The NBA Dribbled Out

nbaoffseason:

Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe retired this past weekend. There is so much to say about this man, his career in sports journalism, and what he has meant to NBA fans, that it’s truly impossible for me to do his career any justice with my limited ability.

It is not an exaggeration to say that he is a living, breathing NBA encyclopedia. He has probably forgotten more about the league’s history than the rest of us pecking away at our computers will ever learn. As an example of that fact, here is Bob, before an episode of PTI back in March, breaking down the 1972 NBA draft, 40 years later, as if it happened just last month.

An amazing legacy & an even more amazing writer. Thank you, Mr. Ryan.  

Most of you probably only know Bob Ryan as a stuttering fill-in on PTI, but he is to basketball writing what Hemingway was to prose during the first half of the 20th century. You’d be hard-pressed to name a more influential and talented baketball writer in the last 100 years. He’s truly, unabashedly an icon and will be missed not just in New England, but by the rest of America that simply enjoyed how he made us feel about sports.

Thank you for turning me on to what basketball and writing can do when conjoined by talent for observation. You are an original and will be missed by all.