The same Knicks draft that landed Bill Bradley also produced a third-round forward from Ohio Wesleyan who would go on to play 11 NBA seasons for five teams.
Barry Clemens, a forward whose NBA travels took him from the New York Knicks to the Chicago Bulls, Seattle SuperSonics, Cleveland Cavaliers and Portland Trail Blazers, has died at 83. The Cleveland Cavaliers and Rock Entertainment Group announced his death on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026. A cause of death was not disclosed.
In announcing it, the Cavaliers said they were “saddened to learn of the passing of former Cavalier, Barry Clemens.”
John Barry Clemens was born May 1, 1943, in Dayton, Ohio, and played his high school basketball at Xenia High School in Xenia, Ohio. At Ohio Wesleyan University he became the kind of small-college scorer professional teams could not ignore, averaging 23 points and 14.7 rebounds as a senior and winning Ohio Athletic Conference player of the year honors in 1965. He left Delaware, Ohio, as the all-time leading scorer both at Ohio Wesleyan and in the OAC.
The Knicks Lost Him to Expansion
New York took Clemens in the third round of the 1965 NBA draft, No. 22 overall — the same draft in which the Knicks made Princeton’s Bill Bradley the No. 1 pick. Clemens made his NBA debut on Oct. 16, 1965. He played 70 games as a rookie, averaging 12.5 minutes, 5.4 points, 2.6 rebounds and 1.0 assists while shooting 41.2 percent from the floor and 69.2 percent from the line.
That was his only season in New York. The expansion Chicago Bulls selected him in the 1966 expansion draft, and he stayed three seasons, playing 213 games and averaging 19.1 minutes and 8.1 points. His best scoring year came in 1967-68, when he put up 9.3 points and 4.8 rebounds across 78 games. He also appeared in the Bulls’ first playoff run, part of seven career postseason games — three in 1966-67, four in 1967-68 — in which he averaged 3.7 points.
Traded to Cleveland With Lenny Wilkens
Seattle came next, and it brought the sharpest shooting of his career. Over three seasons with the SuperSonics he played 238 games and averaged 17.7 minutes and 7.6 points. In 1971-72 he appeared in all 82 games and made 52.1 percent of his field goals and 84.4 percent of his free throws.
Clemens then landed in his home state, going to the Cavaliers in the trade that also sent Lenny Wilkens to Cleveland. Wearing No. 40, he played 143 games over two seasons there, averaging 14.2 minutes and 6.0 points.
The New Orleans Jazz picked him in the 1974 expansion draft, then traded him to Portland before he ever played a game for them. He closed out his career with the Trail Blazers, 126 games over two seasons at 11.1 minutes and 4.4 points. In all, Clemens played 790 regular-season games and averaged 15.9 minutes, 6.7 points, 3.2 rebounds and 1.1 assists, shooting 45.4 percent from the field and 75.6 percent from the foul line. His career highs: 29 points and 17 rebounds.
Beaten by Geoff Petrie at the Garden
On May 6, 1973, Clemens walked onto the Madison Square Garden floor for a different kind of game. ABC televised a one-on-one tournament among NBA players, and the forward who averaged fewer than 16 minutes a night reached the championship game. He lost it to Portland All-Star guard Geoff Petrie.
Clemens was inducted into the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009. Ten years later, the Cavaliers brought him back out onto the floor, honoring him during halftime of their Friday, Dec. 6, 2019, home game against the Orlando Magic.
The Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame, which also inducted him in 2009, said in a post that it “mourns the loss of Barry Clemens.”