Dick Barnett thrilled Knick fans on his way to the team’s 1970 NBA Championship, and later wrote several books, earned a PhD from Fordham University and taught sports management classes at St. John’s, a Dick Barnett jumper announced Sunday that he thrilled Knick fans and won the Knicks. According to the team, Burnett passed away this weekend in a senior living center in Largo, Florida. He was 88 years old.
In the three-time nationals in Tennessee, he led his team to the NAIA National Championship three times in a row, Burnett was inducted into the NISMITH Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2024, spending 14 seasons in the NBA.
Limping Willis Reed inspired his team, and Walt Frazier played the game of his life in Game 7 of the 1970 final, but the overlooked Burnett scored 21 points in the decisive game, taking responsibility for defending Jerry West for most of the series. Burnett was also part of the 1973 Championship Knicks Team. His 12th place was retired by the team in 1990.
“He’s one of the architects who built a legacy of what the Knicks are,” said Earl Monroe, who once replaced Barnett in the starting backcourt after the Knicks acquired him in the 1971-72 season. “No one can forget that.”
Barnett, a small national at the time known as the Tennessee A&I, was selected in the first round of the 1959 NBA Draft by the Syracuse Nationals (now the Philadelphia 76ers). He spent the first two years of his career with the Nationals before jumping to the new ABL and the Pipers in Cleveland.
After one successful season with the Pipers, who won the ABL Championship that year, Burnett returned to the NBA with the Los Angeles Lakers, spending three seasons. At 29, he was traded for the Knicks just before the start of the 1965-66 season. He averaged 23.1 points per game in his first season in New York, but the torn Achilles heel was torn the following year, which changed the course of Burnett’s life.
Faced with the possibility that he might never play basketball again, Burnett, an indifferent student who graduated from college without a degree, realizes that he needs a backup plan. He had begun taking classes with the Lakers, and in an uncertain future he approached his research with a new vitality. He received his bachelor’s degree in physical education from Polytechnic State University in California, followed by a master’s degree in administration from NYU and a doctorate in education and communications from Fordham.
“I didn’t understand that athletics and academics could coexist peacefully,” Burnett said of his class skip day as an undergraduate. “The best thing that happened to me in my basketball career was my Achilles tendon rupture.
Richard Burnett was born on October 2, 1936 in Gary, Indiana, and attended Theodore Roosevelt High School. As a senior, he took his basketball team to the state championship game. The final opponent was Chris Atuches High School in Indianapolis, led by future Hall of Fame Oscar Robertson. Attucks won the game. This was the first time two black high schools met in the title game in that state.
In Tennessee, Burnett played under legendary coach John McClendon and was named twice the MVP of the NAIA Tournament on his way to win these three consecutive national titles. The Tigers were the first historically black college to win a national championship that was integrated in basketball. Inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame, Barnett remains the Tigers’ highest scorer ever.
Barnett came off the bench alongside both the Nationals and Lakers, who reached the NBA Finals twice in their five seasons in LA. So, after learning what Barnett once said to tell his college teammates “fallback,” the team’s legendary playboy Chick Hearn is there. [on defense] As soon as he launched one of the jumpers, he began to plague “Fallback, Baby” every time Barnett went up on the shot.
But with the Knicks, who have never won more than 43 games in their first three seasons in New York, Burnett became the starter. He was selected to play in the NBA All-Star Game, a season after toreating his Achilles tendon in 1968.
The Knicks began to climb into the rankings when they paired up on the backcourt with Fraser, who joined the team in 1967. They won 54 games in 1968-69 and 60 games on their way to the NBA title in 1969-70.
“Dick was one of the leaders of that team,” said teammate Phil Jackson. “I really thought he had a big part of our success in the late ’60s and early ’70s.”
“He has one of the best basketball hearts I’ve ever known,” said Eddie Donovan, the Knicks general manager who won a Barnett from the Lakers. “Everything he does is for purpose.”
Monroe joined the team early in the 1971-72 season, eventually replacing Barnett in the backcourt. The Knicks reached the NBA Finals in 1972, defeating the Lakers before defeating LA in 1973 in a role supporting Barnett. He played just five games in the 1973-74 season before being abandoned. He spent three seasons as an assistant to Red Holtzmann’s staff.
In addition to education, Burnett has written 20 books, founded the foundation, offered scholarships for sports management majors, and founded a PhD in Sports Education, Business and Technology, which supports internship opportunities.
“Dreams really come true,” he told MSG Network in 2020.
“So now, brothers? Brothers? Something else is always ahead.”
