On this day in 1965: Dick and Tom Van Arsdale make their NBA debuts on the same night — against each other

Sixty-one years ago, the NBA got its strangest kind of opening night. On October 16, 1965, at the third Madison Square Garden in New York, identical twins Dick and Tom Van Arsdale made their professional debuts in the same game — Dick in a Knicks uniform, Tom wearing Detroit’s colors. The Knicks won the season opener 111-103, but the box score is remembered less for the result than for the two names that sit almost on top of each other in it.

The brothers from Indianapolis had never really been apart. They were born on February 22, 1943, starred together at Manual High School, played together at Indiana University and were separated only when the 1965 NBA Draft split them by a single selection: New York took Dick with the 13th overall pick, and Detroit grabbed Tom one spot later at No. 14. Their first real test as opponents came on opening night.

• Result: Knicks 111, Pistons 103 — Saturday, October 16, 1965, Madison Square Garden, New York. Season opener for both teams.
• Tom Van Arsdale (Detroit): 9 points (4-10 FG, 1-1 FT), 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 4 fouls in 19 minutes.
• Dick Van Arsdale (New York): 4 points (1-4 FG, 2-3 FT), 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 foul in 14 minutes.
• New York leaders: Dick Barnett 27 points, Howard Komives 22, Jim Barnes 19 points and 11 rebounds, Johnny Green 13 points and 14 rebounds, Len Chappell 14.
• Detroit leaders: Dave DeBusschere 23 points and 11 rebounds, Eddie Miles 22, Joe Caldwell 15, Donnie Butcher 14.
• By quarter: Detroit 28-21-24-30; New York 23-27-31-30.
• The difference: New York went 41-of-56 at the free-throw line; Detroit went 25-of-44.

Two rookies, one floor

Tom got the bigger opening-night role, logging 19 minutes for a Detroit team coached by its own star forward, Dave DeBusschere — who turned 25 that very day and celebrated by leading the Pistons with 23 points and 11 rebounds. Tom hit four of his 10 shots and his only free throw for nine points. Dick played 14 minutes for coach Harry Gallatin’s Knicks and finished with four points, four rebounds and two assists — a quiet line on a night when Dick Barnett scored 27 and Howard Komives added 22.

The game itself turned at the foul line. Detroit actually made four more field goals (39 to 35), but New York cashed 41 free throws to Detroit’s 25, enough to overcome a 28-23 Pistons first quarter. New York led 50-49 at halftime, pushed the margin to 81-73 after three, and the teams played the fourth quarter to a 30-30 standstill. Four days later the same two teams met again in Detroit, and the Pistons won that rematch 116-103. The twins had split their first two meetings before the leaves had finished turning.

Mirror-image rookie seasons

What makes the debut more than a trivia line is how closely the next 12 years tracked each other. As rookies in 1965-66, Dick averaged 12.3 points and 4.8 rebounds in 79 games for a 30-50 Knicks team; Tom averaged 10.5 points in 79 games for a 22-58 Pistons team. Both were named to the 1965-66 All-Rookie team. Both stood 6-foot-5. Both wore No. 5 for most of their careers.

• Dick Van Arsdale: 921 games, 16.4 points per game, three All-Star selections (1969, 1970, 1971), All-Defensive second team in 1973-74.
• Tom Van Arsdale: 929 games, 15.3 points per game, three All-Star selections (1970, 1971, 1972), 14,232 career points.
• Shared: 1965 draft picks No. 13 and No. 14, 1965-66 All-Rookie team, final season together in Phoenix in 1976-77.

The Original Sun

Their paths finally diverged in 1968. Dick was left unprotected by the Knicks in the expansion draft, and Phoenix made him its first selection. He scored the first point in Suns history, made the All-Star team in each of his first three seasons in the desert and became known as the Original Sun. He played 35 minutes in the famous triple-overtime Game 5 of the 1976 NBA Finals in Boston, the closest either twin came to a championship. After his playing career he stayed with the franchise as an executive, broadcaster and, for the final 26 games of 1986-87, interim head coach (14-12). The Suns retired his No. 5, and he was one of the charter members of the team’s Ring of Honor in 1999. Dick Van Arsdale died on December 16, 2024, at 81.

Tom’s unwanted record

Tom’s career took him from Detroit to Cincinnati, the Kansas City-Omaha Kings, Philadelphia, Atlanta and, at last, Phoenix. He was a three-time All-Star with the Royals and twice averaged nearly 23 points a game, but none of his teams reached the postseason. His 929 regular-season games without a playoff appearance remain the longest such career in NBA history, and his 14,232 points are the most by a player who never played a playoff game.

Before the 1976-77 season, Tom pushed to join his brother in Phoenix, where he already lived, and the Suns acquired him from Buffalo. For the first time since Bloomington, the twins were teammates. Injuries sank the season — Phoenix finished 34-48 and missed the playoffs — and both brothers retired in the spring of 1977. Their NBA careers began on the same night in 1965 and ended in the same uniform 12 seasons later.

Why October 16, 1965 still matters

Sets of twins have reached the NBA since — Horace and Harvey Grant, Jason and Jarron Collins, Brook and Robin Lopez, Marcus and Markieff Morris — but the Van Arsdales remain the template: identical brothers drafted back to back, debuting against each other on opening night, then building two nearly identical All-Star careers in different cities. The Knicks’ 111-103 win is a footnote. The two rookies coming off opposite benches at the Garden are the story.