John Raymond Scott (born July 12, 1938) is an American former professional basketball player and coach. He played twelve seasons in professional basketball, ten in the National Basketball Association (NBA) with the Detroit Pistons and Baltimore Bullets, and two with the Virginia Squires of the American Basketball Association (ABA). After he retired from playing basketball, he was selected an assistant coach of the Pistons by Earl Lloyd. Seven games into the 1972–73 season, Lloyd was fired, and Scott was chosen to replace him as the head coach. In his first full season in 1973–74, the Pistons won 52 games that saw them reach the postseason for the first time in six years. He was named the NBA Coach of the Year, the first African-American to win the honor and the only one until 1991. The Pistons made the postseason two times in Scott's coaching career before he was fired 42 games into the 1975–76 season. He later coached at Eastern Michigan University from 1976 to 1979 before becoming an insurance executive for three decades.

Scott was born on July 12, 1938, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended West Philadelphia High School, where he excelled in basketball. He competed against future NBA Hall of Fame great Wilt Chamberlain, who was a year ahead of Scott at Philadelphia's Overbrook High School, also located in West Philadelphia. Like Chamberlain, he was hired as a teenager by Haskell Cohen to work and play basketball at Kutscher's Hotel, a resort located in the Catskill Mountains. At Kutscher's, Scott was also in close regular contact with Hall of Fame Boston Celtics' basketball coach Red Auerbach. He played basketball at Kutscher's under Auerbach's tutelage. Scott also played in summer basketball leagues in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

In Scott's opinion, NBA Hall of Fame center Bill Russell was the cornerstone of the Boston Celtics championship teams, and Wilt Chamberlain was the cornerstone of the NBA. Scott later said that Auerbach, Earl Lloyd, Red Holzman and Marty Blake were the four people most responsible for bringing black players into the NBA in significant numbers.

He played against Chamberlain three times during the 1954-55 season, West Philadelphia's only three losses that season. While Chamberlain scored at least 32 points in his games against Scott that season, Scott also scored over 20 points in each of those games.

In 1955, Overbrook and West Philadelphia High played in the Philadelphia Public League Championship Game at the Palestra before 8,500 people, with Overbrook and Chamberlain winning against Scott's Speedboys 78–60. Scott and West Philadelphia won the Public League championship the following season (1955-56) against Northeast High by the same score, with Scott scoring 22 points in the game, after averaging 31.7 points per game for the year. West Philadelphia came in second among all Philadelphia high schools that year in the city-wide high school basketball tournament. He was the Public League's top scorer and most valuable player; and was a unanimous All-State selection his senior year.

Scott finished high school in January 1957, and was pursued by colleges offering basketball scholarships. The Harlem Globetrotters had approached Scott in high school, but he had no interest in joining them. Knowing he needed to bolster his academic standing before entering college, he enrolled at New York City Junior College (NYCJC) in January 1957. He played in 10 games on the NYCJC basketball team, averaging 24 points per game; and led NYCJC to a conference championship, scoring 35 points in the championship game against Broome College of Binghampton, New York.

Scott next attended the University of Portland for one school year (1957-58), after receiving 75 scholarship offers coming out of high school. Friends of Portland head coach Al Negratti had interested Scott in coming to Portland, after his semester at NYCJC. Because he had played that one semester with NYCJC, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) ruled that Scott could not play for Portland's basketball team during his first semester at Portland (1957).

Once allowed to play, in February 1958 Scott scored 28 points in his first game, playing against Seattle University and its future Hall of Fame star player Elgin Baylor, who scored 60 points in that game. When asked if he considered Baylor the greatest player he had ever faced, Scott said Baylor was second to Chamberlain; but a close second. A few weeks later Scott scored 31 points in a game against Gonzaga, and held its 7 ft 3.25 in (2.22 m) center Jean Claude Lefebvre in check defensively, after Lefebvre had just scored 50 points in a game one week earlier. Unlike most big front court players, Scott had the agility, dribbling and movement skills of a guard, and a good jump shot from the outside. He had learned to play outside, away for the basket, from playing against Chamberlain.