ABA story time from Terry Pluto’s book “Loose Balls”: Marvin Barnes once refused to take a team flight from Louisville to St. Louis. It was scheduled to leave at 8:00 am EST and arrive at 7:59 am CST. He said he “didn’t want to get in no time machine.”

Seattle drafted Vinnie Johnson seventh overall in 1979 out of Baylor, where he'd averaged 24 points a game and once dropped 50 on TCU. Two years later the Sonics traded him to Detroit, and he spent the next decade doing the same job every night. Coming off the bench. Thirteen NBA seasons and he was never the guy. He was the guy who came in when the guy needed a rest. He was spectacular at it. In the 1985 playoffs he scored 22 points in the fourth quarter against Boston. Danny Ainge came out of that game and gave him the name that stuck forever. "If that guy in Chicago is the Refrigerator, then Vinnie Johnson is the Microwave." In Game 5 of the 1990 Finals he hit a 14-footer with 0.7 seconds left to beat Portland and clinch Detroit's second straight championship. After that they called him 007 too. Two rings. 11,825 career points. Number 15 hanging in the rafters in Detroit. Total career earnings: about $6 million. His best season paid him $1.4 million, at the very end, in 1990. He retired in 1992. Three years later he started a company in Detroit that made packaging supplies for automakers. Here's what he said the point of it was. "I really wanted to get into business and create some jobs and opportunities. I wanted to do something different outside of basketball, but the main thing was giving back to the city of Detroit for all the support they have given me." General Motors gave him his break. He shifted the company from packaging into automotive assembly, which meant building whole systems for car manufacturers instead of shipping them parts in boxes. Then he just kept going. Piston Group today does more than $3 billion in annual revenue. It employs over 10,000 people across the United States, Mexico and Canada, in about three and a half million square feet of plant space. It supplies Ford, GM, Honda, Toyota and Chrysler. It is one of the largest minority-owned businesses in the world. Vinnie Johnson is worth somewhere around half a billion dollars. He made $6 million in thirteen years of professional basketball. His company now generates roughly 500 times that, every single year. And he built it in the city that watched him play, specifically so people there would have somewhere to work.

Always be a giver

Sometimes you don’t even know when you’ve already watched the end. You had to be there. And now it’s over.

The real @MarchMadnessMBB party starts on March 27 & 28 at #TheStrat in Las Vegas. Join the team as we talk all things @TheRunninRebels and take questions from the audience. Tickets available > tickets.thestrat.com/orderti… @GregAnthony50 @staceyaugmon @TheOriginalLJ2 @PaulHGutierrez @RonFutrell

Tim MacMahon GOES OFF on Bam 83 point game 😳 “He’s jacking up 3s triple teamed! It was honestly just awful, hideous, disgusting basketball down the stretch… I never ever (x6) want to hear about Heat culture & professionalism and all that crap again because that was the most blatant stat chasing I’ve ever seen! It was embarrassing for the wizards and egregious for the Heat. I enjoyed the ethical 39 by Wemby more than I did the egregious 83.” (Via @BannedMacMahon)

Not true in all instances. The mobile phone has made communication between two people faster but not better. People struggle communicating without texting and people today like plays run with options instead of jacking 50 3’s and watching 6’4 players guard 280 lb centers. 🤷🏾

People recently bashed the Pro Football Hall of Fame committee (deservedly) but how about some scrutiny for Basketball Hall of Fame chair Jerry Colangelo? Coach K.C. Jones continues to be bypassed inexplicably. Colangelo and his committee (@Hoophall @JuliusErving et al) seem to have a blind spot when it comes to Jones. Consider the following: 🏀 Doc Rivers and Dick Motta are the NBA coaches who are finalists this year. They combined to win 2 NBA Championships and 4 Conference titles. K.C. Jones won 2 NBA Championships and 5 Conference Championships by himself. This does not include the 3 rings he won as an assistant coach. 🏀 When the @NBA named their 75th Anniversary Team they also named the Top 15 coaches in NBA history. Only one has previously been eligible for the Hall of Fame and not inducted: K.C. Jones. 🏀 There is only one retired head coach who has won multiple NBA titles and is not in the Hall of Fame: K.C. Jones. 🏀 There is only one retired head coach who has reached more than 3 NBA Finals and is not in the Hall of Fame: K.C. Jones (5). 🏀 Of every coach in NBA history with 500 wins, only Phil Jackson has a better winning percentage than K.C. Jones. 🏀 No previously eligible coach not in the Hall of Fame comes close to his career playoff wins (81). Next is 57. Would be great if some of his former players and those who covered him supported Coach K.C. Jones getting inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Seems like 86-year old Jerry Colangelo wields way too much power if he can keep out a class act with such an impressive resume. To date, zero reasoning has been offered. Sad. cc: @celtics @WashWizards @GlobeBobRyan @Dan_Shaughnessy @celticsvoice @NBCSBoston @NBCSCeltics @GlennDOrdway @PeterVecsey1 @RobertParish00 @cedricmaxwell81 @danielrainge @GaryPayton @XMANmcdaniel