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Sid Hartman coated basketball earlier than the Lakers existed.
Hartman coated basketball after the Lakers received their seventeenth championship.
Heck, he’s partially answerable for the Lakers current.
Hartman, a Minnesota establishment greatest recognized for his sports activities writing who additionally had deep NBA ties, died at age 100.
In 1947, Hartman facilitated the sale of the failed Detroit Gems to Minneapolis businessmen Ben Berger and Morris Chaflen. Hartman even hand-delivered the verify to Gems proprietor Maurice Winston in Detroit. The workforce moved to Minneapolis and have become the Lakers.
Although Max Winter held the title of workforce president, Hartman claimed he served as de facto normal supervisor.
The Lakers acquired the No. 1 choose in a dispersal draft, picked George Mikan and received championships in 5 of their first six years within the BAA/NBA.
Hartman claimed he had a plan for retaining the Lakers on prime – buying and selling star Vern Mikkelsen and tanking for Invoice Russell:
That was earlier than the 1956 draft. We had accomplished a cope with Boston the place Vern Mikkelsen of the Lakers would have gone to the Celtics for 3 Kentucky school gamers, Frank Ramsey, Cliff Hagan and Lou Tsioropoulos, who had been all within the service at Andrews Air Power Base. We’d have completed in final place and would have had Russell because the No. 1 draft choose as an alternative of him winding up with the Celtics.
Hartman, through Jerry Crowe of the Los Angeles Occasions:
“If we’d have made that Russell deal,” Hartman says, “we’d have had the nucleus of one other nice workforce and Mr. [Red] Auerbach wouldn’t have had his good streak. It could have modified the entire historical past of the NBA if that deal had gone by means of.
“The Lakers by no means would have moved to L.A., I’ll let you know that.”
Patrick Reusse of the StarTribune
Hartman left the Lakers operation in 1957. He had made his contacts within the NBA, although. He later would make the personnel selections for an enlargement workforce that got here to Chicago in 1961 (the Packers, then Zephyrs), then moved to Baltimore because the Bullets.
Ultimately, Hartman returned his focus to sports activities writing.
He by no means stop the newspaper whereas with the Lakers, benefiting from looser conflict-of-interest guidelines of that period – actually, parameters that prolonged to him many years later. Hartman was considered one of a form. He began within the business as a 9-year-old delivering papers by bicycle then dropped out of highschool to work for the native newspaper full-time.
Timberwolves proprietor Glen Taylor – who regularly spoke to Hartman – expressed his grief:
As did Karl Anthony-Cities:
Hartman saved writing to the top, his closing column publishing the day he died. In March, he confirmed distinctive perspective, evaluating sports activities stoppages throughout coronavirus and World Warfare II. A pair days later, he wrote about his a hundredth birthday:
I’ve adopted the recommendation that for those who love what you do, you by no means work a day in your life. Even at 100 I can say I nonetheless love what I do.
Sid Hartman, legendary sports activities author who introduced Lakers to Minneapolis, dies at 100 initially appeared on NBCSports.com
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