Paul Arizin, Requiescat in pace.

It is another sad day in Philadelphia, for the Father of the Jump Shot has left us. Paul Arizin, a Catholic gentleman and one of the fifty greatest NBA players of all time, died yesterday.

Paul Arizin, a cowlicked, asthmatic South Philadelphia native who wasn't good enough to make his high school team yet transformed himself into an NBA legend, died in his sleep Tuesday night at 78.

Mr. Arizin's Hall of Fame career, which included an 85-point performance at Villanova plus 10 All-Star Game appearances, two scoring titles and an NBA crown with the Philadelphia Warriors, took place entirely in and around his hometown.

When owner Eddie Gottlieb moved the Warriors to San Francisco after the 1961-62 season, Mr. Arizin retired rather than relocate. But the 6-foot, 4-inch forward's love of basketball persisted, and he played several more seasons with the Camden Bullets of the semi-pro Eastern League.

"It's not very often you get a chance to interact as an adult with someone who had been your hero as a youngster, but I got that opportunity when Paul and I played on the Camden Bullets," Sonny Hill, an icon of the local basketball community, said yesterday.

"I used to listen to Warriors game on the radio," Hill added, "and I just identified with Paul Arizin. It was an era of set shots and one-hand stabs. He was one of the first to use the jump shot. And to this day, Paul Arizin's jump shot remains one of the classic jump shots in NBA history."

In his 10 years with the Warriors, who played their home games in two now-vanished buildings - Convention Hall and the Arena - he not only established himself as one of the franchise's great stars but played alongside many of its others.

His first pro team included Jumpin' Joe Fulks, believed to be the originator of the jump shot Mr. Arizin would master. Center Neil Johnston joined the Warriors a year later. Subsequently, Mr. Arizin teamed with several of his peers in this basketball-rich city's hoops pantheon - Wilt Chamberlain, Tom Gola and Guy Rodgers.

Now only Gola, who is in poor health in Florida, remains from that potent Philly foursome.

"Paul Arizin was also one of Wilt's idols," Hill said.

A prototype of today's versatile small forwards, Mr. Arizin averaged 24.2 points a game in leading the Warriors to the NBA title in the 1955-56 season. He was the young league's top scorer in 1951-52 (25.4 points per game) and 1956-57 (25.6 ppg.).

He averaged 20 points or more in nine of his 10 seasons and finished with a career scoring average of 22.8. In 1961, he became the third NBA player to reach the 15,000-point mark. (Bob Cousy and Dolph Schayes preceded him.) He also averaged better than eight rebounds a game and was the MVP of the 1951-52 All-Star Game.

"I just loved playing basketball," Mr. Arizin said in a 1998 interview. "It's for me to believe that I'm in Hall of Fames with people like Wilt because I never ever imagined that was possible when I started playing in all those dark little gyms."

The Marines drafted him in 1952, and he missed the next two NBA seasons. During his absence, the Warriors nosedived, finishing with records of 12-57 and 29-43.

The spry, lanky youngster from St. Monica's Parish took up the game relatively late. Playing in church and intramural leagues in low-ceilinged city gymnasiums that often doubled as dance floors, he developed a low-arced, one-handed jump shot that was exceedingly rare in that pre-World War II era.

"It was strange how I developed it," he said. "Because they held dances in those gyms, the floors would be very slippery. I couldn't get my feet set under me to try some of my shots, so I started shooting with my feet off the floor."

The son of a French father and an Irish mother, Mr. Arizin went out for the basketball team his senior year at La Salle High School. But after a few games, legendary Explorers coach Obie O'Brien, one of the winningest coaches in Catholic League history, cut him.

Grown to his full 6-foot-4 height, Mr. Arizin enrolled at Villanova in 1946 to study chemistry. He did not try out for the basketball team until his sophomore season. It was not long until coach Al Severance and everyone else were wondering what took him so long.

The frenetic, offensive-minded player sportswriters dubbed "Pitchin' Paul" had an unstoppable weapon in his jump shot, one his leaping ability allowed him to get off whenever he wanted. Though he always preferred the jumper, he could drive hard - and often acrobatically - to the basket and was a dogged rebounder.

According to his biography on NBA.com, he was "an early version of Michael Jordan or Sidney Moncrief."

The night of Feb. 12, 1949, in a game against an overmatched Naval Air Material Center team, Mr. Arizin scored 85 points, still a record for a Villanova player or any Philadelphia-area collegian, in a 117-25 victory.

Mr. Arizin scored 735 points as a Wildcats senior, five off the national record, and averaged 25.3 points, the second-highest ever at the time. Villanova went 25-4 and the Sporting News named him its college player of the year. Eventually, the school retired his No. 11, the number he also would wear as a professional.

"Paul Arizin was the most dignified, classy and humble legend I've ever met," Villanova head coach Jay Wright said. "He is adored and respected by anyone who has touched Villanova basketball."

Pro teams then had first crack at players from their geographical area and Gottlieb's Warriors made him their territorial draft pick in 1950.

As smooth as he was on the court, Mr. Arizin always gave the impression of being a blue-collar player. He dove for balls, banged with defenders and, because of his asthmatic condition, wheezed and grunted throughout games.

He was named one of the top players in NBA history on the league's 25th anniversary. On the league's 50th celebration in 1996, the NBA selected Mr. Arizin as one of its 50 greatest players.

In 1977, he was named to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. And even though his Villanova career predated the Big Five, that organization placed him in its Hall of Fame as well.

Mr. Arizin, said his son, Mike, a former basketball star at Cardinal O'Hara High, lived in the same house in Springfield, Delaware County, for 52 years. He began working part-time for IBM while he was still a player in 1960 and continued with the company until his retirement in 1985.

"My dad was a daily Mass-goer since his boyhood... every day, come rain or shine, work or travel... every day," Mike Arizin said.

Mr. Arizin, a longtime resident of Springfield, remained a presence on the local basketball scene. He spoke at Chamberlain's funeral in 1999 and was a regular at Villanova basketball events.

In April, he presented the award named in his honor to Wildcats' guard Kyle Lowry at the school's 2006 basketball banquet.
He is survived by his wife, Maureen, five children, Michael, Alicia, Tim, Dennis and Christopher, and 14 grandchildren.

There will be funeral visitation at St. Kevin's Roman Catholic Church in Springfield at 6 p.m. tomorrow, followed by a Mass at 7:30 p.m. There will be a private burial Saturday. (Thanks to Philly.com for this obituary.)