National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is a men's professional basketball league in North America. It is considered to be the premier men's professional basketball league in the world; the NBA is an active member of USA Basketball, recognized by FIBA as the national governing body for basketball in the United States. The NBA is one of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. NBA players are the world's best paid athletes by average annual salary per player; the league was founded in New York City on June 1946, as the Basketball Association of America. The league adopted the name National Basketball Association on August 3, 1949, after merging with the competing National Basketball League; the league's several international as well as individual team offices are directed out of its head offices located in the Olympic Tower at 645 Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. NBA Entertainment and NBA TV studios are directed out of offices located in New Jersey; the Basketball Association of America was founded in 1946 by owners of the major ice hockey arenas in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and Canada.
On November 1, 1946, in Toronto, Canada, the Toronto Huskies hosted the New York Knickerbockers at Maple Leaf Gardens, in a game the NBA now refers to as the first game played in NBA history. The first basket was made by Ossie Schectman of the Knickerbockers. Although there had been earlier attempts at professional basketball leagues, including the American Basketball League and the NBL, the BAA was the first league to attempt to play in large arenas in major cities. During its early years, the quality of play in the BAA was not better than in competing leagues or among leading independent clubs such as the Harlem Globetrotters. For instance, the 1948 ABL finalist Baltimore Bullets moved to the BAA and won that league's 1948 title, the 1948 NBL champion Minneapolis Lakers won the 1949 BAA title. Prior to the 1948–49 season, however, NBL teams from Fort Wayne, Indianapolis and Rochester jumped to the BAA, which established the BAA as the league of choice for collegians looking to turn professional.
On August 3, 1949, the remaining NBL teams–Syracuse, Tri-Cities, Sheboygan and Waterloo–merged into the BAA. In deference to the merger and to avoid possible legal complications, the league name was changed to the present National Basketball Association though the merged league retained the BAA's governing body, including Podoloff. To this day, the NBA claims the BAA's history as its own, it now reckons the arrival of the NBL teams as an expansion, not a merger, does not recognize NBL records and statistics. The new league had seventeen franchises located in a mix of large and small cities, as well as large arenas and smaller gymnasiums and armories. In 1950, the NBA consolidated to eleven franchises, a process that continued until 1953–54, when the league reached its smallest size of eight franchises: the New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, Philadelphia Warriors, Minneapolis Lakers, Rochester Royals, Fort Wayne Pistons, Tri-Cities Blackhawks, Syracuse Nationals, all of which remain in the league today.
The process of contraction saw. The Hawks shifted from the Tri-Cities to Milwaukee in 1951, to St. Louis in 1955; the Rochester Royals moved from Rochester, New York, to Cincinnati in 1957 and the Pistons relocated from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Detroit in 1957. Japanese-American Wataru Misaka broke the NBA color barrier in the 1947–48 season when he played for the New York Knicks, he remained the only non-white player in league history prior to the first African-American, Harold Hunter, signing with the Washington Capitols in 1950. Hunter was cut from the team during training camp, but several African-American players did play in the league that year, including Chuck Cooper with the Celtics, Nathaniel "Sweetwater" Clifton with the Knicks, Earl Lloyd with the Washington Capitols. During this period, the Minneapolis Lakers, led by center George Mikan, won five NBA Championships and established themselves as the league's first dynasty. To encourage shooting and discourage stalling, the league introduced the 24-second shot clock in 1954.
If a team does not attempt to score a field goal within 24 seconds of obtaining the ball, play is stopped and the ball given to its opponent. In 1957, rookie center Bill Russell joined the Boston Celtics, which featured guard Bob Cousy and coach Red Auerbach, went on to lead the club to eleven NBA titles in thirteen seasons. Center Wilt Chamberlain entered the league with the Warriors in 1959 and became a dominant individual star of the 1960s, setting new single game records in scoring and rebounding. Russell's rivalry with Chamberlain became one of the greatest rivalries in the history of American team sports; the 1960s were dominated by the Celtics. Led by Russell, Bob Cousy and coach Red Auerbach, Boston won eight straight championships in the NBA from 1959 to 1966; this championship streak is the longest in NBA history. They did not win the title in 1966–67, but regained it in the 1967–68 season and repeated in 1969; the domination totaled nine of the ten championship banners of the 1960s.
