Knicks great Meminger found dead of possible overdose -- with championship ring still on finger
- Last Updated: 6:29 PM, August 23, 2013
- Posted: 6:18 PM, August 23, 2013
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William Jacobellis
Dean Meminger (r.) with the Knicks in the 1970s.
Dean “The Dream” Meminger, a key player on the last New York Knicks team to win a title, was found dead in Harlem of a possible drug overdose today -- with his gold championship ring still on his finger, sources said.
A fully-clothed Meminger, 65, was discovered on his bed in the Casablanca Hotel on West 145th Street near Broadway after hotel staff went to talk to him after he didn’t check out as expected, sources said.
“There was white stuff oozing out of his nose,” one source said about the troubled ex-Knick. “Looked like he had a seizure after he was using cocaine, but the medical examiner will have the final say.”
Aubrey Reuben
Meminger from a basketball event in 2004.
Meminger was a South Carolina native who grew up in New York, where he starred at Rice High School before earning All-America honors under coach and Queens native Al McGuire at Marquette.
The defensive-minded point guard was a Knicks first-round draft pick in 1971 and played a key role in their march to their last championship in 1973, when he played along the legendary Willis Reed, Walt Frazier and Earl “The Pearl” Monroe.
But he fell on hard times in recent years, nearly burning himself to death in 2009 in a fire in the Bronx rooming house where he was living while smoking crack.
He spent four seasons with the Knicks and two with the Atlanta Hawks, and then bounced around several hoops jobs, including stints as head coach at Manhattanville College and the Albany Patroons of the Continental Basketball Association, where he was replaced by former teammate Phil Jackson.
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