YouTube Gold: Laimbeer vs. Ewing

Call it a running theme

There are a lot of criticisms of today’s NBA, but the biggest one is probably that it is not as physical as it once was.

That might or might not be a good thing.

Partly thanks to the Pat Riley era in New York, the NBA became an extremely physical league.

But it wasn’t just the Knicks. The Pistons, the 76ers and the Celtics were all pretty physical teams.

Some guys were a little crazier than others though. When you watch then old clips, you’ll see a few names pop up repeatedly though: Karl Malone. Charles Barkley. Charles Oakley. Ben Wallace. Shaquille O’ Neal. Ron Artest. Dennis Rodman. Rick Mahorn.

And, most of all, Bill Laimbeer.

Laimbeer had a decent outside shot, but beyond that, he had limited talent and the only way he could stay in the league was to, uh, be exceedingly physical.

This video is a compilation of run-ins that Laimbeer had with Patrick Ewing. It could have just as easily have been with Larry Bird, who hated Laimbeer, or Barkley.

It was just part of life with Laimbeer. If you watched long enough, he was going to do something ugly, and most guys were not going to take that laying down.