On this day in 1965: Billy Cunningham’s NBA debut — 14 points in eight minutes

Sixty-one years ago today, Billy Cunningham played his first NBA game. The Philadelphia 76ers’ first-round pick out of North Carolina opened the 1965-66 season on the road against the Baltimore Bullets at the Baltimore Civic Center and needed only eight minutes to make the box score look crowded. He scored 14 points on 7-of-10 shooting, grabbed five rebounds and added an assist in a 133-101 Sixers win.

Wilt Chamberlain carried the night with 33 points and 25 rebounds in 40 minutes. Hal Greer poured in 27 and Chet Walker had 23. Cunningham, listed as a forward and already nicknamed the Kangaroo Kid from his leaping at UNC, came off the bench and outscored everyone else on the Philadelphia second unit. Al Bianchi’s 16 was the only other double-digit line that topped him. Baltimore got 27 from Don Ohl and 21 from Walt Bellamy, but the Sixers led after every quarter and pulled away with a 41-point fourth.

• Result: Sixers 133, Bullets 101 — October 16, 1965, Baltimore Civic Center.
• By quarter: Sixers 32-27-33-41; Bullets 25-27-22-27.
• Cunningham’s debut: 8 minutes, 7-10 FG, 0-0 FT, 5 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 fouls, 14 points.
• Philadelphia leaders: Wilt Chamberlain 33 points and 25 rebounds, Hal Greer 27, Chet Walker 23, Al Bianchi 16, Cunningham 14.
• Baltimore leaders: Don Ohl 27, Walt Bellamy 21 and 10 rebounds, Gus Johnson 17, Bailey Howell 10 and 17 rebounds.

From Brooklyn to Chapel Hill to the draft

Cunningham was born June 3, 1943, in Brooklyn and played high school ball at Erasmus Hall before starring at North Carolina. The Sixers took him seventh overall in the 1965 draft. As a rookie he played all 80 games, averaged 14.3 points and 7.5 rebounds in 26.7 minutes, made the All-Rookie team and finished second in Rookie of the Year voting. The next spring he was the sixth man on Philadelphia’s 1966-67 championship team, the club that ended the Boston Celtics’ run and is still ranked among the greatest single seasons in league history.

Star forward, ABA MVP, then home again

By the late 1960s Cunningham was a full-time starter and a perennial All-NBA forward. He averaged 24.8, 26.1 and 23.0 points across three straight seasons from 1968-69 through 1970-71, made four All-NBA teams and five All-Star teams as a player, and kept crashing the glass at more than 11 rebounds a night. In 1972 he jumped to the ABA’s Carolina Cougars, reuniting with North Carolina roots under coach Larry Brown. In his first ABA season he averaged 24.1 points, 12.0 rebounds and 6.3 assists, led the league in steals and won ABA MVP as Carolina finished 57-27. Injuries cut the next year short. He returned to the Sixers for 1974-75 and closed his playing career there in 1975-76.

Across 11 professional seasons he played 770 games and averaged 21.2 points, 10.4 rebounds and 4.3 assists. Nine of those seasons were in Philadelphia. He entered the Hall of Fame as a player in 1986 and was later named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.

Coach of the 1983 champions

Cunningham was not done with the Sixers. On Nov. 4, 1977, Philadelphia hired him to replace Gene Shue. Over eight seasons he went 454-196 in the regular season (.698) and 66-39 in the playoffs. The 1982-83 club, built around Moses Malone, Julius Erving, Andrew Toney and Maurice Cheeks, went 65-17 and then 12-1 in the postseason to win the title. Cunningham remains one of the rare figures to win an NBA championship with the same franchise as both a player and a head coach.

The first box score is only eight minutes long, but it already shows the jump: a Tar Heel forward hitting seven of 10 shots in a blowout opener, sharing a floor with Chamberlain and Greer, and starting a Philadelphia career that would stretch from the 1967 parade to the 1983 one.