Chasin’ The Ring: One Man’s 70-Year Run Through Basketball History

CHASIN’ THE RING is the story of a man who, in his lifetime, played significant roles at virtually every level of the game he loved, while chasing the championship that was always just out of reach.

Player, head coach, scout, assistant coach, general manager... in a basketball career that spanned seven decades, Al Bianchi did it all... and always did it his way.

After a stellar schoolboy career at Long Island City High School, Al Bianchi went on to earn All-America honors at Bowling Green University. He then enjoyed a ten-year career as a player in the National Basketball Association with the Syracuse Nationals and Philadelphia 76ers. Later, he became a head coach in the NBA with the expansion Seattle SuperSonics and then in the American Basketball Association with the Virginia Squires. He followed that with a long tenure as an assistant coach and scout with the Phoenix Suns. His time as the general manager of the New York Knicks brought his basketball journey full circle, bringing him back to the city where he first played the game as a kid on an outdoor, schoolyard court.