Draft Selections and Draftee Career Notes
Walt Bellamy from the Indiana University was selected first overall by the Chicago Packers. Bellamy went on to win the Rookie of the Year Award in his first season and was selected to the All-Star Game in his first season. In his rookie season, he averaged 31.6 points per game, the second highest scoring average for a rookie, and 19.0 rebounds per game, the third highest rebounding average for a rookie. He was selected to four consecutive All-Star Games during his stint with the Packers, which later became the Chicago Zephyrs and Baltimore Bullets. He then played for three other NBA teams during his 14-year career. For his achievements, he has been inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Three other players from this draft, 7th pick Tom Meschery, 21st pick Don Kojis and 32nd pick Bill Bridges, have also been selected to at least one All-Star Game. Doug Moe, the 22nd pick, never played in the NBA. His contract with the Packers was voided due to his suspected involvement in the college basketball point shaving scandal. He eventually played in the American Basketball Association (ABA) for five years. He won the ABA championship in 1969 and was selected to three ABA All-Star Games and two All-ABA Teams. After his playing career, he became a head coach. He coached four NBA teams and won the Coach of the Year Award in 1988 with the Denver Nuggets. Ray Scott, the 4th pick, played for the Detroit Pistons for five and a half seasons before he moved on to play with two other teams in the NBA and ABA. After retiring as a player in 1972, he immediately became a head coach. He coached the Pistons for three and a half seasons and won the Coach of the Year Award in 1974. Two other players drafted also went on to have a coaching career: 12th pick Johnny Egan and 60th pick Donnie Butcher.
Read more about this topic: 1961 NBA Draft
Famous quotes containing the words draft, selections, draftee, career and/or notes:
“If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.”
—Malcolm X (1925–1965)
“For character, to prepare for the inevitable I recommend selections from [Ralph Waldo] Emerson. His writings have done for me far more than all other reading.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Why not draft executive and management brains to prepare and produce the equipment the $21-a-month draftee must use and forget this dollar-a-year tommyrot? Would we send an army into the field under a dollar-a-year General who had to be home Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays?”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,
Such as the meeting soul may pierce
In notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony;”
—John Milton (1608–1674)