Michael Sweetney, a Georgetown standout who went ninth in the 2003 NBA draft, spent four seasons in the league and then played professionally on four continents for the decade that followed. He died on Wednesday, September 16, 2026, at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark, N.J., at 43.
His wife, India Murray Sweetney, announced his death in a Facebook post on September 17. “With the heaviest hearts, we are deeply saddened to announce the passing of our beloved Michael,” she wrote. “To know Mike Sweetney was to [love] him. No one loved him more and he loved no one more than his family.”
“His children were the light of his life, and he lived every day to give them the best life possible,” she continued. “He’s been my best friend for 30 years and my husband for almost 20. I’m not sure what we or I will do without him.” She called him “the best son, brother, family member, friend, father and husband ANYONE could ask for.”
From Hoyas Standout to the Ninth Pick
A Washington, D.C., kid, Sweetney crossed into Maryland for high school at Oxon Hill and then stayed home for his college basketball. He averaged 18.2 points across three years with the Hoyas and shot close to 55 percent, closing with a double-double in each of his final two seasons. The first of those campaigns brought 19 points and 10 rebounds a night in 2001-02; the second delivered 22.8 points and 10.4 rebounds in 2002-03. His junior year brought Associated Press honorable mention All-American recognition and a spot among the finalists for the Naismith award.
His numbers still sit among Georgetown’s career leaders: 1,750 points, 887 rebounds and 180 blocks.
New York drafted him ninth overall in 2003, ending his college career after that junior season. A power forward and center, Sweetney wore a Knicks uniform from 2003 to 2005, and a move to the Bulls followed, with his NBA run ending in 2007. He averaged 6.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 15.5 minutes over 233 games, 73 of them starts.
Weight problems dogged him throughout his NBA career. In his second Knicks season he put up 8.4 points and 5.4 rebounds per game, and that offseason the team traded him to Chicago in the deal that brought Eddy Curry and Antonio Davis to New York.
A Decade of Basketball Beyond the NBA
Leaving the league ended only the most visible part of his playing days. He signed in China with the Shaanxi Kylins and put in a stretch with the Erie BayHawks in the NBA’s development league. The winter and summer leagues of Latin America then took up years of his career: Cangrejeros de Santurce, Vaqueros de Bayamón and Brujos de Guayama in Puerto Rico, Metros de Santiago in the Dominican Republic, Guaiqueríes de Margarita in Venezuela, Club Atlético Atenas in Argentina, and Club Biguá and Urunday Universitario in Uruguay all listed him. A roster still carried his name in 2017, 14 years after the draft.
He moved to coaching in 2019, taking an assistant job at Yeshiva University, a Division III program in New York, where he stayed from 2019 to 2023, and also taking over the girls’ varsity team at the Ramaz School. “The world lost a giant today,” Elliot Steinmetz, the Yeshiva head coach, wrote in a post on X. A close friend was gone, the basketball world had lost a beloved star and the Jewish community had lost an ally, Steinmetz said, adding that Sweetney was family who turned up whenever he was needed, without ever being asked.
Tributes on social media came from the Knicks, the Bulls and Georgetown, with the two NBA clubs posting on September 17. Saddened by the news, the Knicks called him a person who would be missed by many, while the Bulls extended condolences to the family and friends of their former player.
Candid About His Rookie Struggles
Depression was the subject Sweetney took up openly with HoopsHype in a 2017 interview, describing the toll it took on him as a young NBA player. His father had attended every one of his Georgetown games and died early in his pro career. He had gone from college star with his dad in the stands to a player grieving that loss while barely seeing the floor, Sweetney said. His coach, he recalled, told him plainly that he would not play him.
With the media writing about his struggles, he said, he felt he had nowhere to turn. “I just kept digging myself into a deeper hole of depression,” he said. He told HoopsHype that he eventually recognized he had to climb out of it, a slow process that leaned heavily on family and friends who had his back through the worst stretches. A generation of basketball fans came to know him beyond the box score partly because he was willing to talk that openly about his darkest days.
Back in the Knicks Family
He never drifted far from the franchise that drafted him. In June 2026, Sweetney spoke with New York Post reporter Stefan Bondy about overcoming past struggles with anxiety and mental health, and said the Knicks had invited him to three games during the past season, when the team was pursuing its first championship in 53 years. “It means a lot,” Sweetney told the Post. He added, “I didn’t have the career I could have had. But for them to have me back and welcome me with open arms.” He had relocated to New Jersey five years earlier.
A cause of death has not been shared. India Sweetney wrote in her post: “We appreciate every call and text of love and support. We just ask that right now you give us all a little time before you start to reach out because it’s been pretty overwhelming. Thank you and God bless.”
She has also launched a GoFundMe campaign with a $10,000 goal, attaching a brief message that read, “God Bless and thank you.”
