Dick Gibbs (basketball)

Last updated

Dick Gibbs
Personal information
Born (1948-12-20) December 20, 1948 (age 76)
Ames, Iowa, U.S.
Listed height6 ft 5 in (1.96 m)
Listed weight210 lb (95 kg)
Career information
High school Ames (Ames, Iowa)
College
NBA draft 1971: 3rd round, 49th overall pick
Selected by the Chicago Bulls
Playing career1971–1976
Position Small forward
Number40, 31, 21
Career history
19711972 Houston Rockets
1973 Kansas City–Omaha Kings
1973–1974 Seattle SuperSonics
1974–1975 Washington Bullets
1975–1976 Buffalo Braves
Career highlights and awards
  • First-team All-WAC (1971)
Career NBA statistics
Points 1,739 (5.2 ppg)
Rebounds 624 (1.9 rpg)
Assists 260 (0.8 apg)
Stats at NBA.com  OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Stats at Basketball Reference   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

Dick Gibbs (born December 20, 1948) is an American former professional basketball player. A small forward, he played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for five teams from 1971 to 1976, posting career averages of 5.2 points per game and 1.9 rebounds per game. [1]

Contents

Born in Ames, Iowa, [1] Gibbs attended Ames High School and played on their basketball team in 1967, helping them reach the state championship game. [2] Following a period at Burlington Junior College, he played college basketball for the University of Texas at El Paso Miners from 1969 to 1971. [3] Gibbs scored 10.5 points per game in the 1969–70 season, when the Miners won the Western Athletic Conference championship in their first season in the league. In the last game of the regular season, Gibbs sustained an injury and was unable to play in the NCAA Tournament; the Miners lost in the first round. Their coach, Don Haskins, later said, "Without him, we had no chance to go very far in the tournament." [4]

Gibbs improved his scoring average to 17.4 points per game in 1970–71, and his 10.6 rebounds per game were up from the 8.5 he had averaged the previous season. Both totals were team highs. At the end of the season, he was named to the All-Western Athletic Conference team. As of 2012, he was fourth in Miners history with 9.7 rebounds per game for his career. [3]

In the third round of the 1971 NBA draft, Gibbs was selected by the Chicago Bulls with the 49th overall pick. [1] Although the New York Nets picked him in the fourth round of the American Basketball Association draft, [5] he opted to play in the NBA. He was traded to the Houston Rockets in June 1971, the first of five trades he was involved in during his career. After playing the 1971–72 season with the Rockets, Gibbs was on four other teams over the next four seasons—the Kansas City–Omaha Kings, Seattle SuperSonics, Washington Bullets, and Buffalo Braves. With the SuperSonics in 1973–74, he posted a career-high of 10.8 points per game. [1] He was dealt along with a 1975 third-round selection from the SuperSonics to the Bullets for Archie Clark on August 19, 1974. [6] The next season, he was a member of the Bullets team that reached the 1975 NBA Finals. [7] Following his playing career, Gibbs ran a drug treatment facility in Newport Beach, California. [2]

Career statistics

Legend
  GPGames played  GS Games started MPG Minutes per game
 FG%  Field goal percentage 3P%  3-point field goal percentage FT%  Free throw percentage
 RPG  Rebounds per game APG  Assists per game SPG  Steals per game
 BPG  Blocks per game PPG Points per game Bold Career high

NBA

Source: [1]

Regular season

YearTeamGPMPGFG%FT%RPGAPGSPGBPGPPG
1971–72 Houston 6411.8.340.8332.2.83.7
1972–73 Houston 12.0.000.01.0.0
1972–73 Kansas City–Omaha 6611.1.362.7461.4.93.1
1973–74 Seattle 7121.5.431.8063.11.1.5.310.8
1974–75 Washington 597.2.389.7501.0.3.2.13.3
1975–76 Buffalo 7212.0.429.8281.5.7.2.24.7
Career33312.9.402.7991.9.8.3.25.2

Playoffs

YearTeamGPMPGFG%FT%RPGAPGSPGBPGPPG
1975 Washington 62.8.3001.000.2.3.5.01.3
1976 Buffalo 54.6.4441.000.2.4.0.02.0
Career113.6.3681.000.2.4.3.01.6

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Dick Gibbs". Basketball Reference . Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved December 22, 2024.
  2. 1 2 "Iowan, Former Basketball Pro Tells Of Struggle". KCCI. February 17, 2006. Archived from the original on June 5, 2011. Retrieved January 1, 2014.
  3. 1 2 "UTEP to Tangle With UAB in "Noche Latina" Game Saturday". University of Texas at El Paso. January 30, 2012. Retrieved October 21, 2014.
  4. Knight, Bill (October 28, 2015). "Gibbs, Archibald led small team to big time". El Paso Times . Retrieved December 21, 2016.
  5. Bradley, Robert; Grasso, John. "ABA Player Drafts". Association for Professional Basketball Research. Retrieved February 15, 2025.
  6. "People in Sports". The New York Times . August 20, 1974. Retrieved November 30, 2020.
  7. Cannon, John (June 4, 2015). "1975 NBA Finals: The Warriors turn the NBA upside-down". Fox Sports . Retrieved October 21, 2019.