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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 2273464, member: 289"] THE PLAYERS BILL RUSSELL and WILT CHAMBERLAIN have been pretty well covered above. But this article has some interesting stats on their rivalry: [URL="http://www.nba.com/encyclopedia/ryan_rivalries.html"]NBA.com: The Great Rivalries: Russell vs. Wilt; Bird vs. Magic[/URL] 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: [URL="http://ascreamingcomesacrossthecourt.blogspot.com/2013/04/wilt-versus-russell-head-to-head-box.html"]A Screaming Comes Across the Court: Wilt versus Russell: Head to Head Box Score Data[/URL] 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: [URL="https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/r/russebi01.html"]Bill Russell Stats | Basketball-Reference.com[/URL] You-Tube tribute: [MEDIA=youtube]r5lW7RSrGcs[/MEDIA] Wilt’s Stats: [URL="https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/chambwi01.html"]Wilt Chamberlain Stats | Basketball-Reference.com[/URL] You-Tube tribute: [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv84JlRKhrQ"]Wilt Chamberlain - ESPN Basketball Documentary[/URL] 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. [URL="https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/bayloel01.html"]Elgin Baylor Stats | Basketball-Reference.com[/URL] 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: [URL="https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/bayloel01.html"]Elgin Baylor Stats | Basketball-Reference.com[/URL] 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: [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF_Z-tmzEpg"]Oscar Robertson (1955 High School State Championship).mp4[/URL] and 1956: [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTGvjhiUdO4"]Oscar Robertson 39 points, 7 reb, 6a (1956 IHSAA Championship - Full Highlights)[/URL] 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: [IMG]http://images.performgroup.com/di/library/sporting_news/51/5/classic-photos-of-oscar-robertson_1qsy6o6lkcgvp1wp2vtn5j5prh.jpg?t=-1397902678&h=600[/IMG] 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. [URL="https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/r/roberos01.html"]Oscar Robertson Stats | Basketball-Reference.com[/URL] 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: [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HufCiwlRoYM"]Oscar Robertson - ESPN Basketball Documentary[/URL] 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. [URL="https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/bridgbi01.html"]Bill Bridges Stats | Basketball-Reference.com[/URL] [URL="http://www.apbr.org/ablstats.html"]American Basketball League Statistics[/URL] 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. [URL="https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hagancl01.html"]Cliff Hagan Stats | Basketball-Reference.com[/URL] Handsome Cliff was, for some reason, called “Li’l Abner”: [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPmRzsqL-tw"]Cliff Hagan highlight video[/URL] 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: [URL="http://www.apbr.org/spivey.html"]Bill Spivey's Professional Career Highlights[/URL] I found no You-Tube tribute about Bill. Here is an interesting picture of Bill: [IMG]http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/Graphics/People/bill_spivey_tower.jpg[/IMG] (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. [URL="https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/bellawa01.html"]Walt Bellamy Stats | Basketball-Reference.com[/URL] This film is very pro-Bellamy but doesn’t address his steady decline: [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMXF9QOd1BE"]Walt Bellamy Scouting Video (Hall of Fame NBA Center)[/URL] 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. [URL]https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hawkico01.html[/URL] A documentary on Connie, mostly in his own words, which talks a lot about his background: [URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oElAuZFXC9o[/URL] 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. [URL]https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/searske01.html[/URL] 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). [URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDCmzXjG3ak[/URL] 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? [URL]https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/stavela01.html[/URL] 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. [/QUOTE]

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