Ex-Knicks player, U.S. Olympian Ray Lumpp dies at 91

AP

NEW YORK (AP) — Ray Lumpp, the 1948 U.S. Olympic guard who appeared in two NBA Finals for the New York Knicks, died Friday. He was 91.

The Knicks announced his death. They didn't provide a cause.

The native New Yorker was acquired by the Knicks on Jan. 26, 1949, from the Indianapolis Jets and played in 214 games with them through 1953. Lumpp was part of Knicks teams that lost to Minneapolis in the 1951 and 1952 NBA Finals.

He played for the Americans in London, where they went 8-0 en route to the gold medal.

"The basketball community will mourn the loss of a great contributor," said Jim Tooley, USA Basketball's CEO and executive director. "He was a friend of USA Basketball, and it wasn't long ago that he had visited with and helped inspire the 2012 U.S. Olympic basketball team in London, the same city in which he won his Olympic gold medal."

Lumpp averaged 12.7 points in 61 games in 1948-49 with Indianapolis and New York in the Basketball Association of America, the league that merged with the National Basketball League after that season to form the NBA. He averaged 7.1 points in 231 games in five seasons in the NBA with New York and Baltimore.

The World War II veteran was the long-time director of the New York Athletic Club.

Born July 11, 1923, in Brooklyn, Lumpp attended NYU.