Billy Cunningham

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Billy Cunningham bigraphy, stories - American basketball player-coach

Billy Cunningham : biography

June 3, 1943 –

William John "Billy" Cunningham (born June 3, 1943) is an American former professional basketball player and coach, who was nicknamed the Kangaroo Kid.

Beyond playing and coaching

In 1987, Cunningham replaced Tom Heinsohn as the lead color commentator (alongside play-by-play man Dick Stockton) for CBS’ NBA telecasts. Cunningham left CBS Sports the following season to join the Miami Heat expansion franchise as a minority owner; he ultimately sold his interest of the Heat on August 12, 1994. Cunningham was subsequently replaced on CBS by Hubie Brown.

Pro basketball career

In 1965, Cunningham joined the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association as a sixth man and played well enough to be named to the NBA All-Rookie Team.

Cunningham is well known for coaching the 76ers to the 1983 NBA championship. Cunningham also played on the powerful 1967 Sixers championship team (featuring Wilt Chamberlain, Hal Greer, Chet Walker, and Luke Jackson). After Chamberlain left the team in 1968, he became the 76ers’ franchise player. He would replace the injured and aging Luke Jackson as the starting power forward of the team, leading them to 55 wins, and earned his first of several All-NBA Team selections.

In 1972, he joined the Carolina Cougars of the American Basketball Association. In his first ABA season, Cunningham made the All-ABA First Team and was named the ABA MVP. In that 1972-73 season he led the Cougars to the regular season Eastern Division championship and into the 1973 ABA Playoffs where they beat the New York Nets in the Eastern Division Semifinals to advance to the Eastern Division Finals. In the Division Finals the Cougars lost a tight seven game series to the Kentucky Colonels, 4 games to 3. In the 1973-74 season Cunningham and the Cougars finished third in the Eastern Division and lost again to the Kentucky Colonels in the Eastern Division semifinals. After the 1973-74 season, Cunningham returned to the 76ers, where he played until he suffered a career-ending injury early in the 1975-76 season. For his career, Cunningham scored 16,310 points and grabbed 7,981 rebounds in both the NBA and the ABA.

After his playing days were done, he became the head coach of the 76ers on November 4, 1977, and built a great team featuring the likes of Bobby Jones, Maurice Cheeks, Andrew Toney, Moses Malone, and Julius Erving. He reached the 200, 300, and 400-win milestone faster than any coach in NBA history. He led Philadelphia to the NBA Finals 3 times, in 1979-80, 1981-82 and 1982-83, facing the Los Angeles Lakers all 3 times. The 76ers lost to the Lakers in 1980 and 1982, but after acquiring Moses Malone, Cunningham finally got them past the Lakers in 1983, winning the franchise’s second NBA Championship as part of a 12-1 playoff run. Upon his retirement, his 454 wins as a head coach were the 12th best in NBA history.

Honors

  • Elected to Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (1986)
  • All-NBA First Team (1969, 1970, 1971)
  • ABA All Star, First Team (1973)
  • All-NBA Second Team (1972)
  • Four-time NBA All-Star
  • Elected to the ABA’s All-Time Team
  • One of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History (1996)
  • His number 32 jersey is retired by the Philadelphia 76ers; however, he reactivated it for Charles Barkley to wear for the 1991–92 NBA season. Barkley normally wore the number 34, but switched to 32 in honor of Magic Johnson, who had announced at the start of the season that he was HIV-positive.

Beginnings

Billy Cunningham was born in Brooklyn, New York. His fame began while he was playing at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn,, New York Post, December 31, 2006. Accessed December 13, 2007. "The five Erasmus Hall of Fame legends include Raiders owner Al Davis, Bears quarterback Sid Luckman, Yankee pitching great Waite Hoyt, Billy Cunningham and Knicks founder Ned Irish." where he was the MVP in the Brooklyn League in 1961. That year, he was the First-Team All-New York City, and a member of the Parade Magazine All-America Team.