Oscar Schmidt

This article is about the basketball player Oscar Schmidt. For the zoologist, see Eduard Oscar Schmidt ; for other people see Oskar Schmidt .

Oscar Schmidt
Player information
Full name	Oscar Daniel Bezerra Schmidt
Nickname	Mão Santa (the holy hand)
birthday	16th February 1958 (age 62)
place of birth	Natal , Brazil
size	205 cm
position	Shooting Guard
NBA draft	1984 , 131. Pick, New Jersey Nets
Clubs as active
1973-1978	SE Palmeiras São Paulo
1978-1982	Sao Paulo Sirio
1982-1990	Juventus Caserta
1990-1993	Pavia Pallacanestro
1993-1995	Forum Valladolid
1995-1997	Corinthians São Paulo
1997-1998	Bandeirantes São Paulo
1998-1999	Barueri Sao Paulo
1999-2003	Flamengo Rio de Janeiro
National team
1977-1996	Brazil	326

Oscar Schmidt medal table
Basketball (men)
Brazil
World Championship
bronze	1978 Manila
Pan American Games
bronze	1979 San Juan
gold	1987 Indianapolis

Oscar Daniel Bezerra Schmidt (born February 16, 1958 in Natal , Brazil ) is a former Brazilian basketball player. The 2.05 meter tall shooting guard played for clubs in Brazil, Spain and Italy for 26 years and scored 49,703 points in FIBA competitions, the record in professional basketball. He is considered the best Brazilian player of all time.

Career

Schmidt, offspring of a German family, was one of the most accurate basket hunters Brazil had ever seen from the start. Because of its high accuracy from the three-point line, it was called Mão Santa , the holy hand, in Brazil . He was also nicknamed the Pelé des basketball . In both Palmeiras and Sirio he broke one point record after the other and was national champion several times. He first made a name for himself on the international stage at the 1978 World Champions, when Schmidt finished third with Brazil and was the second best scorer in his team with 17.7 points per match.

Coach Bogdan Tanjević , who saw Schmidt at a tournament in Brazil in 1979, brought him to Juventus Caserta in Italy in 1982 . There Schmidt continued his list of individual and team successes by becoming a cup winner. He played in Caserta from 1982 to 1990, and was later made an honorary citizen of the city. In the 1987/88 season he scored an average of 37.2 points per game for Caserta, then 35.6 in 1988/89.

In the five Olympic Games in which he participated with Brazil, he established his reputation as one of the best basketball players in the world. In 1980 in Moscow he played in seven games and scored 24.1 points per game, which was the best performance. He confirmed this four years later in Los Angeles, when he also scored 24.1 points per match in seven games. He dwarfed these performances in 1988 in Seoul when he scored 42.3 points per game. In 38 Olympic matches from 1980 to 1996, Schmidt scored 1093 points, which corresponds to an average of 28.8 points. This makes him the most successful basket hunter in the history of Olympic basketball competitions. At world championships he scored 916 points in 35 games, also a record. In total, Schmidt had 7693 points in 326 international matches.

The high point of his career was the Pan American Games in 1987 , when Brazil sensationally defeated the United States, who had been undefeated in 34 games, after a half-time score of 54:68 with 120-115. Schmidt scored 46 points, mostly with his dreaded three-point throws, and put future NBA stars David Robinson and Danny Manning in the shade. NBA clubs tried several times to sign Schmidt. The New Jersey Nets selected Schmidt in the 1984 draft, but Schmidt turned it down because he rejected the NBA as too rough and anti-player. Critics also noted that Schmidt was in love with the ball and was considered selfish. He was known for hardly doing defensive work and defended this with the words: "Some people play the piano, some people wear it."

In the autumn of his career, Schmidt moved to Valladolid. He also proved his offensive power in the Spanish ACB league : in 1993/94 he got 33.3 points per game, in 1994/95 he averaged 24 points per game. Then he returned to Brazil. Schmidt played well after he was 40 and scored a total of 49,703 points, which is a record. At the age of 45, Schmidt announced his resignation. “I've trained all my life to become the best basketball player in history and I haven't made it, but I'm really proud of what I've done,” said Schmidt at the end of his career.

After his basketball career, he worked as a manager and television reporter. On August 20, 2010, he was inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame , and on September 10, 2013, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame .

In 2016 he carried the Olympic flag to the Maracanã Stadium during the opening ceremony of the 2016 Olympic Games .

Greatest successes

• 49 703 points in FIBA ​​competitions (record)
• Three times South American champion with Brazil (1977, 1983 and 1985)
• Gold medal in the 1987 Pan American Games
• Bronze medal in the world championship (1978)
• Club World Champion and South American Champion (Sirio, 1979)
• 4 × Brazilian champion (Sirio 1979 and 1980, Palmeiras 1974 and 1998)
• Italian Cup (Caserta 1988)
• Participation in five Olympic Games with Brazil, three times best basket hunter

Awards

• Brazilian Medalha Merito Esportivo, 1990
• Olympic Order 1997
• Honorary Citizen of Caserta 2016

Private

Schmidt is married to Cristina Victorino Schmidt. They have two children, Felipe and Stephanie. His brother is the television presenter Tadeu Schmidt .

See also

• List of members of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

Web links

• Oscar Schmidt in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame . On: Hoophall website; Springfield, MA, 2018. Retrieved April 20, 2018 (in English).
• Homepage of Oscar Schmidt
• Oscar Schmidt's Interbasket profile
• Profile of Oscar Schmidt in the Brazilian Basketball Federation (Portuguese)
• Oscar Schmidt - Overview of participation in international FIBA tournaments on archive.fiba.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The New York Times : Brazil's Oscar Is Retiring (May 27, 2003)
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} VLADIMIR STANKOVIC: An Oscar-worthy scorer. In: Euroleague. Retrieved July 3, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Bogdan Tanjevic, national coach in four countries. Retrieved July 3, 2020 . 
4. ↑ Consegnata ad Oscar l'Italia Basket Hall of Fame (Premio Speciale del Presidente) 2017. In: Federazione Italiana Pallacanestro. Retrieved July 3, 2020 . 
5. ^ Oscar Schmidt - Statistiche INDIVIDUALI. In: LEGABASKET SERIE A. Retrieved July 3, 2020 . 
6. ^ The Times : Olympic History ( Memento of May 18, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
7. ↑ World Cup records on the official website of the 2006 World Cup ( memento from September 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) FIBA.com
8. ↑ Player Oscar Schmidt decorated for his career FIBA.com (May 2, 2008)
9. ↑ Oscar Schmidt: TEMPORADA A TEMPORADA. In: ACB. Retrieved July 3, 2020 . 
10. ↑ ^{a b} FIBA HALL OF FAME; MEMBRES DU HALL OF FAME: Oscar Schmidt (Brésil). In: FIBA. Retrieved July 3, 2020 (French). 
11. ↑ OSCAR SCHMIDT CITTADINO ONORARIO DI CASERTA. MARINO: "PERSONAGGIO STRAORDINARIO E IDOLO DELLA CITTÀ, UN ONORE AVERGLI TRIBUTATO QUESTO RICONOSCIMENTO". June 30, 2011, accessed July 3, 2020 (Italian).