Raymond Lewis
From Hoopedia
Raymond Lewis (September 3, 1952 in Los Angeles - February 11, 2001) was an American basketball player.
Lewis is regarded as one of the best players never to have played in the National Basketball Association. When the Philadelphia 76ers attempted to sign him after drafting him in 1973, he was reported to have had a nasty contract dispute and was told to mature for another year. He never tried to enter a professional league again.
Lewis played in streetball and summer pro league matches and became a bona fide "street legend". Lewis is reported to have dropped 56 points in a 1983 summer pro league game against Michael Cooper, a winner of the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award. Jerry Tarkanian, legendary coach at UNLV said he was the greatest basketball player he had ever seen before.
Lewis died of complications following an attempted amputation of an infected leg.
Raymond Lewis is considered by many to be one of the greatest basketball players that ever lived, and certainly one of the best ever to come out of Los Angeles.
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High School and College
Lewis, a 6-foot-1-inch, cat-quick guard with unlimited shooting range attended Verbum Dei High School in the early 1970s and led his team to an 84-4 winning record and three consecutive California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) titles in 1969, 1970 and 1971. He was named CIF player of the year twice, as a junior then as a senior.
He would go on to bomb a group of Los Angeles Lakers players for 52 points while still in high school. Lewis was offered 250 college basketball scholarships nationwide before choosing to attend Los Angeles State (also known as Cal State LA or CSLA). As a freshman he set all kinds of scoring records and averaged 38.9 points per game and shot nearly 60 percent from the floor, an incredible feat for a guard who rarely shoots inside of 20 feet.
In two Los Angeles State weekend preliminary games Lewis once scored 50 points against San Diego State and the very next day scored an all time high of 73 points against UC Santa Barbara hitting 30 of 40 shots (75% fgp) and adding 13 free throws for a 103-88 win over the Gauchos.
For the two day back-to-back games, Lewis scored 123 points making an eye popping 52 of 84 field goals (62%) and 19 free throws. (Games were played before the insertion of the 3-point shot.)
As a sophomore, the Lewis led the CSLA basketball team upset the number third-ranked Long Beach State 49ers coached by the legendary Jerry Tarkanian. Lewis scored 53 points in the double overtime thriller. He was the NCAA's second leading scorer as a sophomore averaging 32.9 points per game. Four of the five players from that Long Beach State team would go on to play in the NBA.
On the 1971-72 freshmen team Lewis averaged 38.9 ppg, on 60% field goal shooting. As a sophomer the following season, he averaged 32.9 ppg and 4.9 apg. Lewis played two seasons for CSLA before declaring for the NBA draft under the hardship clause.
Non-Pro Career
During his era, Lewis was the youngest player ever drafted and signed by the NBA. He was the 18th player taken in the first round of the 1973 NBA Draft by the Philadelphia 76ers. The Sixers and NBA's number one draft choice that year was Doug Collins of Illinois State. In the team's full-court scrimmage, Lewis reportedly scored 60 points against Collins by half-time. The Sixers then signed Collins to a million-dollar contract, which at that time made him one of the highest-paid players in the NBA.
By all accounts, Lewis had a spectacular rookie camp, outplaying Collins. A bitter contract dispute between Lewis and the Sixers arose. Sixers management said Lewis then walked out of camp. Lewis says he was told by the Sixer organization to sit out a year and mature. Later, In 1974 Lewis jumped to the American Basketball Association Utah Stars.
However, Philadelphia notified Utah that they risked a lawsuit if they signed Lewis, since he was under contract with the 76ers. The Stars gave in to the Sixers' demands, ending Lewis' pro career. Lewis would later try out for other NBA teams, sometimes averaging over 50 points a game but no team would sign him. Many people, including Lewis, felt he had been blackballed by the NBA.
Streetballer Extraordinaire
Lewis took out his frustrations on basketball courts throughout California. No high school, junior college, university or playground was safe from Lewis's scoring binges. In 1981 he averaged 54 points a game in the highly-regarded Los Angeles Summer Pro League, which featured many NBA players. In 1983 he would then go on to score 81 points in another. In a single day, he played the top 30 streetballers in LA and won all 30 games.
On June 6, 2006 former Lakers defensive star Michael Cooper told ESPN radio personality Colin Cowherd that Lewis once scored 60 points on him in an LA Summer Pro League game in only three quarters of play.
A subject of numerous articles, Lewis has been featured in Sports Illustrated, Slam Magazine and in the book Runnin' Rebel. Though the contract dispute caused the NBA to lose one of its greatest players, the world lost more.
Raymond Lewis is no longer with us, but his legend will live on forever in the hearts of those who saw him weave his magic on the court.
