PATRICK EWING

'Patrick Aloysius Ewing' (born August 5, 1962) is a retired American professional basketball player. He played most of his career with the National Basketball Association's New York Knicks as their starting center and played briefly with the Seattle SuperSonics and Orlando Magic. In a 1997 poll celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the NBA, Ewing was selected as one of the 50 Greatest Basketball Players of All Time.

Contents

Early life

College career

NBA career

NBA statistics

Honors

Trivia

Notes

External links

Early life

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Ewing starred in cricket and soccer. He was 13 years old when he arrived in the United States with his family, settling in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He learned to play basketball at Cambridge Rindge and Latin, a public high school. He went to Georgetown University in Washington, D.C..

College career

Patrick Ewing received a scholarship to play for Coach John Thompson at Georgetown University as a freshman during the 1981-1982 season. Ewing was one of the first college players to start and star on the varsity team as a freshman. In the 1982 NCAA final against the University of North Carolina, Ewing was called for goal-tending several times in the first half. The Hoyas still had a shot at winning the game until Freddie Brown threw the infamous bad pass to James Worthy at the tail end of the game. In the 1984 season, Ewing and Georgetown took the NCAA title with an 84-75 win over the University of Houston. In Patrick Ewing's senior year of 1985, Georgetown was ranked number one in the nation and was heavily favored to beat unranked Villanova in the title game, but the Wildcats shot 78.6 percent from the floor (22 for 28) to upset the Hoyas 66-64. Ewing was one of the best college basketball players of his era, as Georgetown reached the championship game of the NCAA tournament three out of four years. He was a first team All-American in 1983, 1984, and 1985.
The 1984 NCAA title was Patrick Ewing's only championship of his basketball career. While he enjoyed a stellar career in the NBA, he never won a title as a professional.

NBA career

Because Ewing was considered such a prize prospect, the NBA introduced a Draft Lottery to prevent teams from deliberately losing games to secure a better chance of obtaining Ewing's services, which gave each of the 7 teams not in the playoffs an equal chance of securing the first overall pick. The draft was won by the New York Knicks, who selected Ewing first overall in the 1985 NBA Draft.
Although injuries marred his first year in the league, he was named NBA Rookie of the Year, averaging 20 points, 9 rebounds, and 2 blocks per game. Soon after he was considered one of the premier centers in the league. Ewing enjoyed a successful career, eleven times named a NBA All-Star, an All-NBA First Team selection once, a member of the All-NBA Second Team six times and the NBA All-Defensive Second Team three times. He was a member of the original Dream Team at the 1992 Olympic Games, winning a second gold medal. In 1996, he was also given the honor of being named one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history.
In 1992 they met again against their famous opponents - Chicago Bulls. In game 1 Ewing was unstopable and Knicks took advantage of the series by defeating the Bulls. Game 6 was one of the greatest games of Ewing career. The knicks were down 3 games to 2 but Ewing held the knicks all the time in game 6. He had a bad sprain of his anckle but came back and defeated Bulls in this game. Marv Albert said: We are seeing the Willis Reed type performance by Patrick Ewing. But Knicks were defeated in game 7 at Chicago.
In 1993, it finally seemed the Knicks were on their way to the NBA Finals when they took a 2-0 lead over Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls. Both teams battled well, each winning on its home court. However, the Bulls stunned the Ewing-led Knicks, winning Game 5 of the series in New York on a controversial non-call on Ewing's teammate Charles Smith. The Bulls would go on to win Game 6 and move towards their 3rd straight championship. This would be just one more ringless season Ewing had to deal with, despite the fact that the Knicks had the best record in the Eastern Conference with 60 wins and just 22 losses.
With Michael Jordan out of the league, 1994 was considered a wide open year in the NBA, and Ewing declared that 1994 would be the Knick's year. Ewing was a key contributor to the Knicks' run to the Finals in 1994, in which the Knicks, in the Finals for the first time since 1973, lost in the final seconds of games 6 and 7 to Hakeem Olajuwon's Houston Rockets. Ewing's Knicks defeated Scottie Pippen's Bulls in 7 games in the 1994 Eastern Conference semi-Finals, and defeated Reggie Miller's Indiana Pacers in the conference finals (7 games). The Knicks took Game 2 in Houston, but couldn't hold court at home, as they dropped Game 3 at the Garden. However, they won the next two games, and headed back to Houston up 3 games to 2. But a John Starks blunder, and a terrible performance by Starks in game 7, was too much for the Knicks to overcome, and they lost the series. Patrick Ewing made the most of his playoff run by setting a record for most blocked shots in a Finals series (only later to be broken by Shaquille O'Neal).
The following year, a potentially game-tying three-foot finger roll attempt by Ewing rimmed out of the basket in the dwindling seconds of game 7, resulting in a loss against the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
In 1997 Patrick Ewing suffered a potentially career ending wrist injury but tried to make a return during the playoffs.(The Knicks returned to the NBA Finals in 1999, but Ewing missed the latter part of their playoff run due to an Achilles injury, which contributed to their 4-1 loss to the Spurs). In 2000, he left the Knicks as part of a trade to the Seattle SuperSonics. In the trade, the Knicks sent Ewing to Seattle and Chris Dudley to Phoenix, and received Glen Rice, Luc Longley, Travis Knight, Vladimir Stepania, Lazaro Borrell, Vernon Maxwell, two first-round draft picks (from the Los Angeles Lakers and Seattle) and two second-round draft picks from Seattle. Many would later consider the trade a significant part of the Knick's disintegration from a former NBA powerhouse to perennial loser. After a year with the Sonics and another with the Orlando Magic, he announced his retirement on September 18, 2002. That season, he took a job as an assistant coach with the Washington Wizards.
On February 28, 2003 Patrick Ewing's jersey with number 33 was retired in a large ceremony at Madison Square Garden. Ewing continues to be considered one of the New York Knicks' finest players of all time, as well as one of the greatest in NBA history. Many consider the Knick's rivalries against the Bulls, Pacers, and Heat, in which Ewing was a centerpiece, as some of the most intense of the decade. In Patrick Ewing's last year with the Knicks, he had a game winning dunk over Alonzo Mourning in game 7 of the second round of the playoffs to lead the Knicks to the Eastern Conference Semi Finals. It was a great finish to the Knicks-Heat rivalry during the Ewing years. On August 29, 2006, Patrick Ewing resigned as an assistant coach with the Houston Rockets because he wanted to spend more time with his family.
As an NBA player, Ewing was renowned for his shot blocking ability, rebounding skills, thunderous dunks, and accurate mid-range jumpshot.
Ewing will be eligible for induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008.
On July 3, 2007, Ewing was one of four assistants hired to serve under first-year Orlando Magic head coach Stan Van Gundy^[1] for the 2007-08 season.
In 2001, Ewing testifed in part of the Atlanta's Gold Club prostitution and fraud federal trial. The owner Thomas Sicignano, testified that he arranged for dancers to have sex with professional athletes. Ewing admitted he went to the club and received oral sex twice in the club. Ewing was never charged with any criminal wrongdoing. [1]

