Adolph Schayes (/ˈʃeɪz/ SHAYZ; May 19, 1928 – December 10, 2015) was an American professional basketball player and coach in the National Basketball Association (NBA). A top scorer and rebounder, he was a 12-time NBA All-Star and a 12-time All-NBA selection. Schayes won an NBA championship with the Syracuse Nationals in 1955. He was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History, and was also named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1973.

Schayes played his entire career with the Nationals and their successor, the Philadelphia 76ers, from 1948 to 1964. In his 16-year career, he led his team into the playoffs 15 times. After the Nationals moved to Philadelphia, Schayes became player-coach of the newly minted 76ers. He ended his playing career after the 1963–64 season and stayed on as coach for two more seasons, earning NBA Coach of the Year honors in 1966. He briefly coached with the Buffalo Braves.

Adolph Schayes was born on May 19, 1928, in the Bronx, New York City, the son of Tina (née Michel), a homemaker, and Carl Schayes, a truck driver for Consolidated Laundries. His parents were Romanian-Jewish immigrants. He grew up on Davidson Avenue and 183rd Street, near Jerome Avenue in University Heights, Bronx.

Schayes attended Creston Junior High School 79 and DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, where he excelled in basketball, playing for the basketball team and led it to a borough championship. At 6-foot-8, Dolph Schayes was agile and possessed great finesse around the basket. From 1944 to 1948, Schayes popularized the city game while starring under Hall of Fame coach Howard Cann at New York University

Schayes played his college basketball at New York University (NYU) in 1944–48. In 1945, as a 16-year-old freshman, Schayes helped NYU reach the NCAA final. Schayes earned an aeronautical engineering degree, was an All-American in basketball and won the Haggerty Award in his final year. His NYU coach, Howard Cann, said of him: "He was in the gym practicing every spare minute. We had to chase him out."

Schayes was drafted by both the New York Knicks in the 1948 BAA draft (1st round; 4th pick overall), and by the Tri-Cities Blackhawks in the NBL draft. The Blackhawks traded his rights to the Syracuse Nationals, who then offered him a contract worth $7,500 (worth $98,200 today), 50% more than the Knicks, influencing his decision to go to Syracuse. Schayes played one season in the NBL and was named the league's Rookie of the Year. The following season (1949–50), the Nationals moved to the newly formed National Basketball Association as part of the merger between the BAA and NBL.

Although tall for his era at 6 ft 8 in (203 cm), Schayes was especially known for his deadly, high-arcing, outside set-shot. It arced so high that his teammates came to call it the "Sputnik". Defenders who attempted to deny him the outside shot were confronted by his powerful drive to the basket. These two offensive weapons served him well, even as the NBA was transitioning from basketball's traditional set shot into a league of jump-shooters.^{[citation needed]}

Early in Schayes' career, he broke his right arm and played almost an entire season in a cast. Oddly, this injury became a seminal point in his development: he learned to shoot with his off-hand, making him especially difficult to guard. He was one of the best—and the last—to use a two-handed set-shot with feet planted on the floor, before the game changed to one-handed jump shots.