Who was your Bill Laimbeer?
Coinstartled
Posts: 10,135 ✭✭✭✭✭
in Sports Talk
The player that you loved because he was on your team....but you would have despised him on any other.
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For me, that would be Claude Lemieux of the Colorado Avalanche.
Steve
Probably Dennis Rodman.
Albert Belle
Mine was Lyle Alzado. I didn't like him when he was with Denver. Loved him with the Browns. Then hated him with the Raiders.
Mine was Laimbeer. Hated him on Notre Dame and Cleveland. Loved him as a Piston
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Derian Hatcher
The picture isn't Hatcher, it's the sniveling Jeremy Roenick searching the ice for the missing pieces of his jaw that Hatcher just rearranged as a subtle reminder that you don't blindside Mike Modano.
As a Laker's fan in the 80's I hate Lambier that I can say! I can't think of anybody on the Lakers that was really disliked by other teams. Rambis? As a King's fan the last (long) 20 years we have had a few scrappers (like Matt Barnes) but nobody of Bill Lambier's caliber as a player.
Not many Lambier's out there anywhere. That Pistons team was the dirtiest team of all time. They had a 30/30 show on them a while back that went into just how dirty they were. They were so consumed in getting by the Bulls (best NBA team ever) that they had special plays to try and hurt or slow down Jordan the best NBA player ever!
The best part of the Bad Boys run was listening to Bulls fans whine about how physical I mean dirty the Pistons where. Makes me smile.
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
The Piston were more than dirty. You know what makes me smile.......The 6 Bulls' Championship's out of 8 years. They would have won the 2 in the middle if Jordan hadn't left thinking he could play Baseball!
That's what makes me smile,
The Pistons were awesome to watch. No easy baskets. It took awhile for the Bulls to figure a way to beat Detroit but once they did......
So you are a Yankees, Cowboys and Bulls fan? Never met one of those before. What do you call that?
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
You call that the Hat Trick. I have always liked the Yankees, but the Big Red Machine of the 70's was probably my favorite team.
I have been watching the Bulls/Celtics games and surprised to see the #8 seed pounding the #1 seed at home. The Bulls haven't been worth crap since their last championship and the whole team left.
You want me to fix this for you? Hang on , Let me remove my rose colored glasses
Imagine winning 8 in a row , if only he showed enough self control not to gamble like an idiot when he was already a multimillionaire and there was absolutely no reason to do so.
First I have heard about Jordan being forced out. Not saying you are wrong...will have to look into that. What I remember is he thought he could play Baseball. Those Bulls were the best team in history to most.
I heard the same about Jordan being forced out. That 30 for 30 on the Bad Boys was/is one of my favorites. I hated Lambier even more after watching it.
As for my Lambier it is rather recent. It is Favre. So pissed when he went to the Vikings. Took me until his enshrinement to get over it.
I hated to see Farve leave GB also.
Rumors have been circulating for many years about MJ being "quietly" suspended for gambling, and that he was conveniently allowed to term it in his favor, as a desire to do something different and try baseball.
I don't know if it's true or not, and frankly don't care in the least, but the rumors have been around for well over 10 years.
Steve
Makes you wonder what goes thru these guys minds. Making all those millions and doing stupid stuff that could take it all away.
Rumors that the NBA secretly forced out the leagues most valuable player??
And the same brigands would not possibly rig the games so that home teams won by a 60-40% margin?
Oh Boy! Here we go.....rigged games! YADA YADA YADA YADA......................................
Better than debating whether Tony Romo or Babe Ruth had the better arm.
if you want to know what Bill Laimbeer was really like, listen to Larry Bird at the 18:22 mark here:
https://youtu.be/USd3YagNFXY
https://youtu.be/o8qhDXUD2Xc
Laimbeer was a good player, no doubt about it, a four-time all-star who got two ring. He also was slime, a truly bad person who deliberately tried to get people hurt. He figured a handful of dirty tricks that hurt other players and took them not just out of games, but sometimes multiple games. As Bird notes in the clip again, 18:22 mark) , Laimbeer had trick of sliding his foot directly on the spot where an elevated opponemt's foot would land when he came back to earth. This resulted in a lot of badly twisted, sprained ankle, that took guys out of games and sometimes ruined their seasons. He'd look down at them writhing on the floor and laugh at them.
A good pro can play as rough as he wants, but there are certain lines you don't cross. You can grab, push and elbow, but when you do that sissy trick of trying to wreck a guy's ankle and take him out of the game, you're hurting his caree. You're hurting his ability to provide for his family. Some things you just don't do, like cut the legs out from under a player going in for a layup, flipping him so he lands on his head--that's a no-no, Laimbeer did them all and then some. He didn't care. He did t respect the game or its players. He was a noted poor loser and one of the guys who walked off the court to the dressing room when it was clear Jordan's Bulls were going to beat them. He's basically everything you don't want your son to be as a player, except he's a winner--especially when he's surrounded by a bunch of all-stars and hall-of-famers
Bird dislikes Laimbeer personally to this day over what he tried to do to Bird's ankles and Robert Parrish's. Laimbeer' tactics were perfect for a city like Detroit. Overwhelmed by crime, lawlessness in the streets, crumbling infrastructure and corruption in every corner of local politics--that was Detroit. Laimbeer was a reflection of the city--hatred, crime, dirt and filth, desperqte, lawless, the bleak side of America. The Piston fans sanctioned that BS, even as record numbers of them were being beaten and robbed in the streets, drugs sold to their children, you name it. It's gotten even worse in recent years; the mayor was threatening to turn off the water in homes with small children.
Whenever you think of Detroit as a post-apocalyptic banana republic, think of Bill Laimbeer. No player in NBA history better reflected the values of a city more.
