Historical Pro Basketball 1956-63

[SWC75]

The Celtics

I’m sure NBA fans in the mid 50’s felt that the dynasty of the Minneapolis Lakers was something so special they wouldn’t see it’s like for years. In fact an even greater dynasty was about to begin its legendary reign, one that would both dominate and change the sport dramatically. Red Auerbach had the best offensive team in the league. But the Celtics couldn’t stop anybody. They also didn’t have enough rebounding. They needed a good big man. There was one available. In fact, he was the greatest winner in the history of team sports.

Bill Russell, like all big men, had to grow into his body and find a way to coordinate his movements properly to maximize his talents. He did that quicker than most, being a track star in high school. He could high jump his 6-9 height and ran a 49.6 440 dash. But he also had to learn the game. Wikipedia:”In his early years, Russell struggled to develop his skills as a basketball player. Although Russell was a good runner and jumper and had large hands, he simply did not understand the game and was cut from the team in junior high school. As a freshman at McClymonds High School in Oakland, California, Russell was almost cut again. However, Coach George Powles saw Russell's raw athletic potential and encouraged him to work on his fundamentals…Russell soon became noted for his unusual style of defense. He later recalled, "To play good defense ... it was told back then that you had to stay flatfooted at all times to react quickly. When I started to jump to make defensive plays and to block shots, I was initially corrected, but I stuck with it, and it paid off…Russell, in an autobiographical account, notes while on a California High School All-Stars tour, he became obsessed with studying and memorizing other players’ moves (e.g., footwork such as which foot they moved first on which play) as preparation for defending against them, which including practicing in front of a mirror at night.” His basketball hero was George Mikan. After seeing him play in college, Mikan said of Russell "Let's face it, he's the best ever. He's so good, he scares you."

But things started to come together his junior year in high school, when his team won the state championship. They won it again when he was a senior. W: “Russell was ignored by college recruiters and did not receive a single letter of interest until recruiter Hal DeJulio from the University of San Francisco (USF) watched him in a high school game. DeJulio was not impressed by Russell's meager scoring and "atrocious fundamentals", but sensed that the young center had an extraordinary instinct for the game, especially in the clutch. When DeJulio offered Russell a scholarship, the latter eagerly accepted.” Freshmen were not eligible so Bill played on the freshman team. There was also no freshman national championship. He joined the varsity for the 1953-54 season but the result was an unremarkable 14-7 record, although that was an improvement from 10-11 the previous year. But the Dons in the next two years went 57-1, winning the national championship both years. They were 8-0 in the NCAA tournament in those two years, winning 7 of the 8 games by at least 11 points. Only a 57-56 win over Oregon State in 1956 Far West Finals, (where the 6-9 Russell first went up against 7-3 Swede Hallbrook), was close. The team went on to win 60 games in a row, (the streak ending after Russell graduated. That would be the national record until the Walton Gang broke it with their 88 game streak a generation later.

The Russell went to Melbourne for the 1956 Olympics and led the US team to an easy victory, (they won each game by at least 30 points). From his junior year in high school to that Olympic team he had been a member of six basketball teams for which there was an ultimate championship, (state, national or Olympic) and his team won it five times. Now he was ready to begin a pro career that would net 11 championships in 13 years. That’s 19 teams and 16 championships. Not divisional or conference championships. That’s the ultimate championship those 16 teams could have won. That’s 84%. Not a winning percentage. A championship percentage. That’s Bill Russell.

He was never a great scorer. But he was the greatest defensive center of all time and the greatest rebounder the game had ever seen. He made steals, blocked shots to his teammates instead of to his fans in the stands. Auerbach decided to focus on defense and then use his favorite tactic- the fast break with Bob Cousy running the show - to beat the other team down court and score before they could set up their defense.

Basketball started out as a purely team sport. In fact, Naismith’s original concept was to have the court painted in a grid and to have up to 50 players on each team each stand in their own square with a member of the opposing team and they would battle each other to obtain the ball and pass it to a teammate without leaving their square in the grid. Eventually Naismith cut it down to five players on each team and allowed them to roam the court. But each set continued to be 5 of 5, with the offense running some kind of pattern like a “Weave” with each player having an assigned mission, not unlike a football play. As the sport matured, it became obvious that some players were better at putting the ball in the basket than others and these players became ‘stars’. Now the game became about feeding the ball to your star in the half-court set. If the other team didn’t have a star, you won. If they did, it was your star vs. their star. In fact the era of the Celtics dynasty might have come to be known as the era of stars if it hadn’t been for the Celtics: Dolph Schayes, Bob Pettit, Elgin Baylor, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West and the biggest star of all- Wilt Chamberlain.

But the Celtics, by focusing on defense and using their defense to ignite the offense, ran these teams off the court. They were simultaneously the best defensive team in the league and the highest scoring team of all time, (except for the Warriors when Wilt was at his very peak), hitting the open man, whoever he was. The Celtics’ per game averages for 1956-63 with the average of their highest scoring player and that of the league scoring champion:
1956-57 105.5 Bill Sharman 21.1 Paul Arizin 25.6 (His team scored 100.4)
1957-58 109.9 Bill Sharman 22.3 George Yardley 27.8 (105.3)
1958-59 116.4 Bill Sharman 20.4 Bob Pettit 29.2 (108.8)
1959-60 124.5 Tom Heinsohn 21.7 Wilt Chamberlain 37.6 (118.6)
1960-61 119.7 Tom Heinsohn 21.3 Wilt Chamberlain 38.4 (121.0)
1961-62 121.1 Tom Heinsohn 22.1 Wilt Chamberlain 50.4 (125.4)
1962-63 118.8 Sam Jones 19.7 Wilt Chamberlain 44.8 (118.5)

Their dominance on both ends resulted in the long stretch of the most dominating regular seasons the sport had ever seen: 44-28, (Russell joined the team from Melbourne 24 games into the season as the Olympics were played in November due to the opposite seasons in the southern hemisphere), 49-23, 52-20, 59-16, 57-22, 60-20, 58-22, 59-21 and 62-18 before the 76ers finally dethroned them. It was a far cry from the 43-29 type records that the league’s best teams had been producing since the end of the Laker’s dynasty. They won their Eastern Division pennants by a total of 86 games in 9 years. And this was in a league with only 8-9 teams, so each team had plenty of star power and depth. All the great teams since have played some version of the kind the ball the Celtics did, stressing defense and using it to set up the offense, even if some of them were more star-oriented than the Celtics were. The Men in Green showed the rest of the league how the game should be played. And Bill Russell was the key to the whole thing.

But first Red Auerbach had to obtain his services. The Harlem Globetrotters made a pitch for Russell which backfired when their representative spent a meeting talking to USF coach Phil Woolpert while ignoring Russell. It’s hard to imagine Bill Russell taking part in the Trotter’s antics. (A year later, baseball’s Bob Gibson had a stint with the Trotters after playing basketball for Creighton and left because he couldn’t deal with not going all out to win all the time.

The NBA team with the draft rights to Bill was the Rochester Royals, (Imagine Bill Russell and Maurice Stokes together). But Auerbach knew they did not have the finances to afford what Russell would demand, (Bill was smart enough not to publically say no to the Globetrotters before this played out.) Next came the St. Louis Hawks. Imagine Russell and Bob Pettit on the same team! Auerbach knew that his center, Ed MacCauley who had grown up and played his college ball in St. Louis wanted to return there because of an illness in his family. St. Louis owner Ben Kerner knew MacCauley would be a huge box office draw in his home town but held out for something. The Celtics had the rights to former Kentucky star Cliff Hagan, who had yet to play for them because he was in the military service. Auerbach agreed to include Hagan in the deal.

The Royals took Sihugo Green of Duquesne, a 6-2 guard who had a ten year career playing for four different franchises, (in six different cities). He averaged 9.2ppg for his career. The Royals moved to Cincinnati the next year. The Hawks then picked Russell and traded him to Boston for MacCauley and Hagan. The third team was Minneapolis, who took Jim Paxson, Sr., who played for two teams in two years and averaged 8.0. The Knicks were next and picked Ronnie Shavlick, a 6-8 forward from NC State who played exactly 8 games for them over two years. The Nationals got Joe Holup out of George Washington. He played for three years, being traded to Detroit in the second. The Celtics drafted Russell’s teammate, K. C. Jones, even though he wasn’t much of a scorer: he was just a great defensive player and a good point guard. He was in the Army at the time and was one of several players Auerbach got the rights to by drafting them when they were in the service, (Hagan and Frank Ramsey being two others). They also had a territorial pick and used it to select Tom Heinsohn out of Holy Cross. That gave the Celtics three Hall of Famers in one draft!

These deals also set the previously moribund Hawks up to dominate the West for years. McCauley had a couple of productive years left. Hagan became a star who would score over 20ppg four times for them and rebound very well for a 6-4 player, reaching a 10.7 average in his fourth year. They had a gold-plated star in Pettit. They acquired Clyde Loveltte and Slater Martin from the Lakers. (People tried to imagine what a game between the Celtics of the late 50’s and the Lakers of the early 50’s might have been like. Lovelette and Martin didn’t have to imagine it). They even drafted Willie Naulls, from UCLA and decided they didn’t need him, trading him to the Knicks where he became their star player.

But nobody had what the Celtics had: Russell dominating the lane and sweeping the boards. Heinsohn a 20/10 guy at power forward, Bill Sharman the architype of a shooting guard and the league’s best free throw shooter with Bob Cousy running the offense and the fast break with unmatched style. They were so good it enabled Auerbach to use his latest “enforcer”, Jungle Jim Loscutoff at forward. When Red wanted even more firepower, he brought in Frank Ramsay, the league’s first famous “Sixth Man” off the bench.

Russell didn’t show up until 24 games had been played in the 1956-57 season due to his Olympic experience. Heinsohn played center in his absence. Ironically, the Celtics actually had a better record in those first 24 games than they did the rest of the regular season, 16-8 vs. 28-20. It took a while for the players to adjust to their new roles, come together and play the way Red wanted them to. It was Heinsohn, not Russell who was named Rookie of the Year and Cousy was named the MVP.

