Yeah right? Buck Williams… that dude who played for the Blazers back in the day. Old dude, goggles? Yes… but no. Before that, Buck Williams was born Charles Linwood Williams, in North Carolina. ‘Buck’ was born into hard work. His mother was a worked in the cotton fields in Rocky Mount, North Carolina and would take Buck with her into the fields, keeping her baby son in the cotton bag whilst she picked.
Williams would go on to a stellar three year career with Maryland where he finished his third year with averages of 15.5ppg, and 11.7 rebs. Buck was selected at number 3 in the 1981 NBA Draft by the New Jersey Nets. At the time, he was the number one power forward in college and the only two players selected ahead of him were scoring machine Mark Aguirre & Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas. Also in that draft were Orlando Woolridge, Tom Chambers, Eddie Johnson, Rolando Blackman, Kelly Tripucka, Herb Williams, Frank Brickowski, Larry Nance and current Boston Celtics GM, Danny Ainge. Pretty good company to be in for and the 6-8 forward with the big smile showed why he belonged as he picked up NBA Rookie of the Year, All Rookie Team selection and averaged 15.5 points, 12.3 boards, a steal, a block and shot 58.2% from the field.
The 1980-81 New Jersey Nets won only 24 games but behind Buck Williams and new head coach Larry Brown, the Nets turned it around to 44-38 finish and made the playoffs in 1981-82. Buck was also named an All Star in 3 of his first 5 seasons. Buck new hard work, evident by his 12 rebounds a game he averaged in the first 6 seasons of his NBA career. As talented as Buck was, he only once led the Nets in scoring (18.3ppg in 1987-88) and never led the team in field goal attempts. Buck was the consummate team-mate, evident by his first NBA coach Larry Brown was saying ‘Buck doesn’t have a selfish bone in his body’.
Larry Brown would quit the Nets as head coach at the end of the 1982-83 season to take the head coaching job with the NCAA’s Kansas Jayhawks and this was the start of bad times in New Jersey. They would bottom out in 1987-88, winning only 19 games and 26 games the following year.
At the end of the 1988-89 season, the Nets traded Buck to the Portland Trailblazers for the questionable Sam Bowie. Williams would give the Blazers the front-court presence they never had to complement their established backcourt of Terry Porter and Clyde Drexler. In Buck’s first season, with all five starters (Williams, Drexler, Porter, Jerome Kersey & Kevin Duckworth) avering double figures, the Trailblazers went all the way to the NBA Finals but would lose to the Detroit Pistons four games to one. The Blazers would make the finals again in 1992 but were bested this time by Michael Jordan & the Chicago Bulls four games to two.
Buck rounded out his career with 12 points & 8 rebounds on 6/7 shooting against the Bulls. A typically efficent & solid game to cap off an impressive playing career that included All-Defensive team selections, an All-NBA selection. Williams also joins a select few of players whom have averaged a double-double.
Post-playing career, Buck had a construction company and more recently in July 2010, Williams was employed by the Portland Trailblazers to serve as assistant coach to Nate McMillan.
A great person, great player, great career, hard worker… and he’s still smiling.
The writers from 3MW are 30 years of age and under. We’ve grown up in the end of the Magic, Bird, Kareem, Isiah era, then through the era that gave us Michael Jordan, David Robinson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Scottie Pippen, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Reggie Miller and others. Then through Iverson, Shaq, KG, Kobe and now Durant, Lebron, Dirk, Dwayne Wade, Chris Paul….the list goes on forever. But you know us… we are sticklers for the game, we love the history. We love watching footage of All Star Games from the early 80s. We love finding old footage of Bill Russell muscling in the paint with Wilt Chamberlain. Highlights of early Dr J rocks our socks. The 1993 Finals between the Bulls & Suns would be one of our favourites of all time. We think Thurl Bailey was underrated. We know that Bob Cousy couldn’t make a jumper if his life depended on it. And we know who Andrew Toney is.
We accept that not everyone may have our passion and thirst for all things NBA…but there are certain things we cannot accept. One of the 3MW writers was talking basketball with a friend who was talking about guys who are amazing offensive players. Guys who you know would be cash on the playground. Where it doesn’t matter how hard you get hit, it’s clean until someone else says ‘foul’. Where the 3 point line doesn’t matter, where it’s all about your jumper, your high post, mid post, low post, strong moves to the basket and where you gotta be hungry. You gotta be hungry to go after someone again and again. We talked about the big time players like Kobe, Wade, Dirk and Durant. And other guys who have that killer instinct offensively and may not get as much love. Guys such as Nick Young, Manu Ginobili, Kevin Martin, Monta Ellis, Rudy Gay, LaMarcus Aldridge and Carmelo Anthony. This writer said that Melo was like that old school player who doesn’t take a lot of threes and can kill you in the mid-range, high post, mid post, low post, off the dribble, wherever…you’re in trouble. Like Bernard King. ‘Who?’ said friend asked. This is where we get mad. At risk of being unprofessional and offending people, we are going to give you the honest response during that conversation…
‘Motherf*cker, are you serious? How can you be into the NBA and NOT know who Bernard King is?’ And if you, our loyal readers just asked the same question…allow us to educate your dumb ass.
