SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Meadowlark Lemon, the “clown prince” of the Harlem Globetrotters, whose blend of hook shots and humor brought joy to millions of basketball fans around the world, died Sunday. He was 83.

Though skilled enough to play professionally, Lemon instead wanted to entertain, his dream of playing for the Globetrotters hatched after watching a newsreel of the all-black team at a cinema house when he was 11.

Lemon ended up becoming arguably the team’s most popular player, a showman known as much for his confetti-in-the-water-bucket routine and slapstick comedy as his half-court hook shots and no-look, behind-the-back passes.

A sign of his crossover appeal, Lemon was inducted into both the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and the International Clown Hall of Fame.

“My destiny was to make people happy,” Lemon said as he was inducted into the basketball hall as a contributor to the game in 2003.

Lemon played for the Globetrotters during the team’s heyday from the mid-1950s to the late-1970s, delighting fans with his skills with a ball and a joke. Traveling by car, bus, train or plane nearly every night, Lemon covered nearly 4 million miles to play in over 100 countries and in front of popes and presidents, kings and queens. Known as the “Clown Prince of Basketball,” he averaged 325 games per year during his prime.

“Meadowlark was the most sensational, awesome, incredible basketball player I’ve ever seen,” NBA great and former Globetrotter Wilt Chamberlain once said. “People would say it would be Dr. J or even (Michael) Jordan. For me it would be Meadowlark Lemon.”

— From wire reports