.jpg) | |||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | (1942-04-15)April 15, 1942 Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.[1] | ||||||||||||||
| Died | November 18, 2011(2011-11-18) (aged 69) Los Angeles, California, U.S. | ||||||||||||||
| Listed height | 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) | ||||||||||||||
| Listed weight | 185 lb (84 kg) | ||||||||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||||||||
| High school | |||||||||||||||
| College | UCLA (1961–1964) | ||||||||||||||
| NBA draft | 1964:territorial pick | ||||||||||||||
| Drafted by | Los Angeles Lakers | ||||||||||||||
| Playing career | 1964–1974 | ||||||||||||||
| Position | Point guard /shooting guard | ||||||||||||||
| Number | 42, 1, 44 | ||||||||||||||
| Coaching career | 1980–1988 | ||||||||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||||||||
Playing | |||||||||||||||
| 1964–1967 | Los Angeles Lakers | ||||||||||||||
| 1967–1968 | Seattle SuperSonics | ||||||||||||||
| 1968–1971 | Atlanta Hawks | ||||||||||||||
| 1971–1972 | Buffalo Braves | ||||||||||||||
| 1972–1973 | Golden State Warriors | ||||||||||||||
| 1973–1974 | Seattle SuperSonics | ||||||||||||||
Coaching | |||||||||||||||
| 1980–1982 | Compton CC | ||||||||||||||
| 1982–1984 | Chapman | ||||||||||||||
| 1984–1988 | UCLA | ||||||||||||||
| Career highlights | |||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
| Career statistics | |||||||||||||||
| Points | 9,087 (12.6 ppg) | ||||||||||||||
| Rebounds | 2,146 (3.0 rpg) | ||||||||||||||
| Assists | 3,555 (4.9 apg) | ||||||||||||||
Stats at NBA.com  | |||||||||||||||
| Stats atBasketball Reference | |||||||||||||||
Medals
| |||||||||||||||
Mahdi Abdul-Rahman (bornWalter Raphael Hazzard Jr.; April 15, 1942 – November 18, 2011) was an American professionalbasketball player andcollege basketball coach. He played in college for theUCLA Bruins and was a member of their first national championship team in 1964. He also won a gold medal that year with theUS national team at the1964 Summer Olympics. Hazzard began his pro career in theNational Basketball Association (NBA) with theLos Angeles Lakers, who selected him aterritorial pick in the1964 NBA draft. He was named anNBA All-Star with theSeattle SuperSonics in 1968. After his playing career ended, he was the head coach at UCLA during the 1980s.
Hazzard attendedOverbrook High School inPhiladelphia, where his teams went 89–3 and he was named the city's player of the year when he was a senior.[1] Hazzard went on to theUniversity of California, Los Angeles, where he became a key player on theBruins varsity basketball team. In Hazzard's first season on the varsity squad, UCLA made their firstFinal Four appearance in the1962 NCAA tournament. They lost 72–70 to eventual championCincinnati in the semi-finals.
UCLA's first undefeated season in1963–64 was in no small part due to Hazzard, his backcourt partnerGail Goodrich, and coachJohn Wooden. The team won its firstNCAA Championship, and Hazzard was selected by theAssociated Press as the tournament'sMost Valuable Player. Following UCLA's victory in the 1964 tournament,Sports Illustrated featured a cover photograph of Walt Hazzard dribbling the basketball up court and the headline, "UCLA Is The Champ. Walt Hazzard Drives Through Duke." Hazzard was chosen as anAll-American and also selected as College Player of the Year by theUnited States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA). His number 42 jersey wasretired by UCLA in 1996 inPauley Pavilion, but Hazzard gave his permission for stand-out recruitKevin Love to wear the number.
Hazzard andBill Bradley earned a spot on the1964 Olympic basketball team for the U.S., which unsurprisingly won the gold medal. He was pre-draft territorial pick in 1964 by theLos Angeles Lakers.[1]
Hazzard later played in theNBA, first with theLos Angeles Lakers from 1964 to 1967, then theSeattle SuperSonics, theAtlanta Hawks, theBuffalo Braves, and briefly for theGolden State Warriors. He returned to the SuperSonics for the1973–74 season, after which he retired from professional basketball.
While playing for the SuperSonics in their inaugural1967–68 season, Hazzard scored a career high 24.0 points per game, averaged 6.2assists per game, and was selected to play in the1968 NBA All-Star Game.[2] Seattle traded him to the Hawks during the off-season forLenny Wilkens.[3] Hazzard's career-high average in assists came during the1969–70 season, when he averaged 6.8 assists per game while playing for the Hawks.
In 1980, Hazzard took a part-time position paying $1,500 annually to be the head coach atCompton Community College.[4][5] He compiled a 53–9 record in his two seasons, but 21 wins from the first season were later forfeited because he used an ineligible player. According to Hazzard, poor records from the season before his arrival failed to note that the ineligible player had played that season.[5] He went on toDivision II schoolChapman College, where he coach two seasons with a 44–14 record.[4]
In 1984, he returned to UCLA as its men's basketball coach, twenty years after winning the national championship as a player. That same year, he was inducted into theUCLA Athletics Hall of Fame.[6] He coached for four seasons, winning 77 out of 125 games. The1984–85 UCLA Bruins basketball team won theNIT championship. The1986–87 Bruins won both thePac-10 regular season championship as well as the inauguralPac-10 tournament. However, after the1987–88 Bruins finished only two games above .500—the closest they had come to a losing record in 40 years—Hazzard was fired.