Through this period, the NBA continued to evolve with the shift of the Minneapolis Lakers to Los Angeles, the Philadelphia Warriors to San Francisco, the Syracuse Nationals to Philadelphia to become the Philadelphia 76ers, the St. Louis Hawks moving to Atlanta, as well as the addition of its first expansion franchises; the Chicago Packers (now Wa
Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in Oakland, California. The Warriors compete in the National Basketball Association, as a member of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. Founded in 1946 in Philadelphia, the Warriors relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1962 and took the city's name, before changing its geographic moniker to Golden State in 1971, they play their home games at the Oracle Arena. The Warriors won the inaugural Basketball Association of America championship in 1947, won its second championship in 1956, led by Hall of Fame trio Paul Arizin, Tom Gola, Neil Johnston. However, the Warriors would not return to similar heights in Philadelphia, after a brief rebuilding period following the trade of star Wilt Chamberlain, the team moved to San Francisco. With star players Jamaal Wilkes and Rick Barry, the Warriors returned to title contention, won their third championship in 1975, in what is considered one of the biggest upsets in NBA history.
This would precede another period of struggle in the 1980s, before becoming playoff regulars at the turn of the decade with stars Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, Chris Mullin, colloquially referred to as "Run TMC". After failing to capture a championship, the team entered another rebuilding phase in the 2000s; the Warriors' fortunes changed in the 2010s. After drafting perennial All-Stars Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, the team returned to championship glory in 2015, before winning another two in 2017 and 2018 with the help of former league MVP Kevin Durant. Nicknamed the Dubs as a shortening of "W's", the Warriors hold several NBA records. With the combined shooting of Curry and Thompson, they are credited as one of the greatest backcourts of all time; the team's six NBA championships are tied for third-most in NBA history with the Chicago Bulls. According to Forbes, the Warriors are the seventh highest valued sports franchise in the United States, joint-tenth in the world, with an estimated value of $3.1 billion.
The Warriors were founded in 1946 as the Philadelphia Warriors, a charter member of the Basketball Association of America. They were owned by Peter A. Tyrrell, who owned the Philadelphia Rockets of the American Hockey League. Tyrrell hired Eddie Gottlieb, a longtime basketball promoter in the Philadelphia area, as coach and general manager; the owners named the team after the Philadelphia Warriors, an old basketball team who played in the American Basketball League in 1925. Led by early scoring sensation Joe Fulks, the team won the championship in the league's inaugural 1946–47 season by defeating the Chicago Stags, four games to one; the NBA, created by a 1949 merger recognizes that as its own first championship. Gottlieb bought the team in 1951; the Warriors won its next championship in Philadelphia in the 1955–56 season, defeating the Fort Wayne Pistons four games to one. The Warrior stars of this era were future Hall of Tom Gola and Neil Johnston. In 1959, the team signed draft pick Wilt Chamberlain.
Known as "Wilt the Stilt", he led the team in scoring six times began shattering NBA scoring records and changed the NBA style of play forever. On March 2, 1962, in a Warrior "home" game played on a neutral court in Hershey, Chamberlain scored 100 points against the New York Knicks, a single-game record the NBA ranks among its finest moments. In 1962, Franklin Mieuli purchased the majority shares of the team and relocated the franchise to the San Francisco Bay Area, renaming them the San Francisco Warriors; the Warriors played most of their home games at the Cow Palace in Daly City from 1962 to 1964 and the San Francisco Civic Auditorium from 1964 to 1966, though playing home games in nearby cities such as Oakland and San Jose. Prior to the 1963–64 NBA season, the Warriors drafted big man Nate Thurmond to go along with Chamberlain; the Warriors won the Western Division crown that season, but lost the 1964 NBA Finals to the Boston Celtics, four games to one. In the 1964–65 season, the Warriors traded Chamberlain to the Philadelphia 76ers for Connie Dierking, Lee Shaffer, Paul Neumann and $150,000 and won only 17 games.
