Carl Braun

Born and raised in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, Carl Braun would leave an indelible mark on the game of basketball in the Big Apple. Braun, a standout athlete in high school, enrolled at Colgate University where his talent in baseball and basketball garnered attention from the likes of baseball’s New York Yankees and the cage game’s New York Knickerbockers. Braun was only a sophomore when he left the Raiders to join the Knicks, catching on with one of the original franchises in the recently-formed Basketball Association of America. As a rookie, Braun set the Knicks single-game scoring record when he torched the Providence Steamrollers for 47 points. Very soon, the Knicks would feature Harry Gallatin, Nat Clifton, Dick McGuire and later Richie Guerin, the perfect backcourt mates for Braun’s accuracy from the floor. Braun led the Knicks in scoring seven straight seasons, earning five All-Star nods along the way. The native New Yorker joined the Boston Celtics in 1961 to help Auerbach and the Green win the franchise’s fifth championship in six years.