Reserve F: Bill Bradley
- Stats from 1967 to 1977:
- 12.4 PPG, 3.2 RPG, 3.4 APG, 0.7 STL
In running a web search on Bill Bradley, amongst the principal items one will discover about him is that “Dollar Bill” was a three-term U.S. Senator from New Jersey, a man who ran a campaign that ultimately failed in the 2000 presidential election.
As a basketball player, Bradley was an all-time great collegian at Princeton University, where he set all-time Ivy League career records for total points (1,259), points per game average (29.83), free throws made (409), and free throws attempted (468), along with single-season records for total points (464) and points per game average (33.14) in 1964, and most free throws made (153) out of 170 attempts, good for a sterling 90.0% rate, in 1962-1963.
Coined “the white Oscar Robertson” in his college days after taking the Princeton Tigers to the Final Four in a season, 1964-1965, when he beat future teammate Cazzie Russell in a holiday tournament at Madison Square Garden, Bradley went on to lengthen a Hall of Fame career as a two-time NBA champion (1970, 1973) and one-time NBA All-Star (1973) as a starting small forward for the Knicks, having his number 24 later retired by the team.
A Rhodes scholar and politician by trade, Bill Bradley was a solid member of the Knicks who was integral in pushing Holzman’s club to a higher stature in the ’70s.
