Reed, Willis Jr.
Basketball
b. June 25, 1942, Hico, LA
A 6-foot-10, 235-pound center, Reed starred at Grambling College. He led the team to an NAIA championship in 1961 and was named a small college All-American in 1963, after his senior year.
Although only a second-round draft choice of the New York Knicks, Reed was voted the NBA rookie of the year in 1965 after averaging 19.5 points a game. He took physical beatings early in his season, as veteran players tested him, but finally Reed had enough and knocked down three opponents with a single rush toward the basket. "Everything standing up was going down," a teammate said. After that, the testing ended.
Reed combined a strong inside game with an effective short-range jump shot to average more than 20 points a game in five of his ten seasons with the Knicks. When the Knicks won their first NBA championship in 1970, he was named most valuable player for both the regular season and the playoffs.
His size and strength also made him an outstanding rebounder, but Reed was just as important to the team as an emotional leader. A knee injury limited him to just eleven games in 1971-72. The injury recurred in the fifth game of the 1973 championship series against the Los Angeles Lakers and Reed missed the sixth game. However, he came limping into the seventh game, obviously in pain, and hit two shots before leaving. The emotional lift helped carry the Knicks to victory and Reed was once again named most valuable player of the playoffs.
The bad knee never really healed and Reed retired after the 1973-74 season. He scored 12,183 points in 650 regular season games, a 19.9 average, and had 8,414 rebounds. In 78 playoff games, he scored 1,358 points, a 17.4 average, and had 801 rebounds.
Reed returned as coach of the Knicks in 1977 but was fired after less than two season, winning 49 games while losing 47. As coach at Creighton University from 1981 to 1985, he had a 52-64 record. During the 1987-88 season, the New York Nets hired him and won only 7 of 28 games. He was replaced after a 26-56 record in 1989-90.