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Middletown High School legendary basketball player Jerry Lucas, who played on the 1972-73 New York Knicks NBA championship team, said he was “so happy” that the professional franchise finally won another title.
This year’s Knicks team completed one of the most dominant playoff runs in NBA history with a title-clinching 94-90 over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday night, June 13.
It was the franchise’s third NBA title and first in 53 years.
Lucas, a Middletown native who later starred at Ohio State University, was a key reserve on the Knicks team that lost the first game of the 1972-73 playoffs to the Los Angeles Lakers before rattling off four straight wins.
That Knicks team eventually had seven players inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame: Lucas (1980), Willis Reed (1982), Bill Bradley (1983), Dave DeBusschere (1983), Walt Frazier (1987), Earl Monroe (1990), and Phil Jackson (2007, as a coach).
Lucas called the 1972-73 Knicks “the most intelligent team” on and off the court he ever played for.
“A great team,” Lucas told the Journal-News Monday, June 15 from his California home. “A true team. I really enjoyed playing with them.”
In 1972-73, Reed, the New York team captain, returned from injury and Lucas was sent to the bench for the first time in his career. He averaged 10 points, seven rebounds, and 4.5 assists per game, far below his career averages.
Lucas, 86, said he doesn’t watch the NBA during the regular season, but tunes in during the playoffs. He watched every Knicks playoff game this year.
“It was exceptional, good and exciting,” he said. Then he added: “The game has changed a lot.”
The Knicks players split $9.1 million for winning the championship and $471,000 for finishing third in the Eastern Conference. So each player received about $640,000, not including any incentives they may have written in their contracts.
Lucas was asked how those shares compared to what the 1973 Knicks received.
He just laughed.
“That’s your answer,” he said.
While the courtside seats throughout the NBA playoffs were filled with celebrities, that wasn’t the case in 1973, Lucas said. He recalled Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman attending some playoff games.
The Knicks could have also won the 1972 NBA championship against the Lakers, according to Lucas.
With center Reed injured, Lucas, at 6-foot-8, played center against the Lakers’ Wilt Chamberlain, 7-foot-1.
Lucas said he was the first NBA center who played away from the basket and his long-range shooting skills were too much for Chamberlain to handle. If Chamberlain left the basket area, Lucas simply drove around him for a layup or passed to an open teammate, he said.
The Knicks won the first game, 114-92 with Lucas scoring 26 points.
But when DeBusschere got injured in the second half of Game 2, he was replaced by Jackson “who couldn’t throw the ball in the ocean from the beach,” Lucas said.
The Lakers won four straight and Lucas was denied his first NBA title.
Lucas won 76 straight games and back-to-back state titles at Middletown High School, an NCAA title at Ohio State (1960), an Olympic gold medal (1960) and an NBA title (1973). He was the first player to win a championship at all four levels.
He was asked what title means the most.
“All are very special,” he said. “Winning at each level is significant and important.”
Then he chose the Olympics because at the time, only amateurs were allowed to play, so he had only one opportunity.
Lucas, then 34, retired after the 1973-74 season when he played far less and was physically declining in his 11th professional season.
He was selected by the NBA in 1996 as one of its 50 Greatest Players in NBA History and again in 2021 as part of the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
In 1999, Sports Illustrated named Lucas to its Five Man College Team of the Century.
Continue reading...
This year’s Knicks team completed one of the most dominant playoff runs in NBA history with a title-clinching 94-90 over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday night, June 13.
It was the franchise’s third NBA title and first in 53 years.
Lucas, a Middletown native who later starred at Ohio State University, was a key reserve on the Knicks team that lost the first game of the 1972-73 playoffs to the Los Angeles Lakers before rattling off four straight wins.
That Knicks team eventually had seven players inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame: Lucas (1980), Willis Reed (1982), Bill Bradley (1983), Dave DeBusschere (1983), Walt Frazier (1987), Earl Monroe (1990), and Phil Jackson (2007, as a coach).
Lucas called the 1972-73 Knicks “the most intelligent team” on and off the court he ever played for.
“A great team,” Lucas told the Journal-News Monday, June 15 from his California home. “A true team. I really enjoyed playing with them.”
In 1972-73, Reed, the New York team captain, returned from injury and Lucas was sent to the bench for the first time in his career. He averaged 10 points, seven rebounds, and 4.5 assists per game, far below his career averages.
Lucas, 86, said he doesn’t watch the NBA during the regular season, but tunes in during the playoffs. He watched every Knicks playoff game this year.
“It was exceptional, good and exciting,” he said. Then he added: “The game has changed a lot.”
The Knicks players split $9.1 million for winning the championship and $471,000 for finishing third in the Eastern Conference. So each player received about $640,000, not including any incentives they may have written in their contracts.
Lucas was asked how those shares compared to what the 1973 Knicks received.
He just laughed.
“That’s your answer,” he said.
While the courtside seats throughout the NBA playoffs were filled with celebrities, that wasn’t the case in 1973, Lucas said. He recalled Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman attending some playoff games.
The Knicks could have also won the 1972 NBA championship against the Lakers, according to Lucas.
With center Reed injured, Lucas, at 6-foot-8, played center against the Lakers’ Wilt Chamberlain, 7-foot-1.
Lucas said he was the first NBA center who played away from the basket and his long-range shooting skills were too much for Chamberlain to handle. If Chamberlain left the basket area, Lucas simply drove around him for a layup or passed to an open teammate, he said.
The Knicks won the first game, 114-92 with Lucas scoring 26 points.
But when DeBusschere got injured in the second half of Game 2, he was replaced by Jackson “who couldn’t throw the ball in the ocean from the beach,” Lucas said.
The Lakers won four straight and Lucas was denied his first NBA title.
Lucas won 76 straight games and back-to-back state titles at Middletown High School, an NCAA title at Ohio State (1960), an Olympic gold medal (1960) and an NBA title (1973). He was the first player to win a championship at all four levels.
He was asked what title means the most.
“All are very special,” he said. “Winning at each level is significant and important.”
Then he chose the Olympics because at the time, only amateurs were allowed to play, so he had only one opportunity.
Lucas, then 34, retired after the 1973-74 season when he played far less and was physically declining in his 11th professional season.
He was selected by the NBA in 1996 as one of its 50 Greatest Players in NBA History and again in 2021 as part of the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
In 1999, Sports Illustrated named Lucas to its Five Man College Team of the Century.
Continue reading...
