WHEN THE GAME WAS WAR

A die-hard fan revisits the 1987 NBA season.

Wall Street Journal columnist Cohen, the author of The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse and Pee Wees: Confessions of a Hockey Parent, seeks to convince readers that 1987 was “the greatest season in NBA history.” He makes the debatable argument that the Detroit Pistons were as accomplished a franchise as Magic Johnson’s Los Angeles Lakers, Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics, and Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls and that Pistons point guard Isiah Thomas was the equal of those three players. In this “revisionist history,” the author wants “to return Isiah to the pantheon, where he belongs.” During that fabled season, the Celtics were fading though still competitive, the Lakers were dominant but about to be dethroned by the Pistons, and the Bulls were on the verge of transcendence. At the time, general managers and coaches “took time to build” their teams, looking to the long-term; the style of play was fast and physical; and the coaches were savvy students of the game. Cohen goes all in: “The game was better than it ever had been, or will be….It was a time when the games really mattered.” The Lakers met the Pistons in the Finals, and the Lakers pulled out the victory to repeat as NBA champions. However, notes the author, “the future belonged to the brash newcomers from the Midwest, first the Pistons, then the Bulls,” who would combine to win the next five championships. Along with arguing, to uneven effect, that Thomas has been disrespected, Cohen provides capsul biographies of the personalities that made these teams successful, short descriptions of key games during the season and all seven games in the finals, and even reviews of the courts on which they played.

An invitation to avid fans of a certain age to bathe in the soothing nostalgia of a bygone era.