He later spent a number of years working for the Los Angeles Lakers, first as an advancescout on the west coast and later as a special consultant.
| GP | Games played | GS | Games started | MPG | Minutes per game |
| FG% | Field goal percentage | 3P% | 3-point field goal percentage | FT% | Free throw percentage |
| RPG | Rebounds per game | APG | Assists per game | SPG | Steals per game |
| BPG | Blocks per game | PPG | Points per game | Bold | Career high |
| Year | Team | GP | GS | MPG | FG% | 3P% | FT% | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | PPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1964–65 | Los Angeles | 66 | – | 13.9 | .382 | – | .648 | 1.7 | 2.1 | – | – | 4.2 |
| 1965–66 | Los Angeles | 80 | – | 27.5 | .457 | – | .708 | 2.7 | 4.9 | – | – | 13.7 |
| 1966–67 | Los Angeles | 79 | – | 20.8 | .426 | – | .729 | 2.9 | 4.1 | – | – | 9.3 |
| 1967–68 | Seattle | 79 | – | 33.7 | .441 | – | .774 | 4.2 | 6.2 | – | – | 24.0 |
| 1968–69 | Atlanta | 80 | – | 30.3 | .397 | – | .707 | 3.3 | 5.9 | – | – | 11.2 |
| 1969–70 | Atlanta | 82 | – | 33.6 | .467 | – | .809 | 4.0 | 6.8 | – | – | 15.3 |
| 1970–71 | Atlanta | 82 | – | 35.1 | .459 | – | .759 | 3.7 | 6.3 | – | – | 16.5 |
| 1971–72 | Buffalo | 72 | – | 33.2 | .451 | – | .782 | 3.0 | 5.6 | – | – | 15.8 |
| 1972–73 | Buffalo | 9 | – | 14.9 | .417 | – | .500 | 1.1 | 1.9 | – | – | 5.9 |
| 1972–73 | Golden State | 46 | – | 13.7 | .418 | – | .863 | 1.7 | 2.4 | – | – | 4.5 |
| 1973–74 | Seattle | 49 | – | 11.7 | .422 | – | .756 | 1.2 | 2.5 | .5 | .1 | 3.8 |
| Career | 724 | – | 26.5 | .441 | – | .757 | 3.0 | 4.9 | .5 | .1 | 12.6 | |
| Year | Team | GP | GS | MPG | FG% | 3P% | FT% | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | PPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1965 | Los Angeles | 7 | – | 16.9 | .333 | – | .750 | 2.6 | 4.3 | – | – | 7.6 |
| 1966 | Los Angeles | 14 | – | 24.3 | .493 | – | .619 | 2.9 | 3.1 | – | – | 11.9 |
| 1967 | Los Angeles | 3 | – | 28.7 | .240 | – | .800 | 2.7 | 5.3 | – | – | 6.7 |
| 1969 | Atlanta | 11 | – | 32.7 | .393 | – | .787 | 3.0 | 3.9 | – | – | 14.0 |
| 1970 | Atlanta | 7 | – | 36.4 | .500 | – | .625 | 3.4 | 7.7 | – | – | 21.4 |
| 1971 | Atlanta | 5 | – | 40.4 | .329 | – | .800 | 5.0 | 5.4 | – | – | 14.0 |
| 1973 | Golden State | 11 | – | 19.5 | .357 | – | 1.000 | 1.8 | 2.5 | – | – | 6.5 |
| Career | 58 | – | 27.2 | .413 | – | .738 | 2.9 | 4.2 | – | – | 11.8 | |
| Season | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Postseason | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UCLA Bruins(Pacific-10 Conference)(1984–1988) | |||||||||
| 1984–85 | UCLA | 21–12 | 12–6 | 3rd | NIT champion | ||||
| 1985–86 | UCLA | 15–14 | 9–9 | 4th | NIT first round | ||||
| 1986–87 | UCLA | 25–7 | 14–4 | 1st | NCAA Division I second round | ||||
| 1987–88 | UCLA | 16–14 | 12–6 | 2nd | |||||
| UCLA: | 77–47 | 47–25 | |||||||
| Total: | 77–47 | ||||||||
National champion Postseason invitational champion | |||||||||
In the summer of 1972, Hazzard embracedIslam, and started going by the name "Mahdi Abdul-Rahman" in 1972–73,[7] his eighth season in the NBA.[5] In 1976–77, he returned to study at UCLA, completing his degree inkinesiology at age 35.[8] By 1980 when he joined Compton, he changed his name to Abdul-Rahman Hazzard. One of the reasons he cited was the recognition of the nameHazzard.[9][10] He felt that the name change was poorly received in basketball circles, believing that it cost him opportunities, both during and after his playing career. Although he remained aMuslim, he chose to return to using his original name professionally.[5] In 1984, UCLA introduced him as Walt Hazzard when they hired him as their coach.[11]
Hazzard and his wife Jaleesa had four children: Yakub, Jalal,Rasheed, and Khalil, the latter being arecord producer, well known inhip hop circles by the stage nameDJ Khalil. Hazzard's grandsons, Jacob and Max Hazzard, also play basketball. Jacob is a former walk-on basketball player atArizona, and Max played basketball forUC Irvine and Arizona.
On March 22, 1996, Hazzard was hospitalized following a stroke.[12] Although he made a substantial recovery over the ensuing years, his health never returned in full and subsequent to his illness he was much less active in the public sphere. Shortly after the stroke, Lakers ownerJerry Buss promised Hazzard's family that he would remain on the team's payroll as long as Buss owned the team; Hazzard remained a Lakers employee for the rest of his life.[13] By the middle of 2011, his health had deteriorated significantly and he was hospitalized inintensive care.[14] On November 18 of that year, Hazzard died at the UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center due to complications following heart surgery.[15] He was 69. Walt Hazzard is interred in the Muslim section atRose Hills Memorial Park in Los Angeles.[citation needed]
· Basketball Reference
