Ranking All 363 Teams in Men’s College Basketball
NBA Birthdays: Players Born On Oct. 19
Brad Daugherty has a stellar career with the the Cleveland Cavaliers from 1986 to 1994.
With over 5,000 players in NBA history, at least one player was born on every day of the calendar year – including three leap-day ballers. Our day-by-day breakdown of the players born on each day of the year continues.
Below are the most notable NBA players born on October 19:
Brad Daugherty (1965)Daughterty was the top pick in the 1986 NBA Draft out of North Carolina, and he carved out an amazing career before some injuries shortened what could have been a Hall-of-Fame run. The big man was selected by the Cleveland Cavaliers and he made five All-Star teams through his first seven seasons in the league. The eighth year is when things fell apart because Daugherty was suffering from a debilitating back issue. That limited him to 50 games, and he could never take the court after that, eventually retiring in 1996. It was a sad development for the 7-foot center, averaging 19 points, 9.5 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 0.8 steals and 0.7 blocks on 53 percent shooting throughout his career. He also received MVP votes in three separate seasons and would have been on the Hall-of-Fame trajectory if it weren't for that back problem.
Lionel Hollins (1953)Hollins is more well-known for being a head coach these days, but this guy was a baller in the 70s and 80s. This guard was the sixth overall pick in the 1975 NBA Draft, being selected by the Portland Trail Blazers. He finished fourth in Rookie of the Year voting and made his only All-Star appearance in his third season. While he only spent five years with the Blazers, he averaged 13.9 points, 2.6 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 1.9 steals in Portland. That was the best stretch of his career, spending time with the San Diego Clippers, Philadelphia 76ers, Detroit Pistons and Houston Rockets after that. He retired in the 1985 season and won a title with Portland in 1977. He was a head coach for over a decade and is now an assistant with the Rockets.
Want to see every NBA player born on October 19? Here is the rest of the list in chronological order:
Arvydas Sabonis: Where Is The Former NBA Athlete Now?
Arvydas Romas Sabonis was born on December 19, 1964, in the Kaunas area of the Lithuanian SSR, Soviet Union, from where he gradually changed the trajectory of his entire family. It was by chance that he developed a passion for basketball at age 13, but his ensuing efforts to hone his skills were deliberate and he did so to such an extent he was in the national team by 15. Therefore, with his representation of the nation as well as his overall standing, he was excused from mandatory military service in exchange for enrolling at the Lithuanian University of Agriculture in Kaunas.
In the ensuing years, Arvydas managed to make such a name for himself that he was being brought up alongside legends, leading the Portland Trail Blazers to select him in the first round of the 1986 NBA draft. However, they couldn't immediately get him owing to his prior commitments to professional clubs Žalgiris and the 1988 Summer Olympics in South Korea for the Soviet Union. He then joined the Spanish Liga ACB club, Fórum Valladolid, won a bronze at the 1992 Olympics for his homeland, transferred to fellow Spanish club Real Madrid, and represented Lithuania in the 1996 Olympics.
Arvydas Sabonis' NBA Career Was One for the BooksDespite having been selected by the Portland Trail Blazers as their 24th overall pick of the 1986 NBA draft following a voided draft by the Atlanta Hawks a year prior owing to age issues, he didn't make his NBA debut until 1994-1995. At the unprecedented age of 30 in his rookie year, he then broke all bounds by playing so well that he was selected to the All-Rookie First Team and was runner-up in both Rookie of the Year and Sixth Man of the Year through voting. He did subsequently have a few ups and downs owing to injury and having to be away from family, but his passion for the game never wavered.
Thus, it comes as no surprise that Arvydas gradually became not just a critic but also a fan favorite, which is why his decision that the 2002-2003 season would be his last in the NBA hurt several fans. He played a total of 521 matches – 470 regular games plus 51 playoffs – with his rebound average being 7.3, assists being an average of 2, and average points being 12. He then played another season back in Europe for Žalgiris in the 2003-04 season, only to officially retire from the sport in every way, shape, and form in 2005.
Arvydas Sabonis is Now Leading a Comfortable Life With His FamilyOwing to everything Arvydas Sabonis has done for the sport of basketball and his achievements in the same, he was inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2010 and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011. That same year, he was also appointed President of the Lithuanian Basketball Federation, a position he has consistently served since then, barring a brief period in the summer of 2013.
