INDIANAPOLIS — Kent Benson’s NBA debut lasted two minutes and nine seconds. Basketball took up the first 120 seconds. A two-man brawl that started with an elbow to the stomach and ended with a punch to the face played out in the final nine.
Fans sat in shock inside MECCA Arena on Oct. 18, 1977, as Benson, playing his first pro basketball game with the Milwaukee Bucks, shoved his right elbow into the lower stomach of Los Angeles Lakers center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, to ward him off.
Abdul-Jabbar didn’t like that. He bent over in pain. And then Abdul-Jabbar stood up. He lunged toward Benson, pulled back his right arm and punched Benson square in the face.
Abdul-Jabbar was ejected from the game, went back to his hotel room and watched the Los Angeles Dodgers lose to the New York Yankees in Game 6 of the World Series.
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Benson needed the help of a trainer to walk off the floor. Hewas sidelined with a mild concussion, swollen eye, bruises and cuts that required stitches. He watched the Los Angeles Lakers lose to his Bucks 117-112.
The victory was sweet, but it didn’t soothe the pain. Neither did the bandages and ice packs.
The No. 1 pick in the 1977 NBA draft, a 6-10 star center at IU and NCAA champion affectionately known as the “gentle giant,” had taken a different sort of hit.
In his NBA debut, the rookie all eyes were watching had taken a major blow — to his ego.
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Benson: ‘Why bring that up now?’
Benson is not interested in talking about that night 45 years ago. He returned IndyStar’s call for an interview request but not to relive that punch.
“Why would you write an article about that,” Benson said of something that happened more than four decades ago. “Why bring that up now?”
But Benson has talked about that night many times before, including the day after the game.
“I feel funny all over,” Benson told the Indianapolis Star in 1977 as he missed the team’s trip to Denver for a game against the Nuggets. “It’s kind of hard to see out of my eye. My jaw is hurting.”
Benson said that he elbowed Abdul-Jabbar after the Lakers’ center had “jostled him on an earlier play.” Benson said it was not a “vicious shot” on his part.
“I turned away to play defense,” Benson said in 1977, the Star describing him as a “puffy-eyed rookie.” “(Abdul-Jabbar) must’ve lost his composure and I got hit.”
Video footage of the fight shows Abdul-Jabbar coming up behind Benson who pivots and gives Abdul-Jabbar a right elbow to his lower stomach.
“Nothing malicious,” Benson said of the hit in a YouTube video posted in 2014, titled “Undefeated with Kent Benson.”
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But that elbow must have felt malicious to Abdul-Jabbar who immediately bent over in pain, who then turned around to face Benson and bent over again. The referees hadn’t seen it. No foul was called, so Abdul-Jabbar took matters into his own hands.
He took one step toward Benson and then a second step and then a third and, on his fourth, inches from Benson, Abdul-Jabbar smashed a fist into Benson’s face.
Benson flailed backward from the force of the hit and fell to the ground.
He knew as he laid there, this wasn’t just about that elbow. Abdul-Jabbar didn’t like an NBA rookie coming in and wreaking havoc on his Lakers game in just two minutes.
Abdul-Jabbar: ‘A cheap shot’
“I out-jumped him at the tip,” Benson said in 2014 of that 1977 game. “Kareem’s 7-2 (with those) long arms. And I outjump him at 6-10. So we control the tip, come down and (Bucks’) Brian Winters takes a shot from outside, misses it. I go up over Kareem, rebound and put the ball back in.”
On the way back down the court, Benson said, Abdul-Jabbar elbowed him several times.
“And I beat him down to his spot on the block where he could shoot his famous hook shot. And as he came barreling down, he takes and drives his elbow right into my chest,” Benson said. “And so we’re jostling for position and I just elbow him back. Nothing malicious, but elbow him back.”
Benson said that Abdul-Jabbar “put on a big act like he was hurting. He bent over and kind of fell back 10 feet. You can see he looks to see if the officials are looking.”
