Oscar Schmidt

Oscar Daniel Bezerra Schmidt (born February 16, 1958) is a retired Brazilian professional basketball player. He is also known as Oscar Schmidt Bezerra in Spain, where he played for Fórum Valladolid for the 1993–94 and 1994–95 seasons, and simply Oscar, or Mão Santa (Holy Hand), in his homeland. Schmidt played the small forward position, was 2.05 m (6 ft 8¾ in) tall and weighed 102 kg (225 lbs). He was born in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.
He is unofficially considered to be the all-time leading scorer in the history of basketball, with 49,737 career points scored (club play, plus national team play combined). He is also a record holder for the longest career span of a basketball player, and the top scorer in the history of the Olympic Games.
He was named one of FIBA's 50 Greatest Players in 1991. On August 20, 2010, Schmidt was inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame, in recognition of his play in international competition. On September 8, 2013, Schmidt was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Club career

While playing with Sírio of the Brazilian Basketball League, Schmidt won both the South American Club Championship and the World Club Championship in 1979.

He was drafted by the New Jersey Nets in the sixth round of the 1984 NBA Draft, and had several other opportunities to play in the NBA, but declined them all in order to continue to play for Brazil's national team (until 1989, NBA players were not allowed to play for national teams).

Schmidt won the Italian Basketball Cup with Caserta in 1988. He was the Top Scorer of the Italian Basketball League 7 times (1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1992). He also led the Spanish Basketball League in scoring in 1994, while he was a member of Valladolid.

He returned to his native Brazil in 1995, to play once again in the Brazilian Basketball League with Corinthians, and was the league's top scorer 8 times (1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003). He retired on May 26, 2003.

Brazilian national team

With the Brazilian national basketball team, Schmidt played in five Summer Olympics (the second player to do so after Teófilo Cruz) and was the top scorer in three of them. However, he never went past the quarterfinals. In the 1980 Summer Olympics, he played seven games and scored 171 points, for a 24.4 average.

He again scored 171 points in seven games in the 1984 Summer Olympics. His best Olympic performance was the 1988 Summer Olympics. He scored 335 points, for an average of 41.9 points per game.

In 1992, he scored 198 points in eight games, and in 1996, he scored 219 points in 8 games. In 38 career Olympic basketball games, Schmidt scored a record of 1,094 points, for an average of 28.8 points per game.

He is the all-time career leader in total points scored in the FIBA World Cup, having scored a total of 843 points in 33 games, for a scoring average of 25.5 points per game. He won the bronze medal and made the All-Tournament Team at the 1978 FIBA World Cup, and made the All-Tournament Teams of both the 1986 FIBA World Cup and the 1990 FIBA World Cup, which he also led in scoring, averaging 34.6 points per game.

Schmidt played in the gold-medal match of the 1987 Pan American Games in Indianapolis. The US national team, composed of college players at those games, featured two All-Americans in David Robinson (Hall of Famer) and Danny Manning, two NCAA Championship Final Four MVPs, in Pervis Ellison and Keith Smart, and other future NBA players, such as Rex Chapman and Dan Majerle. Brazil faced a 68–54 halftime deficit. Schmidt finished with 46 points, in a 120–115 win.

In 2004, Schmidt started his career in management. He was the CEO of "Telemar Rio de Janeiro", a Brazilian team which played for two years and won the "Campeonato Carioca" (Rio de Janeiro Championship) in 2004 and 2005.

In 2006, Schmidt, along with other Brazilian basketball greats such as Paula and Hortência, (another Hall of Famer), led the NLB: Nossa Liga de Basquete ("our basketball league"), an attempted rival to the Brazilian Basketball League. However, the league folded a year later.

In 2016, he was one of the guests at the opening ceremony of the summer olympics "Rio 2016", alongside international celebrities such as model Gisele Bündchen, actor Gustavo Goulart, and singer Caetano Veloso among others.

On May 13, 2013, Schmidt had brain surgery to excise a malignant tumor. At first, nobody knew about it except for his family. The press found out about the disease fifteen days after the surgery at a dinner celebrating the 50th anniversary of the two-time World Champion Brazilian National Team. Schmidt did not appear because he was recuperating from daily chemotherapy sessions.

The disease is now in remission.

• Palmeiras: Brazilian Basketball League: 1974–78
• Sírio: Brazilian Basketball League: 1978–82
• Caserta: Italian Second Division: 1982–83
• Caserta: Italian Basketball League: 1983–90
• Pavia: Italian Second Division: 1990–91
• Pavia: Italian Basketball League: 1991–92
• Pavia: Italian Second Division: 1992–93
• Valladolid: Spanish Basketball League: 1993–95
• Corinthians: Brazilian Basketball League: 1995–97
• Bandeirantes: Brazilian Basketball League: 1997–98
• Barueri: Brazilian Basketball League: 1998–99
• Flamengo: Brazilian Basketball League: 1999–03

Individual

• Considered basketball's unofficial all-time leader in points scored:
  • 49,737 career points scored (club play, plus national team play combined)
• FIBA World Cup's all-time leader in points scored:
  • 843 career points scored – 24.1 points per game
• 1978 FIBA World Championship: All-Tournament Team
• 1986 FIBA World Championship: All-Tournament Team
• 1990 FIBA World Championship: All-Tournament Team
• 1990 FIBA World Championship's Top Scorer: – 34.6 points per game
• Olympic Basketball's all-time leader in points scored:
  • 1,094 career points scored – 28.8 points per game
• 3x Olympic Basketball Top Scorer:
  • Seoul 1988 – 41.9 points per game (record in an edition)
  • Barcelona 1992 – 24.8 points per game
  • Atlanta 1996 – 27.4 points per game
• Most points scored in a game at the Olympics – 55 against Spain, 24 September 1988 (lost 118–110)
• 7x Italian League Top Scorer: (1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1992)
• Spanish League Top Scorer: (1994)
• Brazilian League Top Scorer: (1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003)
• Retired club jerseys: Caserta (#18) 1990, Pavia (#11) 1993, Flamengo (#14) 2003
• FIBA European Selection: (1991)
• FIBA's 50 Greatest Players: (1991)
• FIBA Hall of Fame inductee: (2010)
• Basketball Hall of Fame: (2013)
• Italian Basketball Hall of Fame: (2017)

As a member of club teams

• 4x São Paulo Championship: (Palmeiras 1974; Sírio 1979, 1980; Barueri 1998)
• 3x Brazilian Championship: (Palmeiras 1977; Sírio 1979; Corinthians 1996)
• South American Championship: (Sírio 1979)
• World Club Championship: (Sírio 1979)
• 2x Italian Second Division Championship: (Caserta 1983; Pavia 1991)
• Italian Cup: (Caserta 1988)
• 2x Rio de Janeiro Championship: (Flamengo 1999, 2002)

Brazilian national team

• 3x South American Championship: 01 ! Gold: (Chile 1977; Brazil 1983; Colombia 1985)
• FIBA World Championship: 03 ! Bronze: (Philippines 1978)
• 2x South American Championship: 02 ! Silver: (Argentina 1979; Uruguay 1981)
• Pan American Games: 03 ! Bronze: (Puerto Rico 1979)
• Pan American Games: 01 ! Gold: (USA 1987)
• FIBA Americas Championship: 03 ! Bronze: (Mexico 1989)

• ^ "Destruidor de recordes: dez façanhas de Oscar Schmidt nas Olimpíadas". sportv.globo.com (in Portuguese). February 24, 2016. Retrieved February 24, 2016.