This Day in NBA History (DeBusschere Landed in Knick of Time)

Dec. 19, 1968—With Christmas only days away, New York Knick General Manager Eddie Donovan gave Coach Red Holzman an early present for the holidays: the player who would form the missing piece of the puzzle he needed to secure two league championships. 

The team, even with several fine players, had inexplicably started to sputter when Donovan traded center Walt Bellamy and point guard Howard Komives in exchange for a player much-coveted by much of the rest of the league: rugged forward Dave DeBusschere. 

Standing 6 feet, 6 inches and weighing 225 pounds, DeBusschere had already made his mark in his early twenties by playing two professional sports (the second was baseball, in his time as a pitcher for the Chicago White Sox) and serving as player-coach for the Pistons. 

His years with the Knicks would, surprisingly enough, only constitute half of his dozen years in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Yet New York was where he secured the reputation that would lead to his uniform being retired by the Knicks and with DeBusschere himself enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

No other trade in Knick history would have such a long-lasting, positive influence on the team. Since 1963, Donovan had acquired a raft of talented young players in Willis Reed, Bill Bradley, Walt Frazier, Cazzie Russell and Phil Jackson. But until DeBusschere came along, a team that should have contended was consistently out of sync. 

Holzman's offensive credo was simple to state but harder to apply without the right players: "See the ball, hit the open man." Komives had not only proven inadequate to that task, but had annoyed Russell by often overlooking him on court, even when he was wide open, according to Bill Gutman's Tales from the 1969-1970 New York Knicks.

As for Bellamy, there was no doubting the skill of this former Rookie of the Year, but he was three years older than another natural center then playing out of position—Reed—and without the latter’s passing ability or leadership skills. 

While these factors made Bellamy and Komives expendable, DeBusschere brought a number of assets—some immediately visible, others only observable over the long term. He was already demonstrating that he could be an essential cog in the pressing defensive alignment that Holzman hoped to put into action. 

Invariably, he would be designated the player who would shadow and stop the opposing team’s offensive star. DeBusschere, Phoenix Suns dazzler Connie Hawkins once observed, "took away my first, second, third, and fourth offensive move." 

But he could also pass well—a prerequisite for “hitting the open man”—sneak behind picks for shots, and inspire teammates with his durability and fearless, all-stops-out physical style.

Had it simply involved acquiring a talented player, the swap’s impact would have been limited. After all, obtaining Bob McAdoo and Carmelo Anthony—among the most prolific scorers of their eras—did nothing to improve the Knicks’ standing.

Instead, the trade—while bringing aboard a tenacious rebounder and defender who could, when the occasion warranted, sink a well-timed jumper from the corner—was so important for the way it allowed other players to assume other, more natural roles, as detailed by sports journalist Pete Axthelm in The City Game:

*Willis Reed, a bit slow at power forward to stop fast smaller players, could use his bulk at his natural position—center—while using his feathery outside shot to lure the opposing center away from the basket.

*Bill Bradley, who had been shuttling unsuccessfully between guard and forward, settled at small forward, where Madison Square Garden fans could see the deft shooting touch and court awareness that made him a star at Princeton.

*Walt Frazier, knowing that Reed and DeBusschere could cover for his mistakes, took more frequent gambles in stealing the ball, becoming one of the leading defensive stars of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

*Cazzie Russell learned how to make an instant impact as an offensive sparkplug.

*Dick Barnett, at shooting guard, found new life in his post-30 legs.

In short, DeBusschere changed the alchemy of the team. He would also exemplify its consistency and cohesiveness, as he himself put it after his retirement: "The key to our team was the willingness to sacrifice without expecting anything in return. Period.”

The forward’s impact was immediate: Not only did the team halt their losing streak, but it would go on to to the Eastern Division finals, which they lost to the Boston Celtics in six games. 

The following year, when I began to avidly follow them over the radio, was their season of glory, when they won their first NBA championship. DeBusschere would be essential to that success, averaging 16.1 points per game in the team’s 19 total playoff contests. He would prove equally essential in the team’s 1973 championship run.

Following his retirement in 1974, DeBusschere would become one of only two men to serve as general manager of two New York professional teams (George Weiss, with the Yankees and Mets, was the other executive); engineer the merger of the NBA with the American Basketball Association (in which he acted as the last commissioner of the league); and, in his four seasons as Knicks GM in the 1980s, lay the cornerstone for contention in the 1990s by drafting Georgetown All-American center Patrick Ewing as the overall #1 pick in the league.

DeBusschere’s indomitability on the court made his 2003 death by heart attack at age 62 all the more shocking and sad to fans like me. Few of us could identify with Frazier’s off-court flash, Bradley’s mixture of court smarts and intellectual brilliance, or Jackson’s counter-cultural instincts. 

But DeBusschere was the lunch-bucket hero, the guy who would shrug off a sharp elbow, a blow to the face, or an aching knee to get his work done, night after night, only to smile afterward with a beer in hand over a job well done.

(Accompanying photo of Dave DeBusschere taken from 1974 New York Knicks program.)