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Forward · 1978–79

Spencer Haywood

Born to Mississippi sharecroppers three months after his father died, Haywood picked cotton for two dollars a day before his mother sent him north to Detroit. At 19 he became the youngest American basketball Olympian ever, leading the 1968 gold-medal team in scoring. He won ABA MVP and Rookie of the Year in the same season in Denver, and his antitrust suit against the NBA opened the door for players to turn pro early. His Jazz chapter came in New Orleans in 1978-79, where he averaged 24.0 points and 9.6 rebounds in 34 games — the best scoring of his post-Seattle career.

HOW HE CAME & WENTThirty-four games into 1978-79 the Knicks traded him to New Orleans for Joe Meriweather. The club moved to Utah that summer and sent him on to the Lakers for Adrian Dantley.

New Orleans Jazz tenure
1978–79
Position
Forward
Born
1949, Silver City, Mississippi
Height
6′8″ (203 cm)
Weight
225 lb (102 kg)
College
Detroit Mercy
Drafted
1969, ABA
Signature in the archive 1979-80 Topps Card #12 Utah Jazz PSA/DNA #83921035

No photograph of this signature is online yet.

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With the Jazz

SPENCER HAYWOOD · 1978–79 · PER GAME
SEASONTEAMGMPGPPGRPGAPGSPGBPGFG%3P%FT%
1978–79NOJ3439.424.09.62.10.91.6.497—.849
JAZZ TOTAL1 SEASON3439.424.09.62.10.91.6.497—.849

Season by season, regular season, with this franchise only. More info: Basketball-Reference ↗  ·  Wikipedia ↗

Did you know

SPENCER HAYWOOD · 10 NOTES
  • His 1971 Supreme Court case ended the NBA rule barring players who had not been out of high school four years, opening the door for every early entrant since.
  • Elected to the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2015.
  • Was married to supermodel Iman before she met David Bowie.
  • Born at home to Mississippi sharecroppers, he never received a birth certificate — his birth was recorded in the family Bible.
  • As a high school senior he averaged a quadruple-double — 25 points, 13 rebounds, 14 assists and 12 blocks per game.
  • His 145 points at the 1968 Olympics stood as the American tournament record until Kevin Durant passed it in 2012.
  • At fourteen he saved up bus fare and rode alone from the Mississippi Delta to Chicago to live with an older brother.
  • In his first professional season he led the ABA in both scoring and rebounding and was named its most valuable player at 21.
  • He bought the Seattle radio station KYAC and hosted a weekend jazz show there for four years, then another one in New York.
  • He is godfather to the rapper Common, whose father Lonnie Lynn was his teammate on the Denver Rockets.