Toronto fans will get a chance to honour one of the most-beloved Raptors ever when Charles Oakley attends Wednesday’s game against the Detroit Pistons.
If I had a dollar for every caller that came on during the post-game show and crooned, “We need a guy like Charles Oakley on this team” — I would be a rich man.
True, Oakley-type players are hard to find around the league, particularly these days after Oakley and his rugged New York Knicks teammates (Patrick Ewing, Anthony Mason, Derrick Harper et al) under Pat Riley made the word “force” part of the NBA vernacular. If you don’t remember, the 1994 NBA Finals was a seven-game knock down, drag out battle between the Knicks and Houston Rockets where scoring 90 points meant you won the game. Oakley, a guy who did not always get involved in the handshaking and hugging before tip-off, probably shakes his head at how soft the league has become. Heck, he was a dying breed when he was a Toronto Raptor at the turn of the century.
Oakley was the type of player that teammates respected and opponents sometimes feared. He told teammates what they needed to hear and didn’t care if he lost the popularity contest along the way. If you were on his team, he had your back. In the only playoff series Toronto has ever won (a best-of-five against the Knicks) it was Oakley that came out and said that Vince Carter had to play better if the Raptors were to win.
It was listening in on an Oakley scrum at Madison Square Garden where I first heard the concept that NBA stood for No Boys Allowed, when the bruising power forward was asked about young players in the league. “It’s fine if they come in the league but don’t use the fact that you’re young as an excuse. When you come up in here, you gotta play.”
There are many well-documented Oakley stories like the time he stirred it up at shoot-around one morning with Tyrone Hill and was suspended for the game that night, and a similar run-in with Jeff McInnis. Allegedly, the Hill incident was over money and the McInnis spat over a woman but it was all about respect for Oakley and conducting business the right way. But that “right way” of doing things also extended to the little guy who did his job correctly. Ask some of the clubhouse guys about Oak extending generous tips for a job well done, whether it was for looking after uniforms or delivering the takeout food in a timely fashion.
There are the famous Oakley quotes like, “Pimpin’ ain’t easy, pimpin’ ain’t dead, the ho’s are just scared.”
And a few more of my personal favourites like the time when he was asked about something he didn’t think was of any merit, “Man, that’s useless, like bringin’ eggs to a barbecue.”
Or when he was asked about Vince being the sole focal point of the offence, having him launch seemingly too many shots: “A shirt look good when you iron it but if you iron too much, it gonna get burned.”
And my all-time favourite came when he was asked how he would help Toronto win that playoff series against the Knicks after calling out Vince, saying that his young teammate was the dream teamer and had to play better. “I’m like the transmission on a car; I do my job, you just don’t see it.”
It will be nice to hear the ovation that “Oak” gets at the ACC Wednesday night.
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Did you see the Orlando-Detroit game Tuesday night? Yep, that was the same Orlando team that hung up 125 points against Toronto on Sunday afternoon without Carter, Mickael Pietrus and Rashard Lewis. Well last night they struggled to reach 80 points against the Pistons who were without Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince — who sees his ironman streak halted at 496 straight games.
Dwight Howard scored eight points and grabbed five rebounds before fouling out. But here’s the crazy number: Superman took two shots more in the game than I did, as the Magic were hoisting it from distance. Orlando attempted 79 shots and 35 of them were from behind the arc and they were only successful on 10. Oh by the way, Ryan Anderson was 2-of-14, J.J. Redick was 4-of-12 and Jameer Nelson was 3-of 11.
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Toronto fans will see if the” back-to-back, after getting jacked up for an opponent at home” theory works again for the Raptors against Detroit the way it did last week against Cleveland in the opener.
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And finally, the education of the rookie, DeMar DeRozan, continues. Before every game he and assistant coach Eric Hughes sit on the bench with a laptop computer and review clips of DeRozan. According to Hughes, it just serves as a reminder of things he is doing well and the things he needs to improve on an individual basis. Yes the team watches video but the other video sessions are catered more toward team-oriented issues.
Today’s shout-out: To all the receptionists and secretaries that take those calls every day and answer the phone like it’s the first call of the day.