Oscar Robertson
Oscar Palmer Robertson is a former
NBA player and is considered by many to be one of the greatest
basketball players in history. Coaching legend Red Auerbach described Robertson as the most versatile player he had ever seen play.
Wilt Chamberlain is quoted to have said "If you don't know the answer to an NBA trivia question, just say 'Oscar Robertson' -- you'll probably be right." To this day, he remains a standard by which other basketball legends are judged.
Encyclopedia
Oscar Palmer Robertson is a former
NBA player and is considered by many to be one of the greatest
basketball players in history. Coaching legend Red Auerbach described Robertson as the most versatile player he had ever seen play.
Wilt Chamberlain is quoted to have said "If you don't know the answer to an NBA trivia question, just say 'Oscar Robertson' -- you'll probably be right." To this day, he remains a standard by which other basketball legends are judged.
Early life
Robertson was raised in a poor section of Tennessee; he was so poor that his family could not afford a basketball for him to practice with. However, by the time he reached high school, his competitive drive led him to the team. A three-time All-State selection at Crispus Attucks High School in
Indianapolis, Indiana, where he led the team to consecutive state championships in 1955 and 1956, the "Big O" attended the
University of Cincinnati, from which he graduated in 1960. While there he established 19 school and 14
NCAA records. In his sophomore, junior and senior years Robertson was voted College Player of the Year and lead the nation in scoring.
The 1960 Olympics
The 6-foot-5, 220-pound Robertson co-captained the
1960 Summer Olympics gold medal team with Jerry West, called by some the greatest assemblage of amateur basketball talent ever. Robertson was the team's starting forward and the leading scorer, as the United States team won its eight games by a dominating average margin of 42.4 points. Ten of the twelve college players on the undefeated American squad went on to play professionally in the NBA, including future Hall-of-Famers
Walt Bellamy, Jerry Lucas, and
Jerry West .
Professional career
Robertson's 14-year
NBA career as a point guard with the
Cincinnati Royals and
Milwaukee Bucks included Rookie of the Year honors in 1961, three All-Star Game Most Valuable Player awards , and the 1964 NBA MVP Award.
As a rookie, he scored 30.5 points per game , led the league in assists , averaged 10.1 rebounds per game, and was named the All-Star Game's MVP. Robertson's best statistical season was 1961-62, when he averaged a triple-double for the entire season: 30.8 points, 11.4 assists and 12.5 rebounds per game, a feat that has never been duplicated. Robertson averaged more than 30 points per game in six of his first seven seasons with the Royals — only Wilt Chamberlain and
Michael Jordan have more career 30+ point per game seasons. Robertson was the first player to average more than 10 assists per game in an NBA season, and accomplished the feat five times with Cincinnati at a time when the criteria for an assist was more stringent than it is today . Robertson also averaged more than 10 rebounds per game three different seasons with the Royals. No other guard has averaged ten rebounds per game for a season even once. In 1967-68, Robertson led the league in both scoring average and assists per game, although the official scoring and assist titles went to other players because the NBA based the titles on point and assist totals prior to the 1969-70 season. All of his sucesses with Cincinnati did not, however, include a trip to the NBA finals or any division titles.
In the 1970-71 season, he joined up with the Milwaukee Bucks and
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, where he helped lead them to a league best 66-16 record , a dominating 12-2 record in the playoffs, and the NBA title with a 4-0 sweep of the
Baltimore Bullets. Two more division titles with the Bucks followed in the 1971-72 and 1972-73 season. In Robertson's last season, he helped lead Milwaukee to a 59-23 record and the 1974 NBA finals, where they lost to the
Boston Celtics in seven games. As an indication of Robertson's importance to the Bucks, in the season following his retirement, the Bucks fell to last place in their division with a 38-44 record.
Robertson ended his career with 26,710 points , 9,887 assists and 7,804 rebounds . At the time of his retirement, he was the NBA's all-time leader in career assists and free throws made, and he was the second all-time leading scorer . Robertson's 20.5 point per game average in the NBA All-Star Game is the highest all-time . Robertson earned All-NBA honors 11 times and led the Royals and Bucks to 10 playoff berths. For his career, Robertson had 181 triple-doubles, far more than any other player.
Robertson was ranked
#3 on
SLAM Magazine's Top 75 NBA Players of all time in 2003.
After he retired as an active player, he worked as a color commentator with
Brent Musburger on games televised by
CBS during the 1974-1975 NBA season.
Since his retirement from basketball, Robertson has served as honorary spokesman for the National Kidney Foundation, and in 1997 donated one of his own kidneys to his daughter Tia, who had suffered
lupus-related kidney failure.
The
United States Basketball Writers Association renamed their Player of the Year Award the Oscar Robertson Trophy in 1998. This trophy honors the top men's college basketball player each year.
Books
- Robertson, Oscar The Big O: My Life, My Times, My Game ISBN 1-57954-764-8 autobiography
External links
