COLLEGE SPORTS HBCU hoops legend, NBA style icon dies at age 73
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COLLEGE SPORTS HBCU hoops legend, NBA style icon dies at age 73
By HBCU Gameday Newswire HBCU Gameday
Updated March 17, 2025 4:49 PM
Courtesy of XULA Athletics
NEW ORLEANS - Former HBCU, NBA basketball player Donald “Slick” Watts, one of the brightest HBCU basketball stars in Xavier University of Louisiana’s athletic constellation, died Saturday (March 15, 2025). He was 73 years old.
Funeral arrangements have not been announced. Watts’ health declined after a stroke in April 2021.
He was a member of the first XULA Athletic Hall of Fame class-he attended that induction on Nov. 3, 2022, on the campus-and was one of the leaders of the renaissance of XULA men’s basketball during the early 1970s.
He played for the New Orleans-based HBCU from 1970-73 and produced 1,460 points and 331 assists-both XULA career records at the time and still among the best numbers at the HBCU.
In each of Watts’ final two seasons, XULA won NAIA District 30 tournament championships and won at NAIA nationals. During Watts’ senior season, the Gold Rush upset unbeaten and top-ranked Sam Houston State 67-60 to reach the NAIA quarterfinals. No XULA men’s basketball team since then has advanced that far.
Survivors include a sister, Felicia Watts Wheatley, whose daughter, McKenna Wheatley, is a XULA junior and part of the No. 1 doubles team with Mbali Langa in the Intercollegiate Collegiate Tennis Association NAIA March rankings. Wheatley and Langa won the ITA Cup NAIA doubles championship in October.
More on Slick Watts:
• Played six seasons in the NBA (1973-79), starting with the Seattle SuperSonics as an undrafted free agent
• NBA career statistics: 437 games and per-game averages of 8.9 points, 3.2 rebounds, 6.1 assists and 2.2 steals
• One of 16 selected in 2007 to the Seattle SuperSonics 40th-anniversary team
• Received the NBA’s J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award for exemplary community service in 1975-76 . . . he was the second recipient of this award • Also in 1975-76, he was chosen to the NBA All-Defensive team • In 1975-76 with Seattle, he was the first to lead the NBA in steals and assists in the same season • According to basketball-reference.com, he ranks seventh on the NBA/ABA career list with 2.20 steals per game and 57th with 6.13 assists per game through the 2023-24 season
• One of his Gold Rush teammates was Bruce Seals, also a 2022 Xavier University of Louisiana Athletic Hall of Fame inductee
• ESPN in 2004 ranked him among the 16 “coolest athletes of all time.”
• Credited for popularizing the wearing of the headband by basketball players • Other inductions: - Louisiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 1991 - Allstate Sugar Bowl Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame in 1996 - Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 2011
• Born in Rolling Fork, Miss. The post HBCU hoops legend, NBA style icon dies at age 73 appeared first on HBCU Gameday.
Copyright HBCU Gameday 2012-2025 This story was originally published March 17, 2025 at 4:40 PM.
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