Walter Davis, a former NBA great and UNC basketball team standout, passed away on Thursday. Age-wise, Davis was 69. The university reported that Davis died of natural causes while visiting family in Charlotte, North Carolina.
In the 1970s, Davis was a key player for the Tar Heels. Davis scored 1,863 points, grabbed 670 rebounds, and gave out 409 assists while playing under legendary head coach Dean Smith. The North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame has inducted him. Davis was in the 1977 NCAA Championship game, when he won the ACC tournament and came close to winning the national championship.
Davis has close links to UNC as his nephew, Hubert Davis, is the current head coach of the men’s basketball team. Davis’s impressive play as an amateur earned him a seat on the United States Olympic squad that would go on to win gold in Montreal in 1976.
Davis also had great success in his career. In the 1977 NBA Draft, the 6-foot-6 forward/guard was taken with the fifth overall choice. He spent 15 years in the NBA, the most of them with the Phoenix Suns, and was a six-time All-Star. With 15,666 points, he holds the franchise record.
“We are heartbroken,” the Suns wrote on Twitter on Thursday. “‘Sweet D’ was one of the game’s best, a prolific scorer whose smooth playing style and ‘velvet touch’ endeared him to generations of our fans.”
His quickness and ability to put up points earned him the nickname “The Greyhound.” The Denver Nuggets, for whom Davis also played, claim that Davis’s various nicknames, including “The Candyman” and “The Man with the Velvet Touch,” were created by Suns broadcaster Al McCoy. In 1994, the Suns honored Davis by retiring his uniform No. 6.
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