In 1965, they drafted Rick Barry in the first round who went on to become NBA Rookie of the Year that season and led the Warriors to the NBA Finals in the 1966–67 season, losing to Chamberlain's new team that had replaced the Warriors in Philadelphia, the 76ers. Angered by management's failure to pay him certain incentive bonuses he felt were due him, Barry sat out the 1967–68 season and signed with the Oakland Oaks of the rival American Basketball Association for the following year, but after four seasons in the ABA rejoined the Warriors in 1972. During Barry's absence, the Warriors were no longer title contenders, the mantle of leadership fell to Thurmond, Jeff Mullins and Rudy LaRusso, they began scheduling more home games in Oakland with the opening of the Oakland Coliseum Arena in 1966 and the 1970–71 season would be the team's last as the San Francisco Warriors. The franchise adopted its brand name Golden State Warriors prior to the 1971–72 season, in order to suggest that the team represented the entire state of California.
All home games were played in Oakland that season. Oakland Arena became the team's exclusive home court in 1971; the Warriors made the playoffs from 1971 to 1977 except in 1974, won their first NBA championship on t
Bill Walton
William Theodore Walton III is an American retired basketball player and television sportscaster. Walton played for John Wooden and the UCLA Bruins in the early 1970s, winning three successive College Player of the Year Awards, he led the UCLA Bruins to two NCAA Championships in 1972 and 1973. He had a prominent career in the National Basketball Association, winning an NBA Most Valuable Player and two NBA championships, his professional career was hampered by multiple foot injuries, requiring countless surgeries. Walton was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993 Walton was born and raised in La Mesa, the son of Gloria Anne and William Theodore "Ted" Walton, he was raised with siblings Bruce and Andy. The Walton's La Mesa home was a hillside home on Colorado Avenue, just below Lake Murray, his listed adult playing height was 6 feet 11 inches. Walton's father Ted was his mother Gloria, a librarian, his parents had interests in art, literature and music. Walton took music lessons, although his parents weren't sports oriented, Walton followed in the footsteps of his older brother Bruce, who had gravitated toward sports.
When the Walton children were in junior high and high school, Mr. Walton formed an informal family band: Bruce and Bill played trombone or baritone, Andy played the saxophone and Cathy played the flute. "Bill and I couldn't quit fast enough," Bruce said. Walton first played organized basketball under Frank "Rocky" Graciano, who coached at Walton's Catholic elementary school. Coach Graciano "made it fun and emphasized the joy of playing the team game," said Walton. "I was a scrawny guy. I couldn't speak at all. I was a shy, reserved player and a shy, reserved person. I found a safe place in life in basketball." Walton played high school basketball at Helix High School in California. He played, along with his brother Bruce, one year older and 6'6" and 250 pounds. Bruce was a star football player as well. If Bill Walton was getting physical treatment in a basketball game, Bruce returned the treatment.“When those opposing teams would try to get physical with me, Bruce would do whatever it took to protect me,” Walton recalled.
“He went on to play for the Dallas Cowboys. Bruce and I are the only brother combination in history to play in the Super Bowl and to win the NBA championship.”"When they would begin to rough up Bill, I would look at coach and he would give me a nod," recalled Bruce. "Yes," said Gloria Walton, "then when the referee wasn't looking, Bruce would give the player an elbow and let him know that the skinny guy was his kid brother." Walton's struggle with injury and pain began while at Helix High School, where he broke an ankle, a leg, several bones in his feet and underwent knee surgery. Before his sophomore season, Walton underwent surgery to repair torn cartilage on his left knee; because of his recovery from the knee surgery, Walton played most of his sophomore year on the junior varsity team. Coach Gordon Nash promoted him to the varsity team the end of the season. But, he did not start any of them. After his sophomore year Walton had grown from 6'1" to 6'7". Coach Nash played Bruce Walton together in the paint.
