Big Bill Cartwright: The NBA’s Best Young Center, 1981

[In the 2010 book, When the Game Was Ours, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson (with plenty of help from the outstanding writer/journalist Jackie MacMullan) made the case that “their uncommonly competitive relationship” was key for myriad cultural reasons in “helping to save a floundering NBA.” No real quarrel there. However, it’s also assumed that Bird and Ma…