Larry Johnson's beef with Alonzo Mourning included a sad Hornets mural and a weird Knicks-Heat fight

This is Jeff Van Gundy, the year is 1998 and Jeff, his Knicks coach, is trying to break up a

fight

at the end of a Knicks playoff game and he is failing because a

fight

between these two men, Alonzo Mourning and Larry Johnson, it's actually two fights, it's a battle in a basketball war between two Eastern Conference rivals and it's a battle in a personal war between two men with much more between them than meets the eye. Jeff is also failing because he weighs like 150 pounds if you're a Knicks. fan like me, that fight in 1998 made your heart sink into your stomach if you're not a Knicks fan, first of all, congratulations and second, I can explain that it starts with a breakup in the early '90s.

Pat Riley coached the Knicks and their teams. They were very tough and very good, but they repeatedly fell short of a championship because of these guys. In 1995, New York was still a team on the rise, but Riley wanted more power and more money, so he took a job as coach and president of Miami. Heat. He notified the Knicks by sending them messages. People are still very grumpy about this under Riley, the Heat got very good very quickly thanks in large part to the addition of Alonzo Mourning, and as luck would have it, Miami faced the Knicks in the playoffs four years later.

A line that began in 1997, the basketball was fierce, low-scoring and full of defining moments. Anyway, this war really stood out for things that weren't basketball and one moment near the beginning would color the rest of the rivalry the Knicks had. lead in the 1997 Eastern Conference semifinals until the garbage moment of Game 5, when PJ Brown flipped Charlie Ward over his head, all the Knicks' best players jumped off the bench to join the melee and every one of them was suspended from one of the remaining games the Heat won to steal this year, so when Nixon's Heat met in the first round the following season and the Knicks had game four in the bag to tie the series at two, and suddenly some physical play between Johnson and Mourning turned into a fist fight, everyone was saying oh no, not again, I don't know what Van Gundy thought would happen here, but all he wanted was to avoid any more suspensions, but it did not prevent anything, both were in

mourning

and Johnson missed the decisive fifth game this time New York.

He ended up winning another Knicks series series with an asterisk due to suspensions, but this wasn't just another fight in New York and Miami, this had a subtext: these guys have been in it before a couple of times and people he hinted that Johnson's grief occupied a separate universe. beyond the next

heat

rivalry, there was something personal between them to understand this strange intimate plot within one of the best rivalries in the NBA, this problem within a problem, you would have to return to another team at another time, another breakup and this is the story of the problem.

So obviously we're going to do that in 1991, the Charlotte Hornets stunk, they won the first pick and nabbed Larry Johnson, the dunk machine who led UNLV to a championship a year earlier in 1992, they used the second pick on Alonzo Mourning, Georgetown's Big East Player. The year Johnson and Molding scored 20 points and 10 rebounds right out of the gate and led one of the most efficient and fastest-paced offenses in the Santo Shah that made the playoffs for the first time in 1993 and won their first series in a Buzzard Riley's

mourning

necks beat Charlotte in the next round, but everything was looking good entering the offseason with two superstars on the rise.

Charlotte seemed on the brink of a superteam and the Eastern Conference suddenly opened wide when Chicago's Michael Jordan announced he was leaving the In the game it was time to secure the future, so the Hornets struck a deal with Johnson for $84 million for 12 years. The largest contract in NBA history was signed on the exact same day MJ retired. On October 6, 1993, it was a huge shock to the Hornets of the NBA, Hornets owner George Shinn called. Johnson, the leader of his team, said he would always be the leader, that he was worth it, while Hornets president Spencer stole bread, told people that Johnson wasn't even Charlotte's best player and, However, by all accounts at the time, Johnson and mourning got along very well. that wasn't the case, they were both number one AlphaDog guys when they left college and now each hoped to be the face of a promising franchise.

Some say the relationship was bad from day one. There's a story that LJ would wear his rookie of the year leather jacket in front of mourning; So much warning he wasn't Rookie of the Year because of this guy, but he established himself as a very good NBA player very quickly. Johnson had the flashy game and the beloved business character and now the biggest contract in the league, but the mourning was already just as good on the court, if not better, and that's why I panicked after Johnson's massive contract, did he? Would there be enough for him?

