(Budd Bailey and Greg D. Tranter have written a book called "Buffalo Braves From A to Z," published by St. Johann Press. Early in the writing process, they wrote good-sized biographies of all 71 men who played a regular-season game for the Braves during their time in Buffalo from 1970 to 1978. Publishers weren't so enthusiastic about all of that material, so most (59) of the biographies were shortened to about 500 words. However, the authors hated to waste all of that material ... so they are presenting it here. It will appear three times a week. A bibliography is available upon request.)
Bill Hewitt probably enjoyed every minute of his season with the Buffalo Braves, because he never should have taken a minute of his NBA career for granted. His path toward a better life was provided by another basketball player who took an interest in him when all seemed lost for Hewitt as a youngster.
William Severlyn Hewitt was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on August 8, 1944. He stayed in that suburb of Boston through high school. There he attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin, a school that received a great deal of attention in the sports media in the 1980s. That’s because Patrick Ewing was playing there. Since he was the top basketball recruit in the country, coaches flocked to Rindge and Latin in the early 1980s to see Patrick play.
Hewitt’s teams were quite good on their own merits. He was a member of the 1963 Rindge and Latin team that was one of the best squads in New England – and more to the point, one of the top teams in school history. It went 19-1, and it was picked for the Cambridge Athletic Hall of Fame in 2019.
Hewitt’s story took an amazing twist during this time. Bill was an orphan at this point, and his prospects for success in life must have seemed a little bleak. He was thrown a lifeline by none other than Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics. Russell took a strong interest in his story, and helped Hewitt move to California for college.
Hewitt first landed at Mount San Antonio Junior College in Walnut, California. That facility has had some good athletes pass through it – but probably none better than Olympic pole vaulting champion Bob Seagren. After two years there, Bill landed at the University of Southern California. USC was 13-13 in the season before Hewitt’s arrival. The star of the team was forward John Block, a future pro who averaged 25 points and 11 rebounds per game.
But Block was gone by the time the 1966-67 season rolled around, and Hewitt took advantage of the opportunity that represented. He averaged 19.5 points and 10.9 rebounds per game for the Trojans, leading the team in both categories. A highlight came in the opener when USC faced UCLA with its heralded sophomore center, Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). The Bruins won the game as Alcindor scored 56 points to set a school record, but Hewitt scored 39 points for the Trojans.
Bob Boyd was coach of Southern California at that time, but he couldn’t change the team’s mediocre record. The Trojans finished 13-12. Some help arrived a season later, Hewitt’s senior year. He averaged almost 19 points and 12 rebounds per game, while three players – including future pro Mack Calvin – were in double figures as well. The team finished 18-8, second in the conference to, of course, UCLA. Bill was an All-Conference pick and was named an honorable mention selection as an All-American by the Associated Press. He was named the team’s most valuable player award twice (“The Sam Barry Award”).
Hewitt had a choice of destinations for the start of his pro career. The Denver Rockets took the 6-foot-7 forward in the third round of the ABA draft. However, on April 1, the nearby Los Angeles Lakers didn’t have to go far to find Hewitt. He was the team’s first round pick, No. 11 overall. After turning down the chance to try out for the U.S. Olympic basketball team, the rookie signed a three-year deal for $25,000 per year with a $25,000 bonus. And Bill must have thought he had gone to basketball heaven when he arrived there. The starting lineup for the Lakers had such names as Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor – the first of the so-called “super teams.” Los Angeles had a couple of veterans in Keith Erickson and Johnny Egan, but needed a good rebounder.
Hewitt was that guy, at least at times. He played 75 games that season, averaging almost 20 minutes per contest. Bill averaged about seven points and four rebounds per game, but it’s not as if he was under pressure to carry the team. He set a career high with 20 points on March 31, 1969, against San Francisco. Hewitt had an odd-looking shot at times. He launched the ball from his right ear with his elbow bent, but it went in quite often that night against the Warriors. In the playoffs, Hewitt provided a spark in the playoff series with San Francisco. He moved into the starting lineup, and helped the team capture the Western Conference title.
Hewitt’s work caught the attention of John Havlicek of the Celtics, who would meet the Lakers in the NBA Finals. “Hewitt is a good defensive ballplayer,” he said. “He’s tall. He can run and he can jump. He can really jump. Also, he can be as aggressive as he wants to be on defense. It reminds me of how I was when I was a rookie. Red Auerbach would tell me to just go in there and play good defense, and run and run and run, and make the man guarding me get tired.”
