John Johnson: Hello Houston, We Have a Problem, 1977

[In June 1977, John Johnson was traded from Houston to Boston. What seemed like a ho-hum acquisition of Houston’s 6-foot-7 reserve swingman would erupt into one of the NBA’s most-contentious trades of the 1970s. Today, few remember the trade. But from a historic perspective, this botched exchange is a fantastic example of the culture clash in the 1970s NBA between its dwindling old-school front-office pioneers and its rising new school business executives. It all started with the Celtics and their veteran forward Sidney Wicks. Heading into the 1977 offseason, Wicks chose not to resign with Boston, at least not immediately. Wicks wanted to test this newfangled NBA thing called restricted free agency. Red Auerbach, Celtic GM and the old school NBA pioneer, remained opposed to free agency of any variety in the NBA, and he vowed not to be held hostage by Wicks’ decision to look around for more money. And so Auerbach called his front-office counterpart Ray Patterson in Houston in early…