More than 50 years ago, I was lucky enough to witness and root for one of the greatest basketball teams of all time – the 1969-1970 New York Knicks. They won 23 of their first 24 games played, won 60 games during the season, and eventually went on to beat the Los Angeles Lakers to win the NBA Championship.

Most of my friends and fellow Knicks fans at the time considered either Walt Frazier – the team’s flashy point guard – or Willis Reed – the team’s dominant center – as their favorite player. However, I was different – my favorite player on the team was the less-heralded and underappreciated Bill Bradley.

Bradley was an All-American at Princeton and a Rhodes Scholar, who quietly became a foundational piece of the legendary New York Knicks championship team. For Bradley, basketball was never just a game of physical dominance; it was a deeply cerebral, almost spiritual pursuit. The exact core values he relied on to win on the hardwood later became the bedrock of his legislative and political philosophy, when he became a United States senator after he retired from basketball.

Bradley wasn’t the fastest player on the court, nor could he jump the highest. Instead, his genius lay in anticipation, rigorous preparation, and selfless........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)