Maurice King (basketball)

Maurice E. King (December 1, 1934 – September 17, 2007) was an American professional basketball player, who played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Boston Celtics and Chicago Zephyrs, and with the Baltimore Bullets of the Eastern Professional Basketball League (EPBL) and the Kansas City Steers of the American Basketball League (ABL).

King played collegiately for the Kansas Jayhawks and was the first black starter in Kansas basketball history in 1954. A teammate of Wilt Chamberlain, he scored 11 points in the famous 1957 NCAA Championship game, where the Jayhawks lost to the North Carolina Tar Heels in triple-overtime.[1] The 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m), 195 lb (88 kg; 13.9 st) guard was selected out of the University of Kansas by the Boston Celtics with the 48th overall pick in the 6th round of the 1957 NBA draft.[2]

In 1957, King was drafted into the army. When he finished serving his two-year commitment, he joined the Celtics. He played only one game with the Celtics in 1959 (scoring ten points), before he joined the Baltimore Bullets in the Eastern Professional Basketball League. He then joined the Kansas City Steers of the ABL. In the league's fledgling season, King averaged 7.8 points per game, and led the team with an average of 3.2 assists. In Kansas City's second season, King averaged 14.7 points and 5.7 assists before the league folded in mid-season in the winter of 1963. King immediately signed with the Chicago Zephyrs of the NBA, and played in 37 games, averaging 5.8 points and 3.8 assists. Maurice King also was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, Mu chapter, at Kansas University, where he and Wilt Chamberlain were teammates and fraternity brothers.

King has four children Yasmin Brown, Calvin Wainright, Maurice King III, Kimberly King-Crawford. King's grandsons Ishmail Wainright played basketball and football for Baylor University and Amaad Wainright is currently playing basketball for Kansas State University.