Brisker, John

John Brisker was born on June 15, 1947 in the city of Detroit ( Michigan ), where he studied at Gemtremk High School from the city of the same name , surrounded on all sides of Detroit, and also bordering the city of Highland Park , where he played for the local basketball team ^{[1 ]} .

In 1965, he entered the University of Toledo , where for three years he defended the colors of the Toledo Rockets basketball team, where he spent a successful career under the guidance of the famous mentor Bob Nichols , scoring 773 points in 55 games (14.1 on average for game) and 434 rebounds (7.9). Under John, the "Rockets" once won the regular championship (1967), but never once did the MAC conference tournament, but still once went to the playoffs of the US student championship (1967), where in the first round they lost to the Virginia Tech team Hokis with a score of 76-82 ^{[2] [3] [4]} .

After the end of his student career, Brisker decided not to stand as a candidate for the NBA draft , and instead entered into an agreement with the American Basketball Association Pittsburgh Pipers competing with the NBA ^[1] . Already in his debut season, John scored an average of 21.0 points per game, 5.7 rebounds and 1.7 assists, for which he was included in the national team of the League's newcomers ^[5] . The 1970/1971 season was the most successful in his professional career, in which he spent 79 matches, gaining 2315 points (29.3 points per game), making 766 rebounds (9.7) and making 226 assists (2.9) , and according to its results, he was included in the second national team of all the stars of ABA ^[6] . In addition, in the same season, following a vote among sports journalists and TV commentators, he received an invitation to his first match of all ABA stars , in which he spent 27 minutes on the court, scored 15 points and made 17 rebounds, becoming one of his best players ^{[1] [7]} . His next season, John also started very well, but on December 27, 1971, in a lost match against Dallas Cheperrels (92-97), he was injured, which he then treated for almost a month ^[8] . He was able to return to the site only on January 25, 1972 in a victorious game against the New York Nets (123-116), so he was able to take part in the all-star game , which took place just two days later. But the injury again manifested itself, which is why in the second part of the championship, he played only twelve matches. In the offseason, Brisker decided to try his hand at the strongest league on the planet, signing a contract with the Seattle Supersonics team, in which he spent the next three seasons, but without much success ^[1] .

Brisker gained a reputation as one of the most unstable basketball players. His team mate for Condors, Charlie Williams , said: “He was a great player, but if you say that something is wrong with this guy, then you immediately had the feeling that he would now unzip his pocket, take out a gun and shoot you ” ^[9] . John was so often banished from the court by the judges for a fight that he got the nickname “ABA heavyweight champion” for it. In Condors, John was so often called Enforcer that he was portrayed in the media with a pair of six-shooter revolvers. The most notorious moment in his career happened to him in the 1971/1972 season in a game against the Denver Rockets . He was expelled from the court just two minutes after the start of the game after being hit hard with the elbow of player Rocket Art Becker , but for unknown reasons Brisker became very angry with Becker and returned to the floor three times to continue to sort things out, until finally the police did not force him into the locker room.

In 1978, John Brisker went missing after a trip to Uganda . Some rumors claim that he went there as a mercenary , others say that he was invited to this country as a guest of Idi Amin . The latter confirmed that he had communicated with Brisker as early as April 1978, after which suggestions were made that he was executed by the firing squad when Amin was removed from power in April 1979. Officially, he was declared dead only in 1985 by a King County medical examiner in Washington state ^[10] .

• Statistics in the ABA and the NBA on the website Basketball-Reference.com (English)
• Brief biography in ABA on the site Remembertheaba.com (English)