I was literally fabricated over in France and born about six months after the boat landed at Ellis Island. This was the heart of the Depression. For the first 12 years of my life we lived in a terrible ghetto on the East River.

These days I smile benignly at the fights that I see in NBA games. There aren't any broken noses or black eyes, which happened quite often when I played.

The NBA wasn't a big deal at that time, so it wasn't really in my career plans.

Every jock gets up and tells the world how lucky he is. But I feel that I may be the luckiest one of all in terms of timing and being at the right place at the right moment-even though, for the last 30 years, I was told I was born 20 years too soon, for obvious reasons.

I had endured six years of frustration so I think winning it all meant more to me than most of the others on the team.

We lived in Yorkville until 1940, at which point we moved into the St. Albans neighborhood of Queens.

I dribbled by the hour with my left hand when I was young. I didn't have full control, but I got so I could move the ball back and forth from one hand to the other without breaking the cadence of my dribble. I wasn't dribbling behind my back or setting up any trick stuff, but I was laying the groundwork for it.