Dolph Schayes, who polished his game on the Bronx playgrounds, played 15 seasons as a professional and was once voted one of the 50 best players to play in the National Basketball Association, died on Thursday in Syracuse. He was 87. His son Danny Schayes, who played 18 seasons in the N.B.A. as a 6-foot-11 center, said the cause was cancer. At 6 feet 8 inches and 220 pounds, Schayes played the position now known as power forward, becoming a stalwart for the Syracuse Nationals from 1949 to 1963 after earning all-American status at New York University. When the Nationals...