Bernard King just kept coming at you. He was fearless. He was unrelenting. He opitimsed hard work. He had his demons, his downfalls…but he worked through them and he just kept coming at you.
After starring at the University of Tennessee for 3 years, King finished with college averages of 25.8ppg and 13.2 rebounds. Pretty impressive numbers for a 6-7 small forward, wouldn’t you say? Drafted 7th overall in the 1977 NBA Draft by the Nets, King would storm through his rookie season dropping over 24 points a game. King would instantly be one of the best scorers in the game with his lightning quick release, deadly mid-range game and unstoppable baseline jumper. But after only two seasons in New Jersey, the Nets would tire of King’s off-court problems surrounding substance abuse and they traded him to the Utah Jazz.
Whilst King certainly had his off-court problems, the Utah franchise at the time was not the best place for him to be. King would be arrested numerous times early in the 1979-80 season. Five months later, King’s team-mate Terry Furlow died in a drug-related car accident. Two years later, old forward Bill Robinzine committed suicide followed by John Drew being placed in a rehab center because of drug use. Not a team for a guy like Bernard King who was struggling to stay straight. King would play only 19 games for the Jazz before they suspended him for the remainder of the 79-80 season following King’s arrest. Bernard was arrested regarding an allegation of sexual assault, but was convicted of a lesser offence.
The Jazz would trade King to the Golden State Warriors which was a positive step for Bernard. In 80-81, he averaged nearly 22 points a game after being away from the hardwood for almost a whole season. In Golden State, King would win the NBA’s Comeback Player of the Year in the 1980-81 season and was named an All Star in 1982. Bernard King just kept coming at you.
On October 22nd in 1982, the Golden State Warriors would trade the troubled King to the New York Knicks for the equally troubled Michael Ray Richardson. Richardson was a four-time All Star and still sits 2nd on the NBA’s all time steals per game list with a whopping 2.6 a game average. But he was no Bernard King! After the Knicks 50 win season in 1980-81, they would win only 33 in ’81-82 afterwhich Richardson made his famous statement, ”The ship be sinkin’.” Prior to the 1982-83 season, the Knicks traded Richardson to the Warriors for King. Richardson played 33 games for the Warriors before he was banned from the NBA for repeated drug offenses. What was a terrible trade for the Warriors, turned out to be fantastic for the New York as Bernard King was at his best while wearing a Knicks uniform.
The game against Dallas capped off back to back 50 point games for Bernard King (he’d scored 50 points the game prior against the San Antonio Spurs). A feat that no NBA player had achieved in more than 20 years at the time. King’s torching of the Mavs and Spurs would be nicknamed ‘The Texas Massacre’ but it was nothing compared to what King did against the Pistons in the first round of the 1984 Playoffs.
Following the highs, there were again the lows. King was tearing through the league again in the 84-85 season. He’d scored 60 points against his former team the Nets on Christmas Day, was leading the league with 32.9ppg and then on a patented King spin to the baseline… his knee popped and he crashed to the floor. His injury was so bad that his ACL had to be replaced with ligaments from his upper thigh. The injury would floor King physically and emotionally as he struggled with deep depression. He became a recluse and spent very little time with his team. King told Sports Illustrated at the time, “When I was injured, I felt I had to protect myself emotionally from the game, because I knew I would miss it if I could never play anymore. To protect myself I had to stay away. …so if I chose to make my workouts a private matter, I don’t see why people couldn’t just accept that.”
King missed the entire 1985-86 season and returned in the 1986-87 season to play only 6 games for the Knicks. Sadly, these would be his final games for the Knicks as New York didn’t renew offer King a contract extension and he signed with the Washington Bullets as a free agent. Bernard King kept coming at you though, he averaged 17, 20 and 23 points a game for the Bullets and worked his way back to being one of the games premier players. King’s game had evolved. The low-post game was gone, the skying for offensive rebounds a memory, the slashing baseline among the bigs…no more. Kings body now had limitations and his game had to change. Bernard was hitting face up jumpers, driving into the paint and facilitating the offense more.
