TIME Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.

Current subscribers for full access. Not a TIME subscriber? .

Sport: The Centers of Contention

Pro basketball's endurance contest is down to two

The nature of basketball, some would say the flaw in basketball, is that the game is nearly always won or lost at the center position. Julius ("Dr. J") Erving of Philadelphia and Earvin ("Magic") Johnson of Los Angeles lead their teams artistically, but Erving is a forward and Johnson a guard. It is around the 76ers' Moses Malone and the Lakers' Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the centers, that the current championship series, and the basketball universe itself, revolves.

For the purposes of easy identification, Abdul-Jabbar, 36,7 ft. 2 in.,...

Quotes of the Day »

RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
For use in rail of Articles page or Section Fronts pages. Duplicate and change name as necesssary to distinguish.