Rich Cohen’s new book explains everything you need to know about the 1987-88 NBA season.
As I age, I find myself less and less taken up by the spectacle of pro sports, even the ups and downs of my beloved Chicago teams. This has worried me. It seemed like a sign of creeping senility — and I’m only 55. For most of my life, playing and watching sports provided unparalleled joy.
So what happened? So what’s different now? I have come to realize it’s not me. (If you know me, you know I never take the blame.) I’ve decided it’s the way sports are currently covered and consumed. Everything is highlights: highlight networks, highlight shows, highlight reels, TikTok highlights, YouTube highlights, one-handed grabs, diving catches, amazing saves, slam dunks and three-pointers that race through my frontal lobe as I try to sleep. And that’s the problem. Inflation. Same as with money. The more dollars you print, the less each dollar is worth. The more highlights you montage, the less impact each highlight will have.
In the end, a jump shot, even a beautiful fadeaway jumper, seen in isolation, looks not all that different than a million other jump shots. Context — that’s what gives it power. The fact that it came after 44 grueling, punishing, in-the-trenches minutes — a sunbeam on an overcast day. Michael Jordan hitting that decisive shot in the 1989 playoffs against the Cleveland Cavaliers screens forever in my brain, caught in a phosphorescent flash. It was not the shot itself that made the memory stick, but the catharsis of the moment. The storm broke, and the rain came, and the wind blew cool from the west.
This realization inspired my new book, When the Game Was War, in which I argue that the 1987-88 NBA season was the best ever. It featured four great dynasties (Lakers, Celtics, Pistons, Bulls) at different stages of rise and fall and four great stars (Magic, Bird, Isiah Thomas, Michael Jordan) competing for a single crown. It was Game of Thrones on the hardcourt, with more future Hall of Famers in simultaneous action than ever before – from the very old (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) to the very young (Scottie Pippen).
It’s not just the players I wanted to recapture, but the drama experienced by fans in the spring of 1988, before the glut of highlights. Rather than providing a blow-by-blow of every moment, I’ve structured the book as the story of four crucial games, culminating in the playoffs and one of the league’s greatest 7 game Finals. I wanted to recreate the excitement I felt when I was seventeen and waited all day for the game to begin, and carefully planned exactly where I would be sitting (usually in front of a 36-inch Magnavox) and with who (no one wanted a naysayer in his ear when M.J. was going to town). If you missed it, you missed it. And when the big moment arrived — and sometimes it never did — you felt as though you had truly earned it.
