Orange and Blue in the Red, White and Blue: A History of the Olympic Games (Part 1)

Today, the United States celebrates its 248th anniversary. Later this month, a team of 12 of the country's best basketball players will head to Paris to bring home another Olympic gold medal. Unfortunately, one of the Knicks' point guards was spared, but he broke his hand in Game 7 against Indiana and was likely replaced. The 2024 Olympics will be the second consecutive Olympics without active New York Knicks players on the U.S. team. In fact, there will be no Knicks players at this year's Olympics, unless Lithuania qualifies. At least in 2021, Evan Fournier and Frank Ntilikina represented France.

As today is our country's birthday, I thought I'd take a look back at the Knicks' representation on the world stage — specifically, the Knicks players who have donned the red, white and blue at the Olympics and other major tournaments. I'll split this into two parts.

-Amateur era, Olympics only. None of these players played for the Knicks.

-1992 to present. Includes FIBA.

1948 London Olympics

Vince Borilla – Born and raised in East Chicago, Indiana, Borilla attended Notre Dame and Denver and was a member of the 1948 Olympic team. You'll be hard-pressed to find numbers that go back that far. After being named a First Team All-American in 1949, he went undrafted and signed with the Knicks. Borilla played five years in the NBA, posting his best batting average of 14.9/3.8/2.8 sprints in 1950-51, when he was an All-Star, and was a key part of the Knicks' Finals appearances in 1951 and 1953.

His performance gradually declined, and he retired after the 1954 season. He then served as head coach of the Knicks from 1956 to 1958, going 80-85 over three seasons, but resigned after a mediocre 57-58 season. He went on to serve as executive director for the Knicks, Utah Stars (ABA), and Mavericks. His son, Mike, was a Pro Bowl quarterback for the Eagles in 1975.

Ray Lamp – Lampe was born in New York, went to high school in Queens, played at New York University, then a college basketball powerhouse, was selected in the second round by the Indianapolis Jets in the 1948 draft and won a gold medal that summer.

Lamp was traded to the Knicks a few months later for Tommy Barnes and played 214 games with the Knicksbockers, averaging 7 wins, 2 losses and 2 ties. He retired after playing most of the 1952-1953 season with the Baltimore Bullets.

1960 Rome Olympics

Photo by Ron Hoskins/NBAE via Getty Images

Walt Bellamy – When the Olympics first began, not only did no NBA players compete, but most of the college players on the national team never made it to the NBA or made the roster. But not Bellamy. The New Bern, North Carolina native won a gold medal as Team USA's starting center while at Indiana University before being drafted first overall by the Chicago Packers in 1961. After a few years with the Packers, Zephyrs and Baltimore Bullets, he was traded for a package that also included Jim Barnes, Johnny Egan and Johnny Green.

Bellamy was never selected to the All-Star team again after being selected to four All-Star teams with Chicago/Baltimore. In his four years with the Knicks, he played in 268 games, averaging 18.9 points, 13.3 rebounds and shooting 52.2% from the field (very good for the time). The Knicks traded the future Hall of Famer to Detroit in December 1968 for franchise legend Dave DeBusschere. Bellamy retired after playing one game with the New Orleans Jazz in 1974-75.

Bob Boozer – Boozer was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He was a two-time Big Eight Player of the Year at Kansas State University and was the first overall pick by the Cincinnati Royals in 1959 before maintaining his amateur eligibility and playing one year with the Peoria Caterpillars where he was named AAU MVP. Before his career began, Boozer had a dominant performance at the 1960 Olympics, averaging seven points per game.

Boozer was traded to the Knicks in December 1963 in a three-team trade. He played in 129 games over two seasons, averaging 15.4 points and 7.9 rebounds while shooting a career-low 43.7% from the field. After the 1964-65 season, he was traded for another franchise star, Dick Burnett. He spent the 1970-71 season with Milwaukee alongside Lew Alcindor and Oscar Robertson before retiring.

Darrell Imhoff – The 1960 Olympic team was truly historic. These amateur players would become future All-Stars and Hall of Famers. A California native, Imhoff won an NCAA title with California in 1959 and a gold medal in 1960 and was drafted third overall by the Knicks in 1960.

After averaging 5.4 points and 5.6 rebounds per game over two seasons, Imhoff was traded to Detroit for Gene Sue prior to the 1962-63 season. Imhoff was later part of the trade that sent Wilt Chamberlain to the Lakers in July 1968, and retired after the 1971-72 season with the Cincinnati Royals and Portland Trail Blazers.

Jerry Lucas – One more thing. Lucas was from Middletown, Ohio and went to Ohio State University where he averaged 16.8 points per game in the 1960 Olympics, won a national championship and was named NPOY twice before being drafted as a regional pick by the Cincinnati Royals. Lucas was named to the All-Star team seven times and the All-NBA team five times. The Knicks traded star forward Cathy Russell for him in 1971 and Lucas was voted MVP in his freshman year but lost in the Finals.

Lucas was a key reserve player on the 1973 championship team, which would become his only NBA title. Lucas retired after the 1973-74 season and is a Hall of Fame inductee.

1964 Tokyo Olympics

Jim Barnes – “Bad News” Barnes He attended Texas Western University (two years before his enduring title run in 1966) and was drafted first overall by the Knicks in 1964. Prior to joining the Knicks, he averaged 8.5 points for the Olympiad team, was named to the All-Rookie First Team in 1964-65, and finished third in Rookie of the Year honors behind teammate Willis Reed and Philadelphia's Luke Jackson, averaging 15.5 points and 9.7 rebounds per game.

