Grady William Lewis (March 25, 1917 – March 11, 2009) was an American professional basketball player.
He played college basketball for the Southwestern Oklahoma State Bulldogs and Oklahoma Sooners. Lewis played four seasons with the Phillips 66 Oilers of the AAU, and three seasons (1946–1949) in the Basketball Association of America as a member of the Detroit Falcons, St. Louis Bombers, and Baltimore Bullets. He averaged 5.4 points per game in his career and won a league championship with Baltimore in 1948. Lewis also was a member of two AAU national championship teams with Phillips 66 (1940, 1946).
Lewis coached the St. Louis Bombers during the 1948–49 and 1949–50 seasons. He then worked for the Converse shoe company. Lewis went on to invent the Converse All Stars shoe, although he did not get recognition as the famous Marketer Chuck Taylor was accredited due to his popular name.Andy Taylor. "Retired Converse exec with Caney connection dies". Montgomery County Chronicle. March 18, 2009. Retrieved on March 19, 2009. Lewis was inducted into the Southwestern Oklahoma State Hall of Fame in 1970.
BAA career statistics
Regular season Year Team GP FG% FT% APG PPG 1946–47 Detroit 60 .204 .543 .9 4.8 1947–48 St. Louis 24 .248 .667 .5 6.9 1947–48† Baltimore 21 .294 .619 1.3 7.1 1948–49 St. Louis 34 .387 .600 1.1 4.4Career 139 .252 .595 .9 5.4
Playoffs Year Team GP FG% FT% APG PPG 1948† Baltimore 11 .211 .759 .8 6.2Career 11 .211 .759 .8 6.2
Head coaching record
| style="text-align:left;"|St. Louis | style="text-align:left;"| |60||29||31|||| style="text-align:center;"|4th in BAA Western||2||0||2|| | style="text-align:center;"|Lost in Division Semifinal |- | style="text-align:left;"|St. Louis | style="text-align:left;"| |68||26||42|||| style="text-align:center;"|5th in NBA Central||—||—||—||— | style="text-align:center;"|Missed playoffs |- class="sortbottom" | style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career | 128||55||73|||| ||2||0||2||||
References
External links Career statistics