5th Anniversary
02/28/03: The New York Knicks retire Patrick Ewing’s No. 33.
03/05/03: Kobe Bryant became the youngest player in NBA history to score 10,000 points.
10th Anniversary
02/25/98: Bill Fitch passed Red Auerbach (938) to become at the time the second-winningest coach in NBA history with a 117-108 win over Philadelphia.
02/27/98: The Indiana Pacers defeat the Portland Trail Blazers 124-59. The 65-point margin of victory is the second-largest in NBA history, outpaced only by the 68-point margin when Cleveland defeated Miami 148-80 on December 17, 1991.
03/01/98: Miami head coach Pat Riley became the fifth coach to record 900 career wins with a 85-84 win over New Jersey.
03/04/98: Arbitrator John Feerick upheld the NBA’s suspension of Latrell Sprewell for the 1997-98 season, resulting in a monetary penalty of $6.4 million, finding that the NBA’s investigation was “done in good faith and was fair and adequate.” Feerick also found “that the NBA complied with the standards of industrial due process.” He reduced the NBA’s suspension to the extent it had included approximately one month of the 1998-99 season. However, the arbitrator reinstated Sprewell’s contract with Golden State for the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 seasons, finding that the combination of a one-season suspension and a contract termination would not be appropriate under all of the circumstances.
15th Anniversary
03/02/93: Denver retired the #7 jersey of long-time Nugget Alex English, who spent 10 1/2 of his 15 years in the NBA in the Mile High City, scoring a career total of 25,613 points.
20th Anniversary
03/02/88: The flaming basketball is adopted as Miami’s official logo from over 1,000 entries. Mark Henderson submitted the winning entry.
25th Anniversary
03/05/83: Golden State’s Joe Barry Carroll scored 52 points in a 127-121 Warriors victory over the Utah Jazz.