In the 1990-91 season, King’s new game was good enough for a 28.4ppg average and a career high 4.6 assists a game. His scoring that season was second only to Michael Jordan and Karl Malone. He was back working towards his goal to play in an All-Star Game and proving that this old guy (he was 34 years of age) could get it done even without an anterior cruciate ligament. King had some huge games. He dropped 44 points in a win against the eventual champion Chicago Bulls, 46 against the Cavs, 49 in New York against his former team the Knicks and then backed that up a 44 point outing on his next visit back to Madison square garden. King would achieve his goal in becoming an All Star in 91, but would play only 64 games before injury levelled the King again.
But this was Bernard King. Two years away from the game… AGAIN. Extensive rehabilitation AGAIN. But all the road blocks, physical limitations and at 36 years of age… he kept coming. In February 1993, King would sign with the team who drafted him, the New Jersey Nets. King averaged 7.0 points a game coming off the bench and shot .514%. But the Nets would be swept in the first round of the playoffs with King playing very few minutes. Following New Jersey’s playoff exit, King’s lingering knee injuries forced him into retirement.
It’s this mans history that makes us upset there aren’t more basketball fans who really understand what a player he was. King was a tough, tough player out there. A career 22.5 points a game average (24th all time in the NBA) and you could argue that no other player in history has come back like King. Injuries, off-court problems, All Star, big games, ups, downs…Bernard King just kept coming at you.
Geoff Petrie. President of the Sacramento Kings? Yeah him. He balled. True. He played in the NBA. Not only did he play, he was good. Seriously good. We’re not talking Rick Carlisle good (Note – we love Coach Carlisle), we’re talking balling good.
Petrie was a three sport athlete during his days at Springfield High School in Pennsylvania. Plenty of talent, he was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to attend Princeton University where he averaged 18.3ppg in his Tiger career before entering the NBA.
Petrie was drafted eighth in 1970 by the expansion Trail Blazers and signed to a three-year, $150,000 contract. He averaged 24.8 points an outing and was co-Rookie of the Year with Dave Cowens. Petrie was a long-range bomber before the league had long-range bombers. With range out past the three point line (a line that didn’t exist at the time), Petrie was a two time All Star and twice dropped more than 50 points in an NBA game. If you ask anyone who had to guard Petrie back in the day they will all say the same thing… that he was a killer. If not for injuries, he would have been one of the greatest of all time. Furthermore, he was the first NBA player to ditch his Converse & Adidas for a pair of Nikes.
It was late in the fall of 1971 when Petrie started to be grounded… “Tore my ACL in my left knee, never was the same,” according to Petrie. “It really got to me later in my basketball career, because the surgery to repair such an injury was very experimental at the time.”
As the years went on, Petrie’s knee became worse and his game had to change. ”I was taking a lot of anti-inflammatories and having the occasional injections,” Petrie said. “The cutting, the jumping, the planting, I couldn’t do it …what happens is you start to play around with things. By my sixth year, I was really struggling.” In the 1975-76 season, Petrie averaged 18.9ppg (struggling?) and at the close of the season he was traded to the Atlanta Hawks. Petrie never suited up for the Hawks, and instead retired from the NBA.
Over the next several years, watching basketball was tough on Petrie. He dabbled in real estate, managed the office of the Trail Blazers’ team doctor and took over the basketball team at Willamette College in ’83-84 when the coach went on sabbatical. “I missed my prime, and there were times when I thought, This just isn’t right,” says Petrie. He’s asked how good he could have been with a healthy left knee. “That’s not for me to judge, I guess. I was frustrated and was not prepared to stop playing at age 28. It was a difficult time, but the flip side is that I got to start for six years and play a lot when I was healthy. I wish we could have had a little more team success, but I had some individual success. Some of my knee injuries probably went all the way back to 9th grade football. I moved on but would not trade those six years for anything.”
What’s Geoff Petrie’s life now? He’s the President of Basketball Operations for the Sacramento King. Yeah the Kings are in a rebuilding process at the moment but let’s not forget that under Petrie, the Kings have drafted Peja Stojakovic, Jason Williams, Gerald Wallace, Hedo Turkoglu, Kevin Martin, Spencer Hawes, Jason Thompson, Tyreke Evans and Demarcus Cousins. He engineered the Mitch Richmond for Chris Webber trade bringing C-Webb to Sac-town, then two years later traded the overrated Jason Williams to the Grizzlies for Mike Bibby. In a few short years, Petrie turned around a franchise with a 27-55 record to a powerhouse that won an average of 56 games a season from 2001 to 2005. Petrie won the NBA’s Executive of the Year Award in 1999 an 2000 and perhaps may have earned the Kings a ring if not for a team called the Lakers and a guy named Tim.
