Patrick Ewing

Life and work

The story behind the role.

Jamaican-American basketball player.

Patrick Aloysius Ewing Sr. (born August 5, 1962) is a Jamaican-American professional basketball coach and former player who currently serves as an assistant coach for the Washington Wizards of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He spent most of his 17-year playing career as the starting center for the New York Knicks before ending his playing career with brief stints with the Seattle SuperSonics and Orlando Magic, each tenure only lasting one season. Ewing is regarded as one of the greatest Knicks players of all time, playing a dominant role in New York's 1990s success, and becoming an NBA champion with the team in 2026 in a front office role. Highly recruited out of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Ewing played center for the Georgetown Hoyas for four seasons, during which the team reached the NCAA championship game three times. ESPN in 2008 designated him the 16th-greatest college basketball player of all time. He had a seventeen-year NBA career, predominantly playing for the New York Knicks, where he was an eleven-time all-star and named to seven All-NBA teams. The Knicks appeared in the NBA Finals twice (1994 and 1999) during his tenure. He won Olympic gold medals as a member of the 1984 and 1992 United States men's Olympic basketball teams. Ewing was selected as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996 and as one of the 75 Greatest Players in NBA History in 2021. He is a two-time inductee into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts (in 2008 for his individual career and in 2010 as a member of the 1992 Olympic team). Additionally, he was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame as a member of the "Dream Team" in 2009. His number 33 was retired by the Knicks in 2003.

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