MTL - The Rest, Only Noise-Chapter 5 watchdog

Louie's basketball complex began in childhood, in the late '60s, when no one in Cleveland knew they were about to have an NBA team.

And long before the NBA team settled in Cleveland, the Cincinnati Royals played four home games in Cleveland (1), and the fares were $5, $4 and $3. The reason why he remembered it so clearly was that his father took him to the scene to watch these four games.

He has reason to believe that his father bought the $5 seat—though he may have gotten the free ticket from his boss, who is also a good friend. Because it has the player's autograph on it.

In 1968, a not very wealthy Cleveland businessman, Nick Milletti, got his chance. Initially, he wanted a piece of the NHL's expansion. But the NFL franchise fee was $6 million, which was way beyond his budget, so he chose the NBA he preferred.

Another thing came to the fore when Milletti spoke to the NBA about Cleveland. This is a war between the NBA and the ABA. The NBA hastily pushed things around for league expansion just to keep the ABA out of some cities. Cleveland is one of them. On January 20, 1970, the NBA announced that it would expand from 14 teams to 17 teams. think about it. Why add three teams? Who wants a league with an odd number of teams? This will create difficulties in scheduling the matches.

But the NBA is concerned about the ABA's expansion into heavy industry cities like Cleveland, Buffalo and Portland. Therefore, the NBA grants franchise rights to these cities.

In 1970, Portland didn't have a major league team. Buffalo is rich and has added a team of their own to the expansion of the National Hockey League, the Buffalo Sabres. At the time, Cleveland was the only true "sports city", and they already had Indiana (MLB) and Browns (NFL). The NBA hopes to expand into these cities ahead of the ABA.

Milletti raised $5 million in capital with less than $2 million in original funding and brought professional basketball to Cleveland.

Louie remembers the Cavaliers soliciting names from fans through newspapers before the Cavaliers' first-year season. Among them, "Lighthouse", "Forest", "President" and "Cavaliers" received the most support, while the Cavaliers ranked fourth. In the end, they chose the knights.

It is a pity that the first five seasons after the Cavaliers entered the NBA ended in dismal season, with a maximum of 40 wins. No results, naturally no one pays attention.

In the 1975-76 season, the team moved its home stadium to the Richfield Stadium, which was built at a great cost.

A magical thing happened. They won 49 games in the regular season, successfully entered the playoffs, and eliminated their rival Washington Bullets in the first round of the playoffs. You know, the Bullets have Wes Unseld and Evan Hayes two superstars. The Cavaliers did not have a star player in the entire team. They won because they had a large number of people, and they were all soldiers. A total of seven people scored in double figures.

Their magical journey in the new arena is romantically known as the "Miracle of Richfield".

But in the Eastern Conference finals, they faced the Boston Celtics, a veteran team in the Eastern Conference. In the battle of Tianwang Mountain, the team's leading scorer was damaged and the only center who could compete with Cowens was Jim Jones. (JimChonesC), lost in Game 6 to end this amazing season.

Before LeBron James single-handedly took a non-final team to the Finals in 2007, the year was widely regarded by Cavaliers fans as the greatest year in franchise history.

It was this year that an unbreakable knighthood was formed in Louis' heart. At the time, shortly after his father died in a car accident, the Cavaliers' magnificent season saved his broken heart.

However, in the coming year, the NBA merged with the ABA, and a lot of fresh blood poured into the league, changing the map of the NBA. In the 1976-77 season, although the Cavaliers made the playoffs again, they were eliminated in the first round.

In 1977-78, this year, they repeated the same process.

Many old Cavaliers fans don't admit it, but the facts speak louder than words. The 1976 NBA was one of the least competitive years in history. In 1977, the ABA was merged into the NBA, which suddenly added at least 30 competitive players to the league, including a number of superstars led by Dr. J. The number of teams increased from 18 to 22.

The Suns, who also reached the Finals in the 1975-76 season and played endlessly with the Celtics, had only 34 wins in the 1976-77 season while retaining all of their elite players and without major injuries.

Times have really changed.

The merger of the league and the Oscar Robinson case brought about the groundbreaking effect of the embryonic form of the modern NBA, but for the first few years, they remained in the dark cellar, and could be crushed at any time.

Scouting interviews for the Cavaliers take place at the Cleveland Coliseum.

Even though the interviews were for secondary scouts, the procedures were a lot.

The first thing to do is to go through a round of body searches, making it seem as if terrorists will target the Cavaliers' coaching staff;

Then submit your resume.

However, Louie's resume is not good, because he is only a college student. Although he has participated in the school team, he has not achieved any achievements. He is 18 years old and legally can't drink alcohol. Although the 1970s was an era without rules, an 18-year-old The 12-year-old's great vacation didn't have fun and came here to apply for a professional scout—if Louie was the censor, he'd also suspect he was messing around.

"If I'm not mistaken, you're still in school, kid?" The censor was a middle-aged white man with stereotyped prejudice and arrogance written all over his face.

"I'm ready to put my studies on hold for this job," Louie said.

"Stop making trouble, go home." He didn't even look at Louie's resume, which he spent hours writing.

"It won't take long for you to understand that holidays are hard to come by. This is a rare opportunity in your life. You should do something young people should do."

He had already considered in advance that he would be despised because of his age, but when the situation really happened, Louis's own dissatisfaction still replaced his will and appeared on his face.

"I wrote a resume, and you didn't even read it. I also prepared a detailed scouting report and hoped to show it to Coach Bill Fitch." Louie took out a copy of the scouting report, "Today there are many Scouts come in for interviews, we all want a chance, and I don't see an age limit for the job in your recruiting ad."

Besides those unemployed youths who have no hope of working in professional basketball and do not want to leave the sport completely, what other 18-year-old kid has an idea for this job?

The censors lost patience, and their prejudice against Asians surfaced on their faces: "Don't quibble with me in the tone of an oriental guy, it doesn't make sense, I don't know what your purpose is, but my job is to prevent the wrong people from wasting Coach Fitch time."

Louis thought he had a good plan, but he failed before the first step was implemented.

He thought he would fail due to a lax scouting program, no celebrity testimonials, and of course his young age—but he didn't expect that what was preventing him from breaking into professional basketball was a so-called censorship that probably didn't understand the game at all By.

"If you don't leave, I may have to ask the security to ask you out." The censors were running out of patience.

Louie could only put away his scouting report, which was completely useless, and turned to leave.

Suddenly, he stopped and asked, "What's your name yet?"

"Dick Nordy."

"As his name suggests." Louis sneered bitterly, "You are such a short-sighted jerk."

(1) At that time, except for the Lakers, a team that has been headed by local tyrants since ancient times, most teams did not have a stable home court. Therefore, it is often necessary to use the neutral ground as the home court.