That series was memorable for Bill for another reason, as his wife gave birth to their first child right after Game One. The storybook season almost had a happy ending for Hewitt, but Russell wasn’t so generous that he helped Hewitt win a title. The Lakers lost to the Celtics in the seventh game of the NBA Finals, which was the concluding moment of Russell’s playing career. Hewitt later was selected to the NBA’s All-Rookie team.
In the following season, Hewitt forgot how to shoot temporarily. He only hit on .284 percent of his field goals, easily the worst on the team and a drop from the previous season’s .453 percent figure. The Lakers still needed someone to play power forward, so on Thanksgiving Day they traded Hewitt, some cash, and a couple of third-round draft choices to Detroit for veteran Happy Hairston. “Hairston is a player the Lakers have been trying to get for several months,” Los Angeles general manager Fred Schaus said at the time. “We hate to lose a player of Bill’s outstanding character but Hairston will give us more scoring punch and offensive rebounding.” Los Angeles again reached the NBA Finals that spring, only to lose in the seventh game again.
The Pistons were set at guard with Dave Bing and Jimmy Walker, but they had a bunch of candidates to play forward next to rookie Bob Lanier. Hewitt averaged about 18 minutes a game, and improved his shooting to .405. Detroit never did figure out a winning formula, finishing 31-51 and out of the playoffs. Rookie Curtis Rowe from UCLA was added to the mix in the summer of 1971, but Hewitt worked his way to seventh on the team in minutes at 17.7 per game. He averaged 4.5 points and 5.4 rebounds per game. The Pistons’ record dropped to 26-56, and they went through three coaches along the way.
Detroit was busy in the offseason, completing several transactions that sent Walker, Terry Dischinger and Howard Komives elsewhere. Hewitt was caught up in the turmoil, as the Pistons waived him in early October. However, the Buffalo Braves claimed him, and Hewitt had a new home.
The Braves had their own problems as they moved into their third season of play. They really didn’t have an adequate small forward, as top draft choice Bob McAdoo was a little tall to fit alongside of center Elmore Smith and forward Bob Kauffman. Hewitt played 18 minutes a game, contributing 4.7 points. But he shot .418 from the field and .554 from the line. Bill wasn’t in the right place at the right time again. The Braves finished a dismal 21-61.
Buffalo rebuilt its roster in the offseason, and decided Hewitt wasn’t needed. He, Dick Garrett and Fred Hilton were waived on September 17. The Philadelphia 76ers picked him up the next day, and gave him a look over the next three weeks. Unfortunately for Bill, he was cut on October 5.
Hewitt spent the rest of the season on the outside looking in. But he received one more chance to play pro basketball. Hewitt was signed on September 12, 1974, by the Chicago Bulls, and was on the opening night roster. It was an eventful beginning, as it was also Nate Thurmond’s first game as a Bull. Nate became the first player ever to have a quadruple double in the NBA – 22 points, 14 rebounds, 13 assists and 12 blocks. “But, aside from my quadruple-double effort, the hero for the Bulls that night was forward Bill Hewitt,” Thurmond said later. “In probably the greatest game of Bill's career … he scored 15 points in 40 hard minutes of work.”
Bill played in 18 games and averaged 25.9 minutes in them. Even though Hewitt contributed 7.0 points and 6.4 rebounds per game, the Bulls waived him on November 27. He probably only made the roster because of some holdouts by the team’s stars. That was it for a career that spanned parts of six seasons. He scored 2,062 points and 1,994 rebounds. His only playoff appearance came in his rookie year with the Lakers.
With his playing days over, it was time to move on. Hewitt did land an assistant coach’s job back at Mount San Antonio JC in 1977, working for Gene Victor. “This is my first year of full-time coaching,” Hewitt said. “I coached a couple of all-star games before, but nothing like this. There’s nothing like coming back and learning a few things off the old master in Coach Victory.” Bill was inducted into the school’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 1992.
For our purposes, there’s no more precise online evidence of how he spent the rest of his life. However, it seems likely that he has been living in San Antonio lately, while his son, Bill Jr., is in the Los Angeles area.
(Follow Budd on X.com via @WDX2BB)
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