Former New York Knick Dick McGuire, Basketball Hall of Famer, Dies at 84

McGuire, who was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993, died today of natural causes at Huntington Hospital on Long Island, the National Basketball Association team said in a news release.

The seven-time NBA All-Star led New York to three straight championship appearances from 1951-1953, and is third on the franchise’s all-time assist list with 2,950. His No. 15 jersey was retired in 1992 by the Knicks, the club where he was a player, coach and front-office official for more than a half century.

“Dick McGuire was the epitome of what it means to be a Knickerbocker: pride, tradition and class,” Donnie Walsh, the team’s president of basketball operations, said in a statement. “It was an honor to watch him play for our hometown team and I consider myself very lucky to say I worked alongside a man who shaped the National Basketball Association for parts of all eight decades of its existence.”

Richard Joseph McGuire, a Bronx, New York, native, was born on Jan. 26, 1926.

He played for St. John’s University and Dartmouth College, according to his Hall of Fame biography, before being drafted by the Knicks with the seventh pick in 1949.