometown of Philadelphia to consult with Sonny Hill. Though the Knicks were offering far less than the Pacers, Monroe wanted to stay in the NBA and compete on a nightly basis against the best.
“Together we agreed that, sure, going to the Knicks would be a dramatic career change,” he said. “But I was a basketball player and figured I’d simply make whatever adjustments were necessary.”
Leaving his Bullets’ teammates was the hardest part for Monroe. Their playoff conflicts with the Knicks were legendary, one of most intense rivalries in league history. Each matchup was classic – Wes Unseld vs. Willis Reed, Gus Johnson vs. Dave DeBusschere, Jack Marin vs. Bill Bradley, Kevin Loughery/Fred Carter vs. Dick Barnett and Monroe vs. Walt Frazier.
“Finally beating the Knicks in ’71 was the defining moment for the Bullets’ franchise,” Earl accentuated. “In essence, that was our championship. The title series with the Bucks almost didn’t matter. Plus, we were banged up bad. But even if we were healthy, I think we might’ve only won one game.”
Monroe lucidly recalled for me what went on in the Bullets’ huddle prior to the last Knicks possession of Game 7. Shue said nothing to his players. He offered no defensive strategy. Nobody had any clue Bradley would be taking the final left-corner jumper, left short thanks to Unseld getting a slight piece of it.
“Gene just looked up toward heaven and said, ‘Please, God, let us win this game.'”