Bill was frail as he had not filled out his growing frame. Bill was unable to play a complete game without resting. "He would get too tired," recalled Nash. "When that happened, he'd tell me and I'd take him out." Walton led Helix to 49 consecutive victories in his two varsity seasons. Helix won the California Interscholastic Federation Championship in both 1969 and 1970, finishing 29-2 in 1968-1969 and 33-0 in 1969-1970. Walton had entered high school at a height of about 6 feet tall and graduated at about 7 feet tall. Walton averaged 25 rebounds, as Helix finished 33-0 in his senior season; as a senior in 1969-1970, Walton made 384 of 490 shot attempts, 78.3 percent, still the all-time national record. In addition, Walton's 825 rebounds. And, his 25.0 rebounds per game in a season ranks No. 7 all time. Walton was featured in “Faces in the Crowd” in the January 26, 1970 issue of Sports Illustrated, his first national media recognition.“It was a dream come true to be a part of a special team,” Walton said.
"Helix is. It was a humbling honor and privilege to be on the same squad as true legends Monroe Nash, Wilbur Strong, Phil Edwards, Bruce Menser. I’m the luckiest guy on earth.”Hall of Fame Coach Denny Crum was an assistant coach at University of California, Los Angeles under coach John Wooden, sent to watch Walton play. Crum first saw Walton in 1968 as a high school junior and was at first dubious when hearing of Walton, but went to scout him anyway. "I came back and told Coach Wooden that this Walton kid was the best high school player I'd seen," Crum recalled. While Walton was in high school, the NBA Expansion team of 1967, the San Diego Rockets were in town; the Rockets had no set practice facility and would play pick-up games at Helix High School. Rocket players learned that to get into the Helix gym they could call the teenager Walton, who somehow had his own gym key. Walton recalled Elvin Hayes calling and telling his mother, "Tell Billy, Big E is calling and we need him to open the gym tonight.
I said,'Mom, that's Big E! Give me the phone!' I was never so embarrassed in my life. Elvin and I are still close friends. All of those guys all still my friends to this day.""We had the best gym
1988–89 NBA season
The 1988–89 NBA season was the 43rd season of the National Basketball Association. The season ended with the Detroit Pistons winning the NBA Championship, sweeping the Los Angeles Lakers; this was the first season of the Miami Charlotte Hornets. The NBA adopts the three-official system used in college basketball permanently; the league experimented with three officials per game in 1978–79, but went back to two officials per game for the next nine seasons, although they have three with the inclusion of an alternate referee for all playoff games and selected regular season games. The Miami Heat and the Charlotte Hornets become the league's 25th franchises; the Heat plays its inaugural season in the Midwest Division. As a result, the Sacramento Kings move to the Pacific Division; the 1989 NBA All-Star Game was played at the Astrodome in Houston, with the West defeating the East 143–134. Karl Malone of the Utah Jazz takes home the game's MVP award. New Arenas: The Milwaukee Bucks move from the MECCA Arena to the then-Bradley Center, the Sacramento Kings move from ARCO Arena I to the then-ARCO Arena, the Detroit Pistons move from the Pontiac Silverdome to The Palace of Auburn Hills.
Michael Jordan records ten triple-doubles in eleven games near the end of the season. Prior to the season, the first-year Hornets announce that they choose teal as their primary color, which gave them immediate attention. In the next decade, expansion teams in the other professional sports leagues further popularized the use of the color; the Hornets popularized the use of pinstripes on the uniforms, which were adopted by the Orlando Magic, Chicago Bulls, Toronto Raptors, Indiana Pacers and the current Charlotte Hornets' predecessor franchise, the Bobcats. The Chicago Bulls started a playoff tradition by wearing black sneakers. Prior to that, the Boston Celtics were the only team to wear black sneakers. Following the Bulls' unlikely playoff run, other teams began adopting the style, beginning with the Philadelphia 76ers in 1990; this was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's last season. The Los Angeles Lakers became the first team to sweep two consecutive best-of-seven series; the Celtics, who had won no fewer than 57 games over the previous 9 seasons, slump to 42 as Larry Bird played only six games due to injuries.
The Indiana Pacers had 4 different head coaches during the season, a rare occurrence that has not happened since. Seattle SuperSonics guard Dale Ellis won the All-Star game's 3-point shootout; the first cancellation of an NBA game due to a civil disturbance. In the wake of the Miami riots, the game between the Miami Heat and the Phoenix Suns on January 17, 1989, was canceled. Jerry Sloan begins the first season of 23 for the Utah Jazz, the longest tenure for any professional coach for one city and franchise. Notes z – Clinched home court advantage for the entire playoffs c – Clinched home court advantage for the conference playoffs y – Clinched division title x – Clinched playoff spot The League expands from twenty-three to twenty-five franchises, with new expansion teams in Charlotte and Miami; the Heat began its season as a member of the Western Conference despite its geographical position, enduring its longest road trips when playing Western Conference teams. It began the season 0–17, at the time the worst start in NBA history.
The Hornets finished at 20–62. Such records are typical of expansion NBA franchises in their initial seasons, with 15–67 being the poorest record repeated by the Cavaliers, Grizzlies and Mavericks, as well as the Heat; the Sacramento Kings were belatedly moved to the Pacific Division in their fourth season after leaving Kansas City. Teams in bold advanced to the next round; the numbers to the left of each team indicate the team's seeding in its conference, the numbers to the right indicate the number of games the team won in that round. The division champions are marked by an asterisk. Home court advantage does not belong to the higher-seeded team, but instead the team with the better regular season record. Most Valuable Player: Magic Johnson, Los Angeles Lakers Rookie of the Year: Mitch Richmond, Golden State Warriors Defensive Player of the Year: Mark Eaton, Utah Jazz Sixth Man of the Year: Eddie Johnson, Phoenix Suns Most Improved Player: Kevin Johnson, Phoenix Suns Coach of the Year: Cotton Fitzsimmons, Phoenix Suns All-NBA First Team: F – Karl Malone, Utah Jazz F – Charles Barkley, Philadelphia 76ers C – Akeem Olajuwon, Houston Rockets G – Michael Jordan, Chicago Bulls G – Magic Johnson, Los Angeles Lakers All-NBA Second Team: F – Tom Chambers, Phoenix Suns F – Chris Mullin, Golden State Warriors C – Patrick Ewing, New York Knicks G – John Stockton, Utah Jazz G – Kevin Johnson, Phoenix Suns All-NBA Third Team: F – Dominique Wilkins, Atlanta Hawks F – Terry Cummings, Milwaukee Bucks C – Robert Parish, Boston Celtics G – Dale Ellis, Seattle SuperSonics G – Mark Price, Cleveland Cavaliers All-NBA Rookie Team: Rik Smits, Indiana Pacers Willie Anderson, San Antonio Spurs Mitch Richmond, Golden State Warriors Charles D. Smith, Los Angeles Clippers Hersey Hawkins, Philadelphia 76ers NBA All-Defensive First Team: Dennis Rodman, Detroit Pistons Larry Nance, Cleveland Cavaliers Mark Eaton, Utah Jazz Michael Jordan, Chicago Bulls Joe Dumars, Detroit Pistons NBA All-Defensive Second Team: Kevin McHale, Boston Celtics A. C.
