Happy Birthday to all-time Warrior legend Rick Barry

March birthdays have been good to to the Warriors, just ask Steph Curry!

March is a pretty important for the Golden State Warriors right now. They’re fighting to get into the play-in tournament, with the playoffs starting next month.

This is also a great month for celebrations as the Bay’s basketball team has multiple players who had birthdays in March.

• Usman Garuba, a two-way developmental player for the Dubs was born on March 6th.
• Draymond Green, the team’s fiery heartbeat and defensive anchor, was born March 9th.
• Stephen Curry, arguably the greatest basketball player in the world, was born March 14th.

And now on March 28th, it’s time to celebrate the birthday of a guy who was one the best players in Warriors franchise history before Curry was even born. That’s right, let’s give a shout out to NBA Champion and Hall-of-Famer, Rick Barry!

I never watched the man play live personally, as he was inducted into the Hall-of-Fame the year I was born. But going to Oracle Arena as a kid I saw his name up in the rafters and that lone championship banner from 1975 that he helped to raise. My parents and grandparents spoke of his game fondly; here’s an excerpt from NBA.com on his legendary career:

Barry retired after the 1979-80 season. In 14 seasons of professional basketball (10 in the NBA), he had played in more than 1,000 games, never missing more than four NBA games in a row until his final year. He averaged 23.2 points in the NBA and 30.5 points in his four ABA seasons. His combined scoring totaled 25,279 points, which ranks him among the top scorers in professional basketball history.

In the playoffs he was even more prolific, scoring 24.8 points per game in his NBA postseason career and 33.5 points per game in the ABA. At the time of his retirement, Barry was the most accurate free-throw shooter in NBA history, having hit 90.0 percent of his free-throw attempts.

In 1987, along with Walt “Clyde” Frazier, Bob Houbregs, Bobby Wanzer, and Pete Maravich, Barry was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Happy birthday to you Mr. Barry! Thank you for all you’ve done for this franchise, and here’s to many more birthday celebrations for ya!