10 Things You Should Know About Maurice Cheeks, Sixers’ New Hall of Famer

Before Thursday, the long-retired 76ers point guard Maurice Cheeks had never attended the Basketball Hall of Fame.

From Friday evening he will be there forever.

He happily attended the first phase of his induction on Thursday and received his orange Hall of Fame jacket along with 11 of his classmates. (Another, Jason Kidd, was absent due to illness, but officials said he is hoping to be there for the formal induction on Friday.)

“It’s a little overwhelming to look up and see all of this (headshots from those that were previously anchored),” Cheeks said, referring to photos high in the building’s rafters. “That was the biggest thing when I came in here and looked up and saw all these players up there. I think this is the part that really gets you. Because for a long time once they called you and told you you did it, you just go about your day. Then every day as it approaches, it really becomes a reality. Then you go in there and see them. “

Below the photos are those of Billy Cunningham and Julius Erving – his former coach and teammate, respectively – who will act as his moderators on Friday night.

Here are 10 things you should know about Cheeks, who wore this uniform number since retiring while serving the Sixers for the first 11 of his 15 NBA seasons:

1. Discussion points: His acceptance speech is no small challenge for Cheeks, long known for his reluctance.

In fact, he joked, “Making the speech is harder than getting into the Hall of Fame.”

Like every new employee, he has to thank a lot of people and only five minutes to do so.

“You just pick out things and people on this trip that have helped you along the way and see if that works,” he said.

2. Discussion points II: He gave a hint of what he was going to say in his speech and mentioned that early in his career coach Billy Cunningham scourged him for his poor defense against Ray Williams in the first half of a game against the Knicks.

Cunningham said to me recently, “I said something like, ‘Well, it looks like we need a new point guard.’ … It’s one of many things that I really regretted, even after the game. “

Exactly after that. He even apologized for it when he called Cheeks to congratulate him shortly after he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in March.

“Must have been on his mind the whole time,” Cheeks said.

Addendum: Cunningham said Cheeks shut down Williams in the second half of that game.

3. An unforgettable season (if not the one you might expect): Cheeks was part of a championship team from 1982-83, but doesn’t necessarily consider this to be his most memorable season.

“The championship should be (probably),” he said, “but when we went to Boston and won the seventh game (1981-82) after taking two 3-1 lead, it was pretty big for us. ” . “

The Celtics made up such a deficit 80-81 to beat the Sixers in the Eastern Conference finals en route to the title. In 1982 they came back to a tie, but the Sixers won the series with a win in game seven at Boston Garden.

“The championship is the ultimate,” said Cheeks, “but that put us to the test because we were already 3-1 ahead and had to do it again.”

This game is remembered by Celtics fans who serenaded the Sixers with chants of “Beat LA” when the problem was no longer in question as they would face the Lakers in the final.

Unfortunately they didn’t.

4. Hall pass? Now that Cheeks has made the Hall of Fame, he’d love to see former teammate Bobby Jones do the same.

Like Cheeks, Jones was a selfless, defensive-minded player who, with the exception of one of his 12 seasons, was the exclusively defensive first or second team.

“He played the game right,” said Cheeks. “He defended. He was guarding the best player of all. … And the way he played, he won’t jump you, but you won’t win many games without him. “

5. What could have been: Andrew Toney, Cheeks’ friend and former backcourt partner, saw his promising career cut short by foot injuries.

“It’s unfortunate that he was injured,” said Cheeks, “because if he hadn’t been injured, the way he played he would definitely be wearing one of these jackets.”

Cheeks reached out to Toney after he was inducted into the Hall of Fame, wondering starting Thursday if he would be attending the Friday ceremony.

“I don’t know if he’s coming or not,” he said. “I hope he comes.”

6. Parallel lives: Cheeks sees similarities between Toney and Oklahoma City security guard Russell Westbrook, with whom he works as a Thunder assistant.