Green, Los Angeles Lakers Patrick Ewing, New York Knicks John Stockton, Utah Jazz Alvin Robertson, San Antonio SpursNote: All information on this page were obtained on the History
Lakewood, California
Lakewood is a city in Los Angeles County, United States. The population was 80,048 at the 2010 census, it is bordered by Long Beach on the west and south, Bellflower on the north, Cerritos on the northeast, Cypress on the east, Hawaiian Gardens on the southeast. Major thoroughfares include Lakewood and Del Amo Boulevards and Carson and South Streets; the San Gabriel River Freeway runs through the city's eastern regions. Sometimes called "an instant city" because of its origins, going from lima bean fields in 1950 to a well-developed city by 1960, Lakewood is a classic example of a post–World War II American suburb. Lakewood is a post-World War II planned community. Developers Louis Boyar, Mark Taper and Ben Weingart are credited with "altering forever the map of Southern California." Begun in late 1949, the completion of the developers' plan in 1953 helped in the transformation of mass-produced housing from its early phases in the 1930s and 1940s to the reality of the 1950s. WWII veterans could get home loans with no down payment and a 30-year mortgage at only 4 percent interest.
On the first day of sales, March 24, 1950, an estimated 30,000 people lined up to walk through a row of seven model houses. By the end of April, more than 200,000 people had flocked to the Lakewood Park sales office and more than 1,000 families had purchased homes. On one occasion, 107 homes sold in just one hour; the monthly cost was $44 to $56, including principal and insurance. The building of Lakewood broke records. Empty fields became 17,500 houses in less than three years. A new house was completed every 7 1/2 minutes, 40 to 60 houses per day, with a record 110 completed in a single day. Lakewood's primary thoroughfares are boulevards with landscaped medians, with frontage roads on either side in residential districts. Unlike in most similar configurations, access to the main road from the frontage road is only possible from infrequently spaced collector streets; this arrangement, hailed by urban planners of the day, is a compromise between the traditional urban grid and the arrangement of winding "drives" and culs-de-sac that dominates contemporary suburban and exurban design.
As the unincorporated Lakewood grew to a community of more than 70,000 residents, so grew its municipal needs. Lakewood in 1953 had three choices: be annexed to nearby Long Beach, remain unincorporated and continue to receive county services, or incorporate as a city under a novel plan that continued county services under contract. In 1954, residents chose the latter option and voted to incorporate as a city, the largest community in the country to do so and the first city in Los Angeles County to incorporate since 1939. Lakewood is credited as a pioneer among California cities in service provision. Although it is an incorporated city, Lakewood still contracts for most municipal services, with most of these provided by Los Angeles County and, to a lesser extent, by other public agencies and private industry. Lakewood was the first city in the nation to contract for all of its municipal services when it incorporated as a municipality in 1954, making it the nation's first "contract city." Many other Los Angeles suburbs, such as Cerritos, Bellflower and Diamond Bar, have adopted the so-called "Lakewood Plan."
About half the cities in Los Angeles County contract for law enforcement from Los Angeles County though the County Sheriff's Department. Lakewood is the home of the first Denny's Restaurant. In 1953 Harold Butler founded Danny's Donuts, renamed Denny's Restaurant in 1959. Lakewood attracted widespread media attention in 1993 when nine boys attending Lakewood High School were arrested on allegations of rape and lewd conduct. Charges were dropped against eight of the boys, the Los Angeles Times writing: Under the glare of public scrutiny, the white, middle-class city of 76,000 became identified with rampant promiscuity and familial dysfunction; the Spur story served to harness fears about teenage values, to give form to a shapeless anxiety about life on Main Street. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 9.5 square miles. 9.4 square miles of it is land and 0.1 square miles of it is water. The 2010 United States Census reported that Lakewood had a population of 80,048.
