Way before every rapper and their grandmother started breaking out alter egos to mark the complimentary aspects of their psyche, Walt Frazier was hip to the game. Walt was born on March 29, 1945, forced to begin his life humbly in the racially segregated ghettos of Atlanta, Georgia. As the New York Knickerbockers starting point guard from 1967-77, Walt Frazier has anchored himself in American sports culture as one of the most skilled and elegant basketball artists to run the hardwood floors of the NBA. Leading the New York Knicks to a pair of NBA Championships in 1970 and 1973 during his decade long residency at MSG, Walt played in seven NBA All-Star Games, was named to four All-NBA First Teams, seven NBA All-Defensive First Teams, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1987.
Clyde ‘The Glide’ Frazier was born the moment he was picked in the first round (fifth overall) in the NBA draft by the New York Knickerbockers, and strutted down Broadway into the glimmering limelight of NYC. While Walt sported the number 10 jersey and controlled the Knicks’ offensive in the famed ‘Rolls-Royce’ backcourt, Clyde was more comfortable cold macking beneath a broad-brimmed velour hat, rocking a crushed-velvet leisure suit with the fat broad lapels. Walt drove the lane with smooth precision and accuracy; Clyde drove a Rolls Royce with all the trimmings, prowled nightclubs voraciously, and stepped up his macking game like it was always playoff time.
"It's Clyde's ball," teammate and Knicks captain Willis Reed told Sport magazine at the height of the Frazier era in New York. "He just lets us play with it once in a while." Although rolling with a crew of fellow Hall-of-Famers including Willis Reed, Bill Bradley, Earl ‘The Pearl’ Monroe, Dave DeBusschere, and Jerry Lucas, Clyde’s repertoire of smooth drives to the hoop and mid-range jump shots burned opponents for 15,581 points (18.9 ppg) during the span of his career, while dishing out 5,040 assists (6.1 ppg,) good enough to lead the Knicks in assists for ten consecutive years.
The eldest of nine children, Frazier naturally took to the on-field leadership role at Atlanta's Howard High School. He quarterbacked the football team, played catcher on the baseball team, and ran the point for the basketball team. He learned to play basketball on a rutted, dirt-field playground with metal hoops and no nets -- the only available facility in the 1950’s at his all-black school in racially segregated Georgia. Frazier developed his playing philosophy very early on, and according to his high school coach, carried it with him all the way to the pros. Frazier’s style was simple: aggressive defense takes priority, and hitting an open man is more productive than taking a wild shot.
Although he was offered more scholarships for his football skills than for playing ball, Frazier accepted an offer to play basketball from a relatively obscure Southern Illinois University. "I was looking hopefully to the day when I could play pro ball, and there were no black quarterbacks on the pro scene then," he explained.
Frazier’s natural athleticism, exceptional peripheral vision, and quick hands -- "Faster than a lizard's tongue," commented one opponent -- delighted the fickle New York fans with sudden steals and lightning passes. "The great thing about Clyde are his hands, his anticipation," Coach Holzman told Sport. Teammate, Senator, and one time presidential candidate Bill Bradley added, "[Frazier] is the only player I've ever seen [whom] I would describe as an artist, who takes an artistic approach to the game."
In a sport known for slam dunks, flashy fast-breaks, and impressive offensive numbers, Frazier and the Knicks managed to turn the art of defense into a glamorous pastime, a tradition the Knicks still maintain to date. At the height of the Frazier era in Knicks history, fans at Madison Square Garden would yell chants of "Dee-fense! Dee-fense" like a hoops mantra. Fans believed and opponents feared that a couple of defensive maneuvers by Frazier would flip the momentum of the game, and swing the offensive pendulum in the Knicks’ favor. "It's not only that Clyde steals the ball," Bill Bradley told Sport, "but that he makes them think he's about to steal it, and that he can steal it any time he wants to."
Part of Frazier's defensive success lay in keeping his distance. "I don't believe in contact defense," Frazier said in 1971. "I like to keep them guessing where I am. I have the advantage because my hands are so quick. Its like I'm playing possum; I'm there but I don't look like I'm there. They're relaxed more than if you’re up there pressuring them all the time. That's when they get careless."
Fans also admired his cool and laid-back demeanor. He rarely indulged in fights and almost never expressed frustration with the officials. Frazier even perspired on the court far less than most players, furthering his aura of a stoic unflappability. Either as Walt on the court or as Clyde at the discotheque, Frazier’s jazzy cool that epitomized seventies culture and style, made him an icon of unquestioned Knickerbocker grace and class.
After closing his career out with a brief stint in the Mid-Western tundra of Cleveland, Ohio, Clyde retired his high-top sneakers and took to a life of leisure. In retirement, Frazier set up shop as a player agent, invested in a franchise in the short-lived United States Basketball League, and then moved to the U.S. Virgin Islands and obtained a captain's license for a charter-boat. After a well-earned rest in the Caribbean tropics, he lost both a home and a boat to the torrential winds of Hurricane Hugo. In 1989, Clyde moved back to his adopted hometown of New York City to work as an analyst for the Knicks radio and television broadcasts. In his newfound role as a basketball commentator, the ever-colorful Frazier delighted and confounded New York fans with a constant barrage of rhyming phrases and nonsensical words that have become affectionately known as ‘clyde-isms.’
When his playing days had concluded, Frazier's accomplishments on the court were still being acknowledged. In 1979, the Knicks retired Frazier's number 10 jersey; in 1987, he was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame; and in 1996, Walt was elected to the NBA’s 50th Anniversary All-Time Team. Walt still maintains his job as a Knicks broadcaster and a special place in the hearts of all Knickerbocker fans.
Walt Frazier
Born: 3/29/45
College: Southern Illinois
Drafted by: New York Knicks, 1967
Height: 6-4
Weight: 200 lbs