December 23, 1983 - In an otherwise dark time in Chicago Bulls history, Reggie Theus was a star. During the 1982-83 season, Theus cooked, averaging 23.8 points per game (ninth in the NBA), making his second All-Star appearance, and extending his consecutive games played streak to an impressive 410 games. The following season, things got weird.
Prior to the start of the 1983-84 season, Kevin Loughery became Chicago's eighth coach in six years. With him, Loughery brought along a desire to emphasize the defensive side of the ball, which apparently began with the indefinite benching of his most talented player in Theus.
Here's what we know: Theus was a hold out through the first three weeks of training camp. While this likely started him off on the wrong foot with Loughery, it's worth noting that hold outs were relatively common during the early 1980s collective bargaining agreement era (with some players holding out for an entire season). Upon Theus' arrival to camp, Loughery had replaced him in the starting lineup with six-foot-three rookie guard Mitchell Wiggins (yes, Andrew Wiggins' father).
Through Chicago's first 16 games of the season, Theus primarily came off the bench, playing just 20 minutes a night (at times playing as few as six minutes), averaging a paltry 8.6 points per game. At this point, the oddity of this situation hit overdrive.
Ceding to pressure from minority owner Jonathan Kovler, Loughery reinserted Theus into the starting lineup for three games, all losses, extending the Bulls' losing streak to eight games. It was then that Loughery went scorched earth, citing Theus' defensive shortcomings and Loughery's own unwillingness to bend from pressure from higher-ups, stapling Theus to the bench indefinitely.
Unexpectedly, the Bulls began winning. A lot. Winning eight of their next nine while Theus looked on from the sideline emboldened Loughery in his decision.
"I should have [benched Theus] earlier," said Loughery. "But I was feeling my way around the situation. I didn't want to cause trouble."
Alas, the success was short-lived. Chicago went on to win just three of their next 16 games. In fact, they went 14-40 over their final 55 contests.
As for Theus, the highlights above come from his first appearance in two weeks, on December 23 during garbage time of a blowout win over the Washington Bullets. This game came in the midst of Frozen Christmas, aka the coldest stretch of holiday weather in Chicago history, in which the city's temperature registered below zero for 100 consecutive hours. Chicago Stadium was not spared from these conditions (hence why you can see Theus and company bundled up and clasping their arms for warmth at the 19-second mark).
As Chicago's seven-man board of directors struggled to decide upon his fate, a board primarily composed of people living outside of Chicago, such as New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, Theus made sporadic appearances in various roles all the way up to the February 14 trade deadline. At that point, after scoring zero points in seven minutes in what would turn out to be his final game for the Bulls, Theus was sent to Kansas City in exchange for Steve Johnson and a pile of second round draft picks (which turned into Greg Wiltjer, Mike Brittain, and Ken Johnson).
With the Kings, who'd move from Kansas City to Sacramento in 1985, Theus returned to form, averaging 18.8 points per game in five seasons with the club, playing 13 years in the NBA in all before transitioning to a post-playing career in front of the camera, where he worked as a studio analyst for TNT in the pre-Barkley/Smith era while also starring as Coach Bill Fuller on NBC's mid-90's basketball-centric sitcom Hang Time.
To this day, however, Theus still holds a special place in his heart for Kevin Loughery.
“Kevin Loughery is an asshole,” Theus said during his 2020 appearance on the Rejecting The Screen podcast.
“And, obviously, even to this day, I’d like to tell him that. Because what he did to my career, he could have destroyed my career. He could have hurt me tremendously as a basketball player. He did actually. I ended up getting traded. And the owners didn’t want to trade me. Rod Thorn didn’t want to trade me, but they had already fired five other coaches. I had six coaches in my first five years of my career. I still to this day have no idea why he wanted to get rid of me so badly."
For more, check out the Rejecting the Screen podcast (Theus on the Loughery situation begins around the 45:00 mark): open.spotify.c...
Bleacher Nation also did a nice job laying out a synopsis of the Theus debacle here: www.bleacherna....
SI: vault.si.com/v...
5 окт 2024
