Ernie Grunfeld

Ernie Grunfeld (born April 24, 1955) is a Romanian-born American former professional basketball player, coach, broadcaster, and executive known for a National Basketball Association (NBA) career spanning more than four decades. The son of Holocaust survivors, Grunfeld immigrated to the United States from Satu Mare, Romania, at the age of nine and grew up in Forest Hills, New York, where he attended Forest Hills High School before starring at the University of Tennessee. As a college standout, he earned All-Southeastern Conference honors and helped lead the Volunteers to the 1976 National Invitation Tournament title, and he represented the United States as a member of the gold medal-winning Olympic basketball team at the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal.

Selected 11th overall by the Milwaukee Bucks in the 1977 NBA draft, Grunfeld played nine professional seasons as a 6-foot-6 small forward, appearing in 614 games across three teams and averaging 8.5 points and 3.4 rebounds per game. His playing career included stints with the Bucks (1977–1979), Kansas City Kings (1979–1982), and New York Knicks (1982–1986), where he contributed as a reliable role player during the Knicks' playoff runs in 1984 and 1985. After retiring, Grunfeld transitioned to broadcasting as a Knicks radio analyst for the MSG Network from 1986 to 1989, then served as an assistant coach under Stu Jackson with the Knicks for the 1989–90 season.

Ernie Grunfeld was born on April 24, 1955, in Satu Mare, Romania, to Jewish Holocaust survivors Alex and Livia Grunfeld. His father, Alex, endured forced labor in a Nazi work camp during the war, while his mother, Livia, survived in the Budapest ghetto, where she was saved twice by Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg from deportation and execution. After the war, the couple married in Romania and raised their two sons, older brother Leslie and Ernie, amid the hardships of communist rule. Shortly after the family's immigration to the United States, Leslie died of leukemia at age 10, a profound tragedy that tested the family's resilience further.