NBA statistics

In 1999, Ewing became the 10th player in NBA history to record 22,000 points and 10,000 rebounds.
In 1993 he led the NBA with 789 defensive rebounds. He was top ten in field goal percentage 8 times, top ten in rebounds per game as well as total rebounds 8 times, top ten in points, as well as points per game 8 times, and top ten in blocks per game for 13 years. [2]

Honors

★ Rookie of the Year (1986)

★ All-NBA First Team (1990)

★ All-NBA Second Team (1988, '89, '91, '92, '93, '97)

★ NBA All-Defensive Second Team (1988, '89, '92)

★ 11-time All-Star; One of 50 Greatest Players in NBA History (1996)

★ Two-time Olympic gold medalist (1984, '92)

★ NCAA Basketball Tournament Most Outstanding Player (1984)

★ Naismith College Player of the Year in (1985).

Trivia

★ After friend and rival NBA center Alonzo Mourning was diagnosed with a kidney ailment in 2000, Patrick Ewing made a promise that he would donate one of his kidneys to Mourning if he ever needed one.^[2] In 2003, Ewing was tested for kidney compatibility with Alonzo Mourning but Mourning's cousin was found to be the best match.^[3]

★ In a 1993 game^[4] between the Knicks and the Charlotte Hornets, the 7 ft (2.13 m) Ewing suffered a moment of embarrassment when guard Muggsy Bogues, who stands a mere 5'3" (1.60 m), managed to block his shot.^[5]

★ Ewing was in the 1996 movie ''Space Jam'' as himself, one of five NBA players whose talent was stolen (along with Charles Barkley, Shawn Bradley, Larry Johnson and Muggsy Bogues).

★ Ewing claimed to a ''Sports Illustrated'' journalist that he was not 7'0" but 6'9"^[6]

★ Ewing's son, Patrick Ewing, Jr., currently attends his father's alma mater, Georgetown University. Ewing, Jr. is currently in his junior season and wears the same jersey number that his father wore, #33.

★ Ewing posted 24 points, 22 rebounds and 7 assists in game 7 of the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals, leading the Knicks to victory over the rival Indiana Pacers. His putback dunk of a John Starks miss in the final moments of that game remains a lasting image of his career.

★ Ewing plays the Angel of Death in the film ''Exorcist III''.

★ New York Knicks' all-time leader in nearly every significant category and the game's 15th all-time scorer with 24,815 points.

★ Ewing was ranked #28 on SLAM Magazine's Top 75 NBA Players of All-Time.

★ He made a brief cameo as himself in the sitcom ''Spin City''.

Notes

1. Ewing, Malone, Clifford, Beyer hired as Magic coaches July 3, 2007
2. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_25_98/ai_68147572
3. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/lopresti/2006-06-10-lopresti-mourning_x.htm
4. http://www.basketballreference.com/teams/boxscore.htm?yr=1992&b=19930414&tm=CHA
5. http://www.yaleherald.com/archive/xxii/10.4.96/sports/stoelting.html
6. First Person: Dinner At Yao's, published March 14, 2005; retrieved March 24, 2007

External links

★ NBA.com profile

★ NBA.com Ewing History

★ Career stats at basketball-reference.com

★ Patrick Ewing stats and highlights at knicksonline.com