Dave Bing
Mayor Dave Bing
70th Mayor of Detroit
Incumbent
Assumed office May 11, 2009
Preceded by	Kenneth Cockrel, Jr.
Personal details
Born	(1943-11-24) November 24, 1943 (age 68) Washington, D.C.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Yvette Bing
Alma mater	Syracuse University
Profession	Professional Athlete, Businessman, Politician
Religion	Baptist

David "Dave" Bing (born November 24, 1943) is the mayor of Detroit, Michigan, a businessman, and a retired American professional basketball player who played 12 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), primarily for the Detroit Pistons (1966–75). He was a seven-time All-Star. After retiring, he founded the Bing Group, which was one of the largest steel companies in Michigan.

His #21 was retired by the Detroit Pistons, and in 1996 he was named as one of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players of all time.

He was elected mayor of Detroit in a special election on May 5, 2009 and was sworn in on May 11, 2009.^[1] Bing won the full-term mayoral election on November 3, 2009, defeating challenger Tom Barrow.^[2]

Early life in DC[link]

Bing was born and raised in northeast Washington, D.C., as a son of a bricklayer. At age five, Bing accidentally poked his left eye with a nail of a wooden horse that he improvised. With the family unable to afford an eye operation, the eye healed on its own but left Bing with fuzzy vision since then.

Bing's basketball career began in 1959 at Spingarn High School in Washington D.C., where he played in the footsteps of the great Elgin Baylor who had set all the city scoring records playing there in 1954. At Spingarn, Bing played in 3 straight Interhigh championship games. In 1960 and 1961, he teamed up with the great Ollie Johnson, and Spingarn won easily over Dunbar (67-53) and Eastern (81-64). The Green Wave went on to defeat DeMatha 63-50 for the 61 City championship. Bing averaged 16.2 and 16.9 ppg in 1961 and 1962.

Bing was a three-year letter winner, all–Inter High, All-Metro, and All-East member. In 1962, Bing was in Parade magazine and made the All-American Team.

College[link]

Bing attended Syracuse University, where he was once roommates with Jim Boeheim.^[3] He led the Orangemen in scoring as a sophomore (22.2) in 1964, as a junior (23.2) in 1965, and as a senior (28.4) in 1966. During his senior year, Bing was fifth in the nation in scoring and was Syracuse's first consensus All-American in 39 years. He was also named to The Sporting News All-America First Team and was named Syracuse Athlete of the Year.

National Basketball Association (NBA)[link]

Bing's playing style was somewhat unusual for the time. As a lean, athletic and explosive point guard, he functioned as the playmaker distributing the ball, but also did more shooting and scoring than most others who had this position. At one time a joke about him and his backcourt partner, Jimmy Walker, was that it was a shame they could only play the game with one ball at a time.

In 1966, Bing joined the NBA as a second overall first-round pick of the Detroit Pistons, where in his rookie year he scored 1,601 points (20.0 points per game) and was named the NBA Rookie of the Year. The next year, he led the NBA in scoring with 2,142 points (27.1 points per game) in 1968. Bing sat out 2½ months of the 1971-72 season due to a detached retina incurred from a preseason game against the Los Angeles Lakers, playing in only 45 games that season.^[4] While with the Pistons, he played in seven NBA All-Star Games (1968, 1969, 1971–1976, and winning the 1976 NBA All-Star Game MVP Award) and was named to the All-NBA First Team twice in 1968 and 1969.