Oct
7
Remembering Some Sweetness and Some Unpleasantness on a Day of Obscure Birthdays
Hoops 4 the Soul would by lying if it said that it was truly familiar with any of these former NBA/ABA players who were born on October 7th, including Frankie Baumholtz, Bill Ebben, Harold Ellis, Alex Groza, Gary Hill, Bob Martin, Willie Naulls, Ron Nelson and Bob Wood.
The only players who somewhat stand out on that list are Ellis, who undoubtedly appeared on some Fleer Series 2 basketball cards as a member of the Los Angeles Clippers during the mid-nineties, and Groza, a name often mentioned by a reminiscing Billy Packer during college basketball season. Groza was the brother of Cleveland Browns Hall of Famer Lou Groza, the great kicker for whom the award given to be the best placekicker in college football each season is named after.
Before Michigan’s Fab Five of Chris Webber, Juwan Howard, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson, Alex Groza was a captain of the Kentucky Wildcats’ Fabulous Five team that won back-to-back championships in the 1948 and 1949 NCAA Tournament under legendary yet controversial Head Coach Adolph Rupp.
Groza, Ralph Beard, Wallace “Wah Wah” Jones, Cliff Barker and Ken Rollins would lead Kentucky to championship victories over Baylor and Oklahoma State during those respective tournaments but would be ultimately remembered for a less-endearing moment.
As a professional basketball player, Groza was interestingly implicated in a point-shaving scheme dating back to the 1948-1949 season with Wildcats teammates Beard and Dale Barnstable. After averaging 22.5 points per game in two seasons with the Indianapolis Olympians of the NBA, Groza and other implicated players would be banned from the league for life by NBA President Maurice Podoloff in 1951 (and you thought David Stern was tough). Groza died in 1995.
With his lifetime ban from the NBA, Groza would thus become the first player in the league’s history to finish the last season of his career with a scoring average of more than 20 points. Groza averaged 21.7 points during his last season, the 1950-1951 campaign with the Olympians to be exact, and is only behind Bob Pettit, Drazen Petrovic and Paul Arizin in terms of players with higher scoring averages in their final NBA seasons.
Pettit averaged 22.5 points in his final season with the St. Louis Hawks (now the Atlanta Hawks) in the 1964-1965 season. Prior to his tragic death in a car accident shortly after the 1992-1993 regular season, the great Petrovic averaged 22.3 points in his final year with the New Jersey Nets. Arizin averaged 21.9 points in the 1961-1962 season with the Philadelphia Warriors (later the San Francisco Warriors and now the Golden State Warriors).
As a point of reference, here are the scoring averages for some of the greatest NBA players in their final seasons:
• Bill Russell averaged 9.9 points in the 1968-1969 season, his last with the great Boston Celtics;
• Wilt Chamberlain averaged 13.2 ppg in his last season with the Los Angeles Lakers in 1972-1973;
• Julius Erving averaged 16.8 point in the 1986-1987 season, his final one with the Philadelphia 76ers;
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, averaged 10.1 ppg in his last season in the league, the 1988-1989 campaign with the Lakers;
• Larry Bird averaged 20.2 points during the 1991-1992 season with the Celtics;
• Magic Johnson averaged 14.6 points in the 1995-1996 season with the Lakers (prior to his comeback that season, Johnson last played in 1990-1991, when he averaged 19.1 points per game);
• Michael Jordan averaged 20 points on the dot in his final year with the Washington Wizards in the 2002-2003 season; and
• Karl Malone averaged 13.2 ppg in the 2003-2004 season with the Lakers.
Speaking of such greatness, October 7th is also the day that the late great Walter Payton became the NFL’s all-time leading rusher. Exactly 23 years ago, Payton surpassed Jim Brown’s record mark of 12,312 yards during a 20-7 Chicago Bears victory over the New Orleans Saints. Payton’s record would eventually be broken by the Dallas Cowboys Emmitt Smith in a game against the Seattle Seahawks during the 2002 season.
Before Jordan would be a transcendent and idolized figure in Chicago sports history, that title belonged to Payton, the very symbol of classiness in professional sports.
by Chris Maynard, chris@hoops4thesoul.com
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