1958-2026

Oscar Schmidt died, the basketball legend was 68 years old

He had been ill for some time

17 April 2026

In questa foto d'archivio scattata martedì 30 luglio 1996, il brasiliano Oscar Schmidt (14) supera Scottie Pipen (8) degli Stati Uniti durante i quarti di finale della competizione di pallacanestro ai Giochi Olimpici Estivi del Centenario ad Atlanta. (AP Photo/Hans Deryk, Archivio)

2' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

2' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

The only Brazilian in the NBA Hall of Fame and one of the country's greatest sports legends, former basketball player Oscar Schmidt, star of Juve Caserta, has died in hospital, aged 68. Local media reported this. He had been ill for some time.

For fifteen years, Oscar had been fighting a brain tumour. He had been admitted to the Santa Ana Municipal Hospital in Santana de Parnaíba, in the state of São Paulo, a few hours ago, after suffering an illness, but did not make it.

At the beginning of April, Oscar's son Felipe Schmidt received a tribute in his father's place from the Brazilian Olympic Committee (Cob). The wake will be reserved for the family.

On social media, his son posted a touching tribute: 'As a son, I only have to say: dad, I will miss you. I will honour everything you taught me about how to be a man and try to be at least 10 per cent of the human being you were. You were an example of life for me and I will never, ever forget you,' Felipe Schmidt wrote.

Standing 2.05 m tall and weighing 110 kg, Oscar is known worldwide as Mão Santa, ('holy hand' in Portuguese) for his precision shooting. Holder of the Brazilian record for Olympic participation, he competed in five consecutive editions of the Games and became the only athlete to exceed the 1,000 mark in the history of the competition.

With the Greenoro national team, he won three South American championships and a Pan American championship, as well as a bronze medal at the 1978 World Cup. A Brazilian icon of international sport, he was inducted into the Fiba Hall of Fame and, unprecedentedly, also into the NBA Hall of Fame, despite never having played in that league.

Recognised for his brilliance and global impact, he was voted among the 100 best basketball players of all time.

Absolute star of the Juvecaserta, during his Italian career he earned the first place in the absolute ranking of points scored in the league, later being ousted by Antonello Riva who, however, played almost twice as many games as the Brazilian.

With his 13,957 points, however, he remains the foreign player who scored the most, with an overall average of 34.6 points per game and peaks of over 60 points.

Analysing basketball players with at least 100 appearances in the Italia championship, he is the player who has most often exceeded 50 points scored in a single game, specifically 28 times out of 403 games played (about 7%), ahead of two other legends such as Dražen Dalipagić (15/241, or 6.2%) and Joe Bryant (14/247, about 5.7%).

Juvecaserta retired his jersey number 18, and in 2016 he also received honorary citizenship.