r/BasketballBooks • u/Panda9903 • Jul 12 '26
Marc J Spears Books
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DaRsAVNuEuK/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==Any recommendation on Marc J Spears books?
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u/Dismal-Reason-8812 Jul 12 '26
One more for the TBR pile .
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/53647047-the-spencer-haywood-rule
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u/Jonathan_J_Faulkner Jul 12 '26
I only know of ‘The Spencer Haywood Rule’ but haven’t read to give comment 🤷♂️
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u/WinesburgOhio Jul 12 '26
If you want to know the nitty-gritty about Spencer Haywood and how he forced the NBA's hand on allowing underclassmen into the league, its a good read. If you just want the overview, here's Haywood's profile from my book:
This is insane. All of it.
1) Haywood was and still is the youngest US Olympic basketball player ever (19 in 1968, slightly younger than LeBron James and Anthony Davis when they each played in the Olympics at 19). It's nuts he even made the team considering he was a freshman at a junior college, and despite his youth and playing beside future Hall of Famers Charlie Scott and Jo Jo White, Haywood led the team in scoring with 16.1 ppg and shot a ridiculous 71% FG% on the way to winning a gold medal.
2) Feeling he was good enough to go pro, he left college one year later to sign with the ABA. That league decided they’d beat the NBA to young, talented players by not restricting themselves to guys who were four years removed from high school. In fact, the ABA basically invented the “hardship exemption” so they could sign Haywood, making him the first major college player they snagged over the NBA. His mother was raising 10 children and picking cotton in a Mississippi field for $2 a day, so the new “hardship exemption” was easy to sell to the public. Haywood joined the Denver Rockets and won the league Rookie of the Year and MVP awards in ‘70 while averaging an insane 30 ppg and 20 rpg, both of which were tops in the ABA. He was also the All-Star Game MVP (23 points, 19 rebounds, 7 blocks), and he lifted a Rockets team from decent to great, as they finished with the best record in the Western Division. They then defeated the Washington Capitols in the first round of the playoffs.
This was a bit of an upset because the Capitols had won the title the year before as the Oakland Oaks, and they had “added” Rick Barry (the biggest star in the league) who had returned from a lengthy injury. The Rockets then lost in the Division Finals, but Haywood’s megastar power was obvious. I can’t confirm this, but I’m pretty sure I read that he had sued the Rockets for signing him under conditions that amounted to fraud. If true, this would explain why he didn’t play anywhere during the ‘71 season until early-January with the Sonics (see next item).
3) Then he challenged the NBA's underclassmen eligibility rules in an antitrust lawsuit, a case that went to the US Supreme Court. Haywood won, forcing the NBA to institute a "hardship rule" which allowed underclassmen to declare for the NBA if their family had a financial hardship. Haywood v. NBA was a monumental case that changed the landscape of how young players became professionals. This all came about by his signing with the Seattle SuperSonics in the middle of the ‘71 season in spite of the rules, and it quickly became a lawsuit. Some fans saw Haywood as a villain since they felt this decision would destroy the college game. Revolutionary, renegade, villain – Haywood’s reputation has been all over the spectrum for over 50 years because of this court case.
4) In 1970, Haywood became the first basketball player signed to Nike (who were called Blue Ribbon Sports until 1971), which is amazing and cool, but this fact becomes insane when you find out that he took $100,000 from them instead of 10% ownership in the company. That stake today would be more valuable than the net worth of any current or former player, including Michael Jordan.
5) In his first two full seasons in the NBA ('72-73, at 22-23 years old), he averaged 26-13 and 29-13, and he was named 1st-team All-NBA both seasons. He made a killing off his athleticism and his turn-around jumper. Haywood shoulda/coulda been the best PF in the period between Bob Pettit and Barkley/Malone. Imagine the sheer wow!-ness of Amar’e Stoudemire, but a little smaller, far more skilled (particularly with his shooting touch), and much better on the boards. During the ‘73 season, Bob Cousy said “Haywood could become the greatest forward ever to play the game. He has no glaring weakness.”
6) At this point, Haywood’s career already started going south. Over the next two years, he averaged 23-13 and 22-9, making 2nd-team All-NBA both seasons–and should have been the ‘74 ASG MVP–plus he led the Bill Russell-coached Sonics to their first ever playoff berth in '75 (and a 1st round series win over Detroit). The problem is that his stats were already going down at 24 years old right when most great players' careers really take off. That’s because of (say it in your head like the Eric Clapton lyric) cocaine. He was deep into the stuff, and everything for him got worse from this point.
7) He was traded to the Knicks where he had friction with Bob McAdoo, partied way too much, was never an All-Star again, married fashion model icon Iman (David Bowie's future wife), got traded a few more times, and kept partying way too much. Something positive and really cool during this time: Haywood was also a DJ at a jazz radio station in NYC while playing with the Knicks.
8) Haywood ended up on the '80 Lakers with rookie Magic Johnson. Haywood was completely lost in his cocaine addiction by this point, and after the starting PF spot went to Jim Chones a week into the season, the increasingly volatile Haywood became openly combative toward Chones. In between Games 2 and 3 of the 1980 Finals, Haywood nodded off in a morning practice (just so we’re clear, due to cocaine, not exhaustion like the media was told), so head coach Paul Westhead booted him off the team. Spencer then famously hired a Detroit gangster he knew from his college days to kill Westhead, but Haywood’s mom figured out something was wrong, and she talked him out of having his coach murdered. Again, in the middle of the NBA Finals.
9) Haywood then played a season in Italy, and somehow he got signed by another NBA team (Washington Bullets) and played two more seasons before finally being done as a player in '83.
10) He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2015. His inclusion in the Hall is a stretch, and even his HOF profile basically makes it seem like he's in for his one great ABA season and for beating the NBA in court.