They got a bye into the semi-finals and swept the Nationals in three games. Then came the first of several classic confrontations with the Hawks, who with the Celtics were suddenly the two best teams in the league. The first game was a classic 125-123 two overtime affair in Boston won by the visitors: a great start to a great rivalry. The Cetlics then dominated in the second game, 119-99. The Hawks won the first game in St. Louis, 100-98, (after the fans were treated to a fistfight between Auerbach and Kerner), but lost the second 118-123. The Celtics then took the lead in the series back home with a 124-109 win. The Hawks tied it up again, 96-94 in St. Louis. Bob Cousy missed a free throw with 12 seconds left and Hagan tipped in a Pettit miss on the other end for the win. Then back in Boston, where it had all beginning, the series ended with another 125-123 2OT game, this time won by Boston for their first championship. The game –and the season- ended with the Hawks throwing the ball the length of the court and Pettit leaping to tip it in. It rolled around and around and out.

There’s a shot in “The Official NBA Basketball Encyclopedia” of Tom Heinsohn, on the sidelines for the final play, kneeling next to Red Auerbach with a towel in front of his head because he can’t bear to look. There’s no cigar in red’s mouth. The “illustrated History of Basketball” has a shot taken a few seconds later of a fully erect Heinsohn with the towel around his shoulders, shouting in unison with Auerbach, who is about to produce a huge clap of his hands. (Unfortunately, I can’t find either picture on-line.)

That first book says “The playoffs culminated in a seven-game NBA Finals that drew unprecedented national attention and proved to be a landmark evet for the NBA….A large television audience saw this classic game and the visibility of the NBA took a quantum leap….Never again would there be questions about the NBA’s ability to survive.”

The two teams met again in the 1958 finals. The start was similar with the Hawks winning the opener in Boston, 104-102, then getting crushed in the second game 112-136. The third game, in Sat. Louis, was the deciding game of the series. It was tied at 49 “Bill Russell soared high to block a shot by Bob Pettit, landed heavily on his right ankle and collapsed in a heap on the floor with a severe sprain.” He suffered a chipped bone and some torn tendons. He missed the rest of that game and the next two games.

It didn’t mean the series was over. The Celtics still had plenty of good players, one of whom was the old Rochester Royal big man, Arnie Risen, who took over for Russell. The Hawks won game three, 111-108 but the Celtics rallied around each other and pulled out game four 109-98, holding Bob Pettit to 12 points on 3 for 17 shooting. 6-1 Bob Cousey had a triple-double with 24 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists.

But it wasn’t enough. The Hawks won a 102-100 squeaker in game 5 back in Boston, The embarrassed Pettit roared back with 33 points and 21 rebounds. But that applied in comparison to what he did in the sixth and final game in St. Louis. Russell attempted a comeback, playing 20 minutes, but he had no mobility and could do nothing to stop Pettit, who scored 50 points and had 19 rebounds. Still, it was another nail-biter. Wikipedia: “With a little more than 20 seconds to play, Pettit drove on Russell, stopped and arched a shot over the Celtic captain for the basket that gave the Hawks a 108-105 lead. Tom Heinsohn made two foul shots with 16 second left to cut it to 108-107. With the Boston defense converging on Pettit, Slater Martin tried a set shot that missed, but Pettit somehow fought his way through the mob of Celtics around him to tap the ball in and make a final Celtic field goal meaningless”

That final basket doesn’t look all that meaningless here:

It was the only championship the Hawks have ever won. Much was made of the fact that it was the NBA’s 5th different champion in five years: the Lakers in 1954, the Nationals in 1955, the Warriors in 1956, the Celtics in 1957 and the Hawks in 1958. That would seem indicative of great balance and, in fact, with only 8 teams, it was a balanced league. Ironically, the only team that didn’t win at least 33 (of 72) games was the Minneapolis Lakers, who had bottomed out at 19-53. But the first of those five champions was the last year of the Laker’s dynasty and there had to have been a realization that, without Russell’s injury, the Celtics would have won their second straight title. Indeed, they would have won ten in a row because the won the next 8 NBA titles, setting a major league sports record that probably will last forever.

 

[SWC75]

The Big Dipper

The real rivalry turned out not to be between the Celtics and another team but between Bill Russell and another individual. Wilt Chamberlain was even bigger than Bill Russell: 7-1 and 275 points compared to 6-9 ½ 220 and was as great an athlete, likely the greatest 7 foot athlete of all time. He started to make a name for himself at Philadelphia’s Overbrook High School in the early 50’s. He starred on the track team. W: “He high jumped 6 feet, 6 inches, ran the 440 yards in 49.0 seconds and the 880 yards in 1:58.3, put the shot 53 feet, 4 inches, and broad jumped 22 feet.” (Later, when he started to have such trouble with his free throw shooting, he would take a running start, leap from the foul line and dunk. The short-sighted powers that be decided to outlaw the move.) He thought basketball was a ‘sissy’” game but "basketball was king in Philadelphia" so he played that sport as well. “He had a natural advantage against his peers; he soon was renowned for his scoring talent, his physical strength and his shot blocking abilities. According to ESPN journalist Hal Bock, Chamberlain was "scary, flat-out frightening... before he came along, most basketball players were mortal-sized men. Chamberlain changed that."

He went to play for Phog Allen at Kansas but the Warriors’ Eddie Gottlieb had already made him a territorial pick- when he was in high school! Allen was forced to retire after Chamberlain’s freshman season and never got to coach him as freshmen were ineligible. Instead his assistant Dick Harp became Wilt’s college coach. Harp was greeted by a 52 point 31 rebound game against Northwestern. How could anybody beat the Jayhawks with “The Big Dipper”, (a name he much preferred to “Wilt the Stilt”, in the middle? Well, three teams did, including North Carolina in triple overtime by a single point in the national championship game.
(Go to 3:40)

The next year the Jayhawks fell back to 18-5 and Chamberlain decided to skip his senior year and accepted $10,000 from LOOK magazine to write an article explaining why. He didn’t get along with Harp and was sick of stalling and triple-teaming tactics by the opposition. It’s also been suggested that Lawrence Kansas was not his kind of town. He’d averaged 30 points and 18 rebounds for his career but he left Kansas without a national championship. It was not the first time Chamberlain’s statistical achievements exceeded Russell’s but his team achievements fell short.

At that time NBA teams didn’t sign college players before their class graduated. Wilt’s response was to sign to play year with the Harlem Globetrotters, who were having quite a decade. There were still a limited number of black players in the NBA and the era of touring teams had mostly come to an end so the Trotters had quite a talent base to choose from. They played college teams and NBA teams and All-Star teams all over the country with their unique combination of quality basketball and quality entertainment. Other times they played teams assembled just to be their “opponents”, such as the Washington Generals. They used multiple units to keep up with all the dates.

Then Abe Saperstein got the audacious idea of invading Europe, despite the fact that the people there had barely heard of basketball, much less the Harlem Globetrotters. The very first tour went to England, Western Europe and North Africa in 1950. They brought with them an announcer who would explain the game as they played it. Per “The Harlem Globetrotters: An Illustrated History”, at the time of “the Trotter’s arrival in London for their initial ten day stand, (there was) zero coverage in the sports pages…After the first night, the British had seen for themselves just what dizzying heights the sport of basketball had attained at the hands of the Globetrotters and not only was the team’s name plastered all over the next morning’s sports pages but the second night the fans booed the announcer because they didn’t want his explanations slowing down the excitement of the game….Everywhere they went in Europe and North Africa, the reaction was the same: overwhelming. When the Globies finally returned home in August they had 73 smash appearances under their belts. They had introduced the sport of basketball to Europe in a spectacular way and made a lot of friends in the process.”

The next year a Hollywood movie was made about the Trotters, called simply “The Harlem Globetrotters” and three years after that came “Go, Man Go!” starring a young Sidney Poitier. Then, in 1951 came their most famous road trip. It was to Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, where 75,000 Germans showed up to see them – and to see Jesse Owens, who made his first return there since the 1936 Olympics. Jesse ”took a token leap into the broad jump pit – and pulled his hamstring muscle. The Globetrotters had to run out and help Jesse off the track in his great moment of glory!” True magazine reported: “The largest crowd ever to see a basketball game anywhere in the world gathered in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, scene of many a Hitler rant against ‘inferior’ people of the world and went wild over a black basketball team that was owned by a Jew – one of the crowning ironies of history.”

The team even had an audience with Pope Pius XII. On their next trip they showed the Pope their warm=-up routine to the tune of “Sweet Georgia Brown” and he could be seen tapping his feet. In Greece they had to postpone an event because the hot sun melted the asphalt on their court. They played a game in a driving rainstorm, barefoot in an inch of water. In Spain, Ermer Robinson hit a 100 foot shot. “Ten thousand Spaniards…nearly broke down the bleachers with enthusiasm. Later they played a Taiwanese team on the condition that the local team’s “pride must not be offended by the Globetrotters antics”. They played straight basketball and quickly built a 30 point lead and had to be escorted from the place by armed militia. They played a game in the Philippine jungle on a specially built mahogany floor in front of the 12,000 employees of a wealthy plantation owner in newly erected bleachers. They also did a South American tour. The Harlem Globetrotters were more responsible for than either the NBA or even the Olympics for making basketball the international sport it is today and in doing so they fully lived up to their name.
Harlem Globetrotters - The Team That Changed The World

Wilt played with the Trotters during the 1958-59 season and later described it as the happiest year of his life. “Harlem Globetrotters: An Illustrated History” is full of pictures of the Trotters posing with Pope John XXIII, Nikita Khrushchev and Sir Edmond Hillary, among others. In one picture one of the Trotters, in India, is being taught to charm a snake with a flute. The book describes the Pope as trying to dribble a basketball and even make a hand-off around his “ample paunch”, which proved unsuccessful. In Algeria they played in a French Foreign Legion fort with audible gunfire outside the fort. When they put up a jump shot they never knew if it would come down with a bullet hole in it.

There’s a picture of Wilt with his hands around a bar in a Moscow subway, the passengers around him gawking at him. The book details their first ever trip to Russia, including their middle-of-the-night flight from Berlin to Moscow, “like something out of Mission: Impossible….They landed in the morning and went straight to their hotel to rest up for that night’s game. But then came a call requesting that the team report to the arena ‘for inspection by the Soviet officials’. Needless to say, the men were tired and didn’t feel like doing this but they figured a five or ten minute exhibition would satisfy the authorities. To their amazement they walked into the huge indoor Palace of Sports and found the place packed with government officials who didn’t wish to buy tickets with the common folk. The Globetrotters had little choice but to play a whole, extra unscheduled game.” One night Meadowlark lemon felt ill and said he’d like to see a doctor. A teammate left to inform Abe Saperstein so he could get a doctor. By the time Abe got to Lemon’s room, there was already a Russian doctor there. Somebody had already ‘heard’ the request the moment Meadowlark made it.

