Morris B. "Bucky" Buckwalter (born November 22, 1933) is an American former professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

coach and executive. He played

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

for the

Utah Utes The Utah Utes are the college athletics in the United States, intercollegiate athletics teams that represent the University of Utah, located in Salt Lake City. The athletic department is named after the Ute tribe of Native Americans in the Unite ...

. Buckwalter served as an assistant coach and executive in the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

(NBA) as well as a head coach in the

American Basketball Association The American Basketball Association (ABA) was a major professional basketball league that operated for nine seasons from 1967 to 1976. The upstart ABA operated in direct competition with the more established National Basketball Association thr ...

. Buckwalter grew up in

La Grande, Oregon La Grande () is a city in and the county seat of Union County, Oregon, Union County, Oregon, United States. La Grande is Union County's largest city, with a population of 13,082 at the time of the 2010 U.S. Census. The La Grande metro population ...

, and played high school basketball at

La Grande High School La Grande High School is a public high school in the Western United States, western United States, located in La Grande, Oregon. Academics In 2008, 81% of the school's seniors received a high school diploma. Of 197 students, 159 graduated, 29 dro ...

. Buckwalter played college basketball at

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

, where his team advanced to the quarterfinals of the

1956 NCAA basketball tournament The 1956 NCAA basketball tournament involved 25 schools playing in Single-elimination tournament, single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA college basketball. It began on ...

before losing to the eventual champions, the

Bill Russell William Felton Russell (February 12, 1934 – July 31, 2022) was an American professional basketball player who played Center (basketball), center for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1956 to 1969. He was t ...

-led San Francisco Dons. He served briefly as head coach of the Seattle SuperSonics in 1972 (on an interim basis), and later served as the head coach of the

Utah Stars The Utah Stars were an American Basketball Association (ABA) team based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Under head coach Bill Sharman the Stars were the first major professional basketball team to use a pre-game shootaround. History prior to moving to ...

of the ABA, replacing Joe Mullaney. While with the Stars, Buckwalter was known for signing

Moses Malone Moses Eugene Malone Sr. (March 23, 1955 – September 13, 2015) was an American professional basketball player who played in both the American Basketball Association (ABA) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1974 through 1995. A ...

out of high school. He was a scout for the

Portland Trail Blazers The Portland Trail Blazers (colloquially known as the Blazers) are an American professional basketball team based in Portland, Oregon. The Trail Blazers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Northwest Division (N ...

when the team passed on

Michael Jordan Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963), also known by his initials MJ, is an American businessman and former professional basketball player, who is currently a minority owner of the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Ass ...

and selected

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

's Sam Bowie as the second pick in the 1984 NBA draft. He served as vice-president of Basketball Operations for the

. In 1991, he won the

NBA Executive of the Year Award The NBA Executive of the Year is an annual award in the National Basketball Association (NBA) award given since the 1972–73 NBA season, to the league's best general manager, president of basketball/business operations, or another high-ranking e ...

, as the Blazers posted a league-best 63–19 record. He retired from the Blazers in 1997.

Head coaching record

College

NBA/ABA

, - , style="text-align:left;",

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

, style="text-align:left;", , 37, , 13, , 24, , , , style="text-align:center;", 4th

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

, , —, , —, , —, , — , style="text-align:center;", Missed playoffs , - , style="text-align:left;",

* , style="text-align:left;", 1974–75 , 56, , 24, , 32, , , , style="text-align:center;", ''Left mid-season'', , —, , —, , —, , — , style="text-align:center;", , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 93, , 37, , 56, , , , , , —, , —, , —, , —, ,

References

External links

BasketballReference.com: Bucky Buckwalter

1933 births Living people American men's basketball players Basketball coaches from Oregon Basketball players from Oregon College men's basketball head coaches in the United States People from La Grande, Oregon Portland Trail Blazers assistant coaches Portland Trail Blazers executives Seattle Redhawks men's basketball coaches Seattle SuperSonics head coaches Utah Stars coaches Utah Utes men's basketball players Western Basketball Association coaches 20th-century American sportsmen {{US-basketball-coach-stub