a center, so he drafted Sam Bowie. With that choice, he didn’t just miss out on Michael Jordan; he
also passed up future Hall of Famers Charles Barkley (drafted fifth) and John Stockton (drafted
sixteenth). It was bad enough that Inman chose Martin over McAdoo and Erving, and Bowie over
Jordan, Barkley, and Stockton. But drafting professional basketball players is at best an imperfect
science, and even great managers and coaches make mistakes.
What was worse was that the Blazers held on to both players far longer than they should have.
They kept LaRue Martin for four seasons, and by the time they decided to trade him, he had virtually
no value. The Blazers couldn’t even get an actual player in exchange for Martin—they gave him away
in exchange for “future considerations” from the Seattle SuperSonics, who ended up letting him go
before the season even started. That was the end of Martin’s basketball career, and it was an
embarrassing outcome for Inman. “It was a sore subject,” said Jack Ramsay, who was the Blazers’
coach in Martin’s last year and now serves as an ESPN analyst. “Because LaRue couldn’t play. He
was trying to make the team when I got there, but we had no place for him. He had no offensive game.
And he wasn’t a rebounder or shot blocker even though he was six-eleven. So he had no skills.” The
Blazers followed a similar path with Sam Bowie. In 1989, after five lackluster seasons, the Blazers
finally traded Bowie to the New Jersey Nets. Why did the Blazers hold on to Sam Bowie and LaRue
Martin for so long?
Stu Inman was widely known as a giver. After playing college basketball and coaching high
school basketball for a few years, Inman made the leap to college coach, eventually becoming the
head coach at his alma mater, San Jose State. In this role, Inman seemed to prioritize players’ interests
ahead of his own success. One of Inman’s star recruits was Tommie Smith, an exceptional athlete who
came to San Jose State to run track and play football and basketball. On the freshman basketball team,
Smith was the top scorer and rebounder, so in his sophomore year, he began practicing with the
varsity basketball team under Inman. One day, Smith came by Inman’s office and announced that he
was going to quit basketball to focus on track. “I thought he was going to blow up at me,” Smith
writes, “but he didn’t. Coach Inman said, ‘Okay, Tom, I understand,’ he shook my hand and told me to
be sure to come by to see him whenever I wanted to, and that I was always welcome back if I
changed my mind. That was the greatest thing in the world for me.”
It wasn’t so great for Inman. Smith’s speed could have added a great deal to the San Jose State
basketball team; a few years later, in 1968, Smith won the Olympic gold medal in the 200-meter dash,
setting a world record. But Inman had wanted what was best for Smith. Along with letting top talent
walk away, Inman made room for gritty players even if they lacked talent. When a skinny white player
named Terry Murphy tried out for the varsity team, Inman respected his work ethic and invited him on
board. Murphy recalls being one of the worst players Inman had ever coached: “I scored four points
the whole year.”
Despite this lackluster performance, Inman told Murphy, “I’m never gonna cut you, you’re
enthusiastic and you play hard and you’re a good guy.” Inman was “continually giving advice to any
basketball junkie who sought it,” writes Wayne Thompson, a reporter who covered the Blazers
throughout Inman’s tenure. He couldn’t help it: “Teaching at any level on any subject is the most
rewarding thing you can do,” Inman told Thompson. “I just love to see the expression on the face of a
student who gets it for the first time. Just watching the learning process come to full bloom gives me
such a rush.”
Once Inman developed a positive impression of players, was he too committed to teaching and
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(Michael S)
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