”But while governments will be governments, the everyday citizen on the street is something else….Their first scheduled game ended with the crowd sitting in dead silence and the Trotters figuring they had really laid an egg. On the contrary, said their interpreter, the fans loved them and the next day’s newspaper would verify this. But Russian custom holds that the audience remains quiet at an event while the performers applaud. Well, the Globetrotters said, that was nice but rather than wait until the next day to read how they did in the newspaper they would sure prefer hearing some good old, let-your-hair-down responses from the crowd. After all, American athletes thrive on applause. An announcement was made and the delighted fans almost tore the joint down clapping and cheering. Every night after that the Moscovites were tremendous clapping and stomping appreciatively. At the conclusion of each game, the Trotters would go around the floor three times to shake hands and in return, they were kissed, showered with roses and decorated with numerous medallions. The exchange of warmth was something none there would ever forget.”

Wilt so enjoyed his tour with the Trotters that for several years after his NBA career was over, he would joining the Trotters on that year’s tour. They kept a #13 jersey with them wherever they went in case Wilt showed up. Rome was his favorite point to show up because he loved that city.

I have an acquaintance who is a huge Bill Russell fan and uses every opportunity to denigrate Wilt, feeling false that that was necessary to support his admiration for Bill. He constantly harps on Bill’s much greater intensity and competitiveness. I wonder if that is reflected in their entirely different attitudes toward playing with the Globetrotters. On the other hand, I can see young Wilt being dazzled by traveling the world and having all kinds of adventurous experiences. I can also see him enjoying being part of a team rather than the whole focus of the offense – and the defense. I can see him enjoying not having a coach yell at him. I can also see him enjoying playing under no pressure with crowds being entertained by the Globetrotters and not expecting him to score 50 points and get 30 rebounds every night.

Chamberlain, of course, became the most statistically dominant player in the history of the sport, basketball’s answer to Babe Ruth, Jim Brown and Wayne Gretzky. He was the king of superstars in an era of superstars. Our Nationals had Dolph Schayes. The Hawks had Bob Pettit. The Lakers acquired Eligin Baylor who set several scoring records in the year Wilt was with the Trotters, only to see them disappear the next year. He would be joined by Jerry West after they moved to Los Angeles. The Royals had Jack Twyman, who would finish second in scoring in 1959-60 with 31.2ppg. Oscar Robertson would become Cincinnati’s great new star, soon to be joined by Jerry Lucas. This would have been remembered as the Era of the Superstars except that it was the Era of the Celtics.

And Chamberlain, as the #1 superstar, might have had a dynasty of his own without the Celtics. In his rookie season he blew the doors off the record book by averaging 37.6 points per game, (he hit he 50 mark 7 times), and 27.0 rebounds per game. He was the first player to average 30 points a game, (and Twyman was the second the same year). His rebounding average broke Russell’s record of 23.0, set the previous year. Russell would have broken his own record with 24.0. That’s right- Twyman and Russell both broke the points and rebounds record- and Wilt topped them both, easily.

But his team finished ten games behind the Celtics, despite the presence of Paul Arizin, Woody Saulsberry, Tom Gola and Guy Rodgers in the same line up. Russell scored only 18.2ppg but his team out-scored Wilt’s 124.5-118.6 and beat them in six games in the Eastern finals. Russell scored more, 20.7ppg in the series and upped his rebounding to 27 a game. He ‘held’ Wilt to 30.5/27.5.

The Hawks had been upset in the Western finals by Baylor’s Lakers, who were then swept by the Celtics in four games for their second title. The Hawks were back in ’60 and the result was another great seven game series. There were splits in each city, followed by alternating home wins, the clincher coming in Boston, 122-103 as Russell 22 points and 35 rebounds and held Pettit to 22 and 14.

The next year Wilt had essentially the same season, 38.4ppg with 27.2rpg. Baylor, 8 inches shorter, came within shouting distance with 34.8/19.8. Robertson averaged 30.5/10.1 with 9.7 assists. Despite the dazzling number, the Celtics again had the best regular season record, 57-22 and marched through the playoffs, beating the Nationals, (who had swept the Warriors in 3 games) and then the Hawks in five games each.

Then came 1961-62 and Wilt Chamberlain went into orbit:
On 12/1/61, he scored 60 on the Lakers.
On 12/8/61 Wilt broke Elgin Baylor’s single game scoring record of 71 points with 78 against Baylor’s own team. Elgin tried to match him but could ‘only’ score 63 points. The game took 3 overtimes.
On 12/9/61, he dropped 61 on a new team, the Chicago Packers, (who are now the Washington Wizards) and their star rookie, 6-11 Walt Bellamy.
On 12/29/61 he again scored 60 on the Lakers.
On 1/13/62, he scored 73 on the Packers, setting the record for a regulation 48 minute game. .
On 1/14/62 Bill Russell held him to 62 points.
On 1/17/62, he scored 62 on the Hawks.
On 1/21/62 he scored 62 on the Nats.
On 2/13/62, he scored 65 on the Royals.
On 2/17/62, he scored 67 points on the Hawks.
On 2/22/62, he scored 61 more on the Hawks.
On 2/25/62, he scored 67 on the Knicks.
On 2/26/62, he scored 61 on the Packers
On 2/27/62, he scored 65 on the shell-shocked Hawks, his third game in three days with 60+ points.
That’s fourteen 60+ point games against seven different teams. (He missed only the Pistons).

But he wasn’t done….

The Warriors had a game against the Knicks in Hershey, Pennsylvania on March 2, 1962. The league “farmed out” games sometimes in those days both to cultivate interest and/or because their arena was not available because something that would draw more fans, such as the circus, was in town. What happened in Hershey that night went a long way toward changing things.

The Knicks’ answer to Chamberlain? Darrell Imhoff, a 6-10 220 center who had led California to the NCAA title in 1959. From the illustrated History of Basketball by Larry Fox: “It was a mismatch from the beginning. Chamberlain had 23 points in the first quarter and 41 by the end of the half. Always a poor foul shooter- incredibly bad was more like it- Wilt was making his free throws this night as well as his fall-away jumper. By the end of the third his scoring total had soared to 69. As the fourth quarter began, Wilt scored three fast buckets and broke his regulation game record with 75 points. After four minutes of the quarter, he had 79, breaking all the records. “

“The Warriors now started feeding Chamberlain in earnest.” (What would be the difference?) “The Knicks started holding the ball for each of their 24 second allotments. But the Dipper couldn’t be stopped. When the Knicks tried deliberately fouling other members of the Philly team so Wilt would not have a chance to score. For more than two minutes Chamberlain did not score a point. Then he started again: 94…96…98…and, with 46 seconds left, he took a high pass near the basket and stuffed it through with both hands. He had scored 100 points.”
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/93/Wilt_Chamberlain_100-point.jpg

The two teams set an NBA combined scoring record with 316 points. The warriors won, 169-147. The Warriors actually had five players in double figures: Al Attles scored 17, Paul Arizin and Tom Meschery each scored 16 and Guy Rodgers had 11, with 20 assists, (Tom Gola didn’t play. The Knicks had a triumvirate of Richie Guerin with 39 points, Cleveland Buckner, Imhoff’s back-up, scored 33and Willie Naulls scored 31. It wasn’t enough. Imhoff himself played only 20 minutes before he fouled out and scored 7 points. Wilt was 36 for 63 from the field and 28 for 32 from the foul line, (which is what allowed this to be such an historical game). He pulled down 25 records but had only two assists and the same number of fouls. He had 94 “net points”.

For the season he averaged 50.4ppg, 25.7rpg, 2.4apg and 1.5 fouls per game. He attempted 3,159 shots 39.5 per game and made 1,597, (20.0). He attempted 1,363 free throws (17.0) and made 935, (10.4). That’s 50.9 not points per game. There’s no point in figuring it out per 48 minutes because of Wilt’s most amazing stat: he averaged 48.5 minutes per game. How could he have done that? By playing every minute of every game plus all the overtimes. The “Official NBA Basketball Encyclopedia”: His performance redefined individual scoring. Until this time, the basketball public had marveled at one game highs but what Chamberlain did not only put the record out of reach, it made the very idea of exceptional scoring commonplace. His incredible totals, combined with the fact that Boston was winning the titles, shifted attention to team values in judging an offense.”

The Warriors gained revenge on the Nationals for the sweep the previous year – but just barely, winning in five games after dropping games 3 and 4. Then the Celtics beat them in a tremendous 7 game series. The cities were so close they simply alternated home games. The Celtics dominated the first game in Boston 117-89. Wilt had 33 points and 31 rebounds compared to 16/30 for Bill but Bill got a lot more help. The Celtics had six guys in double figures. In Philly, the Warriors evened the series 113-106 Wilt had 42/37 to Russell’s 9/20 and he got plenty of help from Paul Arizin (27 points) and Guy Rodgers (22). Boston won game 3 by 129-114 after building up a 21 point halftime lead. Chamberlain was 35/29 but Russell matched him with 31/31 and Tom Heinsohn added 31 points. The Warriors tied it up again back home, 110-106. Wilt had 41/34 but Russell again nearly matched him with 31/30. Bill was showing he could score if he had to. He may have been rising to the occasion because he was playing Chamberlain. Paul Arizin and Tom Meschery aided Wilt by scoring 26 and 23, respectively. The Celtics again dominated in Boston, this time taking a 23 point halftime lead and winning 119-104. They held Wilt to 30-14 while Russell clearly out-played him with 29/26 and five of his teammates were in double figures. The Warriors tied it up one more time with a 108-99 back in Philadelphia. They won it on the boards having five players in double figures in rebounds, (they won that battle overall 79-64). Wilt was 32/21 vs. 19/22 for Russell. The titanic confrontation returned to Boston but this time it was close. Boston again had a great first quarter, taking a 34-23 lead. But the Warriors roared back with a 33-18 second quarter to take a 56-52 lead. They still led 81-80 after three quarters. The Celtics took a 109-107 lead with a basket by Bill Sharman with 2 seconds left. A long pass to Chamberlain failed and the Warriors high water mark had passed.

The Lakers had combined Elgin Baylor and Jerry West and won more games, 54, than any team other than Boston. It took another 7 exciting games for the Celtics to subdue the Lakers, who earned a split of the first two games in Boston. West then gave them a 2-1 lead in LA with a steal from Cousy and a lay-up at the buzzer, 117-115. The Celtic evened the series with a 115-103 win in game 4 but LA out-ran them 126-121 in Boston to again take the lead, thanks to an amazing 61 point, 22 rebound game by Baylor. The 61 points would last as the playoff scoring record for 25 years, when Michael Jordan scored 63 in the same building against the same team. But Boston tied the series again 119-05 back in LA, the fourth game of the series won by the visiting team. The NBA’s greatest season came down to a final game at Boston, which was tied at 100 with the Lakers having the last possession.

