BALTIMORE BULLET WES UNSELD--ROOKIE OF THE YEAR AND MVP
In the 1968 NBA Draft the Baltimore Bullets made Unseld the second overall pick, behind the San Diego Rockets' selection of Elvin Hayes, who would become Unseld's teammate in later years.
The Bullets had never had a winning season up to that point. With Unseld they would run off 10 winning campaigns and make 12 consecutive playoff appearances. He joined a rising team that included the previous season's Rookie of the Year, Earl "the Pearl" Monroe, as well as high-scoring guard Kevin Loughery and powerful forward Gus Johnson.
Unseld made an immediate impact on the 1968-69 Bullets, boosting them to a 57-25 record and first place in the Eastern Division-a 21-game improvement over the club's sixth-place finish the previous year. He played in the NBA All-Star Game as a rookie and tallied 11 points and 8 rebounds in 14 minutes of action.
He finished the season with per-game averages of 13.8 points and 18.2 rebounds (his 1491 total rebounds were second only to Wilt Chamberlain's 1712) and was named both Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player. Chamberlain is the only other player in NBA history to have won both awards in the same season, accomplishing that feat in 1959-60.
RICK on WES UNSELD
Unseld was Charles Barkley before there was Charles Barkley; minus the trash talk. In the beginning of his NBA career, many questioned whether he would be able to stand up against the quality centers in the league. He was able to outhustle and outmuscle much taller centers. He played in an era against the likes of Hall-of-Famers Wilt Chamberlin, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Willis Reed, Nate Thurmond, Bob Lanier and Elvin Hayes; who would later become his teammate in the Bullets final season in Baltimore. He was deceptively quick and he relentlessly played hard for the full 48 minutes; eventually wearing down his opponent. He remained in Baltimore long after his playing and coaching days were over.
During his 13-year NBA career, all with the Bullets, Unseld piled up many accomplishments. He ranked seventh on the league's all-time rebounding list and was one of a handful of players to have tallied at least 10,000 points and 10,000 rebounds for a career. He played 984 games for the Bullets, the most of any player in franchise history. His total of 13,769 boards (14.0 rpg) currently tops the franchise career list, and his 3,822 assists also is a Bullets record.
To no one's surprise, Unseld remained affiliated with the franchise. As he once told a reporter for Sports Illustrated, "I'm a Bullet. I've always been a Bullet, and I always will be."
Wes Unseld measured up, turned Bullets around
May 07, 2012 By Mike Klingaman, The Baltimore Sun
Forty-four years later, what sticks in Wes Unseld's mind is a reception he got on his arrival in Baltimore as the Bullets' top pick in the 1968 NBA draft. Welcoming, it was not.
"I was watching TV in my room at the Lord Baltimore Hotel, and this sportscaster, Charley Eckman, came on. He was screaming and hollering that the Bullets were idiots for drafting a slow, 6-foot-7 center from Louisville," Unseld recalled.
"Well, Charlie was wrong. I was 6-foot-6."
Then Unseld, the second player picked in the draft, stepped onto the basketball court and took the skeptics to task.
Has any rookie had such an impact? The only newcomer among the Bullets' starting five, Unseld led a team that had finished last in the Eastern Division the year before to first place in 1968-69. He swept both Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player honors, a feat matched only by Wilt Chamberlain.
As a player, Wes Unseld seemed to have been chiseled from a block of granite, with a stoic demeanor and an iron resolve to win. A 6-7 bull of a center, he forged his reputation on relentless rebounding, bone-jarring picks, and laser-beam outlet passes. He did all the unspectacular things that led to glamorous victories. He was the league's MVP and Rookie of the Year in 1968-69 and a five-time NBA All-Star who captained the Baltimore and Washington Bullets to four NBA Finals appearances in the 1970s and to a championship in 1977-78.
Unseld was intelligent on and off the court, and over the course of his career he came to personify the virtues of hard work, dedication, and courage. After retiring in 1980 he moved into a front office position with the Bullets, then coached the team for seven seasons in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Perhaps the most important figure in the history of the Bullets franchise, Unseld was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1988. In 1996, he was named to the NBA 50th Anniversary All-Time Team.
Unseld was a force in the 1969 playoffs, averaging 18.8 ppg and 18.5 rpg, but the Bullets' dream season ended quickly; they were swept by the New York Knicks in the Eastern Division Semifinals. Nevertheless, Baltimore's turnaround was remarkable, and Gene Shue earned the NBA Coach of the Year Award.
In his second season, Unseld scored a career-best 16.2 ppg. His rebounding numbers remained impressive, and it became clear that he contributed in ways that didn't show up in the box score. He set solid picks, grabbed rebounds, whipped outlet passes to trigger fast breaks, and consistently prevented opposing centers from establishing position in the lane. His 16.7 rebounds per game earned him second place in the league's rebounding race again, this time to San Diego's Hayes. The Bullets were solid in 1969-70, running up a 50-32 record and claiming third place in the Eastern Division.