“The ferocity he plays with makes me think of Andrew when you think about it,” said Cheeks. “Both had this ferocity to play for me, as if nobody could stop them.”

Cheeks also said he and Westbrook discussed whether Cheeks could have defended him in his younger days.

Westbrook’s conclusion, you will be amazed, is that he couldn’t have done this. And Cheeks doesn’t necessarily disagree, pointing out that he – like everyone else – would have picked him up all over the court and tried to deny him the ball as best he could.

But he did admit that once Westbrook has the ball in his hands, it’s terribly difficult for anyone to stay in front of him.

7. Defense details: Cunningham, who became a partner in the Heat after retiring from coaching in 1985, recalled visiting Cheeks late in his career after taking on Miami as a member of the Knicks.

It seemed like a rough night for Cheeks set on fire by Sherman Douglas.

But that was kind of the point.

“I said, ‘What did you think?'” Said Cunningham. “He said, ‘Well, I knew I could get Sherman Douglas to play me and he wanted to beat me and not win the game.’ (Douglas’) focus was when (Cheeks) stole the ball or something, well, ‘I’ll show you.’ And in sport you see that pretty often if you look closely. But Maurice knew that and statistically it may look defensive that he didn’t do a good job, but Maurice took the other four people out of the game. “

8. And the red sheen of the rockets: Cheeks will be remembered for a long time when she came to the rescue of a young woman named Natalie Gilbert as she battled for the national anthem ahead of a 2003 playoff game between Portland and Dallas. Cheeks, the then head coach of the Blazers, stepped into the midcourt, put an arm around her, and encouraged fans to sing along. And in one of the warmest presentations anyone has ever seen, they did.

“When I really saw what I was doing, I couldn’t believe I did it,” he said. “I just knew she was having trouble. When I saw that, I didn’t want her standing out there among all the people and not knowing the words. I just reacted somehow. “

“It was,” said Pat Williams, former general manager of the Sixers, “just a wonderful moment of humanity.”

Something else too.

“I think that’s a perfect snapshot of him,” said ex-sixer Mike Gminski.

9. Dunk yourself very much: Cheeks ‘other defining moment was his joyous dunk at the end of game four of the ’83 Finals that crowned the Sixers’ title run.

“I couldn’t believe it either, because normally you don’t shoot the ball when the game is over,” he said. “It was all adrenaline, it really was. Imagine if I had missed it. “

Then he laughed.

“Doc was on my left side,” he said. “I had no idea until he told me and then other people told me.”

Then Cheeks watched the video but couldn’t feel bad about what he was doing.

“That was the euphoria of it all,” he said. “I should be fine with that. We had so many problems getting to the final and winning, I should be fine with that. “

10. Sad ending: When the Sixers traded cheeks in San Antonio in 1989, he learned about it through a television reporter – the result of a series of events that, in the words of Jim Lynam, the team’s coach at the time, were “more than unique”.

“You couldn’t repeat a sequence like this in 1,000 years,” Lynam told me.

When the deal was closed, Cheeks spun around at St. Joseph’s University gym with assistant Fred Carter, where the team then worked out. The idea was to make sure he stayed around until all the details were cleared up, but he left. And in that pre-cell phone era, no one knew where they were going.

Lynam drove to Cheeks’ house and waited in vain, then left assuming that by then he had learned his fate. Meanwhile, the reporter showed up, and not long after that, Cheeks was there too. When he was given the news, he was dejected.

“It really bothered me back then,” said Lynam. “It would have bothered me no matter who the player was, but maybe even more because it was Maurice. What are you going to do? It was a glitch. “

Lynam, now a studio analyst on Sixers games for NBC Sports Philadelphia, is one of the most respected people in Philadelphia. True to shape, he quickly repaired fences with Cheeks.

“I think he got it in retrospect,” Lynam said. “And I think it’s a strong comment that we’re really good friends today, and have been for a long time. Typically of him, once he understood the circumstances, he could accept them in ways that others might not. But he’s the type here too. “