Oscar Robertson

Lore & Background

Robertson was born into poverty in Charlotte, Tennessee, and grew up in a segregated housing project in Indianapolis. He attended Crispus Attucks High School, leading the team to two state championships. In college at the University of Cincinnati, he averaged 33.8 points per game and set numerous records. He co-captained the 1960 U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal. His professional career included being the first player to average a triple-double for a season (1962) and winning an NBA title with the Bucks in 1970–71. He was also president of the National Basketball Players Association and a key figure in the landmark antitrust suit Robertson v. National Basketball Ass'n of 1970.

Reader's Guide

Robertson is a two-time Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee (1980 for individual career, 2010 as a member of the 1960 Olympic team). He was named to the NBA 35th Anniversary Team in 1980, the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996, and the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021. The USBWA renamed their College Player of the Year Award the Oscar Robertson Trophy in 1998. He was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006 and the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2009. ESPN ranked him the 36th best American athlete of the 20th century.

Did You Know?

• Robertson was the first player in NBA history to average a triple-double for a season (1962), a feat later matched only by Russell Westbrook and Nikola Jokić.
• He recorded 41 triple-doubles in the 1961–62 season, a record that stood until Russell Westbrook broke it in 2016–17.
• Robertson's high school team, Crispus Attucks, won the 1955 state championship, the first for any all-black school in the nation.
• He was the leading scorer of the 1960 U.S. Olympic team, which won gold by an average margin of 42.4 points per game.