![]() Besides his team accomplishments, he was named the Final Four Most Outstanding Player as a junior and as a senior, and his long list of honors included The Sporting News College Player of the Year Award and the Naismith Award. Ewing’s pro career was presaged by four superb years at Georgetown. Perhaps that is why he chose to attend Georgetown, where he blossomed under the mentor-like guidance of coach John Thompson, a 6-foot-10 former NBA backup center to Bill Russell on the Boston Celtics in the mid-1960s. He understood the hoopla that came with his stardom but always reserved his right to just play basketball. Many had similar thoughts as he was heavily recruited and was the focal point of media attention throughout his basketball career. “He will be the next Bill Russell, only better offensively,” high school coach Mike Jarvis said of Ewing while the budding giant played at Cambridge (Mass.) Rindge & Latin School. But by the time he was a senior in high school, the world knew he would be something special. The Jamaica-born Ewing arrived in the United States at age 11, and the gangly youth who had reached the height of 6-foot-10 by junior high school was initially awkward on the court when introduced to the game. He was the NBA Rookie of the Year in 1986, was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History and played on two gold medal-winning Olympic basketball teams in 19. They include averages of 21 points and 9.8 rebounds, 11 All-Star berths, an All-NBA First Team bid and six Second Team selections. Nonetheless, Ewing’s career highlights and production are impressive. In fact, from 1990 through 1998, the NBA championship went to teams that featured either Jordan or Olajuwon. But timing is everything and Ewing just happened to be born within five months of both Olajuwon and Michael Jordan, whose Chicago Bulls defeated Ewing’s Knicks in five playoff series. Some hold that Ewing’s failure to win a ring is the litmus test defining his career. Patrick Ewing was a center who flourished as an offensive force, excelled as defensive intimidator and helped personify basketball throughout the 1990s.Īlso, at the tail end of Ewing’s career with the Knicks, he was sidelined with a partially torn Achilles’ tendon when the San Antonio Spurs defeated New York in the 1999 NBA Finals. ![]() He led the Knicks all the way to the NBA Finals in 1994 but lost to the Hakeem Olajuwon-led Houston Rockets in seven games, which avenged a loss by Olajuwon’s Houston Cougars to Georgetown in the 1984 NCAA championship game. Never achieving the Holy Grail of the NBA, Ewing came painfully close. ![]() The team’s fierce in-your-face style of basketball created a phenomenon known as “Hoya Paranoia” and as the key intimidating defensive presence, Ewing was tagged the “Hoya Destroya.” A media star since his schoolboy days, his anticipated arrival to the NBA was unprecedented. He arrived in New York after a ballyhooed college career with the Georgetown Hoyas that included one NCAA title and appearances in two other championship games. One of the finest shooting centers to play, he left the game as the New York Knicks’ all-time leader in nearly every significant category and the game’s 13th all-time scorer with 24,815 points. Bold predictions did not always materialize and some took them as empty promises, while others as a will to succeed. He was indefatigable and relentless in pursuit of an NBA championship despite being denied on an annual basis. That is the one-word description often applied to Patrick Ewing. > Archive 75: Patrick Ewing | 75 Stories: Patrick Ewing ![]() Patrick Ewing’s scoring and defense fueled Knicks playoff runs and New York’s trip to The Finals in 1994. ![]()
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