These are probably things you know about Petrie’s career in the front office of Kings. But we bet you didn’t know he once was one of the NBA’s best, an NBA Rookie of the Year, dropped 50 points in a game and was one of the few powerhouse players to come out of the NCAA’s Ivy League? Now you know…
Charlie Scott. The New York playground legend was possibly the greatest to ever come out of Rucker Park. Once credited by Tiny Archibald with ‘inventing the crossover’, Scott was a baller’s baller. “You’d always think, one day I’d like to be out there and be able to be in that position to play in front of a packed house. Rucker Park, to me at that time, it was everything in basketball.”
The flashy 6-6 guard would join the North Carolina Tar Heels in 1966. He was the first African-American baller to play for North Carolina and the first to ever receive an athletic scholarship in the NCAA. Under Dean Smith, Charlie would average 22.1ppg & 7.1rebs and made three consecutive Final Four appearances.
But whilst today we embrace the steps that Charlie made as a pioneering black athlete back in the mid-60′s… it was a tough road. In an interview in 2001, Scott said ‘At that time, no matter how comfortable I felt with my teammates, they still had to deal with the fact that they never had been around black people, either. I still couldn’t go anywhere with their friends because their friends were still brought up in a South that was very separate…There was a lot of loneliness on my part and a lot of times I questioned myself why I was here.’ But even though a difficult time in his life, Scott still can’t help but see humour and positives, joking that black college basketball fans back then ‘had only one person to cheer for when they turned on the television.’ But Scott also had the support of his team-mates and his coaches. Especially Coach Dean Smith. Coach Smith was years ahead of his time and believed that race was no factor in basketball and treated life the same. Scott would later say ‘Dean Smith is the only father I ever had.’
During his four year career at UNC, Scott was also a gold medalist at the Olympics. In 1968, Scott would team up with Jo Jo White and a 19 year old Spencer Haywood to lead Team USA to a perfect 9-0 record and Olympic gold. Scott was the fourth leading scorer on that USA team, averaging 8.0ppg.
He’d already achieved more than most who come out of Rucker Park. He’d paved the way for black athletes, won Olympic gold, 4 years of college…but Scott wasn’t done. In 1970, Scott was drafted 106th overall by the Boston Celtics for his entry to the NBA. At the time the Celtics featured John Havlicek, Jo Jo White, Don Nelson, Don Chaney, Dave Cowens and a series of other veterans. Scott felt that an already stacked team wasn’t the best option for him to further develop his craft and he joined the Virginia Squires in the ABA. Surely part of the appeal too must have been UNC Alums Doug Moe, Larry Brown and Bill Bunting who were suiting up for the Squires at the time.
Charlie would average 27.1 point an outing and captured the ABA’s Rookie of the Year award. In his second season, Scott would be a part of one of the most exciting duos in NBA history as the Squire’s would acquire Dr J, Julius Erving prior to the 1971-72 season. Scott would average an ABA record 34.6ppg and Erving an impressive 27.3ppg in his rookie campaign. The Squires were exciting, but not winning. They would barely break .500, Scott was dissatisfied with ABA-life and took his talents (see what we did there?) to the NBA. By this time the Celtics had traded his rights to the Phoenix Suns for Paul Silas.
In his three years in Phoenix, Scott never averaged less than 24 points a game and represented the Suns at three consecutive All Star Games. But even though Scott achieved individual success in Phoenix, the team was never a contender and didn’t make the playoffs in those three seasons. Prior to the 1975-76 season, Charlie would be acquired by the team who drafted him, the Boston Celtics. Phoenix would receive Paul Westphal and draft picks in exchange for Scott. Then in some strange twist of fate, with Cowens, Havlicek, Paul Silas, Charlie Scott and his team USA team-mate Jo Jo White would carry the Celtics to the finals in a matchup with the Paul Westphal-led Phoenix Suns. Scott would drop 25 points in the deciding game 6 to go along with 11 rebounds and 5 steals.
Scott was traded to the Lakers 31 games into the 1977-78 season and at the end of that season he was traded to the Denver Nuggets where he played the final two years of his career before his retirement in 1980. Even though he played just 156 games of his 10 year career with the Celtics, it’s Boston where his heart is. ‘We shared a lot of things together as a team. I just enjoyed my whole time there. The friendships mean more than anything. To this day I remain close to Jo Jo. We get together as often as possible and talk on the phone all the time. And that just goes back to the Tar Heels and the Celtics being like family. Once you play for those organizations you become a part of the family, and that’s the way it will always be.’
