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76ers Belatedly Add Dolph Schayes to the Team's Legends Walk

Dolph Schayes was the first NBA player to score 15,000 career points, and he ranked first in career scoring from 1958-63, breaking Ed Macauley's record before being surpassed by Bob Pettit (Macauley only held the record briefly in 1957, edging out George Mikan before Schayes took over). When Schayes retired, he held the NBA's career record for games played while also ranking second in career scoring and third in career rebounding. In 1955, he led the Syracuse Nationals to the NBA title. That is the first championship in the storied history of the Philadelphia 76ers (the team moved from Syracuse to Philadelphia in 1962). During the 1955 NBA Finals, Schayes led both teams in scoring (19.9 ppg) and rebounding (11.9 rpg); if the Finals MVP award existed at that time, he would have won it. Schayes finished in the top five in regular season MVP voting three times, and he had three other top 10 finishes while earning 12 All-NBA Team selections, six each to the First Team and the Second Team.

Schayes was selected to the 10 player NBA 25th Anniversary All-Time team (1971), the NBA's 50 Greatest Players List (1996), and the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team (2021). In 2021, I included him in my revision of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players List:  "Dolph Schayes was a great shooter. If he played today, he would be capable of draining three pointers while still being an elite rebounder and passer; bring prime Dolph Schayes to 2021 and he would probably be an MVP caliber player whose style and effectiveness would be similar to the style and effectiveness of Nikola Jokic." I also placed Schayes on my NBA 75th Anniversary Team.

Schayes retired in 1964 and he passed away in 2015, so it is bizarre that the 76ers had not added him to their Legends Walk until today. The other members of the 76ers' Legends Walk are Charles Barkley, Wilt Chamberlain, Maurice Cheeks, Billy Cunningham, Julius Erving, Hal Greer, Bobby Jones and Moses Malone. All of those players earned that honor, but Schayes was the franchise's first great player, and he should have been the first one honored. 

Here are some pictures from today's ceremony honoring Dolph Schayes (Schayes' son Danny, who played in the NBA from 1981-99, is the tallest person in the bottom two pictures):

Labels: Dolph Schayes, Philadelphia 76ers, Syracuse Nationals

posted by David Friedman @ 7:24 PM

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