Bill Sharman

Did You Know?

• Sharman was a 15-letter athlete at Porterville High School and won the state amateur tennis title.
• He was called up to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1951 but did not appear in a game; he was ejected from a major league game without ever playing in one.
• Sharman served in the US Navy from 1944 to 1946.

College career

Sharman attended the University of Southern California, where he played both baseball and basketball. He played basketball for four seasons (1946–1950) in the Pacific Coast Conference, averaging 15.9 points per game as a junior and 18.6 as a senior. His career average of 13.7 points per game was a school record at the time. As a senior, he served as team captain and was named the team's most valuable player. Sharman was twice selected All-Pacific Coast Conference and twice named the conference's Most Valuable Player. He was named a consensus first-team All-American in 1950, though contemporaneous reports varied: the International News Service and Colliers Magazine named him first-team, the Associated Press and United Press second-team, and Look magazine third-team. Sharman played forward under Hall of Fame coach Sam Barry, alongside future Hall of Fame coaches Tex Winter and Alex Hannum.

Professional basketball career

Sharman was drafted by the Washington Capitols in the second round of the 1950 NBA draft. After initially refusing the team's $5,000 offer, he accepted an increased offer of $8,000. The Capitols folded 35 games into the 1950–51 season; Sharman had played 31 games, averaging 12.2 points and 3.5 rebounds per game. While with the Capitols, he drove teammate Earl Lloyd to practices because Lloyd lacked a car in segregated Washington, D.C. After the Capitols disbanded, Sharman was selected by the Fort Wayne Pistons in a dispersal draft.

He was then part of a transaction that sent Chuck Share to the Pistons and Sharman, Bob Brannum, and Bob Harris to the Boston Celtics. The reporting on the specifics of the deal varies, but Celtics owner Walter A. Brown later said receiving any one of the three Pistons players for Share would have been favorable. Sharman played ten seasons for the Celtics, leading the team in scoring from 1955 to 1959 and averaging over 20 points per game in three of those seasons. The Celtics reached the playoffs every season he was with the team, and he won four NBA championships.

Coaching career

After his playing contract ended in 1961, Sharman became general manager and coach of the Los Angeles Jets of the American Basketball League (ABL). He also intended to play for the Jets, but the Celtics threatened to sue based on an option clause in his NBA contract. Sharman appeared in 19 games for the Jets before the franchise folded in January 1962. He then coached the Cleveland Pipers, winning the ABL's only full-season championship.

In 1962, he became head coach and athletic director at Los Angeles State College, where the team had a 27–20 record over two seasons. He resigned in August 1964 and worked as a radio and television color commentator for the St. Louis Hawks for one year, then as an oil company representative. Sharman later coached the 1971–72 Los Angeles Lakers to an NBA-record 33-game win streak, a then-record 69–13 regular season, and the first Lakers championship in Los Angeles. He was named Coach of the Year in both the ABA and NBA.

Executive career

After Pete Newell resigned in late August 1976, Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke promoted Bill Sharman from assistant general manager to general manager. In that role, Sharman assembled the Showtime Lakers, who won NBA titles in 1980 and 1982. His key moves included trading Don Ford and a first-round pick to Cleveland in early 1980 for Butch Lee and a 1982 first-rounder, which became James Worthy. In 1982, new owner Jerry Buss made Sharman team president and Jerry West general manager. As president, Sharman oversaw championship teams in 1985, 1987, and 1988. He retired from the front office in 1991 but stayed on as a special consultant, during which the Lakers won five more titles.