Wikipedia: “The player who initially had the ball on that final play was Rod "Hot Rod" Hundley. And Hundley had in fact dreamt the night before that he would make the championship-winning shot. And further, after pump-faking his defender into the air, Hundley indeed briefly had an opening to take a shot. But rather than selfishly insisting upon attempting to play out his dream in real life, when Hundley noticed that Selvy, (Frank Selvy, who once scored 100 points in a college game), was open for an even better shot — a shot that Selvy usually could be counted upon to make — Hundley gave up his own chance for glory and passed the ball. Selvy's miss, however, meant that Hundley's sacrifice had been for naught and that Hundley would never know if indeed he would have won the championship himself, had he taken the shot he had available. Because of this, Hundley would occasionally call Selvy and, when Selvy answered the phone, Hundley would simply say, "Nice shot!" and then hang up.” The Celtics won the first overtime 10-7 and with it, a record fourth straight championship.

This 3 part edition of “The Way it was” was about that series:
1962 LA Boston, Finals (1 of 3)

 

[SWC75]

Saperstein’s Folly

1951-62 was not only the greatest year of the NBA. It was the greatest year of the new American Basketball League created by Abe Saperstein. It was their greatest year because it was their only completed season. Abe had been promised an NBA franchise to be based in Los Angeles and when the Lakers moved there instead, he created his own league with a Los Angles franchise. He also withdrew his Globetrotters from playing NBA teams, which was not an insubstantial move as the Globies tended to draw the largest crowds, often providing the opposition for the opening home game of a team’s season or playing in double-headers. Now the Trotters would only be playing the ABL teams.

The new teams included the Cleveland Pipers, owned by a group of investors headed by a young George Steinbrenner; the Pittsburgh Renaissance, known as the Rens as an homage to the Trotter’s old rivals from the 40’s; The Washington Tapers (Owned by the Technical Tape Corporation: they played sticky defense), the Kansas City Steers, the San Francisco Saints, the Los Angeles Jets, the Hawaii Chiefs and Saperstein’s own Chicago Majors.

None of the NBA’s biggest stars jumped to Abe’s new league but he did get Bill Sharman to become coach of the LA Jets. Former NBA scoring champion George Yardley jumped to try to extend his career. Dick Barnett left the Nats to become a Piper. A young forward just out of Kansas, Bill Bridges, became one of the league’s stars. He went on to a highly productive 13 year NBA career. Saperstein decided to offer employment to blacklisted players and the old Kentucky 7 footer, Bill Spivey showed up to the big chief in Hawaii. Connie Hawkins and Tony Jackson, who had been caught up in a second gambling scandal in 1961, (although their actual involvement is unclear at best), also joined the new league. Both would alter play in the ABA and Hawkins had a successful NBA career after that. This was enough to convince me to include this version of the ABL in the numbers below: the full careers of such players included their brief time in this league.

Their time was brief due to the shaky financial structure of the league. The LA Stars folded midway through that first season. The Washington Tapes moved to gum up New York City. In the second season, the deck got shuffled so much the league was unrecognizable. The Tapers moved to Philadelphia. The San Francisco Saints became the Oakland Oaks. The Hawaii Chiefs became the Long beach Chiefs, eliminating travel costs. George Steinbrenner negotiated to get his Pipers into the NBA but when that failed, they simply disbanded. So did the entire league, as of December 31st, 1962.

The Pipers had won the only full season championship in a weird playoff set up reminiscent of the early days of the pro game. There was an Eastern and Western division but also a split season. There was a “first half” playoff between the divisional winners in which Kansas City defeated Cleveland 2 games to 1 for the “first half championship”. When the second half ended, they had a “second half” championship. The top two teams in the East and the top team in the West drew byes. The third and fourth teams in the East played the second and third teams in the West, (since LA went out of business), in single games won by won by New York and San Francisco. They then played the top two teams in the East in single games won by Cleveland and New York. Cleveland then beat New York in a single game and won the league championship by beating Kansas City, (who was well-rested, not having to have played a single playoff game to get into the finals), 3 games to 2, (in fact they lost the first two and then won three in a row). The next year Kansas City was imply declared the champion by Saperstein as they had the best record when the league expired on New Year’s Eve.

The short-lived league did offer some new innovations. John McClendon of Cleveland was the first African American head coach of a pro team. He’s won three straight NAIA championships at Tennessee State in 1957-59, where Dick Barnett had been one of his players. Unfortunately, he had a run in with “The Boss”- George Steinbrenner and was replaced in mid-season by Bill Sharman, who was without a job because the LA jets had folded. Sharman thus went on to become the only head coach to win championships in three leagues: the Cleveland Pipers in the ABL in 1962; the Los Angeles Stars in the ABA in 1971 and the Lakers in the NBA the next year. The league also adopted an 18 foot wide lane, which was the standard in international play, instead of the 12 foot wide lane the NBA was using. The NBA subsequently adopted the 18 foot wide lane as well. This ABL used a shot clock but a 30 second one. Their last contribution: the three point shot, from a radius of 25 feet. The NBA did not copy that rule- yet.
History of the American Basketball League

Eddie Gottlieb sold the Philadelphia Warriors to a San Francisco group of investors and they became the San Francisco Warriors for the 1962-63 season, giving the Los Angeles a natural rival on the west coast, but leaving the city of Philadelphia, who had played such a prominent role in the history of the sport, without a professional team. San Francisco thought they were getting a major contender for the title but Paul Arizin decided to retire- from the NBA because he didn’t want to leave the Philadelphia area, (he continued his career in the Eastern League, (something you’d never see today). Tom Gola was traded to the Knicks. Wilt Chamberlain gave it a mighty effort- averaging 44.8 points and 24.3 rebounds per game but with little help, his team aged to 31-49. The Lakers fought off the Hawks to win the west while the Celtics cruised in the East, finishing ten games ahead of the Syracuse Nationals.

The Royals, now in Cincinnati, beat the Nationals in 5 games and then gave the Celtics all they could handle, going down in 7 games after winning two of the first three. The Celtics always had home field advantage and it again helped in the wild seventh game that was won 142-131. Oscar Robertson scored 43 points but Sam Jones, who had taken over as the Celtics shooting guard for Bill Sharman, had the game of his life with 47. The Celtics then beat the Lakers again in the final, this time in 6 games for their 5th straight title and 6th in 7 years. And they weren’t done.

 

[SWC75]

All of a sudden, it’s not there

That loss to Cincinnati, (the seventh game 127-131 in OT in the War Memorial), not only ended the Syracuse Nationals season, it ended the Syracuse Nationals history, after 17 years in which they’d had 11 winning records and never missed the playoffs. The era of small cities and small arenas was coming to an end and a city like Philadelphia wasn’t going to be without a franchise for long. Danny Biasone sold the team to some Philadelphia investors and they became the Philadelphia76ers for the 1963-64 season. The quotes below are from my series “Syracuse Wins World Series”.

After winning the title in 1955, they’d fallen to a tie for last place at 35-37, beaten the Knicks in a one game playoff and then had the pleasure of eliminating the Celtics in the last pre-Russell year. But they couldn’t beat the eventual champion Warriors. The next year they rallied somewhat to 38-34 and finished second, just 6 games behind the Celtics, who only had Russell for the second half of the season. They swept the Warriors in a two game series, then got swept in three games by the hated Celtics. In 1958 they were again second to the Celtics with a 41-31 record, 8 games back. But the Warriors beat them in a best of 3 series.

The 1958-59 team was hugely inconsistent- they had a 7 game winnings streak followed by a 7 game losing streak- and also snake bit. Their Pythagorean rating- the projected wins and losses according to their overall point differential- was second in the league at 45-27 but they wound up 35-37, meaning they dropped a lot of close games. They strengthened themselves by acquiring George Yardley, who had led the league in scoring the previous year, to give the team more firepower. This created the team, with Yardley, Dolph Schayes, Johnny Kerr, Larry Costello and a young Hal Greer, that most players and observers of that era felt was the strongest Nationals line-up. They looked it in the playoffs, sweeping the Knicks and coming as close as you could get to knocking off the Russell Celtics in the Eastern finals.

“The high water mark for the Nats was their series in the Eastern finals vs. the Celtics in 1959. The Nats had blown them out in the last game of the regular season at the War Memorial, 141-118. After sweeping the Knicks the Nationals took on the Celtics in perhaps the greatest series in NBA history. The Celtics won the first, big time, 109-131 at the Boston Garden. The teams then had a cozy joint flight to Syracuse where Schayes, (34 pts), and Yardley, (27) led the Nats to a 120-118 win. They both went right at Russell the whole game.

Then they went back to Boston, Schayes feeling under the weather with a stomach virus and got blown out again 111-133. Again the Nationals answered with a 119-107 win at the War Memorial with Schayes scoring 28 and Costello outscoring Cousy, 26-13. A third Garden blow-out, 108-129 was followed by another Nats win in Syracuse, 133-121. Schayes, despite a toe injury, scored 39 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and passed for 8 assists.

This set the stage for what Johnny Most called “the most perfectly played basketball game I’ve ever seen”. Red Auerbach said it was “the greatest game I have ever been a part of.” Tommy Heinsohn called it the best basketball game he’d ever played in. At one point Most got so excited his dentures fell out and nearly went over the rail of the press deck before he managed to retrieve them.

Back in the Garden where the Celtics had won three games by a total of 65 points, they moved to a 12-19 lead. The Nats had a 30-10 run to make it 43-29, (ironically their regular season record in their championship year). The visitors pushed it to 58-42 and still led 83-73 midway through the third quarter. At this point the Nationals began to grow tired and the Celtics came back to tie it at 90. They took the lead at 94-95 and pushed that to 108-115.

