Carl Braun (basketball)

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Carl Braun
undrafted
Playing career1947–1962
PositionShooting guard / point guard
Number4
Career history
As player:
1947–1950,
1952–1961		New York Knicks
1961–1962Boston Celtics
As coach:
1959–1961New York Knicks
Career highlights and awards
Career statistics
Points
10,625
Rebounds2,122
Assists2,892
Stats Edit this at Wikidata at NBA.com
Stats at Basketball-Reference.com
Basketball Hall of Fame as player

Carl August Braun Jr. (September 25, 1927 – February 10, 2010)[1] was an American professional basketball and baseball player and professional basketball coach.

Sports career

Born on Sept. 25, 1927, in

German American family moved to Garden City for his senior year of high school. At 6'4" and 185 pounds he had talent as both a right-handed pitcher and as a basketball player. His high school nickname was "bean pole".[2] As a senior at Garden City High School, he helped lead his team to their first-ever Nassau County baseball championship in 1945, and was a star basketball player; he was subsequently one of the inaugural inductees into the Nassau County High School Sports Hall of Fame.[3] He enrolled in Colgate College and played collegiately for the Colgate University Raiders in 1945–1946. In the summer of 1947 was signed by the New York Yankees while still only 19 years old. He played two seasons for Yankee farm teams in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, and then Amsterdam, New York, appearing in 35 games compiling a 2–3 won-lost record.[4]

In between those minor league baseball seasons, he also joined the New York Knicks for their 1947–1948 season, effectively playing in two professional sports simultaneously. On December 6, 1947, he set a then NBA single-game scoring record, recording 47 points.[5] Incredibly he pitched one more season in the Yankees organization that following summer, until deciding that basketball was his future.[6]

Braun was one of the premier guards of the 1950s and spent 13 seasons in the

NBA All-Star Games and scored 10,625 points in his professional career. Braun was a player-coach
for the Knicks in 1960 and 1961 as well, compiling a 40–87 head coaching record.

Carl Braun is featured in the 1948 Bowman set of basketball cards, the 1957 Topps set, and the 1961 Fleer set. Though sportscaster Marty Glickman made the term "swish" a popular basketball colloquialism, he attributed the genesis of the word to Braun, who he heard say it following a good shot during warmup. Glickman used the term frequently in broadcasts throughout the 1950s. Braun was elected to the National Basketball Hall of Fame in 2019.

Personal life

Braun was born in Brooklyn and moved to Garden City, New York as a teenager where he went to high school and lived most of his adult life.[7] After retiring from professional sports, Braun was a Wall Street stockbroker. He retired to Florida around 1990. He married his wife Joan in 1952 with whom he had four daughters Susan, Patricia, Nancy and Carol, and six grandchildren. He and Joan were married 58 years.[8]

BAA/NBA career statistics

Legend
  GP Games 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
 †  Won an NBA championship

Regular season

Year Team GP MPG FG% FT% RPG APG PPG
1947–48 New York 47 – .323 .650 – 1.3 14.3
1948–49 New York 57 – .330 .760 – 3.0 14.2
1949–50 New York 67 – .364 .762 – 3.7 15.4
1952–53 New York 70 33.1 .400 .825 3.3 3.5 14.0
1953–54 New York 72 33.0 .400 .825 3.4 2.9 14.8
1954–55 New York 71 34.9 .388 .801 4.2 3.9 15.1
1955–56 New York 72 32.2 .372 .838 3.6 4.1 15.4
1956–57 New York 72 32.6 .381 .809 3.6 3.6 13.9
1957–58 New York 71 34.9 .418 .849 4.6 5.5 16.5
1958–59 New York 72 27.2 .420 .826 3.5 4.8 10.5
1959–60 New York 54 28.0 .432 .838 3.1 5.0 12.9
1960–61 New York 15 14.5 .468 .786 2.1 3.2 5.7
1961–62† Boston 48 8.6 .377 .741 1.0 1.5 3.7
Career 788 29.8 .383 .804 3.4 3.7 13.5
All-Star 5 18.0 .481 1.000 2.5 1.6 6.0

Playoffs

Year Team GP MPG FG% FT% RPG APG PPG
1948 New York 3 – .293 .600 – .7 10.0
1949 New York 6 – .324 .806 – 3.2 19.3
1950 New York 5 – .412 .763 – 3.8 17.0
1953 New York 11 34.0 .324 .806 4.0 2.8 13.5
1954 New York 4 31.3 .346 .875 3.0 2.3 17.8
1955 New York 3 34.3 .409 .900 4.7 5.3 18.0
1959 New York 2 31.0 .375 .889 2.0 5.0 16.0
1962† Boston 6 7.0 .393 .750 1.2 .3 4.2
Career 40 27.2 .350 .812 3.1 2.7 14.0

See also

References

  1. ^ "Former Knicks star Carl Braun dies at 82 – USATODAY.com". usatoday.com. February 10, 2010. Retrieved February 10, 2010.
  2. ^ Garden City High School Yearbook 1945. Garden City, New York. June 1, 1945. p. 38.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. ^ Herzog, Bob (September 17, 2015). "Jim Brown leads inaugural class of Nassau high school hall of fame inductees". Newsday. New York. Retrieved September 27, 2021.
  4. ^ Herrmann, Mark (April 7, 2019). "Carl Braun, Teresa Weatherspoon elected to Basketball Hall of Fame". Newsday. New York. Retrieved September 27, 2021.
  5. ^ a b Goldstein, Richard (February 11, 2010), "Carl Braun, an All-Star With the Knicks, Dies at 82", The New York Times
  6. ^ "Carl Braun". Baseball Reference. New York. April 7, 2019. Retrieved September 27, 2021.
  7. ^ O'Keeffe, Tim (February 11, 2010). "Carl Braun '49, N.Y. Knicks legend, dies at age 82". Colgate University. Retrieved September 27, 2021.
  8. ^ Goldstein, Richard (February 10, 2010). "Carl Braun, an All-Star With the Knicks, Dies at 82". New York Times. Retrieved September 27, 2021.

External links

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