TWY-LIGHT:

On March 12, 1958, the Royals were playing their season finale, against the Minneapolis Lakers. Stokes went over the shoulder of an opponent and hit his head on the floor so hard that he was knocked out. In those days, teams had no trainers, much less doctors, and scant knowledge of head injuries. He continued to play.

Three days later, Stokes, who was 24, went into a coma. When he came out of it, he could not move or talk. The diagnosis was brain damage. Stokes, whose family lived in Pittsburgh, had to stay in Cincinnati to be eligible for workers' compensation.

"Maurice was on his own," Twyman told The New York Post in 2008. "Something had to be done and someone had to do it. I was the only one there, so I became that someone."

Twyman always insisted that any teammate would have done the same. Others saw something special. On the occasion of Stokes's death in 1970, the sports columnist Arthur Daley of The New York Times wrote that he saw "nobility and grandeur" in Twyman's actions, likening him to the biblical good Samaritan.

"What gives it a quality of extra warmth," he wrote, "is the pigmentation of the two principals." Stokes was black, Twyman white.

John Kennedy Twyman, the son of a steel company foreman, was born in Pittsburgh on May 21, 1934, and grew up playing against Stokes in summer leagues. Twyman went to the University of Cincinnati and Stokes to St. Francis College (now University) in Loretto, Pa. Their teams met in the semifinals of the 1954 National Invitation Tournament, and Twyman outscored Stokes, 27-26.

"I never let him forget about that," Twyman told The Post.

Both were genuine stars. Stokes, at 6 feet 7 inches and 232 pounds, was the N.B.A. rookie of the year in 1956. The next year he set a league rebounding record, and he became a three-time All-Star. The Boston Celtics star Bob Cousy called him "the first great, athletic power forward."

Twyman was a skinny 6-6 forward who in 11 seasons with the Royals (now the Sacramento Kings) was a six-time All-Star.

He shot 45 percent over his career, and when he retired in 1966 he trailed only Chamberlain in points scored, with 15,840. In their record-setting season of averaging more than 30 points a game, Chamberlain edged Twyman, 32.1 to 31.2. Twyman's 59-point game came with the Royals against the Minneapolis Lakers on Jan. 15, 1960.

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