Mark McNamara, a dominating Bay Area basketball presence at San Jose’s Del Mar High, Santa Clara University and Cal who won an NBA title as a rookie with Dr. J and Moses Malone, has died.
The Cal athletics website posted on Wednesday that McNamara, who reportedly had a history of health problems, had died two days earlier. He was 60.
McNamara, a 6-foot-11 power forward/center, was inducted into the Cal Athletic Hall of Fame in 2016. In 2009, he was one of 30 players selected to the Golden Bears All-Century team.
That was a lasting impact for a guy who spent just two seasons with the Golden Bears after transferring from Santa Clara, where for two seasons he was teammates with fellow Bay Area native Kurt Rambis.
McNamara, the 1977 Mercury News high school player of the year, was the team MVP in each of his seasons with the Bears, averaging 22 points and 12.6 rebounds as senior. He was first-team All-Pac-10 as a senior and led the Pac-10 in scoring, rebounding and field goal percentage – a feat matched by UCLA’s Lew Alcindor and Bill Walton, and Arizona State’s Ike Diogu in the history of the conference.
Among his Cal records included:
• Six 30-point games
• 70.2 percent single-season field-goal shooting percentage
McNamara became the first player in Cal history to score at least 1,000 career points in two seasons. His career 19.6 career scoring average is second in school history and his 11.6 rebounds per game average is third. He still holds the school career record with a career 66.2 percent field goal shooting mark.
McNamara was a first-round pick by the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1982 draft, selected 22nd overall. He played in 36 games as the Julius Irving- and Malone-led Sixers swept Rambis’ Lakers (along with Magic Johnson, Kareen Abdul-Jabbar and Co.) for the NBA title.
He played for five teams over eight seasons — as well as one in Italy — before retiring during the 1990-91 season.
According to the Cal site, McNamara had been based in Haines, Alaska, where he conducted basketball camps and coached a local high school basketball team, guiding Haines High School to divisional state championships in 2008 and 2010.