Meanwhile, Benson said he was watching the ball come down the court. “And he takes a running start and he sucker punches me right in the temple. Didn’t knock me out but it knocked me silly,” he said. “I was seeing stars and birdies and everything else.”
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IndyStar reached out to Abdul-Jabbar for an interview but did not get a response. He did talk about that night in 1977 on a podcast with former Lakers’ teammate Byron Scott in 2021.
“The Kent Benson incident, where Kent Benson elbowed you, just a deliberate elbow,” Scott said on his Off the Dribble podcast. “He hit you in a great spot where you just bent over. Play goes on and you kind of gathered yourself, squared up, and just said, ‘POW’ and knocked him out.”
Abdul-Jabbar, whose hand was broken as a result of the punch and was out for 21 games, told Scott: “I’m so sorry I did that.”
But Benson’s elbow “was a cheap shot, a sneaky shot,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “He did that because his coach, Don Nelson, told him to like rough me up if he was going to be successful. He just made himself a problem. Every time I saw him after that, I made sure he realized that I knew how to play.”
NBA record fine
The night after the incident, the Lakers had a game at Market Square Arena to play the Indiana Pacers. Abdul-Jabbar traveled to Indianapolis with the team where Pacers’ physician Dr. Richard Hutson put a cast on his hand.
“The breaks of the game or hand did not deter the Los Angeles Lakers,” the IndyStar wrote after the Pacers lost to the Lakers 133-120, even without their star center and reigning NBA MVP.
IndyStar described the reason Abdul-Jabbar was absent from the Pacers game. “His well-publicized right cross to the head of Milwaukee’s rookie center Kent Benson in the previous evening’s loss to the Bucks left Abdul-Jabbar with a broken bone in his hand.”
The next day, Abdul-Jabbar suffered another setback when the NBA fined him a record $5,000.
“NBA Commissioner Lawrence F. O’Brien viewed videotapes of the game and consulted reports from officials before rocking the league with his decision,” the Indianapolis Star reported.
“The fact that a single swift act of violence resulted in injuries to two players points up the danger and recklessness of such action,” O’Brien said in issuing the fine. “Conduct of this nature will not be tolerated and will be punished accordingly. Every player in the NBA is on notice that I oppose fighting during games no matter what the provocation. I will use all the powers of my office to prevent violence within the NBA.”
The NBA players union fought the fine.
“We’re unhappy with fighting on the court and we’ve talked about it at our meetings,” said Larry Fleisher, the association’s counsel, in 1977. “That’s not what the NBA is about. But fining a player $5,000 offends me just as much. I don’t care how much he’s making, that’s a tremendous fine.”
Before 1977, the largest fine handed down by the NBA was $2,500 each to Maurice Lucas of the Portland Trailblazers and Darryl Dawkins of the Philadelphia 76ers for fighting during the 1976 championship playoffs.
O’Brien said his initial punishment for Abdul-Jabbar was going to be an “immediate suspension.”
“Until I received new news late yesterday of (Abdul-Jabbar’s) injury,” O’Brien said. “That development limited my options and, consequently, I decided on this fine.”
According to O’Brien, the videotape of the game showed Benson elbowing Abdul-Jabbar several seconds before the Lakers center punched him.
“Unfortunately, the violation took place far from the ball in the game action,” said O’Brien. “And, therefore, escaped detection by the referees. Whether or not Abdul-Jabbar was fouled, however, there’s no excuse for a premeditated punch from the side.”
Benson agreed in 2014 that there was no excuse for the hit. But, he added, he took the high road.
“I had a lot of people saying, ‘You ought to sue him. You ought to do this, you ought to do that,'” Benson said. “That gave me an opportunity to learn about forgiveness. I have forgiven him. It was hard to do, no doubt.”
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: In his NBA debut, IU’s Kent Benson was punched by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar