Deaths (Obituaries)

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    Slick Watts, N.B.A. Fan Favorite and Headband Pioneer, Dies at 73

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    An undrafted, 6-foot-1 point guard with patchy hair, he made an enduring fashion statement and became seen as the ultimate Seattle SuperSonic.Slick Watts, an unheralded, undersized, patchy-haired point guard who turned his obstacles into springboards, endearing himself to fans of the Seattle SuperSonics long past the team’s existence and helping to invent the headband as a basketball fashion signature, has died. He was 73.His son Donald announced the death on social media on Saturday in a statement that did not provide further details. In 2021, Watts had a major stroke, and he spent recent years dealing with lung sarcoidosis, an inflammatory condition.Watts played for the SuperSonics for just four and a half seasons, from 1973-78. Though he helped lead the team to its first playoff berth, he was not around in 1979 for the team’s first and only finals victory.Still, fans and fellow players held him in a singular regard.In 2012, decades after his retirement — and four years after the team moved and became the Oklahoma City Thunder — a Seattle rap duo called the Blue Scholars made Watts’s name the title of a song about the Sonics. James Donaldson, a Sonics center in the 1980s, told The Seattle Times after Watts’s death, “He epitomized the Seattle SuperSonics.”That reputation came from a combination of pluck and generosity.Watts’s basketball origins were modest. He was an impressive collegiate shooter, averaging 22.8 points per game and shooting 49 percent from the field. But he was just 6-foot-1 and played for Xavier University of Louisiana, alittle-known historically Black Catholic university in New Orleans (not Xavier University of Cincinnati). He went undrafted in 1973.That might have been the end of his basketball career, except for the fact that Watts’s college coach, Bob Hopkins, was a cousin of Bill Russell, the Celtics great then coaching the Sonics. He secured Watts a professional tryout. The team was already loaded with shooting talent, so Watts devoted himself to passing. Russell offered him a $19,000-a-year contract, paltry by N.B.A. standards.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Junior Bridgeman, N.B.A. Player Turned Mogul, Dies at 71

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      He became an entrepreneur during a solid career with the Milwaukee Bucks. He later bought hundreds of fast-food outlets, a Coca-Cola bottling business and Ebony and Jet magazines.Junior Bridgeman, who followed a strong N.B.A. career with a remarkable run as an entrepreneur, acquiring hundreds of fast-food restaurants, a Coca-Cola bottling business and a minority stake in the Milwaukee Bucks, his team for a decade, died on Tuesday in Louisville, Ky. He was 71.The cause was a cardiac event, a family spokesman said. Mr. Bridgeman had been talking to a reporter for a local television station during a charity event at the Galt House Hotel when he said he felt that he was having a heart attack, the spokesman said, and he was taken to a hospital, where he died.Mr. Bridgeman’s business success brought him a net worth of $1.4 billion this year, Forbes magazine said, putting him in “rare air alongside Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and LeBron James as the only N.B.A. players with 10-figure fortunes.”Mr. Johnson, writing on X after the death, recalled that Mr. Bridgeman, a former small forward, had “one of the sweetest jump shots in the N.B.A.” Mr. Bridgeman, he added, had helped create a blueprint for “so many current and former athletes across sports that success doesn’t end when you’re done playing.”Mr. Bridgeman was not a major star during his 12 seasons in the N.B.A., 10 with the Bucks and two with the Los Angeles Clippers. But he stood out as a sixth man who provided a scoring boost off the bench for a Milwaukee team that largely excelled under Coach Don Nelson. From 1975 to 1987, Mr. Bridgeman averaged 13.6 points a game.Mr. Bridgeman on the bench during a game between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Washington Bullets in the early 1980s. He played for the Bucks for a decade.Focus on Sport/Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Gus Williams, Guard Who Led Seattle to an N.B.A. Title, Dies at 71

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      Undersized but speedy and known as the Wizard for his acrobatics, he was a high scorer who in 1979 starred in a series that brought the SuperSonics their only crown.Gus Williams, an eyeblink-quick guard known for his volume scoring and electric on-court style who in 1979 helped the Seattle SuperSonics win their only National Basketball League championship, died on Wednesday. He was 71.His death was announced in a statement by the University of Southern California, his alma mater. The university did not cite a cause or say where he died but noted that Johnson had a stroke five years ago.Known for his springy, improvisational play and relentless drive, Williams, a two-time All-Star, was a standout, if an underrated one, during an 11-season career. That career included stints with the Golden State Warriors, the Washington Bullets and the Atlanta Hawks in addition to his six seasons with the Sonics, who moved to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder in 2008.Unusual for his era, Williams was a point guard known more for scoring than for dishing assists. On defense, he stymied opponents who dared try to dribble past him — in a 1978 game against the New Jersey Nets, he tallied 10 steals, making him one of only 24 players to break into double digits in that category in a single game.Though undersized by N.B.A. standards at 6-foot-2 and 175 pounds, Williams nevertheless did a lot of damage in and around the paint with attacking, acrobatic drives to the hoop. He also had a lethal midrange jump shot.Williams in action in Game 5 of the 1979 Finals. Though undersized by N.B.A. standards at 6-foot-2, he was known for doing damage around the hoop. James Drake/Sports Illustrated, via Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rick Kuhn, 69, Dies; Convicted in a College Gambling Scandal

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      While playing basketball at Boston College, he participated in a point-shaving scheme with Henry Hill, the mobster later portrayed in the movie “Goodfellas.”Rick Kuhn, a Boston College basketball player who was convicted for taking part in a headline-making point-shaving scandal that was largely organized by Henry Hill, the mobster played by Ray Liotta in the 1990 movie “Goodfellas,” died on Dec. 22 at his home in Ligonier, Pa. He was 69.The cause was pancreatic cancer, said Chuck Finder, who collaborated with Mr. Kuhn on a recently completed memoir.Mr. Kuhn was a 6-foot-5 backup forward and center for the Boston College Eagles in 1978 when he agreed to participate in a plot to help make sure his team won by fewer points than the spread — the number of points by which oddsmakers make a team a favorite or an underdog in certain games — or lost by more.Small subterfuges, like a player deliberately committing a critical foul or appearing to try to steal a ball but letting his opponent get around him to score, could alter the margin of victory.The scandal began unfolding when Mr. Kuhn took a teammate and close friend, Jim Sweeney, to a hotel room near Logan Airport in Boston to meet Mr. Hill; Paul Mazzei, a narcotics trafficker Hill had met in a federal prison; and Tony Perla, a small-time gambler.“You’re thinking, the initial phase, they want insider information,” Mr. Kuhn wrote in a memoir. But two hours into the meeting, the subject of point shaving came up, and the players were asked how much money they would want to participate in such a scheme.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Greg Gumbel, Who Called N.F.L. and N.C.A.A. Games, Dies at 78

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      The sportscaster combined play-by-play excitement with a knack for precision in his decades as a sports broadcaster calling N.F.L. and N.C.A.A. games for CBS.Greg Gumbel, the sports broadcaster who called some of the biggest football and college basketball games on two networks during a career that spanned five decades, has died. He was 78.His family confirmed his death on Friday afternoon in a social media post from CBS Sports, where Mr. Gumbel had worked since 1989. He had been diagnosed with cancer.For decades, Mr. Gumbel served as a play-by-play announcer for CBS’s National Football League coverage. In 2001, he became the first Black sportscaster in that role covering a Super Bowl. He also covered the National Collegiate Athletic Association men’s basketball tournament for the network and had spent four years reporting on the American Football Conference for NBC Sports.He got his first chance as an announcer in the early 1970s, when a boss at the NBC affiliate in Chicago, Channel 5, told him that he wanted to broadcast a high school basketball game every Saturday, as Mr. Gumbel recalled in an interview with the sportscaster Kenny McReynolds published in 2021.“He said, ‘I have this idea, and I want you to take it and run with it,’” Mr. Gumbel said in the interview. “We introduced our audience to a lot of guys who went on to become famous.”Mr. Gumbel’s career took off in the 1980s, when he began to cover the National Basketball Association. He called his first N.F.L. game in 1988.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Dick Van Arsdale, 81, One of First Identical Twins in the N.B.A., Dies

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      A three-time All-Star, he played for the Knicks and the Phoenix Suns. For one season, he and Tom Van Arsdale were hard-to-tell-apart teammates.Dick Van Arsdale, a three-time All-Star who, with his brother, Tom, was half of the first set of identical twins to play in the N.B.A. after starring and confusing opponents and teammates alike in high school and at Indiana University, died on Monday at his home in Phoenix. He was 81.Tom Van Arsdale said the cause was heart and kidney failure.While the Van Arsdales had remarkably similar statistical careers, Dick was considered the slightly better player, if only by the measure of superior pro teams. He played for the New York Knicks and the Phoenix Suns during 12 N.B.A. seasons, making the playoffs four times, while Tom suited up for five teams, none of which made the playoffs during the same span.Blonde and blue-eyed, the Van Arsdale twins were the stereotypical picture of their rural Indiana roots, but on the basketball court neither was a precise positional fit at 6 feet 5 inches: not fast enough for the backcourt, not big enough for the frontcourt.Dick, who began his pro career as a forward and switched to guard, was nonetheless a rugged defender while averaging a career 16.4 points per game, exceeding 20 three times during his years in Phoenix.Van Arsdale had played three seasons with the Knicks when, in 1968, he joined the newly formed Suns, an expansion team whose general manager, Jerry Colangelo, had selected him first. Van Arsdale scored the franchise’s first points and became an organization fixture, known as the original Sun. He served as interim coach during the 1986-87 season, then as a front-office executive and later a television analyst.“We couldn’t find a better player on or off the floor to build our team,” Colangelo told The Arizona Republic in 1970. “If I could field five Vans, what I’d lack in height and rebounding, I’d offset with fight and desire.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lou Carnesecca, St. John’s Basketball Coach, Dies at 99

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      Known for his quick wit and garish sweaters, he took the New York City university to national basketball prominence over 24 seasons.Lou Carnesecca, the Hall of Fame coach who took St. John’s University to national basketball prominence and who was known for his quick wit and colorful courtside persona, died on Saturday. He was 99.His death was confirmed by Brian Browne, a spokesman for the university, who provided no other details.When Carnesecca took over as the St. John’s head coach in 1965, the university, while rich in basketball tradition, played as an independent. It had begun a gradual move to the Jamaica section of Queens from the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn 10 years earlier, and its Alumni Hall athletic building was only four years old.With the founding of the Big East Conference in 1979, St. John’s began competing regularly against leading basketball programs.Carnesecca took St. John’s to 18 N.C.A.A. championship tournaments and six N.I.T. tournaments, including the 1989 championship, and his teams won the Big East tournament championship in 1983 and 1986.St. John’s won 526 games while losing 200 in Carnesecca’s two stints there, from 1965 to 1970 and then, after his three seasons coaching the New York (now Brooklyn) Nets in the old American Basketball Association, from 1973 to 1992.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Bob Love, Rugged, High-Scoring All-Star for Chicago Bulls, Dies at 81

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      Love was a cornerstone of the franchise’s success in the early 1970s. He struggled with a stutter that he overcame only after his playing days were over.Bob Love, a cornerstone player for the ascendant Chicago Bulls during the first half of the 1970s who overcame an enervating stutter after his playing days to work for the team as a motivational speaker, died on Monday in Chicago. He was 81.The Bulls announced his death, saying the cause was cancer.Love’s stuttering, which traced to a childhood in rural, segregated Louisiana, was so inhibiting that he seldom did interviews with reporters during his 11 seasons in the N.B.A., despite leading the Bulls in points per game or total points scored for seven straight seasons.“The reporters had deadlines — they couldn’t hang around all night for me to spit something out,” Love told The New York Times in 2002.Nicknamed Butterbean in high school because of his fondness for butter beans, Love even struggled to get words out in huddles during timeouts. A teammate, Norm Van Lier, often spoke up for him.A 6-foot-8 forward, Love averaged a career-high 25.8 points per game during the 1971-72 season, utilizing a smooth jump shot arched high over his head. He appeared in three All-Star games and twice was voted second-team all-league. But he was a complete player, three times named second-team all-league defense. And he was the Bulls’ third all-time leading scorer, behind Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.Jerry Reinsdorf, the Bulls’ owner, said in an interview for this obituary that Love was “a tenacious defender who set high standards for competitiveness and toughness.” We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Stan Asofsky, Vociferous Courtside Superfan of the Knicks, Dies at 87

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      For decades, beginning in 1959, he was a regular presence at Madison Square Garden (in two locations), befriending players and heckling opposing players and refs.Stan Asofsky was more than a rabid New York Knicks fan. He was a ticket holder with access, reflecting a time when professional sports venues were far less fortified and class-segregated. When one didn’t have to be Spike Lee, or Taylor Swift, to walk in a celebrity athlete’s world.Or play. During the 1960s, Mr. Asofsky delivered crisp bounce passes to Cazzie Russell, a young Knicks forward, while Russell practiced jump shots at the 92nd Street Y, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Then they would shower and walk a few blocks south to the hot-dog emporium Papaya King, so Russell could rehydrate with a glass of tropical juice.“He wasn’t getting enough minutes, and he wanted the workout,” Mr. Asofsky told me in 2009. “I said, ‘Come to our Y.’ He said, ‘Are there ballplayers there?’”Mr. Asofsky, who died on Sept. 12 at 87, was more than a prideful gym rat with a bum knee, not to mention a superfan; he could also be an accommodating friend: He once set Russell up on a blind date, with a woman who worked with Mr. Asofsky in CBS’s publishing division, as he recalled in the 2009 interview, for a book I was writing about the Knicks’ glory days.Certainly seat location helped in the creation of the insider persona that Mr. Asofsky developed alongside Fred Klein, his front-row companion for a half century at two Madison Square Garden locations.Long before there was such a thing as celebrity row, where Mr. Lee has stretched his vocal cords and enhanced his exposure as a premier filmmaker, Mr. Asofsky and Mr. Klein were the arena’s best-known baiters of Knicks’ opponents and referees alike.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More