The population density was 8,456.4 people per square mile. The racial makeup of Lakewood was 44,820 White, 6,973 African American, 564 Native American, 13,115 Asian, 744 Pacific Islander, 9,249 from other races, 4,583 from two or more races. In addition, there were 24,101 Hispanic or Latino residents of any race; the Census reported that 79,939 people lived in households, 109 lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, 0 were institutionalized. There were 26,543 households, out of which 10,649 had children under the age of 18 living in them, 14,711 were opposite-sex married couples living together, 3,975 had a female householder with no husband present, 1,696 had a male householder with no wife present. There were 1,262 unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, 283 same-sex married couples or partnerships. 4,719 households were made up of individuals and 1,965 had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.01. There were 20,382 families (76.8% of all househ
Charles Smith (basketball, born 1965)
Charles Daniel Smith is an American retired professional basketball player who played in the NBA. As a college player, Smith was named Big East Player of the Year, he was a member of the University of Pittsburgh's touted five-man recruiting class considered the country's best. Along with power forward Jerome Lane, Charles Smith and the Pitt Basketball Team became a major force in college basketball, opening the 1987–88 season ranked No. 4 nationally and rising as high as No. 2. However, the Panthers never won a national championship during Smith's tenure, he played for the US national team in the 1986 FIBA World Championship, that won the gold medal. and the 1988 Olympics which won a bronze medal. After his college career, the 6'10", 230 lb power forward was selected 3rd overall in the 1988 NBA draft by the Philadelphia 76ers but traded to the Los Angeles Clippers. After four years with the Clippers where he was among the team's top scorers and rebounders, he was traded to the New York Knicks with Doc Rivers and Bo Kimble for point guard Mark Jackson.
Smith was expected to fill the hole at small forward left by Xavier McDaniel after the Knicks failed to re-sign him after their successful 1991–92 season, a role that Smith struggled in as he was a power forward. As Smith's stats declined, he was traded to the San Antonio Spurs for J. R. Reid before retiring in 1997 due to severe injuries; as a Knick, Smith is infamous for being blocked 4 straight times directly under the basket, despite his huge height advantage, as he attempted to give New York the lead in Game 5 of the 1993 Eastern Conference Finals against the Chicago Bulls. After taking a 2 -- 0 series lead, the Knicks lost 4 in Chicago Stadium. With a chance to take a 3–2 series lead at Madison Square Garden, Smith's attempts were hampered by Michael Jordan, Horace Grant and Scottie Pippen in the final seconds, becoming one of the most notorious and disappointing moments in Knicks history; the Knicks lost Game 6 and the series in Chicago to complete an epic collapse, while the Bulls moved on to defeat the Phoenix Suns in the NBA Finals and win their third consecutive championship.
However, he was with the Knicks the following year when they defeated the Bulls in the second round, but lost in the NBA Finals to the Houston Rockets. Smith averaged 5.8 rebounds during his career. In 1989, Smith founded the Charles D. Smith Foundation and Educational Center, in which the building was the first City Hall in the Northeast, was converted into a library; the after school center was created for inner-city school children from kindergarten to 9th grades to improve academics and offer a place for youth to get off the streets. Located in Smith's hometown of Bridgeport, it was his dream since playing at Pitt to operate the center that still stands today. Smith ran a digital media company, based in Manhattan for about 6 years. Smith was a motivational speaker, he returned to school to work on his Masters in management, finishing up at Seton Hall University. Smith was once a regional representative for the NBA Players Association. In 2008, Smith became the executive director of the National Basketball Retired Players Association.
Smith started a transition assistance program to help retired players pursue new careers. Smith left the NBRPA in 2010 and helped establish the Pro Basketball Alumni Association. Smith traveled to North Korea in January 2014 with Dennis Rodman to further Rodman's "Basketball Diplomacy" effort with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un. Career statistics and player information from Basketball-Reference.com
San Francisco Chronicle
The San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving the San Francisco Bay Area of the U. S. state of California. It was founded in 1865 as The Daily Dramatic Chronicle by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The paper is owned by the Hearst Corporation, which bought it from the de Young family in 2000, it is the only major daily paper covering the county of San Francisco. The paper benefited from the growth of San Francisco and was the largest circulation newspaper on the West Coast of the United States by 1880. Like many other newspapers, it has experienced a rapid fall in circulation in the early 21st century, was ranked 24th by circulation nationally for the six months to March 2010; the newspaper publishes two web sites: and sfchronicle.com, which reflects the articles that appear in the print paper, SFGate, which has a mixture of online news and web features. The Chronicle was founded by brothers Charles and M. H. de Young in 1865 as The Daily Dramatic Chronicle, inside of 10 years, it had the largest circulation of any newspaper west of the Mississippi River.
