Dick Barnett, whose left -handed horseman without Orthodox “But Back Baby” delighted Knicks fans on the way to the 1970 NBA championship of the team and who then wrote several books, obtained a doctorate from Fordham University and taught sports management at St. John’s, died, the Knicks announced on Sunday. Barnett, said a source, died in his sleep this weekend in a senior life center in Largo, Florida. He was 88 years old.
A triple All-America in the state of Tennessee, where he led his teams to three consecutive national championships in NAIA, Barnett, dedicated to the renowned basketball temple of Naismith Memorial in 2024, spent 14 seasons in the NBA-eight of those who have the Knicks-and one in the old American basketball league.
While a Willis Reed box inspired his team and Walt Frazier played the match in his life in match 7 of these 1970 finals, the neglected barnett scored 21 points in the decisive match and had taken responsibility for keeping Jerry West during most of this series. Barnett was also part of the 1973 championship Knicks team. His n ° 12 was withdrawn by the team in 1990.
“He is one of the architects who built the legacy of what the Knicks were,” said Earl Monroe, who replaced Barnett, once in the rear departure area after the Knicks acquired him during the 1971-1972 season. “No one can never forget that.”
Tree Petit All-America to what was then called Tennessee A & I, Barnett was chosen in the first round of the 1959 NBA draft by the Nationals of Syracuse (now the 76ers of Philadelphia). He spent the first two years of his career with the Nationals before jumping in the new ABL and the Cleveland Pipers, who belonged to George M. Steinbrenner, who, years later, would buy the Yankees.
After a successful season with the Pipers, who won the Abl championship that year, Barnett returned to the NBA with the Los Angeles Lakers, with whom he spent three seasons. At the age of 29, he was exchanged to the Knicks, just before the start of the 1965-66 season. He collected an average of 23.1 points per game in his first season in New York, but it was a torn Achilles tendon that suffered the following year that changed the course of Barnett’s life.
Faced with the possibility, he could never play basketball, Barnett, an indifferent student who left university without his diploma again, realized that he needed a safeguard plan. He had started taking lessons with the Lakers and, with an uncertain future, approached his studies with renewed vigor. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in physical education from California Polytechnic State University before obtaining his master’s degree in public administration from Nyu and his doctorate in Fordham education and communications.
“I did not understand that athletics and academics could coexist peacefully,” said Barnett about his days of class jumping as the first cycle. “In my basketball career, the best thing that happened to me was that the Achilles tendon broken. It was an alarm clock to prepare for the future. ”
Richard Barnett was born on October 2, 1936 in Gary, in Ind., Where he attended Theodore Roosevelt high school. As a senior, he took his basketball team to the state championship match. The opponent of the final was the Crispus Attucks High School of Indianapolis, led by the future temple of replacement Oscar Robertson. Attucks won the match, which has marked the first time that two black predominance high schools met in the match for the title of this state.
In the state of Tennessee, Barnett played under the legendary coach John McClendon and, on the way to win these three consecutive national titles, was named the MVP of the NAIA tournament twice. The Tigers were the first historically black college to win an integrated national basketball championship. Barnett, who was inducted at the renowned temple of university basketball, remains the top scorer of the Tigers.
Barnett came out of the bench with the Nationals and the Lakers, which reached the NBA final twice during its five seasons in Los Angeles. This is where the legendary game player of the Chick Hearn team, after learning that Barnett used to say to his college teammates to “fall back” (in defense) as soon as he launched one of his riders, began to fall “withdraw, baby” each time Barnett rides for a shot.
But it was with the Knicks, who have never won more than 43 games during his first three seasons in New York, that Barnett became a rest. He was appointed to play in the NBA Star match in 1968, the season after having torn his Achilles tendon.
It was when he was twinned in the rear area with Frazier, who joined the team in 1967, that the Knicks began to climb in the standings. They would win 54 games in 1968-69 and 60 in 1969-1970 en route to the NBA title.
“Dick was one of the leaders in this team,” said his teammate Phil Jackson. “I really thought he had a big piece of our success in the late 1960s and the early 1970s.”
“He has one of the best basketball minds of all the players I have ever known,” said Eddie Donovan, the director general of the Knicks who acquired Barnett des Lakers. “Everything he does is for a goal.”
Monroe would join the team at the start of the 1971-1972 season and end up supplanting Barnett in the rear starting area. The Knicks would reach the NBA final in 1972, losing against Lakers, before beating Los Angeles for the title in 1973 with Barnett in a support role. He only played five games during the 1973-74 season before being canceled. He spent three seasons as assistant from Red Holzman staff.
In addition to teaching, Barnett is the author of around twenty books and has created a foundation, Dr. Richard Barnett Center for Sports Education, Business and Technology, which offers scholarships and helping internship possibilities for capital management majors.
“Dreams are really realizing,” he told MSG Network in 2020. “Life is a continuum. It is not because I have achieved this objective. There are other objectives.
“So what now, brother? There is always something else to come.”
