Maurice Stokes
(1933-1970)
Hall of Fame Induction: 2004
Card Shown:
2009-10 Panini Hall of Fame
Position: PF
Height: 6’7″
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Maurice Stokes was destined to become one of the greatest basketball players in NBA history before a tragic accident took his basketball career and a normal life away from him. Stokes had a combination of speed, strength, and agility that was ahead of his time. He has been compared to Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, and LeBron James because of his abilities to rebound, lead the break, and finish at the rim. Maurice was a classic point-forward before fans knew the meaning of the term. He could also rebound like a center and score the ball.
In the final game of the 1957-58 season the Royals played the Minneapolis Lakers and Stokes fell and was knocked unconscious when his head hit the floor. Not long after he became paralyzed as a result of this injury. His basketball career was over. Maurice lived twelve more years but required full-time care to live.
His teammate and friend Jack Twyman became Maurice’s guardian and helped raise the money needed to provide for Maurice. The special friendship between Maurice Stokes and Jack Twyman, made even more unique by the fact that Stokes was black and Twyman was white during the racially charged period of the 1950s and 1960s, is chronicled in the book An Unbreakable Bond: The Brotherhood of Maurice Stokes and Jack Twyman.
The basketball world never got to witness a full career by Maurice Stokes. In all likelihood a long career would have shown him to be one of the top 20 players to ever play the game. What we did have the opportunity to see, however, was the courage, the positive attitude, and the supreme effort that Maurice Stokes continued to give as he lived the last twelve years of his life fighting the obstacles caused by his injury.
Awards and Honors
- In 1955 Maurice led St. Francis College to a fourth place finish in the National Invitational Tournament (NIT). He became the only player from a fourth-place team to win the NIT’s Most Valuable Player award. St. Francis later named its athletics center after him.
- Stokes was named the NBA Rookie of the Year in 1956. He finished his first year averaging 16.8 points (10th), 16.3 rebounds (1st), and 4.9 assists per game (8th). His 16.3 rebounds per game was tops in the league, narrowly edging Bob Pettit who pulled down 16.2 boards per game.
- In his second and third NBA seasons, Stokes finished second in rebounds per game and third in assists each season.
- Maurice only played in the league for three years and he was an NBA All-Star in each of them (1956, 1957, and 1958).
- Stokes was also named to the All-NBA Second Team in each of these three years from 1956-1958.
Points of Interest
- After a fantastic college career at St. Francis College in Pennsylvania, Maurice was chosen as the second overall selection in the 1955 NBA Draft by the Rochester Royals.
- In his first game in the NBA Stokes had 32 points, 20 rebounds, and 8 assists, showing the type of all-around skill for the game of basketball that Maurice possessed.
- The Maurice Stokes Charity basketball game was an annual event held at Kutsher’s in the Catskills. The game helped to raise money for Stokes medical expenses and drew many of the top basketball players of the day, including Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson.
- In 2013 the NBA created the Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award in honor of these two great basketball players and the relationship that they had.
- Although most people do not know his name, those who study the history of the great game of basketball will continue to remember Maurice Stokes.
Statistics
Maurice Stokes Statistics
provided by Basketball-Reference.com