Resentment simmered and mourning made him fly one day, attacking Charlotte. Coach Alan Bristow's practices became intense and they were receiving backstage when the grieving youngster had trouble passing out on double teams. Johnson told his teammates that he was stupid and selfish, but LJ had his own problems: he had injured a disc in his back during the summer long before signing his contract and the back problems worsened, he missed the first two months 1994 and, with Mourning missing more than a month due to a calf injury, the season became a failure. Charlotte won only 41 games and missed the playoffs, so 94-95 would be the season bet that Charlotte built on that historic first year with two stars.

Now we know those two stars were fighting, but it didn't seem that way. They came out as great friends as teammates on the 1994 Dream Team Two at the FIBA ​​World Championship and Charlotte still added 41-year-old Celtics legend Robert Parish for some veteran leadership. We now know that Johnson would never fully regain his high-flying form after back injuries, but everyone was optimistic about him rehabbing, the Hornets knew that in the morning. He would want an even bigger contract extension than Johnson, but he was still two years away from becoming a restricted free agent and Charlotte would be able to match any offer.

Things were looking up again. People felt good. Charlotte was so excited that the first Union Bank went to the Hornets. The sponsor painted a huge

mural

of their stars on the side of the building and the Hornets had a great year. LJ was healthy and playing like a star again, although much less athletic than before the injuries. That morning he still didn't get as many touches as his slightly older, much richer teammate, but he still carried the team, led the Hornets and scored and anchored a much better defense for the first time. Mourning and Johnson played together in the all-star game.

Charlotte won a franchise-record 50 games and made the playoffs. as a 4th seed with home field advantage against the books, just one problem Chicago wasn't really a 5th seed about a month before the playoffs started, MJ decided he was tired of baseball and abruptly rejoined the Bulls and was surprised that They will improve a lot very quickly. The Hornets had their chances in a five-game first-round series, but Lou Muggsy Bogues missed a shot to win the first game and the Bulls took the game in overtime. Charlotte won the second game, but fell apart in the third game as the Bulls totally dominated the morning. and in the fourth game, Johnson hit the shot that would have won the game and sent the series back to Charlotte 95.

It was supposed to be the year the Hornets made a run, but nothing went their way and around the same time, Pat Riley leaving the Knicks, this would be the end for Charlotte, a brief but ugly lockout in the summer of '95 spelled doom and was engineered by Morning's agent, David Falk, under the new collective bargaining agreement. Morning suddenly became an unrestricted free agent in 1996, which meant he had all the leverage and wanted an extension now for $13 million, so Hornets leadership freaked out in typical team executive style, well , do you want us to charge more for tickets?

Do you want us to close? Charlotte was not going to pay 13 million a day. year but they did not want to lose mourning for anything so they began to accept commercial offers for their best player. One notable offer came from the Lakers who put Serbian center Vlade Divac on the block. I only mention this because less than a year later. The D bonus would be traded to the Hornets for draft rights of a different type, but the Hornets agreed to a return package from Miami centered on rising star Glen Rice on November 4, 1995, the deal was finalized.

The duel joined the Heat, it was Pat Riley's first big success. Splash as president of Miami and although LJ did not miss the morning company, he was not very excited with the players that Charlotte got, so the 95-96 season was a bad mood for the shark Jonathan, so they had to figure out what to do with them. That huge mourning image on the side of a skyscraper they decided to repaint and held a fan vote to determine who should be the new subject. Hugo's mascot the Hornets crashed through the wall like the kool-aid man. He was going to sue Miami.

I know it's a condom, how neutral, it gets Hugo to stop it, yes, just a year after dedicating the biggest canvas in the city to its stars of the future, Charlotte repainted with the only type guaranteed to never leave them, it Which yes, all this is very depressing when the morning comes again. Charlotte in April 1996 ejected him and Johnson gave him a flagrant foul for good measure and the Hornets missed the playoffs, falling one game behind Alonso in the standings. In the

heat

, it was time for LJ to go out and July 13th. 1996 the Hornets traded Johnson to the Knicks just a few days after mourning they signed a massive extension with Miami and the rest well, you know, this fight represented the climax of so many interpersonal dramas that it was as if a Beavs turducken on the outside was a bitter basketball.

The rivalry that arose from an ugly breakup between the coach and the team on the inside was an individual dispute that

included

another breakup at better time and better luck. The Hornets may have rivaled the strongest dynasties of the '90s, like so many breakups you can't help but wonder. What could have been? What a shame those two couldn't land any hits. It's a joke. Violence is bad. Thanks for watching the history of meat. If you liked this video, share it and don't forget to subscribe.