SAD NEWS: Former boston celtics and Kings player FOUND dealth today due to…
Jo Jo White, the sharpshooting guard for the Boston Celtics whose smooth, nearly unstoppable jump shot helped carry the team to two National Basketball Association championships in the 1970s, died on Tuesday. He was 71.
His death was announced by the Celtics, who did not say where or how he died. White received a diagnosis of brain cancer in 2010. White’s daughter Meka White told ESPN that the cause was complications of dementia, noting that he had developed pneumonia.
During his 10 years in Boston, White, who was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, embodied the tradition, pride and excellence associated with the Celtics. On the court, White could do it all. With quick hands and quick feet, he jump-started fast breaks, finding teammates with clever passes or taking matters into his own hands with a deadeye jump shot.
“He was a champion and a gentleman; supremely talented and brilliant on the court, and endlessly gracious off of it,” the Celtics, for whom White worked as the director of special projects, said in a statement on Tuesday.
During his prime, in the mid-1970s, White never seemed to tire. He led the team in points and assists in back-to-back seasons, and he played in 488 consecutive games, a Celtics record.
In the 1973-74 season, White averaged 18.1 points a game as the Celtics, with a lineup that included John Havlicek, Paul Silas, Dave Cowens and Don Chaney, went on to the win the league championship, defeating the Milwaukee Bucks, led by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in seven games, the final one in Milwaukee.
In Game 5 of the 1976 N.B.A. finals, White played 60 of the 63 minutes in a triple-overtime thriller often called the greatest game ever played. He led all players with 33 points and nine assists in a 128-126 victory over the Phoenix Suns, who were led by Paul Westphal. The Celtics went on to win the title in Phoenix in six games, the second under Coach Tom Heinsohn, and White was named the most valuable player.
Asked about how he managed to play almost the entire Game 5, White credited his conditioning. “I was tired, but I was conditioned to go the distance,” he said in an interview several years ago. “My thinking was that if I was tired, the other players were close to death.”
White was a seven-time all-star in his decade with the Celtics. After a season and a half with the Golden State Warriors, he ended his career in 1980-81 with the Kansas City Kings (now the Sacramento Kings).
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