He is the only player to lead the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), ABA, and NBA in points per game in a season.

His wife, Lynn Norenberg Barry, was a star basketball player at the College of William & Mary, where she became the first female athlete to have her jersey number (22) retired.

As a fifth-grader, he played with the varsity basketball team, for which his father Aldo served as coach, however, baseball was his best sport and he was a fan of local New York Giants superstar Willie Mays, who wore jersey number 24.

[4] Barry fielded more than 30 scholarship offers before he chose the University of Miami, largely because the Hurricanes adhered to an up-tempo, pro-style system under head coach Bruce Hale that was conducive to his skills set and athleticism.

Nicknamed the "Miami Greyhound" by longtime San Francisco Bay Area broadcaster Bill King because of his long and slender physical build, whippet-like quickness, and remarkable instincts, the 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m) Barry won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 25.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per game in the 1965–66 season.

Along with All-Star center Nate Thurmond, Barry carried the Warriors to the 1967 NBA Finals, which they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in six highly competitive games, something that Russell and the Boston Celtics could not do in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

At odds with Warriors owner Franklin Mieuli over unpaid incentive monies due him, Barry moved to the ABA's Oakland Oaks (owned by singer Pat Boone), who overwhelmed him with a historic contract offer.

Prior to the 1968–69 season, they hired his former San Francisco Warriors coach Alex Hannum to replace Hale, who moved to a front office position.

In his ABA debut, he averaged a league-high 34.0 points per game and the Oaks became the first West Coast team to capture a league championship in professional basketball history.

Barry had his season come to an abrupt halt on December 27, 1968, when late in a game against the New York Nets, he was blindsided by Ken Wilburn on a drive to the basket and tore left knee ligaments on the play.

In the 1969 ABA Playoffs, the Oaks ousted the Denver Rockets in a seven-game series then swept the Buccaneers in the Western Division finals.

In lieu of a parade in downtown Oakland, a modest victory celebration was held at a restaurant in Jack London Square.

By that time, entertainer-business entrepreneur Pat Boone had become the majority team owner, and after more than $2 million in losses over two seasons, he wanted out of the basketball business.

In August 1968, the franchise was sold to a group headed by real estate attorney and former Baltimore Bullets owner Earl Foreman, who immediately moved it to Washington, D.C., even though there was no suitable arena in the vicinity at the time.

Featured on the August 24, 1970, cover of Sports Illustrated in a Squires jersey,[9] he indicated that he would not return to the NBA if the league paid him "a million dollars a year."

The negative comments were not the primary reason; rather, Squires owner Earl Foreman was mired in financial troubles and sold Barry to help meet expenses.

After the Squires dealt Barry to the New York Nets, he played in only 59 games in the 1970–71 season because of a knee injury but still made the ABA All Star team.

The 1971–72 Nets finished the season at 44–40, making the 1972 ABA Playoffs by claiming third place in the Eastern Division, 24 games behind the 68–16 Kentucky Colonels.

While his offensive forays were not as frequent as in the past, on March 26, 1974, he scored a career-high 64 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in a 143–120 win over the visiting Portland Trail Blazers.

In the playoffs, the upstart Warriors turned back the Seattle SuperSonics and Chicago Bulls to capture the Western Conference crown.

In the 1975 NBA Finals, the Warriors faced the Washington Bullets, who were led by future Hall of Famers Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld, winning the series in four games.

In the 1976–77 season, the Warriors won 46 games with Barry, Phil Smith, and Williams sharing the majority of the scoring and ball-handling responsibilities but were eliminated in the second round by the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Rockets signed him as a free agent in June 1978, and the league awarded veteran guard John Lucas to the Warriors as compensation.

On October 30, 1992, Barry accepted an offer to become the head coach for the Cedar Rapids Sharpshooters of the Global Basketball Association (GBA).

[16] On January 25, 1993, Barry was appointed as head coach for the Fort Wayne Fury of the Continental Basketball Association (CBA).

[18] Barry coached in the United States Basketball League (USBL) for the New Jersey ShoreCats in 1998 and 1999, and Florida Sea Dragons in 2000.

Barry continues to work in the field, a career that began with his own radio show in San Francisco and CBS while still an active player and then with TBS.

[24] The next year, Barry was featured in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article written by Tony Kornheiser in which he lamented the failure of his broadcasting career to that point, as well as the fact that he'd left a reputation within NBA circles for being an unlikeable person.

[32] With his third wife Lynn he also has a son, Canyon, who is a professional player, playing for Chinese club Hunan Jinjian Miye in the 2018–19 season and later for the United States 3x3 men's basketball team.

When his son Brent won the NBA Championship in 2005 with the San Antonio Spurs, Rick and Brent became the second father-son duo to both win NBA Championships as players, following Matt Guokas Sr. and Matt Guokas Jr. Later, this would be repeated by Bill and Luke Walton, Mychal and Klay Thompson, and Gary Payton and Gary Payton II.