Bobby McDermott

Quality 0.50 · 1 view · Updated 2 months ago

American basketball player (1914–1963)

title: "Bobby McDermott" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1914-births", "1963-deaths", "american-basketball-league-(1925–1955)-coaches", "american-men's-basketball-players", "basketball-coaches-from-new-york-(state)", "chicago-american-gears-coaches", "chicago-american-gears-players", "fort-wayne-zollner-pistons-coaches", "fort-wayne-zollner-pistons-players", "guards-(basketball)", "hammond-calumet-buccaneers-players", "naismith-memorial-basketball-hall-of-fame-inductees", "original-celtics-players", "basketball-player-coaches", "professional-basketball-league-of-america-players", "sheboygan-red-skins-coaches", "sheboygan-red-skins-players", "basketball-players-from-queens,-new-york", "basketball-players-from-yonkers,-new-york", "tri-cities-blackhawks-head-coaches", "tri-cities-blackhawks-players", "wilkes-barre-barons-players", "professional-basketball-league-of-america-coaches", "brooklyn-visitations-players"] description: "American basketball player (1914–1963)" topic_path: "geography" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_McDermott" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American basketball player (1914–1963) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox basketball biography"]

Field	Value
name	Bobby McDermott
image	Bobby McDermott.jpeg
image_size	200px
height_ft	6
height_in	0
weight_lb	185
birth_date
birth_place	Queens, New York, U.S.
death_date
death_place	Yonkers, New York, U.S.
career_start	1934
career_end	1950
career_position	Guard
years1	1933–1934
years2	1934–1936
years3	1936
years4	1936–1939
years5	1939–1940
years6	1940–1941
years7	1941–1946
years8	1946–1947
years9	1947
years10	1947–1948
years11	1948–1949
years12	1949–1950
years13	1950
cyears1	1943–1945
cyears2	1947
cyears3	1947
cyears4	1947–1948
cyears5	1948–1949
cyears6	1950
*All-Time Pro Stars First Team (1945{{cite book	last
HOF_player	bobby-mcdermott
::

ABL champion (1935)
3× NBL champion (1944, 1945, 1947)
5× NBL Most Valuable Player (1942–1946)
6× All-NBL First Team (1942–1947)
All-NBL Second Team (1948)
NBL scoring champion (1943)
NBL all-time leading scorer
NBL All-Time Team
NBL All-Time Greatest Player
3× WPBT champion (1944–1946)
WPBT MVP (1944)
3× All-WPBT First Team (1944–1946)
2× All-WPBT Second Team (1943, 1948)
All-Time Pro Stars First Team (1945) As head coach:
3× NBL champion (1944, 1945, 1947)
2× NBL Coach of the Year (1944, 1945) | HOF_player = bobby-mcdermott Robert Frederick McDermott (January 7, 1914 – October 3, 1963) was an American professional basketball player in the 1930s and 1940s. He was known as an outstanding shooter and has been called "the greatest long-distance shooter in the history of the game" by contemporaries. His grandson is businessman Bill McDermott. McDermott was named to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1988.

Professional basketball career

McDermott dropped out of Flushing High School after just one year there, and was picked up by the Brooklyn Visitations after making a name for himself on the playgrounds (starting with him playing for the Whitestone Separates Juniors semipro basketball team at 15 years old) and the independently ran Long Island Imps team. He continued that trend in the American Basketball League. He led the league in scoring, and helped Brooklyn win the 1934-35 ABL championship against the dominant Philadelphia Sphas in their prime. He spent a year in the New York Professional League where he set a playoff record for most points with 32. He played with the recently reorganized Original Celtics for the next three years.

He went back to the ABL and was again the league's scoring leader, returned to the Celtics for another season, then settled down for a while with the Ft. Wayne Zollner Pistons of the National Basketball League in 1941. From 1941 to 1946 he was at his peak. He improved his shot and for the first time, his free throw percentage rose near or around 80%. He continued to get more accurate and dangerous while keeping his legendary range. The Pistons won over 80% of their games and made four consecutive NBL finals appearances. They won NBL titles in 1944 and 1945, as well as the World Professional Basketball Tournament in Chicago. At the same time, his popularity soared, and he appeared at a war bond rally alongside Jack Dempsey and Martha Raye.

McDermott became a player-coach during 1946. He took up the same position when he moved to the Chicago American Gears. On the American Gears, he was teamed with the biggest inside threat in the league, George Mikan. They won the 1946–47 NBL championship together. Though he would continue to play professionally for several more years, McDermott's last year with the American Gears was his final year of stardom on a winning team.

The American Gears joined the Professional Basketball League of America in 1947. But when that league folded in November 1947, after only three weeks of existence, the American Gears players were distributed among NBL teams. McDermott landed with the Sheboygan Red Skins, with whom he was a player-coach for about a month. He scored 138 points in 16 games and coached the Red Skins to a 4–5 record.

Doxie Moore regained the coaching reins after McDermott left to join the Tri-Cities Blackhawks, where he coached and played for the next season and a half, compiling a 20–18 record. On the Blackhawks, McDermott continued to be renowned for his physical play, and was tied for the team lead in scoring at 12.1 points per game with Whitey Von Nieda. That postseason, McDermott led the Blackhawks past the Indianapolis Kautskys in the opening round, before losing to the eventual champion Minneapolis Lakers in the semifinals. The following season, he was replaced as coach by Roger Potter halfway through the year.

McDermott would next play for the Hammond Calumet Buccaneers, during their only year of existence, and then the Wilkes-Barre Barons, both of whom would make the playoffs of their leagues before being eliminated in the first round. His final season playing professionally, during which he was again a player-coach, came with the Grand Rapids Hornets in 1950. McDermott was fired midseason after a profanity-filled coaching performance in Casper, Wyoming during which the Hornets lost, and the franchise folded only a month later.

McDermott died in 1963, due to injuries he suffered in a car accident on September 23. He was 49 years old. He had been employed at Yonkers Raceway at the time of his death.

Accolades

McDermott was the World Professional Basketball Tournament MVP in 1944 and was named the NBL MVP in five consecutive seasons during the 1940s. In 1946 the NBL named McDermott the greatest player in league history. Collier's magazine chose him to an "All-World" team in 1950.

McDermott was named to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1988.

References

Nelson, Murry R.. (2009). "The National Basketball League: A History, 1935–1949". McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers.
https://www.statscrew.com/basketball/stats/p-mcderbo01
Nelson, Murry R.. (2009). "The National Basketball League: A History, 1935–1949". McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers.
(5 September 2016). "Forgotten Man: Bobby McDermott and the Rise of Pro Basketball".
(1994). "Professional Sports Teams Histories - Basketball". Gale Research Inc..
(November 21, 1950). "Joplin Globe Newspaper Archives, Nov 21, 1950, p. 7".
"1950 Denver Refiners Game-by-Game Results on StatsCrew.com".
(5 September 2016). "Forgotten Man: Bobby McDermott and the Rise of Pro Basketball".
(26 March 1944). "Fort Wayne drubs Eagles for Pro Cage Title, 50-35". [[Democrat and Chronicle]].

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::