BOOM TIMES
Exhibition games labor with a fundamental flaw – the results don’t matter. In the few years immediately following 1992, when the top NBA pros arrived in international hoops competition, any game involving Team USA had the feel of an exhibition, their victories being the most forgone of conclusions.
But if the final score holds no drama, the power of the exhibition game is to, in the strictest sense, exhibit. Contemplate the proud history of the Australian men’s basketball team, and the most indelible memory emerges from a lead-up match in Utah, of all places, ahead of the ’96 Olympics. Shane Heal, from central casting in the role of little battler, went shirt-front to shirt-front with Charles Barkley, then the embodiment of ugly Americanism.
“It’s pretty amazing, because I still have somebody – if not every day, then every second day – bring that incident up,” Heal says. “People forget the fact that I had eight threes in that game.”
Indeed he did, some from the kind of long range that wouldn’t be seen until Steph Curry or Damian Lillard in this era. The spectacle of the undersized, blond-mopped Heal lighting up the Americans, still unused to being challenged, was too much to bear for Barkley. As Heal attempted another three-pointer, Barkley closed out with a shoulder lowered to the body rather than hands raised to the ball, an unmistakably crude act on the hardwood anywhere. Heal says he would’ve reacted the same way if it was an NBL game, or even a training session. The tension didn’t die down. When timeout was called a few minutes later, Heal and Barkley tangled again, drawing teammates from their respective huddles to restrain them.
“Charles was really angry on that night – like, really angry – kind of unnecessary when you’re beating a team by 30 points,” Heal recalls. “And he sort of chilled down as the game finished … at one stage on the highlights, you could see him in a timeout: he pointed with the finger like it was a gun at the other end, as if he was shooting us. It was
