ATLANTA — Bernard King was a third grader at Brooklyn’s P.S. 67 the first time he picked up a basketball in the school cafeteria. He will never forget the feel, the drive that was born during break, when King and his friends went to the schoolyard and tried to make a basket.
“One by one, all the kids just moved on, and I wouldn’t leave that court until I got that ball through that hoop, and once I did, I’ll never forget the feeling that I felt at that moment,’’ said King. “And I wanted to continue to feel that, so I went out and practiced and developed and honed my skills.”
Hone those skills, King did.
Starting with that day in public school, through a great career at Fort Hamilton High School, then Tennessee and then the NBA, where for years he starred for the Knicks, King yesterday was recognized as one of the greatest who ever played in the city.
King will be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Sept. 8 along with 11 others, including Louisville coach Rick Pitino, shooting guard Richie Guerin, point guard Gary Payton, former UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian and former University of Houston coach Guy V. Lewis.
“You don’t think about the Hall of Fame,’’ said King. “It’s not something that you dream about or you can set a goal for.
“My dream was to play for the New York Knicks. As a kid, that was my dream. And I accomplished that. And that was a very special time in my life and my career playing for that organization. But you don’t equate what you do in the game of basketball to the Hall of Fame. Not at all.”
King was as dynamic a scorer as the NBA knew. He scored 19,655 points, averaging 22.5 points per game. In 1984 he became the first player in 20 years to post consecutive 50-point games.
But he also grabbed 5,060 rebounds (5.8 per game) and dished out 2,863 assists (3.3). And he did it with an old school game he learned from Fort Hamilton coach Ken Kern and, in what was then considered AAU ball, his coach Gil Reynolds at the Restoration Eagles,
King said Reynolds gave him the advice that would carry him for the rest of his career: “You don’t get two points for the way it looks.”
“I always considered myself a very conservative player,’’ said King. “I wasn’t flamboyant. I was a very analytical player. I studied the game. I know the game. I understand the game, and that’s how I performed on a nightly basis.
“Ninety percent of what I did every night was thought out. That’s why I was able to be very consistent. I didn’t play up and down, you always knew what you were going to get from me on any given night, and second and third night, it was always my goal to play better than the first night. And I think that I accomplished that during my career.”
King said he didn’t regret the knee injury he suffered in 1985. In fact one of his proudest accomplishments was returning from that injury, returning as good as ever, at a time when there was no such thing as arthroscopic surgery.
“I’ve had an opportunity to share with Patrick [Ewing] my thoughts,’’ said King. “And my thoughts are very simple: The only regret I have is that he and I didn’t team together, because I believe in my heart of hearts that we would have won a championship together.’’
There are a lot of NBA champions, a great accomplishment no doubt. But there are fewer members in the Hall of Fame. As King said, “It’s the pinnacle.”