After his playing career, he worked as the director of sports marketing at Champion, the sports apparel manufacturer, from 1990 to ’97 and then as the executive vice president of CTS, a telemarketing firm. In 2001, Charlie was hired by UNC-Alum Michael Jordan as a special assistant & consultant for the Washington Wizards. Scott now works for Russell Athletics in a consulting position in between being supportive of his son’s Shaun and Shannon. Older son Shannon was recently a McDonald’s All American and has been recruited by Ohio State.
When we started writing this story, we had no idea the journey that Charlie Scott had taken in his basketball career.
Charlie Scott. Now go watch that game 6 of the 1976 Finals.
Andrew Toney was born in 1957, in Birmingham, Alabama. Toney did his full four years at Southwestern Louisiana University where he averaged 23.6ppg over his college career. He then was drafted 8th overall in the first round by the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1980 NBA Draft.
Now, you’re still most likely saying to yourself ‘Nope, I got nothing. No idea who you are talking about.’ Well, that’s why we are telling this story. Andrew Toney was the high-scoring, big-shot-taking shooting guard BEFORE anyone you’ve heard of. At 6-3 and 178 pounds, he was undersized at all times…but he was hurting teams in the playoffs before MJ, he was the Answer before Allen Iverson, he was the Hibachi before Gilbert Arenas, and he tore the hearts of the Boston Celtics out long before Kobe Bryant. The latter is the reason why we know him as ‘The Boston Strangler’. And not to mention, Toney did all of that whilst being on Philadelphia teams crowded with talent such as Julius Erving, Maurice Cheeks, Bobby Jones, Moses Malone, Darryl Dawkins and later on Charles Barkley. Check it out….
Toney killed the D with a combination of long and mid-range jumpers, slashing drives to the basket and surprisingly for a dude who was only 6-3, he had a phenomenal post game. Charles Barkley said in his book “Outrageous” that “Toney was amazingly strong, he and Moses were the only ones that could post me up!” Charles continued, “I thought he was the best player on the team when I got here. We had Bobby Jones, Moses Malone and Julius Erving but the only one I was in awe of was Andrew.”
You’re probably still asking why he’s known as the Boston Strangler? In the 1981-82 season, the Sixers were led by the masterful Dr J to a 58 win season and into the Eastern Conference Finals with the then NBA Champion Boston Celtics. That’s where it stopped being about the Doctor. Toney averaged 29 points a game in that series (up from his season average of 16.5ppg), and after the Sixers had squandered a 3-1 series lead, they were back to the Boston Garden for game 7 with the Celtics. Andrew Toney, The Boston Strangler, poured in 34 points against the champs and Philly dispatched the C’s 120-106, pushing them into an NBA Finals and giving Toney his infamous nickname of the Boston Strangler.
More than ten years later, Larry Bird was asked if he remembered Andrew Toney: “Do I remember Andrew Toney? The Boston Strangler? Yeah. I remember him. I wish we had him. He was a killer. We called him the Boston Strangler because every time he got a hold of the ball we knew he was going to score. He was the absolute best I’ve ever seen at shooting the ball at crucial times. We had nobody who could come close to stopping him. Nobody.”
In the season following (1982-83), the Sixers would acquire Moses Malone, post a 65-17 season record and return to the NBA Finals for a rematch with the Los Angeles Lakers. The result would be far different this time as the Sixers swept the Lakers 4-0 for their first and only NBA Championship.
Unfortunately for Andrew Toney, despite all the highlights, the champhionship ring and the big-game performances…he was also human. After posting a career-best of 20.4ppg in the 83-84 season and then 17.8ppg in 84-85, Toney would play only three games of the 85-86 season before undergoing surgery for bone spurs on his ankle and stress fractures in both feet. He returned in the February, but played only another 3 games before sitting out the rest of the season and posting a career-worst 4.2ppg for his 6 games played in ’86.
Toney would return and play with the Sixers in 86-87 (52 games) & 87-88 (29 games), but the injuries had taken such a severe toll on his body and his game that he’d never be at the same level again and he retired following the 1988 season.
In Andrew Toney’s 8 seasons in the NBA he was a two-time All Star Selection, won an NBA Championship ring, finished with career averages of 15.6ppg, 4.2 assists per game and 50% FG shooting…oh yeah, and sparked one of the most famous playoff series in NBA History were he led the Sixers to a de-throning of the then NBA Champ Celtics and earned himself the nickname ‘The Boston Strangler’.
