Game 76: Rudy LaRusso - Crab Bisque
My athletic career peaked in 5th grade. When I enrolled in John Burroughs Middle School in Hancock Park, I was still tall for my age. 3rd tallest kid in my class photo! That meant despite my balling limitations, I wasn’t a total liability on the court. Not only was I taller than most kids, but I was also a decent shooter and a tenacious defender. But I constantly blew gimme lay-ups and with each miss, I crept farther and farther away from the basket to avoid further humiliation. Worst of all, I had no idea what double dribble meant. I thought the rule -- which I broke constantly -- was literal: No dribbling of the ball with both hands. Unlike Little League baseball, I never played on an afterschool basketball team. So I never had a coach teach me the illegality of stopping and picking up my dribble.
Unlike in elementary school, my new opponents in middle school called for this foul, leaving me with no idea why my teammates were rightfully pissed off at me. My playing career pretty much ended after one our regular lunchtime Latinos vs Koreans game (it was easier than shirts vs. skins) when my friends stopped passing to the instant turnover. For a few weeks, I hung out underneath the basket watching my former teammates play while plotting my return. It never happened. After a couple weeks, I started hanging out with my own kind: the kids who played Game Boy Advance at lunch.
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There’s a great joke early in the 1980 comedy classic Airplane! where an old woman asks a flight attendant for something light to read. The stewardess hands over a tiny leaflet -- not even a pamphlet or brochure! -- called Famous Jewish Sports Legends. Despite the fervent love that nice Jewish-American boys have for basketball, our genetic disposition (that’s a nice way of saying Ashkenazi inbreeding) has left us without the physical traits needed to succeed on the basketball court. Besides WNBA legend Sue Bird, most of the famous Jews in professional basketball have found their fame in non-playing capacities. There’s Hall of Fame Boston Celtics coach/GM Red Auerbach and Harlem Globetrotters founder Abe Saperstein. We’ve got Larry Brown, who was a 3x ABA All-Star but who is most famous for being the only coach to win a title in the NBA and NCAA. And of course, the last two commissioners of the NBA, David Stern and Adam Silver, are both very Jewish men, as evidenced by their reading of draft picks every June.
While there haven’t been many NBA players in its 74 years history who also had haftarah portions, the league began with a Jewish bucket. New York Knickerbocker Ossie Schechtman scored the first basket in the NBA in this beautiful 7-seconds-or-less play that was the last exciting sequence in the NBA for decades. 13 years later, a 6’7” Jewish-Italian kid from Brooklyn made his debut for the Minneapolis Lakers. Rudy LaRusso -- also known as Roughhouse Rudy, Brutus, Deuce, The Ivy Leaguer with Muscles, and… Musty -- came up in New York City as one of the city’s all-time great ballers. Big and aggressive, he made three All-Star teams with the Lakers and regularly put up double-double seasons. While with the Lakers, he set the record for most points by a Jewish player with 50. After getting traded to the San Francisco Warriors, he entered his prime and started averaging 21 points a game. But like many players at the time, he worked during the off-season to supplement his meager NBA earnings. So when LaRusso was traded to the Detroit Pistons, he felt that it would jeopardize his job as a Beverly Hills stockbroker and retired instead. LaRusso would spend the rest of his life in business, though he eventually made his way back to sports when he founded a sports agency with his son. LaRusso died in 2004 from Parkinson’s Disease and was remembered by his former teammates as a “wonderful person,” a “good friend,” and a “prankster who loved to keep the guys loose.”
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In 2004, I got really into UCLA men’s basketball. Led by 2nd year coach Ben Howland, the team had an incredible freshman recruiting class fronted by a trio of L.A. natives. There was shooting guard Arron Afflalo from Compton’s Centennial High School, small forward Josh Shipp -- the middle child of the then-heralded Shipp brothers -- from Fairfax High School, and point guard Jordan Farmar out of the Valley’s Taft High School. Farmar was a half-black half-Jewish kid from Tarzana whose dad was a minor league baseball player and whose godfather was former MLB star Eric Davis. Farmar was raised Jewish by his mom and Israeli stepdad, he had a Bar Mitzvah, and he loved basketball. He was like any other Jewish kid in L.A… with the key difference being that he could DUNK. I’m getting a little ahead of myself, but here’s Farmar throwing it down in the NBA Finals while being chased down by Kevin Garnett.
Not only could he dunk, but Farmar had ankle-breaking handles and a clean stroke from outside. Farmar was so good, he not only won the Pac-10 Freshman of the Year award, he was also named to the All Pac-10 First Team. In his sophomore year, Farmar was again named to the All Pac-10 First Team and led the Bruins to the National Championship game against the Florida Gators. That was the year the Bruins pulled off their incredible Sweet 16 comeback -- the “HEART. BREAK. CITY!” game -- against Adam Morrison and the Gonzaga Bulldogs. Farmar played a key role in the comeback with the game-winning steal and assist in the final seconds. Following their loss in the NCAA title game, Farmar decided he had nothing left to prove in college and declared for the NBA Draft.
His decision was a momentous one for L.A. basketball. And not just because he was drafted #26 overall by his hometown Lakers. It meant that two Angelenos, Hawthorne’s Russell Westbrook and Rancho Cucamonga's Darren Collison, would get their chance to shine at UCLA. Westbrook even chose #0 because detractors told him those were the amount of minutes he would play with Collison and Farmar above him on the depth chart. Collison and Westbrook would go on to lead the Bruins to two more Final Four appearances before entering the NBA, with Westbrook becoming a future Hall of Famer and arguably the greatest Angeleno to ever play in the league.
