Hall of Famer Bill Sharman, a member of three Celtics championships as a player who then coached the Lakers to their first championship in Los Angeles, died Friday at age 87, his wife told the Los Angeles Times. Sharman had suffered a stroke last week and died at his home in Redondo Beach, Calif., Joyce Sharman said. An eight time All-Star with the Celtics, Sharman averaged 17.8 points in an 11-year playing career. He was on the 1958-59 Celtics that won the first title of an eventual eight in a row. He stopped playing after the 1960-61 season at the age of 34. Read more http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/9...er-los-angeles-lakers-coach-bill-sharman-dies
I never saw him play in person, but his reputation was always that he was truly an all-time great. I remember him as a coach and saw him interviewed on TV lots of times. Thanks Bill!
He arrived, instantly rearranged player roles, and immediately won 33 in a row. He was the entire reason the Lakers finally won a championship after years of Finals failures. They did it with inferior personnel compared to the year before (starter Elgin Baylor and 6th man Keith Erickson missed the whole season). While Sharman never played in a major league game, he was in the Polo Grounds visitors' dugout as a Brooklyn Dodgers late-season call-up when Bobby Thomson hit a famous home run on Oct. 3, 1951, the "Shot Heard 'Round the World." http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=sharma001wil