But Syracuse rallied with ten straight points to make it 118-115. The Celtics rallied themselves to take a 120-121 lead with 2:40 left; Cousy scoring after Russell stole the ball from Schayes, who swore he was fouled across the arms. A three point play by Russell made it 120-124. But then Yardley drew Russell’s 6th foul but could make only one free throw, then missed a shot after Kerr got the rebound. Cousy hit a jumper at the 24 second buzzer with 46 seconds left. A Schayes lay-up made it 123-126. Hal Greer then made a steal with 40 seconds left. Expecting Russell to block his shot- and forgetting he was out of the game- he blew a lay-up. Sam Jones grabbed the rebound but stepped out of bounds. But the refs didn’t see it- or wouldn’t call it. There were 25 seconds left. Sam Jones hit two free throws. Larry Costello hit a jumper with 6 seconds left. Cousy clinched it with two more foul shots, (125-130), and was carried off the floor by the screaming Boston fans after the buzzer. He shouted “We’re the better team! We’re the better team!”

He had 25 points, Frank Ramsey 28, Heinsohn 20, Sam Jones 19 and Russell 18. It was barely enough to beat Schayes’ 35, Yardley’s 32, Kerr’s 23 and Costello’s 20 points. Yardley said “It’s a rotten shame. They’re really not that good”. He knew better. The Celtics then swept Baylor’s Lakers, (they would move to LA and Jerry West would join him in 1960) for the title. The Nats would never come so close again. “That was the zenith, said Schayes. “That was the best team we ever had.” Meanwhile Red Auerbach was puffing on what David Ramsey describes as “a ridiculously long cigar, close to a foot long and fat as a giant’s thumb”.

That team finished 45-30 the next year in a stronger league than the 43-29 team of 1955 and a much stronger league than the 51-13 team of 1950. They finished just behind Wilt’s first Warrior team but lost to them 1 game to 2 in the Eastern Semis. Yardley retired at that point, (only to turn up in Saperstein’s ABL the next year). The Nats sagged to 36-41 in 1960-61 but at least got to host the NBA All-Star game in the tiny War Memorial for the only time in their history.

“January 17, 1961 was quite a night in Syracuse as, for the only time, this town hosted the NBA All-Star game. The West All-Stars beat the East, 153-131, led by 29 points from Bob Pettit, 23 from Oscar Robertson, 21 from Clyde Lovellette, 15 each from Elgin Baylor and Gene Shue, 14 from “Hot Rod Hundley and 13 from Bailey Howell. The East was led by Bill Russell, of all people, with 24, Dolph Schayes with 21, Paul Arizin with 17, Tom Gola and Hal Greer with 14 each, Wilt Chamberlain with only 12, (but a game high 18 rebounds), and Richie Guerin with 11. Jerry West, Wayne Embry, Cliff Hagan, Walter Dukes, Tom Heinsohn, Bob Cousy, Willie Naulls and Larry Costello also saw action. Oscar Robertson, with 14 assists, was MVP. There were 232 field goal attempts in the game. The West jumped out to a surprising 28-9 lead. Auerbach tried putting Chamberlain and Russell in the same at the same time but it wasn’t enough to come back, although it must have been quite a sight for the 8,016 fans at the War Memorial.”
1961 NBA All-Star Game - Wikipedia


There were a couple more highlights that season. On Christmas Day, 1960, the Nats had one of those games were everything went in. They annihilated the hapless New York Knicks, 162-100, the largest margin of victory in NBA history. If 7-3 Swede Halbrook had scored one more point, every Nat who played in this game – 10 guys- would have been in double figures. The Nationals won every quarter by at least 10 points. It was an unremarkable 39-27 after one quartet, then 78-51 at halftime. The lead reached historical proportions with a 42-17 third quarter which made it 120-68. A 42-32 fourth quarter put an end to the slaughter.
New York Knicks at Syracuse Nationals Box Score, December 25, 1960 | Basketball-Reference.com

In the playoffs, the Nationals stunned the Warriors with a 3 game sweep. In Halbrook the Nats had the tallest player in the league, a guy even Chamberlain could look up to. Wilt looked beyond Swede and scored 46 points and grabbed 32 rebounds against his 15/15 but the Swede’s armspan made Wilt miss 20 of 39 shots. Syracuse’s backcourt of Costello and Greer combined for 53 points and four of their teammates reached double figures as the Nats pulled off the win in Philadelphia, 115-107. Back in Syracuse, they held Wilt to 32/14, missing 15 of only 28 shots and won a thriller 115-114. Greer had 26 points, Schayes and Costello 24. The Nats completed the sweep with Halbrook and Kerr holding Wilt to 33/23 but missing 16 of 29 from the field. Paul Arizin scored 30 but there was only one other double figure scorer and Syracuse had twice that many. In a 106-103 win. Swede said afterwards, “I’d rather play Wilt than any other big man in the league. He could be so much better than he is. All he uses is his height. I have locked him up just because I feel I can do it.”

There were no miracles in Boston, where the Celtics won in five games. Their margins of victory were 13, 23, 13 and 22 points. The 1961-62 Nationals were 41-39. Wilt got his revenge on Halbrook and the Nats, winning in a five game series. In game 5, he scored 56 points, pulled down 35 rebounds and his team closed out the Nats, 121-104.

“The final year in Syracuse was a surprisingly strong one. Schayes continued to decline at 9.5 ppg but Hannum was beginning to build the team to the peak they would have as the 1966-67 Philadelphia 76’s when they went 68-13 and crushed the Celtics and then the San Francisco Warriors to win the NBA title. Not only was Hal Greer on the team but Chet Walker now joined him. Kerr and Costello were still major players. A kid from North Carolina, not Billy Cunningham but rather Lee Shaffer, put up 18.6 ppg. The team won 48 games, including perhaps the one game you’d most like to see if you had a time machine to see it. Late in the season, (3/10/63), the Warriors, now in San Francisco, came to town with Chamberlain averaging 44 points and 24 rebounds a game. He dwarfed those totals with a remarkable 70 point game only to see his team lose, 163-148 as the Nats put an incredible NINE players in double figures.” (That’s the same number they had in the huge win over the Knicks on Christmas Day, 1960.)

“The Nats, as they did in every year of their 17 year existence, made it to the playoffs, losing to the Cincinnati Royals, 2 games to 3 in the first round. Dolph Schayes reached back in the first game to score 17 points with 6 assists in the first half. He was scoreless in the second half but blocked a Robertson lay-up in the final seconds leading to a clinching Hal Greer jumper. The final was 116-111, before only 4,335 fans. Robertson dazzled the Nats with 41 points, 18 rebounds and 12 assists in a 115-133 game two blow-out in Cincinnati. The Royals outrebounded the Nationals, 52-83.

Coach Alex Hannum wrote these words from Winston Churchill on the blackboard before game three at the War Memorial: “For when the day comes that we can accept a resounding defeat with indifference, a whole era of our history must be closed.” Hal Greer certainly must have read that. He held Robertson to 16 points and scored 30 of his own. The Syracuse Nationals won the last game they would ever win, 121-117.

Robertson’s 29 points led Cincinnati to a 125-118 win in game four. The home team had won every game so far. The last game was in Syracuse again, with the Nats just one game short of another meeting with the Celtics. But, perhaps sensing it might be the last game, 7,418 fans showed up in the War Memorial on March 26, 1963. In this game Robertson dominated Greer, holding him to 16 points while scoring 32 himself, with 19 rebounds and 13 assists. But Lee Shaffer played his career game, scoring 45 points. The Nats tied it in the final minute with baskets by Shaffer and Kerr to make it 114 all. Robertson started one of his classic drives to the basket but slipped on a wet spot. He kept his dribble but his foot was out of bounds. Hannum called a play for Chet Walker but the rookie’s shot rimmed out.

The Royals moved out to a 119-127 lead in overtime but the Nats were back within 125-127 with 10 seconds left. Reserve guard Al Bianchi wound up with the ball. He drove into Cincy center Wayne Embry and lost control of it. Embry grabbed it and the buzzer sounded. It was over. Years later, David Ramsey asked Oscar Robertson what he remembered about that series. “I can’t remember a thing”, he said.

Tickets went on sale for the 1963-64 season but sales were very slow. There was talk about the franchise moving but there had been talk about that for years. On May 16, 1963, Biasone met with Onondaga County Executive John Mulroy in the basement of the War Memorial. The meeting did not go well. Mulroy wanted an increase in rent for the building. Biasone wanted it cut and a long-term lease signed. They couldn’t agree. Later that night the Nat’s business manager announced the sale of the team to a group from Philadelphia for $500,000, 100 times what Danny paid for it back in 1947. (These days franchises sell for $100 million and up).

Johnny Kerr was relaxing at Three Rivers Inn when he heard the news. He ordered another round of beers for his friends. Then he began to cry. Dolph Schayes was scheduled to make a speech in Scranton, Pa. He could barely speak. He would play one year in Philly, averaging 5.6 points per game before retiring as the NBA’s leading career scorer, (he’d also committed the most fouls, something he was also proud of). He wound up coaching the new Philadelphia 76ers, including Wilt Chamberlain, who would soon devour all his records. He was also supervisor of NBA referees for a time, ironic for the league’s all-time fouler, (at least he had an intimate knowledge of who he was supervising). Larry Costello was resting on a beach in Bermuda and didn’t find out until a week later. He hadn’t just been a player for the team. He’d grown up as a fan. “All those memories. Then all of a sudden, it’s not there.“

 

[SWC75]

NET POINTS

1956-57 NBA (points, rebounds and assists minus missed field goals, missed free throws and fouls)
Dolph Schayes, Syracuse 1757 (29.6)
Bob Pettit, St. Louis 1725 (33.2)
Neil Johnston, Philadelphia 1646 (31.2)
Maurice Stokes, Rochester 1480 (25.7)
Clyde Lovellette, Minneapolis 1367 (26.3)
George Yardley, Ft. Wayne 1331 (23.7)
Paul Arizin, Philadelphia 1294 (22.4)
Bob Cousy, Boston 1107 (22.5)
Harry Gallatin, New York 1098 (27.1)
Bill Russell, Boston 1065 (30.2)

1957-58 NBA
Bill Russell, Boston 1938 (30.4)
Dolph Schayes, Syracuse 1849 (25.9)
Bob Pettit, St. Louis 1846 (35.1)
George Yardley, Detroit 1536 (25.9)
Maurice Stokes, Cincinnati 1523 (29.7)
Clyde Lovellette Cincinnati 1454 (27.0)
Neil Johnston, Philadelphia 1384 (27.6)
Kenny Sears, New York 1335 (23.9)
Cliff Hagan, St. Louis 1258 (27.6)
Johnny Kerr, Syracuse 1193 (24.0)