The Knicks traded Barnes just seven games into the 1965-66 season for Walt Bellamy, but he stayed with the team in 1970-71, playing 11 games for the Baltimore Bullets. He won the 1969 NBA championship with Boston.

Photo: Ross Lewis/Getty Images

Bill Bradley – There's too much to say, too little space. A graduate of Princeton, he was the 1965 Associated Press Player of the Year, averaged 10.1 points per game at the Tokyo Olympics, didn't play in New York until 1967 due to school commitments, and went on to become the best player in Knicks history, winning two championships, being selected to the All-Star team in 1973, and being inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Oh yes, he served his country as a U.S. Senator from New Jersey from 1979 to 1997. He is a worthy individual to feature today: Olympian, NBA champion, basketball Hall of Famer, senator.

(Honorable mention: Jerry Shipp was a ninth-round pick by the Knicks in 1959. He was nearly 30 when he won that gold medal. He never played in an NBA game.)

1968 Mexico City Olympics

Spencer Heywood – Haywood has always been a controversial player, from the lawsuit he filed against the league in order to join from Detroit Mercy in the early 1970s to losing his championship ring with the Lakers to a cocaine addiction in 1980. After playing in the Olympics as a 19-year-old and averaging 16 points per game, Haywood was a bona fide star in Seattle before being traded to New York City just before the start of the 1975-76 season.

Haywood regressed from MVP-caliber production to a solid 17.1 points and 8.6 rebounds per game over the next three and a half years before the Knicks traded him to the New Orleans Jazz in January 1979. Despite a falling-out with the Lakers (dramatized in Winning Time), he played two more years with the Washington Bullets before retiring in 1983.

Bill Hoskett Jr. – Hoskett was a native of Ohio and attended Ohio State University before being drafted 10th overall by the Knicks in 1968, averaging 8.6 points per game for the team that won the gold medal that year. He stayed with the Knicks for two years, winning a title and appearing in 86 games as a low-usage reserve. He played a slightly larger role for two years with the Buffalo Braves after being selected in the expansion draft, but left the league after the 1971-72 season.

1972 Munich Olympics

Tom McMillen – McMillen was born in Maryland and attended high school in Pennsylvania before moving on to the University of Maryland. He averaged 6.8 points per game while playing for the U.S. in an unlucky silver medal finish, and was drafted by the University at Buffalo after his sophomore year. A year later, the former All-American was traded to New York along with Bob McAdoo for John Giannelli.

While McAdoo performed at a very high level, McMillen played in 56 games, averaging 9.4 points in about 22 minutes per game. The Knicks traded him to Atlanta prior to the 1977-78 season for a second-round pick. McMillen spent nine seasons with Atlanta and Washington before retiring after the 1985-86 season. Shortly after retiring, he followed Bill Bradley into a three-term House of Representatives seat in MD-04.

(Also an honorable mention to Kenny Davis, who was picked in the 11th round in 1971 and went to Georgetown University. Not that university, but the University of Kentucky.)

1976 Montreal Olympics

Ernie Glanfield – Hey! I just talked about this guy! To save you the trouble of typing, check out his profile I wrote when I talked about his son earlier this week.

1984 Los Angeles Olympics

Patrick Ewing – Nothing needed. The best Knicks of all time. Ewing averaged 11 points and 5.6 rebounds in those Olympics as an amateur at Georgetown University and won a gold medal. When he turned pro in 1992, Ewing joined the Dream Team and averaged 9.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.9 blocks in 17.6 minutes per game. He is a two-time gold medalist.

1988 Seoul Olympics

Willie Anderson – Anderson played four years at the University of Georgia and was named to the SEC First Team in 1988. Although the team missed out on a bronze medal at the '88 Olympics, Anderson averaged five points in 11.3 minutes per game. He was drafted 10th overall by San Antonio in 1988 and spent seven years at the school.

The Knicks acquired Anderson in the trade that sent Doug Christie to Toronto in February 1996 for 27 games, but he played the worst of his career in a much smaller role there. He appeared in four games and played a total of 64 minutes in the postseason before being dealt to another team. He didn't last long after that, appearing in just nine NBA games with Miami during the 1996-97 season.

JR Reed – Reed was a Virginia Beach native who enrolled at Chapel Hill as a top player, was named an All-American, was the ACC's top player and was drafted fifth overall in 1989. After a strong start in Charlotte, his performance faltered in San Antonio and he was traded to the Knicks in 1996 for Charles Smith, a name that brings excitement to fans of a certain age. Reed appeared in 33 games, playing plenty of minutes and averaging 6.6 points and 4 rebounds.

Reed later left the NBA for France, where he won a title, before returning to Charlotte to play. He last played in the NBA in 2001 with Cleveland.

Charles Smith – Yes, Smith was Reed's teammate on the U.S. team. Reed was a key member of the 1988 Olympic team as a senior at Pittsburgh and was drafted third overall by the Sixers that summer. He averaged 20 points a game with the Clippers in 1991 before being dealt to the Knicks along with Doc Rivers in the trade that sent Mark Jackson to LAC.

Smith is best known for being blocked multiple times under the basket with seconds remaining in Game 5 of a 1993 playoff series against the Bulls, when a successful layup would have given the Knicks a 3-2 series lead. Smith left New York in 1996 and signed with the aforementioned Reid. He was released by the Spurs in January 1998.