Bullies, of one sort or another

Couple thoughts on some recent news before it starts to get busy around here:

GONZAGA IS becoming the Golden State Warriors of the West Coast Conference.

The Zags already have the best team in the conference — but that didn’t stop them from adding even more good players, just to make sure. The Warriors did it with all-star center DeMarcus Cousins, the Zags did it by adding North Dakota star guard Geno Crandall.

Crandall already has experience playing in The Kennel, having scored 28 points last December as North Dakota pushed Gonzaga to overtime before losing.

(Who knew that game would amount to an unofficial visit of sorts by Crandall to Zagville.)

If the Zags are the Warriors of the WCC, what does that make Saint Mary’s? The Cavs? Good enough to get to the finals, but not good enough to win it.

What does that make BYU? The Rockets? OKC? The Raptors? A team with talent that is capable of playing with the big boys, but also seems to underachieve at times.

What does that make the rest of the WCC, in comparison to the NBA? Tankers? Except there’s no high draft pick as a potential savior for doing so.

MOST OF you around here likely remember Lonnie Shelton from his days as an undersized power forward with the Seattle SuperSonics, playing a key role on the Sonics’ only NBA title, in 1979.

I, of course, remember him from his days at Oregon State.

The 6-foot-8 Shelton, who died July 8 at age 62 of health issues following a heart attack, played three seasons in Corvallis — from 1973-74 to 1975-76 — and led the Beavers in scoring and rebounding each season.

The last two seasons he was there, OSU finished second to UCLA in the Pac-8.

I don’t remember much else about those teams, or even Shelton with the Beavs, as not many games were on TV in those days.

But I remember one game where the Beavers were winning going away. This was back when dunking was illegal in college (the Lew Alcindor rule). Late in the game, Shelton got the ball on a breakaway, and rather than laying the ball in, he took several big strides and threw down a one-handed slammer.

That dunk earned Shelton a technical foul.

Beavers coach Ralph Miller couldn’t have been happy — but what was he going to do?

Shelton played two seasons with the New York Knicks, then was sent to Seattle as compensation for the Knicks signing free-agent center Marvin Webster, who had played for Seattle.

His first year in Seattle, the Sonics won the NBA title.

Those were the days when fights were allowed in the NBA — if players got mad at each other, they settled things with their fists.

Now they just go on Twitter.

In October 1977, Sports Illustrated published a cover story titled “The Enforcers.”

Two of the “enforcers” on the SI list were Maurice Lucas and Darryl Dawkins, who famously squared off late in Game 2 of the 1977 NBA Finals between the Trail Blazers and the Sixers.

There are no enforcers in the NBA these days — no power forwards that would, say, rearrange the face of a point guard with a forearm shiver if he got a little too frisky driving to the basket.

Shelton wasn’t on that list of enforcers in SI, but he certainly deserved to be.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.