Deaths
- January 6 - Fred Taylor, Hall of Fame coach of the 1960 National Champion Ohio State Buckeyes (born 1924)
- January 18 - Alex Hannum, Hall of Fame pro basketball coach (born 1923)
- June 3 - Cecil Hankins, NBA player (St. Louis Bombers, Boston Celtics) (born 1922)
- July 7 - Bison Dele, NBA player (born 1969)
- July 17 - Ubiratan Pereira Maciel, Hall of Fame Brazilian basketball player (born 1944)
- August 8 - Chick Hearn, television and radio announcer for the Los Angeles Lakers (born 1916)
- September 2 - Abe Lemons, Former college coach at Oklahoma City University and Texas (born 1922)
- September 14 - Jim Barnes, Former #1 overall NBA Draft pick and 1964 Olympic Gold medalist (born 1941)
- December 17 - Hank Luisetti, college basketball player and inventor of the layup; first player to score 50 points in a game (born 1916)
Read more about this topic: 2002 In Basketball
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step.”
—Alison Hawthorne Deming (b. 1946)
“I sang of death but had I known
The many deaths one must have died
Before he came to meet his own!”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)