HE is to international basketball what Pele is to world soccer.
His name: Oscar Daniel Bezerra Schmidt, the all-time scoring leader in Olympic men’s basketball history.
Significantly, both legendary athletes Pele and Schmidt are from Brazil, the host country of 31st Rio Summer Olympiad.
Schmidt racked up 1,094 points in 38 Olympic games.
In a record-sharing five Olympic appearances – 1980 Moscow (Soviet Union), 1984 Los Angeles (USA), 1988 Seoul (South Korea), 1992 Barcelona (Spain) and 1996 Atlanta (USA) – the 6-foot-8 3/4 forward averaged a mind-boggling 28.8 points every time out.
A two-time Manila visitor during Brazilian club Emtex’s guest participation in the Philippine Basketball Association in 1977 and in his national team’s stint during the 1978 World Basketball Championship (now known as the FIBA World Cup), Schmidt was the highest point-producer in three Olympic Games – 41.9 ppg in 1988, 24.8 ppg in 1992 and 27.4 ppg in 1996.
Until now, Schmidt, the son of a German father and a Brazilian-Yugoslav mother, still owns the all-time single-game Olympic scoring mark of 55 points, which he registered in Brazil’s 118-110 loss to Spain in 1988.
Schmidt, now age 58, was a sixth-round draft choice (No. 131 overall) of the New Jersey (now Brooklyn) Nets during the 1984 National Basketball Association draft but he never played in the American professional league.
Simply known as Oscar (or Mao Santa meaning Holy Hand) in his homeland, Schmidt secured roundball employment in Brazil (1974-82), Italy (1982-93) and Spain (1993-95). After eight more seasons in his second tour of home duty with four different clubs, where he was the local league’s top scorer each time, Schmidt hung up his jersey in late May 2003.
Unofficially, Schmidt is considered the all-time leading scorer in basketball history with 49,737 career points scored (club play and national team play combined). He is also the record holder for the longest career span by a basketball athlete in the world with 28 seasons although all-time Italian great Dino Meneghin, a 6-foot-9 center, also played 28 seasons (1966-1994) during his sterling career.
Schmidt was named one of the 50 greatest players in FIBA history in 1991. He (along with Meneghin) was inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame on August 20, 2010 in recognition of his scintillating performance in international competitions. Schmidt was also inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on September 8, 2013.
Schmidt underwent brain surgery on May 13, 2013 to remove a malignant tumor. The disease remains in remission until now.
Meanwhile, Australia’s Andrew Barry Casson Gaze ranks second on the all-time Olympic men’s scoring ladder with 789 points in an Olympic-record 40 games and a record-tying five stints.
The star of the Aussies’ Olympic campaign in 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000, Gaze, a 6-foot-7 shooting guard, was the No. 1 scorer during the 2000 Sydney Games with a 19.9-point average in eight outings.
Gaze, who played collegiate ball at Seton Hall University, saw action in the NBA for two seasons (1993-94 Washington and 1998-99 San Antonio).
Aside from Schmidt and Gaze, the only other men’s basketball athlete to suit up in five Olympics is Puerto Rico’s Teofilo Cruz, who debuted in Rome (Italy) in 1960 then donned the national colors once again in 1964, 1968, 1972 and 1976.
The Melbourne-born Gaze made it to the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2013. At age 51, he is now head coach of the Sydney Kings in Australia’s premier National Basketball League.
* * *
The rest of the world is no match to the U.S. men’s and women’s basketball teams in the 31st Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – on and off the hardwood.
Unlike the other athletes from the U.S. and more than 200 participating countries who are all billeted in the traditional Olympic Village, both the top-priced U.S. men’s squad composed of 12 millionaire players from the professional National Basketball Association and its female counterpart team from the Women’s National Basketball Association are staying on The Silver Cloud luxury cruise ship docked in the renovated harbor in Rio.
In fairness, it was USA Basketball that booked the players there for security reasons. USA Basketball picks up the costs of the lodging, an expense that would be covered primarily by the Rio Games organizers if the players stayed in the village.
The ship, which is docked in the Maua port terminal (one of the areas revitalized by the Brazilian government for the quadrennial games), has a special security detail to make sure unauthorized people can’t come close to the liner.
Adjacent to it is a second and much larger cruise ship to provide lodging for the “Olympic family.” The rich and famous personalities from the International Olympic Committee also have their own privileges as if you still don’t know.
The American men’s basketball team has stayed away from the Olympic Village starting with the 1992 Barcelona Games when USA Basketball sent a professional team composed of 11 NBA players and one incoming NBA rookie (Christian Laettner) that is now famously known as the original Dream Team. (That Dream Team was bannered by future Hall of Famers Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Clyde Drexler, Karl Malone, Scottie Pippen John Stockton and Chris Mullin.)
The United States Olympic basketball teams stayed in hotels in Beijing (2008) and London (2012) and on a cruise ship (Queen Mary 2) in Athens in 2004.