1958-59 NBA
Bob Pettit, St. Louis 2175 (36.3)
Bill Russell, Boston 2128 (34.3)
Elgin Baylor, Minneapolis 1779 (29.9)
Cliff Hagan, St. Louis 1568 (27.9)
Johnny Kerr, Syracuse 1529 (27.5)
Dolph Schayes, Syracuse 1511 (27.4)
Kenny Sears, New York 1452 (27.9)
Paul Arizin, Philadelphia 1374 (23.6)
Jack Twyman, Cincinnati 1340 (23.7)
Bob Cousy, Boston 1246 (24.9)

1959-60 NBA
Wilt Chamberlain, Philadelphia 3006 (43.2)
Bill Russell, Boston 2409 (36.8)
Bob Pettit, St. Louis 2121 (35.2)
Elgin Baylor, Minneapolis 2001 (33.4)
Cliff Hagan, St. Louis 1758 (30.2)
Dolph Schayes, Syracuse 1715 (28.7)
Jack Twyman, Cincinnati 1630 (25.9)
Kenny Sears, New York 1493 (34.4)
Willie Naulls New York 1442 (30.8)
Richie Guerin, New York 1412 (27.9)

1960-61 NBA
Wilt Chamberlain, Philadelphia 3471 (44.2)
Elgin Baylor, Los Angeles 2655 (40.7)
Bob Pettit, St. Louis 2532 (40.2)
Bill Russell, Boston 2374 (33.0)
Oscar Robertson, Cincinnati 2367 (37.5)
Bailey Howell, Detroit 1942 (31.6)
Willie Naulls, New York 1754 (28.3)
Dolph Schayes, Syracuse 1724 (27.5)
Jack Twyman, Cincinnati 1630 (26.8)
Cliff Hagan, St. Louis 1602 (28.5)

1961-62 ABL (points, rebounds, assists, fouls- had a three point shot)
Connie Hawkins, Pittsburgh 2206 (31.6)
Bill Spivey, Hawaii 1828 (30.5)
Bill Bridges, Kansas City 1689 (24.9)
Jim Francis, San Francisco 1398 (28.3)
Larry Staverman, Kanas City 1391 (24.0)
Ken Sears, San Francisco 1360 (24.4)
Dan Schwartz, LA-Wash-NY 1358 (23.3)
John Fox, Cleveland 1308 (22.1)
Dick Barnett, Cleveland 1103 (25.9)
Roger Kaiser, Wash-NY 1046 (17.0)

1961-62 NBA
Wilt Chamberlain, Philadelphia 4060 (50.2)
Oscar Robertson, Cincinnati 2942 (40.3)
Walt Bellamy, Chicago 2718 (39.0)
Bob Pettit, St. Louis 2614 (38.2)
Bill Russell, Boston 2482 (34.7)
Jerry West, Los Angeles 1920 (29.9)
Elgin Baylor, Los Angeles 1732 (39.0)
Richie Guerin, New York 1849 (26.5)
Johnny Kerr, Syracuse 1697 (29.3)
Bailey Howell, Detroit 1659 (27.9)

1962-63 ABL (points, rebounds, assists, fouls- had a three point shot)
Bill Bridges, Kansas City 916 (37.1)
Larry Staverman, Kansas City 665 (28.1)
Gene Tormolen, Kansas City 493 (21.3)
Bill Spivey, Long Beach 447 (25.6)
Fred LaCour, Oakland 447 (23.8)
Connie Hawkins, Pittsburgh 440 (31.6)
Jim Hadnot, Oakland 408 (20.4)
Maurice King, Kansas City 401 (15.9)
Roger Kaiser, Philadelphia 382 (18.7)
Sy Blye, Philadelphia 368 (18.1)

1962-63 NBA
Wilt Chamberlain, San Francisco 3911 (49.3)
Elgin Baylor, Los Angeles 2652 (37.8)
Oscar Robertson, Cincinnati 2652 (36.2)
Walt Bellamy, Chicago 2469 (35.8)
Bill Russell, Boston 2410 (33.1)
Bob Pettit, St. Louis 2227 (34.6)
Bailey Howell, Detroit 1906 (30.8)
Johnny Kerr, Syracuse 1659 (31.1)
Johnny Green, New York 1479 (27.8)
Wayne Embry, Cincinnati 1436 (27.5)

TOP TEN for 1956-63
Bob Pettit 55
Bill Russell 48
Wilt Chamberlain 40
Elgin Baylor 37
Dolph Schayes 32
Oscar Robertson 23
Bill Bridges 18
Cliff Hagan 16
Bill Spivey 16
Walt Bellamy 15
Connie Hawkins 15
Kenny Sears 15
Larry Staverman 15

HISTORICAL TOP TEN after 1949-54
Dolph Schayes 93
Bob Pettit 74
George Mikan 72
Bobby McDermott 65
Neil Johnston 61
Leroy Edwards 58
Benny Borgmann 57
Phil Rabin 56
Inky Lautman 51
Ed Sadowski 51

COMMENTS: Dolph Schayes gets rewarded for an incredibly long and productive career by taking the lead in the Historical Net Points ranking. It won’t last but the guys who will top him aren’t on the list yet.(Pettit will retire too soon.) The Big Dipper is coming! Bill Russell was a better player on the numbers than people remember, mostly due to his rebounding. And Elgin, Oscar, Jerry and others are going to dominate the rankings before too long. I wonder what Sy Blye is doing these days.

 

[SWC75]

THE PLAYERS

BILL RUSSELL and WILT CHAMBERLAIN have been pretty well covered above. But this article has some interesting stats on their rivalry:
NBA.com: The Great Rivalries: Russell vs. Wilt; Bird vs. Magic
Wilt out-scored Bill head to head 28.7-14.5 and out-rebounded him 28.7-23.7. He had a high of 62 points on Bill in 1962 – but the Celtics won the game - easily, in fact. Bill once scored 37 on Wilt.

This article breaks down Wilt’s side of it:
A Screaming Comes Across the Court: Wilt versus Russell: Head to Head Box Score Data
Russell was the greatest defensive center of all time but he couldn’t stop Wilt, just hold him down a little sometimes. His team beat Wilt’s regularly but when guarding him he was like a cowboy riding a bull.

Bill’s stats:
Bill Russell Stats | Basketball-Reference.com

You-Tube tribute:

Wilt’s Stats:
Wilt Chamberlain Stats | Basketball-Reference.com

You-Tube tribute:
Wilt Chamberlain - ESPN Basketball Documentary


In the first Star Wars sequel there’s a scene where Liam Neeson and the young Anakin Skywalker are in a small submarine. A very large fish shows up, fully capable of swallowing the submarine and starts chasing it. The big fish closes on the submarine when suddenly an even bigger fish shows up and swallows the big fish. The submarine gets away and Neeson causally remarks “there’s always a bigger fish”. ELGIN BAYLOR was a big fish in his career in the NBA, especially in the first part before injuries set in. The problem was, Wilt Chamberlain was a bigger fish. Elgin’s Lakers were a big fish. But the Celtics were a bigger fish. Later in his career he was over-shadowed by the somewhat younger and healthier Jerry West, who became the highly successful general manager of the Lakers after his career was over while Baylor became the GM of the lowly LA Clippers. For these reasons, the image of Baylor has faded somewhat in recent years. But his contemporaries continue to insist that he belongs on a very short list of the greatest players who have ever played.

A native of Washington DC, he wound up a collegiate star in the state of Washington. In DC he first played for Phelps Vocational High where he averaged 27.6 as a junior and set a DC scoring record with 44 points. He took a year to work in a furniture store but then enrolled in the new Spingarn High, where the 6-5 190 Baylor upped his average to 36.1, including 63 points in one game. He was named the DC area’s player of the year and became one of the country’s top recruits. But his academics were not good. Wikipedia: “An inadequate scholastic record kept him out of college until a friend arranged a scholarship at the College of Idaho, where he was expected to play basketball and football. After one season, the school dismissed the head basketball coach and restricted the scholarships. A Seattle car dealer interested Baylor in Seattle University, and Baylor sat out a year to play for Westside Ford, an AAU team in Seattle, while establishing eligibility at Seattle.”

Seattle at the time was what Gonzaga is now: a small school in the Northwest who had built themselves into a basketball power. In his first year there, Baylor scored 29.7 points and 20.3 rebounds as Seattle went 22-3. He topped that the next year with 32.5/19.3 and a trip to the NCAA title game, where they lost to Kentucky. The top three scorers that season were Oscar Robertson at 35.1, Elgin Baylor at 32.5 and Wilt Chamberlain at 30.1. It was an era where players of that caliber could lead teams to greatness almost by themselves and the national scoring races created as much interest as the national championship. People wanted to know not only which teams won last night but how much the top players scored.

The Minneapolis Lakers had fallen to a low ebb four years after the end of the Mikan Era, finishing with the worst record in the NBA at 19-53. Chamberlain had left Kansas with a year of eligibility left and signed with the Globetrotters. Robertson was a sophomore. So Baylor was the top player available and the Lakers took him. The Sports Encyclopedia: Pro Basketball: “A strong 6-5 forward….Baylor stepped into the Laker’s lineup and displayed a set of moves unknown to most basketball fans. A tough rebounder and sound ball handler, Baylor shown most brightly when putting the ball in the hoop. He tapped in rebounds, sank long jumpers and seemed to soar and float in his ad lib drives to the basket. The rookie…drew enormous crowds in all the league cities.” Elgin averaged 24.9 points, (including 55 in one game), 15.0 rebounds and 4.1 assists as a rookie. The Lakers improved to 33-39 and fought their way to the finals, upsetting the defending champion Hawks in six games. That was as far as they could at that point, getting swept by the Celtics in the final, giving the Celtics a 22 game winning streak against the leagues’ former dynasty.

The next season Elgin upped his game to 29.6/16.4/3.5 but the team fell back to 25-50. The Lakers then moved to Los Angeles. I don’t know if that was the cause but Elgin went into the stratosphere for the next three seasons, averaging 34.8/19.8/5.1 then 38.3/18.6/4.6 and 34.0/14.3/4.8. That 38.3 average has bene exceeded only by Wilt, who was 8 inches taller and at least 50 pounds heavier. Elgin set an NBA regular season scoring record with a 71 point game and a playoff record, (which is still a finals record) with 61 points against the Celtic defense. That would have been the most astonishing scoring explosion in pro basketball history- except for Wilt Chamberlain.
Baylor was joined in LA by Jerry West who averaged a modest 17.6 points his first year but then joined Baylor as a 30ppg scorer on a nearly annual basis, giving the Lakers the best 1-2 scoring punch in history. They would lead the Lakers to 4 regular season Western titles in five seasons from 1962-66 and then another finals appearance in 1968 after finishing second to the Warriors. They lost to the Celtics each time, beating the Celtics in 11 games but losing to them 20 times. It was much like the Brooklyn Dodgers constantly running into the New York Yankees in the World Series, despite having great players.

