On this day in 1969: Connie Hawkins makes his NBA debut as the Suns edge San Diego 116-114

Fifty-seven years ago, Connie Hawkins finally stepped onto an NBA floor. On October 16, 1969, at Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, the 27-year-old forward made his NBA debut for the Suns against the San Diego Rockets — a night that closed the longest wait any future Hall of Famer had ever endured to reach the league.

Phoenix won a season opener 116-114. Hawkins finished with 16 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in 32 minutes. The box score was solid. The story was everything that came before it.

• Result: Suns 116, Rockets 114 — Thursday, October 16, 1969, Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Phoenix. Season opener for both teams.
• Connie Hawkins (Phoenix): 16 points (6-19 FG, 4-5 FT), 12 rebounds, 7 assists, 5 fouls in 32 minutes — NBA debut.
• Phoenix leaders: Jim Fox 29 points, Gail Goodrich 28 points with 8 rebounds and 9 assists, Dick Snyder 14, Jerry Chambers 12, Paul Silas 15 rebounds.
• San Diego leaders: Don Kojis 27 points and 12 rebounds, John Block 26, Elvin Hayes 25 points and 16 rebounds, Bernie Williams 11.
• By quarter: San Diego 28-24-30-32; Phoenix 30-32-29-25.

Eight years late

Hawkins should have been an NBA star in the early 1960s. A Brooklyn playground legend at Boys High School, he enrolled at Iowa and was linked — by rumor, not charge — to a 1961 college betting investigation. He was never accused of shaving points or fixing games. The innuendo still cost him his scholarship and, for years, any chance at an NBA contract. The league blacklisted him anyway.

He carved out a career on the edges instead. He was named MVP of the short-lived American Basketball League with the Pittsburgh Rens, barnstormed with the Harlem Globetrotters, then became the face of the brand-new ABA. In 1967-68 with the Pittsburgh Pipers he averaged 26.8 points and 13.5 rebounds, won the ABA’s first MVP award, made All-ABA First Team and led Pittsburgh to the inaugural ABA championship. A knee injury slowed him in 1968-69 with the Minnesota Pipers, but the legend had already outgrown the ban.

Pittsburgh attorneys David and Roslyn Litman filed a $6 million antitrust suit against the NBA on his behalf. A Life Magazine feature by Dave Wolf pushed the injustice into living rooms. In 1969 the league settled. Hawkins was cleared to play. Phoenix and Seattle, the two weakest expansion clubs, flipped a coin for his rights. The Suns won — the franchise’s answer to losing the Lew Alcindor coin flip to Milwaukee months earlier.

Opening night in Phoenix

Hawkins started and played through foul trouble. He shot just 6-of-19 from the field, but the rest of his game — the rebounds, the seven assists, the gravity he created for teammates — already looked like a franchise centerpiece. Goodrich ran the show with 28 points and nine assists. Fox scorched San Diego for 29. Silas cleaned the glass. On the other side, Hayes, already one of the league’s young forces, matched Hawkins with 25 and 16 in a losing effort, while a young Pat Riley logged three quiet minutes for the Rockets.

Phoenix led 62-52 at halftime, held a one-point edge after three, and survived a 32-point San Diego fourth quarter. The two-point final margin was the first proof that Hawkins could tip games in the NBA the way he had in the ABA.

The first superstar season

What followed was the season that carved Hawkins into Suns history. In 1969-70 he played 81 games and averaged 24.6 points, 10.4 rebounds and 4.8 assists while shooting 49.0 percent from the field. He made the All-Star team, finished fifth in MVP voting and was named to the All-NBA First Team alongside Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Jerry West and Billy Cunningham. Dick Van Arsdale and Goodrich also averaged 20-plus points, giving Phoenix a sudden three-headed attack.

The Suns finished 39-43 under coaches Red Kerr and Jerry Colangelo — good enough for fourth in the Western Division and the franchise’s first playoff berth. They took a 3-1 lead over a Lakers team featuring Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor and Jerry West before falling 4-3. Hawkins’ arrival had turned an expansion afterthought into a nearly-champion.

What the debut opened

Hawkins made four All-Star teams as a Sun, had his No. 42 retired on November 19, 1976, and entered the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992. He remains the template for the franchise’s first true star — the player Jerry Colangelo later said gave Phoenix “instant big-league status.” He died on October 6, 2017, at 75.

The debut line — 16, 12 and 7 — does not look like a coronation. Context does. After eight years of exile, an ABA title and a lawsuit that forced the NBA’s hand, Connie Hawkins walked into the Coliseum on October 16, 1969, and the Suns won by two. Basketball-Reference still lists that night as his NBA Debut. Everything that followed — All-NBA, the playoffs, the retired number, the Hall of Fame — started there.