As for his personal standing, it appears as if Arvydas is currently leading his best life as a basketball executive and a basketball fan, especially thanks to his son Domantas, who is now in the NBA. Individually, though, he has been living in the coastal city of Málaga, Spain, since his retirement, where he is surrounded by his wife, Lithuanian fashion model, movie actress, and former pageant queen Ingrida Mikelionytė, and their brood. They have a daughter named Aušrinė and three sons, Žygimantas, Tautvydas, and Domantas, all of whom now seem to have families of their own, too, with the matriarch and patriarch doing their best to support them. We should mention that while Tautvydas is a professional basketball coach at the moment, Žygimantas and Aušrinė prefer to keep their lives well away from the limelight.
Read More: Bronny James: Where is LeBron James' Son Now?
Tanking, Four-pointers, Pitino: Teaching Young Celtics Fans About The Bad Old Days
Too young to recall the glory days of the 1980s and an adult by the time the team recaptured its elite status, I am part of the Forgotten Generation of Celtics Youth. And I feel a sense of duty to educate today's younguns about an era of basketball that's been swept under the parquet.
To those youngsters: The time of which I speak was one completely unlike any you've experienced. If you gained basketball consciousness around 2008, when the Big 3 of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen led the team to Banner 17, our Celtics have always been fat and happy. They have either been in the hunt for a championship or duping some team out of a Stop & Shop cart full of draft picks.
You know not the pain of being mocked for wearing a Dino Radja jersey; the desperation of hoping Todd Day would get hot in the fourth; or the anguish of watching the coach lift the starters with the team ahead, knowing a win would hurt efforts to tank the season in pursuit of a high draft pick.
The era was shaped by two tragedies: the untimely 1986 death of Len Bias, the University of Maryland standout the Celtics had just drafted; and, in 1993, the passing of Reggie Lewis, the budding star and team captain. Any franchise would have been shaken to its core.
But there's nothing in the rulebook that says an organization must react to adversity with the same precision as the Big Dig. The Celtics of my youth bore no resemblance to the franchise that confidently built the '08 squad, and in 2013 flipped Pierce and Garnett to the Nets for a boatload of picks. (Two of those picks became, you guessed it, Brown and Tatum.)
Nope. In my day, we watched M.L. Carr's soul leave his body at the 1997 draft lottery when the Celtics missed out on the No. 1 pick — and the chance to draft coveted Wake Forest big man Tim Duncan (not to mention years of "Duncan Donuts" ads).
In my day, we didn't do things like trade down from the first overall pick in the draft and then select Tatum, who could become the greatest scorer in team history, to nab yet another future pick. Rather, we passed on Kobe Bryant and took Antoine Walker — a forward who said he shot so many three-pointers because there were no four-pointers.
We didn't do things like wait patiently as Kristaps Porzingis rehabbed from an injury amid a gutsy title run. We watched Pervis Ellison miss an entire season with a fractured toe after a marble tabletop fell on it.
We didn't have poised leaders like Brad Stevens or Joe Mazzulla. We had Rick Pitino. There's a reason saying the very word "Pitino" gets you grounded, Celtics Youth. Legend has it that if you say "Pitino" three times, he appears out of nowhere and trades a future Hall of Famer like Chauncey Billups. Rick's Reign of Terror should be taught at the elementary school level throughout New England, with students required to pen an essay on his infamous "not walking through that door" tirade.
We did not have a cushy, trendy T stop underneath North Station. We had an outdoor, elevated platform where the wind chilled us to the bone. And we liked it! Because for us Celtics fans, that was the only way to truly feel alive.
Suffocating from the struggles of our beloved green giants, we looked elsewhere for our jollies. We lived vicariously through the Patriots winning their first Super Bowl. And I suppose their diehards shot the same side-eye I've given you, as I hadn't been there cheering through the relocation rumors or that dismal 1-15 season.
It was similar in 2004, when the Red Sox broke The Curse. My grandmother did a double-take when hearing me talk about "how long" I had waited for that moment in the same breath as complaining about the Wi-Fi. But still, she should have been happy we didn't have to suffer like she did. Right?
Now that I think about it, maybe it's not such a bad thing to go through childhood without having to grapple with tanking terrors, draft debacles, or Pitino rants. After all, you can't help having been born into an embarrassment of sports riches. And like my grandmother in 2004, perhaps I should be grateful that all that suffering made victory that much sweeter. How grand it was to trade in that 1990s clown car for Duck Boats in '08 and '24.
So perhaps I'll hold my nose and shut my mouth next time a wee Green Teamer bemoans a three-game losing streak, or a stretch when Jayson and Jaylen average "only" 45 points between them. I'll just shake my head and laugh at the Bad Old Days. And as much as our perspectives may differ, there remains one truth that we mutually hold true: It's sure fun watching the '20s Lakers become the new '90s Celtics.
Jon Rineman is the author of the Celtics humor novel The Garden's Always Greener. Send comments to magazine@globe.Com.
Comments
Post a Comment