Oscar Schmidt tributes

Oscar Schmidt, Brazil’s most celebrated basketball scorer and the Olympic men’s record holder with 1,093 points, died on April 17 at 68. (olympics.com) Schmidt played for Brazil in five straight Olympics from Moscow 1980 through Atlanta 1996, a record he shared at the time, and he led the tournament in scoring in 1988, 1992 and 1996. (olympics.com) The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inducted him in 2013, and the Hall says he finished his career with more than 49,000 points across clubs and national-team play. (hoophall.com) Tributes after his death focused on a career built almost entirely outside the National Basketball Association, even though the New Jersey Nets drafted him in the sixth round in 1984. (olympedia.org) Schmidt stayed out of the National Basketball Association because, under the rules of that era, joining the league would have cost him eligibility for Brazil’s national team and the Olympics. (nba.com) That choice made him a defining figure in international basketball before the sport’s talent pipeline ran through the National Basketball Association. FIBA said the reaction to his death brought tributes from fans, former players and basketball officials around the world. (about.fiba.basketball) His Olympic scoring marks still frame the scale of his output: Olympics.com lists his 42.3 points per game in Seoul in 1988 as an all-time Olympic record, and his 55-point game against Spain that year as the single-game record. (olympics.com) In Brazil, Schmidt was also tied to one of the national team’s landmark wins, the 120-115 upset of the United States in the 1987 Pan American Games final in Indianapolis. The Associated Press called that result historic in obituaries published after his death. (nbcsports.com) His family said he had battled a brain tumor for 15 years, and Olympics.com reported that he died in Santana de Parnaíba after being hospitalized when he fell ill. (nbcsports.com)