Baylor missed part of the 1961-62 season due to military service, (one of those things that doesn’t happen anymore) and played only 48 games. His knees began bothering him during the 1963-64 season and he had a serious knee injury in 1965. He made a good comeback and was still a very productive player for several years afterwards but was no longer on the level of his early career.
Elgin Baylor Stats | Basketball-Reference.com

It seemed Elgin might finally have a shot at a title when Wilt Chamberlain went west again and joined the Lakers for the 1968-69 season, giving the Lakers a “Dream Team” before the Dream Team. The Lakers had a strong but not historically great regular season (55-27). They beat the Warriors and the Hawks to get to the finals against the Celtics in the last year of Bill Russell’s incredible career. The Celtics had had finished a tired-looking 4th in the East behind the Bullets, Wilt’s former 76ers team and the rising New York Knicks. The Knicks swept the Bullets but the Celtics beat them in six games to once again win the East. The Lakers won the first two games in LA but lost the first two in Boston before losing two in Boston. The home teams continued to win games 5 and 6. It all came down to game 7 in LA. The Lakers famously had nets full of balloons in the rafters, ready to come down when the Lakers finally beat the Celtics. Bill Russell noticed them and told him teammates that those balloons were not coming down. The Celtics hung on to win 108-106 and Bill went out a winner with the balloons still in the rafters. It was the 7th time Elgin had lost in the finals to the Celtics.

The Lakers returned to the finals the next year but lost to the Knicks in the famous “Willis Reed” game, an 8th finals loss for Elgin, (who had also lost that NCAA final to Kentucky back in ’58). The next year the aging Lakers got crushed by the Milwaukee Buck’s steamroller in five games, (they were out-scored by 69 points). Elgin tried it for one more year but his knees finally gave out after nine games and he announced that was it. That was also the year Bill Sharman re-organized the Lakers to play like the Celtics. It’ not clear what Elgin’s role might have bene on that team, (Happy Hairston had already basically taken his job at the power forward), but that team won 33 games in a row, (beginning with the game after Elgin retired), set a record with a 69-13 regular season and swept through the playoffs to beat the Knicks in 5 games and finally give LA an NBA title. The Lakers did give Elgin a championship ring and good for them.

A You-Tube documentary on Elgin:
Elgin Baylor Stats | Basketball-Reference.com

Regarding “hang time”. All players, no matter how talented, will come down when they go up, and at the same rate, (see Galileo). The time they are in the air is the product of how high they leap. But it can appear to be extended if a player can do multiple things in the air and keep doing them on the way down and Elgin Baylor had “hang time”.


For many years, it was axiomatic that OSCAR ROBERTSON was the greatest basketball talent ever. That ended with Michael Jordan but The Big O can compare numbers with Michael or anybody else. Statistically, he was Michael Jordan + Magic Johnson with a bit of LeBron James thrown in.

At Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis as a junior and senior, he led his team to a 62-1 record, including 45 wins in a row and two state titles. Crispus Attucks was an all-black school and “After their championship game wins, the team was paraded through town in a regular tradition, but they were then taken to a park outside downtown to continue their celebration, unlike other teams. Robertson stated, "[Officials] thought the blacks were going to tear the town up, and they thought the whites wouldn't like it."

Here they are winning the 1955 title:
Oscar Robertson (1955 High School State Championship).mp4

and 1956:
Oscar Robertson 39 points, 7 reb, 6a (1956 IHSAA Championship - Full Highlights)

Oscar had a dominant career with the University of Cincinnati, leading the NCAA in scoring three straight years with averages of 35.1, 32.6 and 33.7. His rebounding averages were 15.2, 16.3 and 14.1. They didn’t keep track of assists until the 1957-58 season. The next two years they did and Oscar averaged 6.9 and 7.3. His average college game: 34 points, 15 rebounds and 7 assists. That’s over 88 games. His team went 25-3, (losing in a regional semi-final), 26-4, (Final Four) and 28-2, (Final Four). He then starred on the 1960 Olympic team, a team considered our best ever until the 1992 “Dream Team”. With Oscar, Jerry West, Jerry Lucas and Walt Bellamy, the 1960 team might have given the Dream Team a run for their money. This image about says it all:

Oscar didn’t have to go very far to play pro ball. He was drafted by the Cincinnati Royals and he became their star immediately, averaging 30.5/10.1/9.7 for the 1960-61 Royals. In the legendary year of 1961-62 he set his famous record, (just matched by Michael Westbrook) of averaging a triple-double per game: 30.8/12.5/11.4. That was his only triple-double season but his statistical performance remained at a high level through the rest of the decade. In fact, he averaged a triple double over the first four years of his career. His rebounds declined as Jerry Lucas took over as the team’s leading rebounder but Oscar’s other stats held up.
Oscar Robertson Stats | Basketball-Reference.com

The Royals had a run of good teams, the best one in 1963-64 when they went 55-25 and finished just four games behind the Celtics. They had taken the Celtics to 7 games the year before but went down in five games in this year, their high water mark. As they failed to catch the Celtics, criticism built up similar to that directed at Wilt that Oscar “wasn’t a winner”, that he dominated the ball too much. Later generations would note the lack of an above-the-rim game or the sort of flashy passes they was with Bob Cousy or Magic Johnson. Oscar just dominated his defender the best way he could, by backing them down with the dribble and scoring over them. His passes were not meant to be flashy. They were meant to be caught.

The Royals brought Bob Cousy on as coach to try to create a playing style similar to the Celtics. Bob even activated himself and made himself the point guard at age 41, a ridiculous situation. In his prime, he wasn’t the player Oscar was. Cousy helped engineer a trade to Milwaukee, where Oscar would play with Kareem Abdl-Jabbar. That team won 66 games and lost 16, then went 12-2 in the playoffs, sweeping the Bullets for the NBA title. Oscar was finally a “winner”. Cousy’s Royals finished 33-49. And 30-52 the next season as the Bucks went 63-19 but lost to the 69-13 Lakers in the Western finals. In 1972-73 the Royals moved to Kansas City and Omaha and went 36-46 while the Bucks were 60-22. Cousy was fired early the next season while the Bucks were 59-23 and lost in the NBA Finals. Oscar then retired, case closed.

Here is an ESPN documentary on Oscar:
Oscar Robertson - ESPN Basketball Documentary

Oscar was the inspiration for the “Net Points” system. I read an article back in the 60’s that noted that he didn’t score quite as much as Chamberlain or Baylor but, if you regard a rebound as being worth a point because it gives your team possession and teams score about a point per possession, and an assist worth a point because you are partially responsible for a made two point basket, then you could add Robertson’s points, rebounds and assists together to get his true value. I started doing that every time I looked at a basketball box score. I decided similar arguments could be made for the value of a blocked shot and steal and also for the negate stats of a missed field goal, free throw, turnover and foul. Add up the positives and subtract the negatives and you’ve summarized a player’s statistical contributions to his team’s effort to win the game. Oscar’s line in his greatest season looks like this, (everything per 48 minutes, since that’s the length of an NBA game: 33.3P + 13.5R + 12.3A - 12.9MFG – 2.2MFT – 3.5PF = 40.5NP (steals, blocks and turnovers not available: they usually cancel out)


BILL BRIDGES had a long and distinguished career in the NBA but was never quite a star. In the ABL, he was a star. Bill was a smallish (6-6) but strong 228 pounds) forward who was one of the best rebounding forwards in the league for years. He came out of Kansas, where he averaged 13.2 points and 13.9 rebounds for his career. He had a very similar career in the NBA – and a long one, playing 10, (actually 9 ½) seasons for the Hawks and then 5 ½ more years for the 76’s, Lakers and Warriors. He averaged 11.9 points and 11.9 rebounds for those teams, with highs of 17.4/15.1 in 1966-67. He gave no quarter, as indicated by his 366 fouls in 1967-68, then a league record. He once had 35 rebounds in a playoff game, something only Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Willis Reed have ever done.

That earned him a lot of respect in the NBA. But he wasn’t a star there. In the ABL he was a star. He played for the Kansas City Steers. In 1961-62, he averaged 21.4 points and 13.4 rebounds in their one full season. The next year he averaged 28.4/16.4 and set the league’s single game scoring record with 55 points. Then it was over and Bill went back to being the workhorse God meant him to be.
Bill Bridges Stats | Basketball-Reference.com

American Basketball League Statistics

Typical of a hard-working “lunch pail” professional like Bill, there’s no highlight film of him on You-Tube.


You don’t hear much about CLIFF HAGAN these days but he had quite a career. He was another Kentucky product but was not involved in the point shaving scandal. He did play on the 1951 championship team. The NCAA subsequently gave the Wildcats the “death penalty” due to recruiting irregularities and gambling scandal. There was no Kentucky team in 1952-53. Hagan and teammates Frank Ramsay and Lou Tsioropoulos were granted an extra year of eligibility and played on the 25-0 Kentucky team of 1953-54, which beat eventual NCAA champion LaSalle 73-60 in a December tournament. But the NCAA wasn’t finished with the Wildcats. There was a rule that graduate players couldn’t play in the post season, even though they were allowed to play in the regular season. Kentucky declined an invitation to the NCAA tournament, which they would have been heavily favored to win again. Cliff set a Kentucky single game scoring record of 51 points that lasted 17 years.

Red Auerbach had had the foresight to draft all three of the top Kentucky players, even though they were returning to play that last season and had military commitments. Hagan was in the Air Force for two years. During that time, Auerbach had a chance to get Bill Russell and traded Ed McCauley and Hagan to the St. Louis Hawks where they joined Bob Pettit and later ex-Lakers Clyde Lovelette and Salter Martin to create a team that dominated the Western Division for the next several years.

Hagan was only 6-4 but was a fine scorer, (four times over 20PPG, with a high of 24.8) and a strong rebounder, (double figures three times with a high of 10.9). He could also pass the ball and had a high of 4.9 assists per game. Beyond that “Hagan achieved renown and respect well after his career ended, when David Halberstam wrote in his classic book The Breaks of the Game that Hagan was the only white star on the Hawks who welcomed African American teammates like Lenny Wilkens to the team and did not treat them with prejudice.” (Wikipedia).

