SuperSonics’ Spencer Haywood still considers Seattle home

Spencer Haywood joined the Seattle SuperSonics three years after the team was founded. Despite controversy and lawsuits he faced with the NBA, Haywood averaged 24.1 points per game, 12.1 rebounds and helped take the team to its first playoff berth.

Today, Haywood is honored in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

He spoke about the honor, and much more, with KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson. And he started by saying that to this day, Seattle is home.

Haywood played for the Seattle SuperSonics from 1970-75.

“Seattle is home because Seattle is where my case took place, Haywood vs. the NBA, that went all the way to the Supreme Court,” he said. “Seattle is where my family was assembled back together – I brought everyone from Mississippi to Seattle and they still live here.

“My first legitimate girlfriend was here,” he said. “Here, I was able to settle down.”

It was also memorable for Monson, who recalled watching the athlete play some great basketball.

“I was 8 or 9 when the Sonics signed you, and I was fascinated by that,” Dori said. “You played in the ABA for one year [before], averaged 30 a game in Denver…”

“Thirty and 20,” Haywood quickly noted. “Not like these guys today, ‘Oh my God, I got a double double, and got 10 and 10, what a player.'”

Those stats held, even though Haywood faced fierce pushback from opposing teams.

“When you would go on the road with the team, there would be some PA announcers in other cities, what would they say?” Dori asked.

“All PA announcers,” Haywood noted. “‘Ladies and gentleman we have an illegal player on the floor, number 24.’

“I would play that night and I would be an illegal player,” Haywood said. “And when they got an injunction for me not to play, they would say ‘Ladies and gentleman we have an illegal player on the floor, number 24, and we have an injunction and he must be run off the floor out of the arena, off the grounds…and I would just sit out in the dirt.”

“They threw bottles and everything, old fashioned bottles,” he said.

The start of Haywood’s NBA career was marred by the lawsuits with the NBA, who alleged he could not play because he never completed college and did not wait four years after high school to play at the NBA level.
He played anyway, and Sonics’ owner Sam Schulman backed him, despite fines and the cost of legally fighting the NBA over the matter. The controversy resulted in a Supreme Court ruling that a basketball player does not have to wait four years after high school to enter the NBA.

But it wasn’t the only challenge Haywood would face during his career. Drugs and more were waiting around the corner.

Listen to the full interview to hear Haywood discuss it all.