Larry Bird talked smack, played rough, found every edge he could. Laimbeer was not in Bird's class and really was a second-tier goon.
There are many other evidences of Laimbeer cheap-shooting opponents, here:
Would I want him on my team? Not if I could help it, though, Like I say, he was an excellent player, maybe third best on his team behind Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars and Rodman.
Brilliant observations, gyocomgd! Thank you for posting.
I agree with the Detroit lunch pail blue collar attitude. I agree that Detroit has a chip on its shoulder. The rest I call BS. Fact is the Pistons didn't play in Detroit during the Bad Boy Era. They played 45 minutes away in a opulent arena in the middle of a upper middle class surburb. That's not the city of Detroit. The Detroit suburbs of Birmingham, West Bloomfield, Rochester, Troy and Bloomfield Hills are some of the nicest in the US. Fans attending the games were mostly white collar and well......white upper middle class. The crowds reflected the two generations that fled Detroit after the 67 riots.
Have either of you been to Detroit the last 4 or 5 years? You would hardly recognize it. I thought I would never live to see the turnaround but turning around it is.
BTW Bird, Parrish, McHale, DJ and Ainge could give it as well as they took it. No choir boys there. The Pistons- Celtic games of that era were classic. Must see TV.
I don't get back often but this was shot in the heart of DT Detroit last June
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Show us the images from 5 miles outside of the heart of Detroit (not including Windsor). Other than converting burned and torn down rubble into farms, what is remaining? I was last in Detroit in 2003. Would love to hear of a rebirth from beyond where the Ilitch family is sucking in taxpayer dollars or Dan Gilbert is expanding (likely on the taxpayer dole as well.)
Glick come on you can cherry pick with every city. I'm in NYC right now. I'm staying in Tribeca. I can show you abject proverty and 20 million dollar Apt's two blocks away from each other. I live in LA and work in Mexico City. I can do the same either place. Ghetto to Penthouse. All cities have them. As you know they shoot a lot of movies in Detroit. You can easily shoot an apoplectic Transformer's or Batman movie or a 1800's French period piece.
The improvement in Detroit has been remarkable. Normally they only show the blight. I'm mixing it up a bit. I apologize that it doesn't fit your narrative. There are less crappy areas then there use to be. You know that Detroit is HUGE geographically. Some places still need to be leveled.
I'm buying in DT Detroit. My son wants to live there. Prices are up 40% from the bottom ( no Im not talking the 5k foreclosures) but like that it's off the bottom. You know how insanely rich Detroit is in French history and architeture. The Renaissance City. The Paris of the West. There are great buildings that Gilbert saved from demolition and decay that are still available to be be developed. I like some of the loft possibilities. Whole floors for 250K. Tremendous space. Plus there is a legitimate night life now. Young people, entrepreneurs. artists have moved from all over the world as they could afford to move to Detroit and plant roots. It reminds me of Berlin. Same thing happened there . Young people that couldn't afford to live in Copenhagen, London or Paris flocked there as it was dirt cheap. Berlin is a great place to visit now.
You can take the boy out of Detroit but you can't take the Detroit out of the boy. Heck you know that.
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
"""The improvement in Detroit has been remarkable. Normally they only show the blight. I'm mixing it up a bit. I apologize that it doesn't fit your narrative. There are less crappy areas then there use to be. You know that Detroit is HUGE geographically. Some places still need to be leveled."""
In 1968 I went on a school field trip to the City County building as well as a tour of NBD (you know what that is JCM. We sat in on a city council meeting and the members were trying to alot limited dollars to raze homes destroyed in the 1967 riot.
Fifty years ago and the city faces the same problem. As JCM knows and has sort of mentioned, is that Detroit's population equates to only about 20% of the population of the metro Detroit tri county area.
My family left the city limits in 1959. I did work in Detroit and in 1983 considered moving to a new downtown high rise on the river. There was virtually no shopping in the area beyond bars and restaurants. Malls, chain supermarkets and drug stores were virtually absent and required a drive of several miles. Deal killer was the 3% city income tax. When I tacked that on to the monthly rent, I couldn't justify the move.
I truly wish the place well.
A few things:
1) The Palace wasn't in the middle of a suburb when it was built. It was actually on the outskirts, kinda all by itself next to a highway/main road. The area grew up around it.
2) Yes, the Pistons walked out. However, it was in direct response to the comments and namecalling done on national TV on a talk show in the days before the end of the series.
3) Yes, the Pistons walked out and it was a bad look. One I absolutely do not condone. However...the Celtics did the exact same thing to the Pistons previously.
Rodney Harrison.
when he was on the Patriots. Hated him with San Diego.
Pistons were always meant to be a Detroit team, not a team in the outskirts.
Saw them at Cobo a few times and that seemed ideal. Pontiac Silverdome was a bad fit. Palace was nice but a poor match. The energy seemed absent.
I completely agree with all of that. Never saw the Pistons at Cobo but saw them multiple times at the Silverdome. Didn't matter how many people they'd draw, it was so big there was no atmosphere. Never got to a game at the Palace.
Although I hate the way the funding was done, I think the Pistons moving into Little Caesar's is a great move for the team.
Ron Artest/Metta World Peace. Prior to his oddest behavior here in town with the Lakers, he was quite easily disliked for his reputation and misdeeds. Somehow, he managed to find his way into the hearts and minds of local fans. He is the last lingering memory of a great Lakers moment on the basketball court when they won their most recent title over Boston. Many fans will recall his 3-pointer near the conclusion of Game 7 being the dagger on a night when Kobe was shooting poorly. Metta had a good performance in what was probably his final home appearance at Staples Center this season. Few players in the history of the NBA have or could stir up such a range of emotions.