Leo "Ace" Gottlieb (November 28, 1920 – August 16, 1972) was an American professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

player.

Early and personal life

Gottlieb, who was Jewish, was born in

New York City, New York New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He attended

DeWitt Clinton High School , motto_translation = Without Work Nothing Is Accomplished , image = DeWitt Clinton High School front entrance IMG 7441 HLG.jpg , seal_image = File:Clinton News.JPG , seal_size = 124px , ...

The Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

, New York. Gottlieb was the uncle of

Ron Rothstein Ronald L. Rothstein (born December 27, 1942) is an American former professional basketball coach and college basketball player, who has led many different NBA teams. He served as the first head coach for the Miami Heat, and later coached the De ...

, first coach of the

Miami Heat The Miami Heat are an American professional basketball team based in Miami. The Heat compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The club plays its home games at FT ...

Basketball career

Gottlieb played guard. He played for the

Philadelphia Sphas The Philadelphia Sphas, also stylized SPHAs or SPHAS, were an American basketball franchise that existed in professional, semi-professional, and exhibition forms. They played their home games in the ballroom of Philadelphia's Broadwood Hotel. The ...

in the ABL in 1939–40, the New York Jewels in 1940–42, the New York Americans in 1943–44, and the

New York Gothams The New York Giants were a Major League Baseball team in the National League that began play in the season as the New York Gothams and were renamed in . They continued as the New York Giants until the team relocated to San Francisco, Californ ...

in 1945–46. He made his debut in the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

on November 1, 1946. He played for the New York Knicks in the first game in NBA history, on November 1, 1946, scoring (14 points). He played for the Knicks from 1946–48.

BAA career statistics

Regular season

Playoffs

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gottlieb, Leo 1920 births 1972 deaths American men's basketball players Basketball players from New York City DeWitt Clinton High School alumni Guards (basketball) Jewish men's basketball players New York Knicks players Philadelphia Sphas players Sportspeople from Brooklyn 20th-century American Jews