Game 63: Mike McGee - Rolleden

With their late 1st round pick in the 2015 NBA Draft, the Lakers took power forward Larry Nance Jr. For two and a half years, Nance was a solid big man off the bench able to provide rebounding and crowd pleasing dunks. While still with the Lakers, he was selected to participate in the Slam Dunk Contest. Then a week later, Nance was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers. But the trade seemed to be serendipitous. At the Dunk Contest, Nance wore the old Cavalier jersey of his dad, Larry Sr., and placed 2nd after recreating one of the dunks that his old man used to win the inaugural contest in 1984. Along with an alley-oop team up, it was a great full circle moment for the father and son. And it never would’ve had the same meaning had Dr. Jerry Buss listened to Jerry West and drafted Larry Nance Sr. over college star Mike McGee.

Mike McGee remains one of the greatest University of Michigan players ever, a lofty distinction considering the players who’ve donned the maize and blue over the years, like Glen Rice and the Fab Five. A 6’5” forward out of Nebraska, McGee burned opposing defenders to put up numbers that have him ranked 1st in career field goals made, 2nd all-time in points scored, and third in single season points scored at the U of M. He also became the first Wolverine to lead the team in scoring four seasons in a row.

Over in L.A., a couple months after McGee’s fourth and final season in Michigan, the defending champion Lakers had just been upset by the Houston Rockets in the 1981 Western Conference Finals. The Lakers had the 17th pick in the draft and the front office bran trust of Jerry West, Bill Sharman, and Mike Thibault all wanted Nance. But according to Jeff Pearlman’s Showtime, Dr. Buss had given coach Paul Westhead the final decision on drafting. The coach was enamored with the scoring of McGee, even though that’s all he could do. So the Lakers selected McGee instead of the high-flying scoring and rebounding machine. And while McGee could score when he played, he rarely found himself starting because he couldn’t do anything else!

By the following season, West was trying to trade McGee but found no takers due to his one-sided playing style. That was the same year Byron Scott joined the team, which bumped McGee further down the “hot scorer off the bench” depth chart. Nonetheless, he became somewhat of a fan favorite because of Chick Hearn’s ravenous support of the shooter. Hearn nicknamed him PAM -- Point-A-Minute -- because he seemed to finish the game with points equal to the minutes he played. That was an exaggeration, but McGee did play an important role in the 1984 and 1985 teams that lost and won, respectively, the NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics. For the 1983-1984 team, he started half of the regular season’s games and averaged double digit points.

In 1986, West finally found a taker in the Atlanta Falcons who were willing to trade for the player who made West “moan” while Larry Nance tore up the league. McGee finished his career averaging 9.6 points / 2.6 rebounds / 1.1 assists and only 82 total starts. Over in Phoenix and Cleveland, Nance averaged 17.1 points / 8.0 rebounds / 2.6 assists / 1.7 blocks over a 14 year career. McGee might’ve been a bust in comparison to Nance, but his drafting meant that the Lakers had a hole at power forward to fill the following year. And thanks to a #1 overall draft pick from the Cavaliers, the Lakers set their eyes on one player in particular: A bruising forward out of UNC named James Worthy.

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Rolleden

4 lean beef strips

8 strips of bacon

1 onion, chopped

Flour

Pepper

Salt

1 tablespoon cooking oil

Thick thread, white or light color

Place strips of beef flat on cutting board. Place 2 strips of bacon on each. Evenly distribute onion on top of bacon. Roll up and tie with string. Place oil in pot and brown rolls for about 10 minutes on low heat. Add ¾ cup of water, or enough to cover the bottom of the pot. If you have additional onion, you may add to top of meat. Cook on medium heat for 10 minutes more. Add more water and cook on low, covered for 1 to 1 ½ hours or until meat is cooked. In a bowl, mix ½ cup flour with 1 cup of water to make a thin mixture (add more water if necessary). Take rolleden out of pot and keep warm. Add flour mixture into pot juices and mix well. Heat until slightly thickened.

To serve: Pour gravy over rolleden; serve with potatoes, red cabbage, and green salad

First things first: The correct spelling is Rouladen. But since it’s Mike McGee’s Rolleden, I’ll be referring to it as that.

Regardless of what team wins the NBA finals this year, my girlfriend is the real champ for putting up with this dumbass project of mine. Since October, our dinner schedule has been thrown out of whack by me cooking a usually disgusting recipe for Goldstein and Gasol, whether she’s eating with me or not. So when I saw the recipe for this, I described to her the odd German dish I was preparing -- basically a German meat burrito -- and recommended that she should probably get her own dinner.

To go along with the rolleden, I made simple rosemary potatoes and this German red cabbage recipe. Instead of tying my rolledens in thread, I took after the German chef I watched on YouTube and used toothpicks instead. His video claimed that the gravy part of the recipe was the key to the dish. Which made me nervous since McGee’s recipe gets very vague at the recipe part. Long and varied cooking times, unmeasured water, and the instruction to boil the rolledens until “meat is cooked” even though it was overcooked before I covered the pan. This had me thinking my dish was heading towards disasterous territory. My gravy ended up having the consistency of ground up brisket.

I did not like the final product at all, but she did! It’s not technically the beloved Slavic / Eastern European food from her hometown of Chicago that she can rarely find out here, but it’s close enough. It’s just like the saying goes: Happy girlfriend, happy blog.