The paper's first office was in a building at the corner of Kearney Streets. The brothers commissioned a building from Burnham and Root at 690 Market Street at the corner of Third and Kearney Streets to be their new headquarters, in what became known as Newspaper Row; the new building, San Francisco's first skyscraper, was completed in 1889. It was damaged in the 1906 earthquake, but it was rebuilt under the direction of William Polk, Burnham's associate in San Francisco; that building, known as the "Old Chronicle Building" or the "DeYoung Building", still stands and was restored in 2007. It is the location of the Ritz-Carlton Club and Residences. In 1924, the Chronicle commissioned a new headquarters at 901 Mission Street on the corner of 5th Street in what is now the South of Market neighborhood of San Francisco, it was designed by Charles Peter Weeks and William Peyton Day in the Gothic Revival architecture style, but most of the Gothic Revival detailing was removed in 1968 when the building was re-clad with stucco.
This building remains the Chronicle's headquarters in 2017, although other concerns are located there as well. Between World War II and 1971, new editor Scott Newhall took a bold and somewhat provocative approach to news presentation. Newhall's Chronicle included investigative reporting by such journalists as Pierre Salinger, who played a prominent role in national politics, Paul Avery, the staffer who pursued the trail of the self-named "Zodiac Killer", who sent a cryptogram in three sections in letters to the Chronicle and two other papers during his murder spree in the late 1960s, it featured such colorful columnists as Pauline Phillips, who wrote under the name "Dear Abby," "Count Marco", Stanton Delaplane, Terence O'Flaherty, Lucius Beebe, Art Hoppe, Charles McCabe, Herb Caen. The newspaper grew in circulation to become the city's largest, overtaking the rival San Francisco Examiner; the demise of other San Francisco dailies through the late 1950s and early 1960s left the Examiner and the Chronicle to battle for circulation and readership superiority.
The competition between the Chronicle and Examiner took a financial toll on both papers until the summer of 1965, when a merger of sorts created a Joint Operating Agreement under which the Chronicle became the city's sole morning daily while the Examiner changed to afternoon publication. The newspapers were owned by the San Francisco Newspaper Agency, which managed sales and distribution for both newspapers and was charged with ensuring that one newspaper's circulation did not grow at the expense of the other. Revenue was split which led to a situation understood to benefit the Examiner, since the Chronicle, which had a circulation four times larger than its rival, subsidized the afternoon newspaper; the two newspapers produced a joint Sunday edition, with the Examiner publishing the news sections and the Sunday magazine and the Chronicle responsible for the tabloid entertainment section and the book review. From 1965 on the two papers shared a single classified-advertising operation; this arrangement stayed in place until the Hearst Corporation took full control of the Chronicle in 2000.
Beginning in the early 1990s, the Chronicle started to face competition beyond the borders of San Francisco. The newspaper had long enjoyed a wide reach as the de facto "newspaper of record" in Northern California, with distribution along the Central Coast, the Inland Empire and as far as Honolulu, Hawaii. There was little competition in the Bay Area suburbs and other areas that the newspaper served, but as Knight Ridder consolidated the San Jose Mercury News in 1975; the Chronicle launched five zoned sections to appear in the Friday edition of the paper. The sections covered San Francisco, four different suburban areas, they each featured enterprise pieces and local news specific to the community. The newspaper added 40 full-time staff positions to work in the suburban bureaus. Despite the push to focus on suburban coverage, the Chronicle was hamstrung by the Sunday edition, being produced by the San Francisco-centric "un-Chronicle" Examiner, had none of the focus on the suburban communities that the Chronicle was striving to cultivate.
The de Young family controlled the paper, via the Chronicle Publishing Company, until July 27, 2000, when it was sold to Hearst Communications, Inc. which owned the Examiner. Following the sale, the