But back to Farmar. He joined the Lakers in 2006 at a time of upheaval, which in Lakers Land meant a time of normalcy. Phil Jackson returned the previous year, but Kobe Bryant was surrounded in the starting line-up with scrubs like Smush Parker and Luke Walton, players who hadn’t yet figured it out like Lamar Odom, and youngins like Andrew Bynum. Even though Kobe hated Smush, there was no way Jackson was replacing him with a rookie, especially a shoot-first PG who had yet to learn the Triangle Offense. However, that all changed in the playoffs as Farmar got the start in all 5 games of the Lakers’ opening round loss against the Suns. Farmar went head-to-head with Steve Nash, the MVP runner-up who had won the previous two MVP awards. It was a trial by fire and Farmar got scorched, but it’s hard to blame him for his play up against In His Prime Steve Nash.
Despite Smush’s departure the following season, Farmar quickly realized the team didn’t have faith in him being the future starting point guard. First, the Lakers drafted point guard and future-murderer Javaris Crittendon in the NBA Draft. Then after Laker fan favorite Derek Fisher negotiated his release from the Utah Jazz after doctors diagnosed his daughter with eye cancer, the Lakers signed their old friend and master of the Triangle offense. Still, Farmar put up solid numbers as Fisher’s back-up: 9.1 ppg / 2.7 apg / 0.9 spg. This was the year the Lakers traded for Pau Gasol and returned to the NBA Finals. But for the second time in his young career, Farmar experienced a crushing double-digit loss in the elimination game.
Farmar’s third year was a season of highs and lows. His numbers regressed due to a torn meniscus in his knee, a dangerous injury for someone whose game relied so heavily on sharp cuts. But Farmar also achieved the goal every basketball-playing kid in L.A. dreams of: Winning a championship with his hometown Lakers. Back-to-back championships, to be exact. Along with Sasha Vujačić and Shannon Brown, the trio provided key back-up minutes during the Lakers’ back-to-back titles against the Orlando Magic and Boston Celtics.
But even with two championship rings, Farmar felt stifled with the Lakers. He knew he wasn’t ever going to be a starter with the team, so when the New Jersey Nets came calling, he listened and signed a three year $12 million deal. He was finally a starter in the NBA… until he wasn’t. Farmar only started 23 games in two years with the Nets, including the lockout-shortened 2011-2012 season when he played with Maccabi Tel Aviv for a spell in Israel. Farmar didn’t even finish out his contract, instead electing to play in Turkey before making one more run in the NBA with the Lakers, Clippers, Grizzlies, and Kings. He was waived by the Kings after only two games and never played again.
While the former college star only started in 40 games during his 10 year NBA career, Farmar made an indelible impact on my earliest years as a basketball fan. A half-Jewish kid from L.A. with big ears who played for both UCLA and the Lakers? It shouldn’t shock you that my Xbox gamertag was FarmarKoufax.
Even though Jewish players in the NBA are still a rarity, the Jewish connection to basketball remains strong. The Safdie Brother’s instant classic, Uncut Gems, centers around a gambling addict and jewelry store owner who finds himself trapped in a precarious position brought upon by blood diamonds, Kevin Garnett, and the 2012 Eastern Conference Semifinals. While Garnett was amazing in the role -- multiple non-sports-watching friends of mine admitted they had no idea that Garnett was a real NBA player -- the role was originally written for former Knicks star Amar’e Stoudamire. When Stoudamire signed with the Knicks in 2010, it was also the year he discovered his Jewish heritage. It was a revelation that led him to convert to Judaism and become an Israeli citizen. For a movie about the connection between Jews, Africans, and African-Americans, it would’ve been the perfect bit of casting.
But Stoudamire turned it down. To fit with the original script’s 2010 timeline, the former All-Star would’ve had to cut the dreadlocks he’s been growing over the last few years. I respect his decision, though it does make me question his Jewishness. I hate questioning Jewishness. I rarely question Jewishness. To me, an Orthodox Jew with two Israeli parents is as Jewish as a secular American Jew with a Catholic mom. But turning down an opportunity to act in a movie opposite Adam Sandler? That’s like serving a baked ham at Passover.
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Crab Bisque
12-16 ounces fresh crab meat
15-ounce can split pea soup
15-ounce can tomato bisque soup
15-ounce can cream of mushroom soup
¾ cup heavy cream
⅛ teaspoon white pepper
Dash of curry
Dash of paprika
Salt to taste
¾ cup dry sherry
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
Soak crab meat in sherry for 1 to 2 hours. Combine all remaining ingredients in a sauce pan and add one can water. Bring to boil. Lower to heat and simmer slowly for 2 hour, stirring occasionally. Add crab and sherry. Heat thoroughly. Salt to taste.
The last time I made a bisque, Dave Wohl’s shrimp bisque for Game 45, I had an allergic reaction. I couldn’t place the guilty ingredient, but even though they share little in common besides sherry and heavy cream, I went into this crab bisque with more worry than usual. Turns out I had nothing to worry about in terms of anaphylactic shock. It was your run of the mill Goldstein and Gasol recipe: Putrid. Also, not kosher! If you ask me, not getting to eat shellfish is just as bad as being barred from eating pork.
Whereas Wohl’s bisque was mostly tomato based and had the warming childhood feeling of a tomato soup on a cold day, this one mixed in cream of mushroom and split pea soup to the equation. What that mix resulted in was a watered down tomato soup that was only heightened with the pungent taste of canned crab meat. I took three bites straight out of the pot. There was no need to performatively pour it in a bowl for a Goldstein and Gasol snapshot. The smell wouldn’t let me. I left the bisque in the pot and snapped some photos.
So how did it look? Well… it turns out that my girlfriend’s camera does NOT tell you when the memory card has been removed. Honestly, I’m shocked I made it all this way (this was the 3rd to last recipe I cooked) without fucking up a food photoshoot. Just imagine that it looked like Wohl’s shrimp bisque with less color.