Cliff capped his career by becoming the player-coach of the Dallas Chaparrals in the new ABA. In fact, he scored 40 points in their first game. He finally retired in 1970. His team had had a winning record in all three years he was coach.
Cliff Hagan Stats | Basketball-Reference.com

Handsome Cliff was, for some reason, called “Li’l Abner”:
Cliff Hagan highlight video
He seems like a much more sophisticated person than that.


BILL SPIVEY, the seven foot star of Kentucky’s 1951 national champions, had been playing for various minor league and barnstorming teams for a decade due to his supposed involvement in the 1951 point shaving scandals, when Abe Saperstein’s ABL gave him a shot in 1961. Spivey had shown up at Kentucky barley weighing 160 pounds and Adolph Rupp told him he could play if he added 40 pounds, which he eventually did. Ralph Beard reported in practice that Spivey was out-playing All-American Alex Groza in scrimmages. Spivey became the starting center when Groza graduated and out-played Kansas’ Clyde Lovelette in a game early in the 1950-51 season. They went on to win Kentucky’s 3rd national championship in four years, with Spivey averaging 18 points and 17 rebounds.

Spivey’s name was mentioned by an ex-teammate as a guy who asked to be in on the point shaving and was later upset that the amount of money he was paid as less than had bene promised. He denied the story on the witness stand, although he later said that he was approached by another gambler and didn’t report it. He was later arrested for perjury but the result was a hung jury, (said to be 9-3 in favor of acquittal). The case was not re-tried but Kentucky rescinded his scholarship, (he’s had one more season of eligibility), and the NBA refused to employ him. Spivey field a lawsuit against the NBA but settled for only $10,000.

He played with an Elmira team in the last stages of the old ABL. Then he played with the barnstorming Detroit Vagabonds. He became part of the Boston Whirlwinds and the Washington Generals, two teams that accompanied the Harlem Globetrotters to provide someone for them to play. That ended when he got into a fight with Bobby “Showboat” Hall. He then barnstormed with the New York Olympians before signing with an Eastern League team, the Wilke-Barre Barons, whom he helped to two league championships. He became a huge scorer in that league, having 62 and 64 point teams. He was kind of the Wilt Chamberlain of the Eastern League. When not playing in the EL he also played in the Connecticut Basketball Association with something called the Ansonia Norwoods. In 1960, the Norwoods played the Milford Chiefs, who had, for one game, acquired the services of Wilt Chamberlain, (this must have bene a summer league). A highly-motivated Spivey scored 30 points and grabbed 23 rebounds against Wilt, who responded with a 31/27 game of his own. It suggested that Bill might have had a good NBA career if he’d been given the chance.

He moved to an EL version of the Baltimore Bullets who won the 1960-61 title. Then he joined the Hawaii Chiefs in Saperstein’s ABL and averaged 22.7/11.2 and 22.5/9.0 in Long Beach in the abbreviated second season. Then it was back to the EL with the Scranton Miners and then back to the Barons for five seasons before he decided to retire. His last appearances In a basketball game was in a sort of “Old Timers” game honoring players who had played for all the versions of the Baltimore Bullets, (ABL, BAA, NBA and EL). He led the abbreviated game with 12 points. "It really meant something for me to finish off my career with a game like that."

Wikipedia: “Spivey made his final public appearance in 1991, at a reunion of the 1951 Kentucky Wildcats team in Lexington. Writer Greg Doyel says that "he was a recluse" at the time. According to his wife, Audrey Spivey, "He never got over [his accusation in the 1951 college basketball scandal]. Bill could not let that go. He was just devastated."

His career record:
Bill Spivey's Professional Career Highlights

I found no You-Tube tribute about Bill. Here is an interesting picture of Bill:

(He wasn’t quite that tall.)


WALT BELLAMY started out as a superstar and steadily declined from that peak the rest of his career. He was a star at Indiana and the #1 draft choice in 1961. Ned Irish the New York Knicks owner needed a big man to compete with Russell and Chamberlain and he was licking his chops to get Bellamy. Unfortunately, his arrogant behavior, (he was always quick to point out that he had Madison Square Garden to play in, implying that that made him first among equals), caused his fellow owners to step in to prevent Irish from getting Bellamy. They had created their first expansion team, the Chicago packers as a move to hurt Abe Saperstein’s new league. They voted to give the first draft pick to Chicago, not New York, as originally planned. Chicago chose Bellamy and Irish’s Irish hit the roof. But he could do nothing about it.

Bellamy scored 31.6ppg that first year and pulled down 19 rebounds a game, stats only exceeded by Chamberlain among NBA centers. For reasons I have been unable to ascertain, he slowly got progressively worse the rest of his career. Since he started from such a high plateau, he had the reputation of a star player for many years afterwards. In his second season he was 27.9/16.4, then 27.0/19.70, 24.8/14.6, 22.8/15.7, 19.0/13.5, 18.7/11.7 and 11.6/8.9. His Chicago Packers became the Chicago Zephers the next year. Then they became the Baltimore Bullets and, years later, the Washington Wizards. Irish finally got Bellamy’s services in 1965 and he played for the Knicks until 1969, when he was traded to the Pistons. His playing time decreased steadily during this period and eventually he wound up playing for the hawks, where his career revived somewhat. He was still and excellent rebounder but not the scorer he used to be.

It’s interesting who eventually, (but not always immediately), replaced him for these various teams. Baltimore replaced him first with an aging Johnny Kerr and then Leroy Ellis, (LeRon’s father), before acquiring the services of Wes Unseld. In new York, Bellamy at first shared time with Willis Reeds, who also played some power forward. The Knicks eventually decided they were better off with Reed. Detroit replaced him with someone named Otto Moore and then Bob Lanier. Unseld, Reed and Lanier were all excellent players, with Lanier probably coming the closest to what Bellamy had been. But none of them put the sort of numbers Bellamy put up early in his career. Bellamy had done enough to eventually get inducted into the Hall of Fame- in 1993, eighteen years after his career ended. But you have to wonder why he seemed to get worse every year and why so many teams decided he wasn’t the answer for them. And you wonder what he might have been able to accomplish if he had maintained his early level of play.
Walt Bellamy Stats | Basketball-Reference.com

This film is very pro-Bellamy but doesn’t address his steady decline:
Walt Bellamy Scouting Video (Hall of Fame NBA Center)
It does show that he had all the skills – and was never injured seriously enough that he had to have an operation. So why didn't he stay a superstar?


CONNIE HAWKINS had quite a journey through his basketball life. In 1959 and in 1960 the 6-8 210 Hawkins led Boy’s High in New York to an undefeated season and New York City PSAL title. That made him a top recruit and Iowa won the battle for his services. But then the second round of point shaving scandals hit and his name was mentioned in some of the testimony – not because he’d shaved points or even was alleged to, but because he knew Jack Molinas, a key figure in the scandal, who had loaned him $200 for ‘school expenses’- a loan that had been paid back. But the taint of the scandal caused Iowa to revoke his scholarship and no other NCAA or NAIA school would give him one. The NBA also refused to give Connie a shot, resulting in a lengthy law suit.

Fortunately, Abe Saperstein got the ABL going again and he was willing to give players with a controversial past a shot. Hawkins took full advantage. Hawkins immediately became the dominant player in the league, playing for the Pittsburgh Rens. He averaged 27.5ppg and 13.3rpg. He was also a talented, even flashy ball-handler, although he only averaged 2.3 assists per game. His huge hands enabled him to hold the ball as if it was a softball and easily control it with one hand. He was named MVP. In the abbreviated second year he upped his scoring average to 27.9 and averaged 12.8rpg and 2.6apg. Then the league folded and Connie was off to a lengthy stint with the Globetrotters. Per the illustrated History of Basketball, “he tried to play the game as straight as possible so his skills would not erode as he toured the world.”

He got another chance when the American Basketball Association was created in 1967. He signed with another Pittsburgh team, the Pipers. His lawyers had it written into his contract that he would be a free agent in two years because they felt that was when his lawsuit against the NBA would be decided. He was just as dominant in the ABA as he had been in the ABL. In the new league’s first season he averaged 26.8ppg, 14.6rpg and 4.6apg. The Piers won the first ABA title over New Orleans in the final. Connie won his second MVP. The Pipers moved to Minnesota the following season and Connie had his biggest scoring year with 30.2/11..4/3.9. But injuries limited him to only 47 games. Then the NBA, fearing loss of the lawsuit and of some control over their players settled with Connie for $1.5 million and finally allowed him to play in their league.

Many people say that the NBA never saw Connie at his best because of the delay in starting his NBA career and those injuries. But he still had a very productive NBA career with the Suns, (for 5 seasons) the Lakers and the Hawks, an appropriate place to finish because that was his nickname: “The Hawk”. He scored over 20ppg his first three years with the Suns, with a high of 24.6 in his first year. He also hit double figures in rebounds one last time with 10.4 that year and 4.8 assists. It all ended in 1976, due to continuing problems with his knees.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hawkico01.html

A documentary on Connie, mostly in his own words, which talks a lot about his background:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oElAuZFXC9o


KENNY SEARS was a skinny, (6-9 198), forward out of Santa Clara who played for six seasons for the Knicks before giving the ABL a try. He then returned to the Knicks, who traded him back home to the Warriors for whom he played his last season and a half. In his first stretch with the Knicks, he was a star player, with highs of 21.0ppg and 13.7rpg, the later quite an achievement as he was typically out-weighed by at least 20-30 pounds. He twice led the NBA in field goal percentage and was a good enough ball handler to lead the fast break, (per Who’s Who in Basketball). In his one year playing for the San Francisco Saints of the ABL, he averaged 17.7/6.3.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/searske01.html

In a lot of pictures of NBA superstars from this period, the other guy in the picture is Kenny Sears. But he was a very good player in his own right. (Kenny died on April 23rd of this year).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDCmzXjG3ak


LARRY STAVERMAN came out of tiny Villa Madonna, (now Thomas More) College in Kentucky to play five unremarkable seasons in the NBA for 4 different franchises in 5 cities, (one of which relocated while he played for them). He was a 6-7, 205 forward who averaged 4.7 points and 3.8 rebounds Why is he here? It’s because of his stint with the Kansas City Steers of the ABL, where he was a teammate of Bill Bridges. Larry averaged 17.5/8.8 in 1961-62 and 20.9/8.4 in the abbreviated second season. Later he became the first ever head coach of the Indiana Pacers and much later, of the Kansas City Kings. Good for you, Larry. Don’t you wish you played pro basketball for 6 years?
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/stavela01.html


Note: I am going to suspend this series at this point until the spring. I want to be able to concentrate on SU football and basketball the next six months.