Pat Williams, Charismatic N.B.A. Executive, Is Dead at 84

Pat Williams, who for 51 years was a charismatic executive with National Basketball Association teams in Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Orlando, Fla., and who was also a prolific author and motivational speaker, died on Wednesday in Orlando. He was 84.

The Orlando Magic, which he helped found and where he spent more than 30 years of his career, said the cause of his death, in a hospital, was complications of viral pneumonia. Mr. Williams was also diagnosed in 2011 with multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells.

Known for his unorthodox marketing practices, Mr. Williams was sometimes called the P.T. Barnum of professional basketball. He began his front-office career not in the N.B.A. but in baseball’s minor leagues. He considered himself a protégé of Bill Veeck, the maverick owner of the Cleveland Indians, the St. Louis Browns and the Chicago White Sox.

Having read Mr. Veeck’s 1962 autobiography, “Veeck as in Wreck,” Mr. Williams sought a meeting with him while he was with the minor league Miami Marlins, where he had been named business manager after two seasons as a catcher.

Bill Durney, Miami’s general manager, had worked for Mr. Veeck in St. Louis, where in 1951 the team sent Eddie Gaedel, who at 3 feet 7 inches was the smallest player ever to hit in a major league game, to the plate for one celebrated at-bat. (He walked.)

“I had devoured Veeck’s book and then, with Bill Durney connecting us, built a relationship with him for almost 25 years,” Mr. Williams said in an interview for this obituary in 2022. “He convinced me that you can’t guarantee wins, but you can guarantee fun.”