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From http://celtics.realgm.com/articles/362/ ... ated_team/

A rebounding lunatic with unmatched intensity, excellent skills and superb athletic ability, the 6-8 Cowens made Kevin Garnett look like Mark Blount on sleeping pills in the passion department.

This sounds like it would make for an entertaining thread. Any old-timers want to describe some of Cowens' mannerisms?

How could someone be more intense than KG? Cowens might have looked more intense because he was shorter. I have never seen a superstar dive on the floor as much as KG. They have to be at least comparable I would assume.

I believe NBA TV or ESPN Classic has many games this week and month from the 70s era with the Cs featuring Cowens. I just saw a game from his rookie season where the Cs played the Cunningham-led 76ers. (Reminded me how great Billy C was before he ripped up his knee.)

Cowens was flying around the floor and grabbing rebounds two at a time. He was like a heat-seeking missile. Folks interested should try to catch a few of the games. Pictures are worth a thousand words.

The comment about Garnett was largely hyperbolic, and no critricism of KG. (It was criticism of Blount.) The fact remains that Cowens' most defining characterisatic was his all-out style of play and intensity. Some argue the reason that Copwens career went from superstardom to mere stardom by the time he was 28 was that it was simply humanly impossible to maintain that intensity any longer.

Cowens was a **** madman on the court...the guy was a wide-eyed wildman...as intense as KG is I think Cowens was even more so.

That being said, glad both of them are Celtics!!

was his intensity the reason he quit in the middle of his career to become a Taxi driver?

Didn't he come back and play for MIL. WTF is that about?

wait, i'm confused. i thought nobody under 6-10 could be a good NBA big man.

Cowens, as I remember it, took an indefinite "leave of absence" at the beginning of the 76-77 season because he just didn't have the fire burning as much. i.e. he was burnt out. Nellie had retired; Silas was traded; Chaney and Westphal were gone, and knuckleheads Wicks and Rowe were his new teammates. He came back halfway through the season, still played well, but was never the same. A year or two later he was even made player-coach for part of a season, probably a move by Red to rejuvenate him, much like he had done with Russ at the end of his career.

Cowens quit out of the blue in training camp in 1980 at age 31 reportedly because he detested then-coach Bill Fitch. Maravich quit at the same time for the same reason. It would have been nice to have Cowens in the early 80s, though the front court was getting mighty crowded. (Parish--McHale--Maxwell--Robey--Bird--Carr)

Cowens came back in 1982 for a brief moment with the Bucks. Nellie was the coach and that was the lure. His game had slid a couple of notches, though he still was certainly good enough to play in the NBA, so he quit after a month or two.

Cowens was unusual.

Extremely quick, with a jump shot out to 22 feet.

Brutally strong, with a ridiculous vertical leap.

That quickness, leap, intensity, strength, jump shot, jump hook, and overall relentlessness made him top 4 in the MVP voting 4 straight years.

His 8 year run of 19 ppg, 15 rpg and 4 apg were a mark few Celtics can match in efficiency.
Russell, Havlicek, Bird had comparable seasons.

Pierce's numbers from the crappy team years can't be compared to Cowens, who averaged 58 wins per year over 5 of those years. So, Cowens was putting up numbers on outstanding teams, whereas Pierce got his with no one else to do anything.

Just about every long time Celtics fan (who remembers the '60's teams) has Cowens in their list of top 5 Celtics of All-Time. Universally joining Cowens are Bill Russell, Larry Bird and John Havlicek. Although many old time fans list Bob Cousy 5th, I'm a Sam Jones fan. The man not only won 10 championships, he was the guy who took the last shot on those teams.

Think of it this way. Cowens is 1 inch taller than Carlos Boozer (true heights), a lot quicker, stronger, with a vertical leap around 39 inches, and can knock down jump shots out to 22 feet, yet loved to bang underneath. Cowens put up his best numbers in a 17 team league. Today, there are 30 teams, with guys who would never have made an NBA team playing major minutes nowadays. It was a lot tougher guarding Cowens, and Cowens, primarily due to his quickness, reaction time, and overall court sense, was a much better defender. Plus, Cowens is stronger. The point is that although Boozer is a pretty damn good player, Cowens was a lot better, going against tougher competition, and Cowens was much better at switching on defense or blitzing a screen.

bruno sundov wrote:How could someone be more intense than KG? Cowens might have looked more intense because he was shorter. I have never seen a superstar dive on the floor as much as KG. They have to be at least comparable I would assume.

KG is intense, but Cowens was nasty out there. A physical, undersized player.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -1,00.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAXc6u_j ... re=related


Big Red certainly got Charlie Rosen’s attention (not that I like Charlie Rosen)

But the dirtiest player in NBA history was Dave Cowens. Yes, he was skilled. Yes, he was tough. Yet his all-out aggressiveness was frequently mindless and downright sadistic. (In a bar-fight while he was in college, Cowens once bit off a large piece of an antagonist's nose.) Cowens, more than any of his predecessors, was considered by his contemporaries to be the one player whose over-the-top brutality was most likely to send an opponent to the hospital.

Paul Westphal
There is so much, but if I had to pick one thing it would be the intensity that Dave brought to the court. The look in his eyes is something that I can’t find words to adequately describe. You had to see that look for yourself to know what I’m talking about. It was scary. He was so focused on the game. It didn’t matter whether it was ripping down a big rebound or diving for a loose ball. Dave and Paul [Silas] were quite a combination on the boards.


Larry Bird…..3 point stuff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vHEWOqd ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bewek4DU ... re=related

this, my friends, is a gem.

he must of been intense, wow a 6-8 big man and a great one at that.

I do remember seeing a game on Classic Sports a couple of years ago, where Bird/McHale/Parish were playing against Cowens and the Bucks....it was really strange to see.

How did cowens play?

Cowens was a freak of nature. As a red-headed, basketball-loving kid growing up in the 70's, Dave Cowens was a major idle of mine. Cowens was incredibly athletic. He would punish opposing centers by consistently beating them up an down the floor. He had cat-like quickness, coupled with an excellent vertical rise. And despite his superior athleticism, he was still strong enough to hold his position in the paint against the league's more bulky pivots. And nobody would ever out-work him. He wanted the ball more than his opponent, which accounted for his superior rebounding numbers. And to compliment his athleticism and his intensity, Cowens also played a very intelligent game, and he had a very wide array of skills. He was a master at neutralizing an opponent's strength. To get the Alcindors and Chamberlians of the world away from the basket, he would step outside and hit the jumper with incredible accuracy. Once they attempted to venture out to the perimeter to defend him, he would use his quickness to blast by them to the hole. He had a little half-hook shot in the lane that he could hit with either hand, over either shoulder. He was the centerpiece of the wonderful Heinsohn- coached teams that added two banners to the rafters, and that's not to take anything away from Hondo at all.

And to tie Garnett back into discussion, I think it's unavoidable to make comparisons between the two. Both were MVP winning big men, that were considered to be athletic, intense and skilled. Both of these players embody the spirit of the Celtics, and their play is a tribute to the game of basketball.