UPDATE: Dawkins' family announced the public can mourn and pay their respects Tuesday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, 417 Howertown Road, Catasauqua. Wednesday's service at the church and the internment will be private.
Chocolate Thunder has gone back to Lovetron.
Longtime 76ers center Darryl Dawkins died Thursday at the age of 58.
The cause of death is said to be a heart attack, according to Dawkins' family. An autopsy is scheduled for Friday.
A Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest spokesperson confirmed to Comcast SportsNet that Dawkins died there on Thursday.
"It is with great sadness that we share the passing of our beloved husband and father, Darryl Dawkins, who succumbed today to a heart attack," his family said in a statement. "Darryl touched the hearts and spirits of so many with his big smile and personality, ferocious dunks, but more than anything, his huge, loving heart."
One of the most popular players in the history of the Sixers franchise and the NBA, Dawkins was the first player drafted by an NBA team straight out of high school when he left Maynard Evans High in Orlando, Fla. for the Sixers as the No. 5 overall pick in the 1975 draft.
Known as “Chocolate Thunder,” a nickname bestowed by Stevie Wonder, Dawkins claimed he was from the planet Lovetron. During the NBA offseason Dawkins said he returned to his home planet to practice “interplanetary funkmanship.”
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Certainly some of the dunks Dawkins threw down as the Sixers battled the Celtics and Lakers for the NBA title were interplanetary. Dawkins was famous for shattering two backboards, which ushered in new technology to prevent the shattered glass.
The first of Dawkins’ epic dunks came at Kemper Arena in a game against the Kansas City Kings in November, 1979. Replays famously show Dawkins rising to throw down a two-handed tomahawk with the Kings’ Bill Robinzine ducking for cover as the glass splintered.
Dawkins named his dunk, “The Chocolate-Thunder-Flying, Robinzine-Crying, Teeth-Shaking, Glass-Breaking, Rump-Roasting, Bun-Toasting, Wham-Bam, Glass-Breaker-I-Am-Jam.”
“It was such a sight,” Julius Erving told The Philadelphia Inquirer after the game in 1979. “Glass was everywhere. Robinzine was under the basket and he was trying to get out of the way, he was running. And Darryl was in shock.”
Three weeks later Dawkins busted up a backboard at the Spectrum with a dunk he named the “Get-Out-of-the-Waying, Backboard-Swaying, Game-Delaying, If-You-Ain’t-Grooving-You-Best-Get-Moving Dunk.”
He had piles of names for his dunks, such as, "The Rim Wrecker," "The Go-Rilla," "The Look Out Below," "The In-Your-Face Disgrace," "The Cover Your Head," "The Yo-Mama" and "The Spine-Chiller Supreme."
Dawkins’ autobiography, Chocolate Thunder: The Uncensored Life and Times of Darryl Dawkins, chronicled his on-and-off court exploits with Julius Erving and detailed why he was so popular with his teammates and the fans.
It also documents the wild potential Dawkins’ NBA contemporaries raved about. At times opponents saw an unparalleled talent without the consistency to match. Former Penn star Dave Wohl, who played in the NBA against Dawkins and then coached him with the Nets, wrote an article for Sports Illustrated about Dawkins in April 1988.
The title: “Did Darryl Dawkins, Sir Slam, fail to live up to the great expectations of his fans and his NBA coaches? A former coach searches for answers.”
“There were times when he teased us with a hint of how he could dominate a game,” Wohl wrote. “And we went home in awe and yet sad because we knew of no spell to make it happen more frequently. But few players could make us feel that way even once.”
Wohl also captured Dawkins’ ability to bring humor to any situation. Once, Wohl wrote, coach Billy Cunningham stopped practice to yell at Dawkins because he was not giving it his best effort. Dawkins, chagrined, hung his head and promised the coach he would do better.
“And then as [Cunningham] walked away, [Dawkins] tripped him.”
Cunningham, like everyone else at practice, broke up laughing, Wohl wrote.
But lest anyone believe Dawkins was simply a larger-than-life character, don’t be fooled by his fun demeanor. Dawkins, a 6-foot-11 athlete, averaged 13.4 points and eight rebounds per game from 1977 to 1981 for the Sixers. He helped the team reach the NBA Finals in 1977, 1980 and 1982 and came well known for a fight he had with Portland’s enforcer Maurice Lucas during the ’77 Finals.
That fight left Sixers teammate Doug Collins with a scar under his left eye.
“Darryl swung at [the Blazers'] Bobby Gross and hit me,” Collins remembered. “I was the unintentional recipient. But later on, when Darryl and Luke squared off, it looked like something out of the 1920s, like John L. Sullivan bare-knuckling at halfcourt.”
Dawkins owns the seventh-best shooting percentage of all-time, hitting at a 57.2 percent clip. He also led the NBA in fouls three times.
However, prior to the 1982-83 season, the Sixers acquired Moses Malone and traded Dawkins and fellow center, Caldwell Jones. Dawkins went to divisional rival New Jersey for a draft pick that turned out to be Leo Rautins, and the Sixers won the NBA Championship.
From 1982 to 1987, Dawkins played for the Nets and averaged a career-best 16.8 points per game during the 1983-84 season. It was during the playoffs that year that Dawkins, Michael Ray Richardson and Buck Williams stunned the defending champion Sixers in the first round of the playoffs. Dawkins shot 58.7 percent from the field and connected on 14 of 16 free throws during the five-game upset.
But Dawkins could never get over the hump to win a championship. After the Sixers, his best chance came in 1989 when he appeared in 14 games for the champion Pistons, but injuries kept Dawkins on the sidelines. Following the 1989 season Dawkins played in Italy until 1994 before attempting a comeback with the Nuggets and Celtics.
After a stint in the CBA in 1995-96, Dawkins retired at age 39, save for a stint in the IBA for the Winnipeg Cyclones. He then turned his attention to coaching.
In recent years, Dawkins lived in the Allentown, Pa. area in South Whitehall Township. He has coached the Lehigh Carbon Community College men's basketball team since 2009 and also coached in the newest version of the ABA as well as the USBL team in the Lehigh Valley.
Dawkins is survived by his wife Janice, three children and a step-daughter.
"More than anything Darryl accomplished in his basketball career as the inimitable 'Chocolate Thunder,' he was most proud of his role and responsibility as a husband and father," the family said in a statement. "We ask that the public please respect our privacy as we grieve his loss."