The NBA realigned for the 1970-71 season, creating two conferences and four divisions. The Bullets were moved to the Central Division, where they ran off five consecutive division titles, although their record fluctuated wildly. (They were as bad as 38-44 in 1971-72 and as good as 60-22 in 1974-75.)
During those years Unseld carved out his reputation in the paint. He ranked second in the league in rebounding in each of his first four seasons, slipped to fifth one year, had a down year due to injury, then claimed the rebounding title in 1974-75. He was an All-Star five times during that stretch, despite doing most of his work against players who were much taller, including 7-footers Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Unseld was listed at 6-7, but after he retired, he admitted that he actually had been just a hair under 6-6 all along. However, what Unseld lacked in height, he made up for with his powerful 245-pound frame and sheer determination.
"I know that night in and night out the guy I play against will have more physical ability," he told the Washington Post. "But I feel like if I go out against a guy and play him 40 or 48 minutes a game or whatever, toe to toe, head to head, he is going to get tired or beat up or bored for two or three minutes. That will be enough to make sure he doesn't win the game for his team."
For all his might, Unseld also had great hands, both for grabbing a rebound and for delivering a pass. And, as former Bullets General Manager Bob Ferry told the Washington Post, "He has great anticipation and imagination. He can see something develop, and he gets the pass there at the right time." In addition, while he was not fast, he was very quick, an attribute that was made even more deceptive because of his massive body.
In 1970-71, the Bullets made their first trip to the NBA Finals, narrowly surviving seven-game playoff battles against the Philadelphia 76ers and New York Knicks. Matched up against the Milwaukee Bucks and stars such as Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson, Baltimore fell in four games.
After a sub-.500 campaign in 1971-72, the Bullets picked up superstar forward Hayes from the Houston Rockets for the following season. The high-scoring Hayes would provide a good counterpoint to Unseld over the next several years. During the early and mid-1970s, Hayes and Phil Chenier provided most of the Bullets' scoring punch, leaving Unseld to do the blue-collar work underneath.
Before the start of the 1973-74 season K. C. Jones took over as head coach, and the franchise moved to Washington, playing for a year as the Capital Bullets. The normally sturdy Unseld missed 26 games due to surgery on his left knee, and he went at half speed in most of the games he played. His scoring average dipped to 5.9 ppg and his rebounding dropped to 9.2 rpg. However, Hayes rose to the occasion in Unseld's absence, pulling down a league-leading 18.1 rpg.
He grabbed 18.2 rebounds a game, outmuscling players 6 inches taller. He set monstrous picks and flung outlet passes with Bullet-like precision. Unseld scored, too — 13.8 points a game for a club that managed 21 more victories with him than it had without him.
His success, he said, was unexpected.
"All I wanted was to do enough to make the team want to keep me," he said.
Unseld starred with the Bullets for 13 seasons, five of them in Baltimore before the franchise went south. Statistically, they were his finest years — four of his five All-Star appearances were with Baltimore — though Unseld wouldn't win a championship until 1978, when Washington defeated the Seattle SuperSonics and he was voted MVP of the NBA Finals.
He later served as the team's head coach and general manager. Unseld was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1988, having garnered 10,624 points and 13,769 rebounds. Eight years later, he was named to the NBA's 50th Anniversary All-Time Team.
His selection as one of The Baltimore Sun's Top 10 athletes in Maryland history is "flattering, humbling and a little embarrassing," he said. "To be up there with Brooks and Frank Robinson? And that other guy from Louisville, Johnny Unitas?
"Back in the early 1970s, he [Unitas] and I were both at Kernan Hospital, doing physical therapy. Then he took me outside and had me warm him up. He'd throw the football, and I'd try to catch it."
Good hands were one of Unseld's strengths. Doggedness was another.
"Sure, I gave away inches [to opponents]," he said. "But a bigger factor was determination. If they were more determined, they'd win — but if I were more determined, they'd be hurting."
If Bullets fans took to "The Baby Bull," he was smitten with Baltimore as well.
"I'd never seen a crab 'til I came here, but I fell in love with the Bay," he said. "Hell, I'd never seen lacrosse. I loved the game, but I couldn't believe they'd ever allow somebody like me [245 pounds] to run after people with a stick."
In retirement, he settled in Westminster. In 1979, he and his wife, Connie, opened a private grade school in West Baltimore, where Unseld, 66, mows the grass, mops floors and leads the kids to the gym to shoot baskets.
"I'm a country boy, but I grew to love this city early on," he said. "When I got here, [Bullets forward] Gus Johnson took me under his wing and led me to all of the juke joints on Pennsylvania Avenue, where he hung out. You could go to Little Italy or to Turners Station and get the same reception. The people here have never been the type that you feel you have to impress."
But impress them on the court, Unseld did.
"I had some of my best years in Baltimore," he said, "and I'm real proud of that."