FanShot

Dave Bing and Deeeetroit (the city, not the basketball team)

3

I never really liked Jemele Hill as a writer, but she gets a free pass this time since this is a pretty good story in itself. Anyway, I've always been interested in a little bit of NBA history and the players I wasn't able to watch. However, stories off the court are also nice, especially if they're relevant to the times. Here's my favorite part of the story: (sorry LD, couldn't find the quote function in this FanShot thing) I asked Wright, Bing's Bullets teammate, why Bing succeeded at everything. Wright told me this story: "We had a young guy on the team named Joe Pace," he recalled. "Joe always got fined for being late, not showing up for practice. Joe stayed in a lot of trouble. When it was time to get paid, Joe wouldn't have any money. I saw Dave speaking with Joe. He could see Joe was down. He talked with Joe about the things he needed to do. He gave Joe not a little bit of money but a lot, so Joe could live to the next check. I'm talking about two or three thousand dollars. When Joe got his next check, he tried to pay Dave back. He didn't take it. He told Joe, 'When you see somebody else in trouble, you help them.' I never forgot that."