David Robinson (basketball)
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| Position | Center |
|---|---|
| Nickname | The Admiral |
| Height | 7 ft 1 in (2.16 m) |
| Weight | 250 lb (114 kg) |
| Nationality |  United States |
| Born | August 6, 1965 (age 41) Key West, Florida |
| College | Navy |
| Draft | 1st overall, 1987 San Antonio Spurs |
| Pro career | 1989–2003 |
| Former teams | San Antonio Spurs |
| Awards | NBA MVP(1995) NBA Defensive Player of the Year (1992) |
| Olympic medal record | |||
| Men's Basketball | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Bronze | 1988 Seoul | United States | |
| Gold | 1992 Barcelona | United States | |
| Gold | 1996 Atlanta | United States | |
David Maurice Robinson (born August 6, 1965 in Key West, Florida) is a former NBA basketball player, who is often considered one of the greatest centers to ever play the game. A born-again Christian, Robinson is also an amateur musician who enjoys playing various instruments at home. His nicknames include "The Admiral", based on his service as an officer in the United States Navy. Robinson is now on staff at the Oak Hills Church in San Antonio.
When Robinson was young, his family moved many times, as his father was a Navy officer. After his father retired from the Navy, the family settled in Woodbridge, Virginia, where he attended Osbourn Park High School and played just one year of high school basketball. Robinson scored a 1320 on the SAT, and enrolled in the U.S. Naval Academy, where he majored in mathematics.
At the Naval Academy, Robinson was an outstanding all-around athlete and chess player; during the physical tests that the Academy gives all incoming plebes he scored higher in gymnastics than anyone in his class, excluding only those plebes slated for the gymnastics team. This was even more impressive due to his height: 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m) at the time. To put this in perspective, virtually all male gymnasts are well under 6 ft (1.83 m) tall, and the service academies prohibit enrollment to anyone taller than 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m). However, the academies do not drop students who grow past this height limit after enrolling, which later benefited Robinson.
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[edit] College basketball career
He played NCAA basketball at the Naval Academy, choosing jersey number 50 after his idol Ralph Sampson. He was a math major. By the time he took the court in his first basketball game for Navy, he had grown to 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m), and over the course of his college basketball career, he grew to 7 ft 1 in (2.16 m). In his final two years, he was a consensus All-American, and won college basketball's two most prestigious player awards, the Naismith and Wooden Awards, as a Naval Academy first classman (senior). Upon graduation, he became eligible for the 1987 NBA Draft and was selected by the San Antonio Spurs with the first overall pick; however, the Spurs had to wait two years before he could join them because he needed to fulfill two years of Navy duty.
In a mildly controversial, yet understandable move, the Navy excused him from three years of the normal five years of his military commitment following graduation from the Naval Academy because his height prohibited his deployment in many roles (e.g. aviation, the submarine corps, and many ships). Nonetheless, Robinson continued to serve in a reserve role with the Navy and was regularly featured in recruiting materials for the service. Despite the nickname "Admiral", Robinson's actual rank upon fulfilling his service commitment was Lieutenant, Junior Grade. [1]
[edit] NBA career
Finally, Robinson joined the Spurs for the 1989-90 season, and he helped the team produce the second greatest single season turnaround in NBA history[2] (the Spurs also hold the record for greatest turnaround, in 1997-8, after drafting Tim Duncan). The Spurs went from 21-61 in the 1988-89 NBA season to 56-26 in 1989-90, for a remarkable 35 game improvement. They advanced to the second round of the Western Conference playoffs where they lost in seven games to the eventual western conference champions, the Portland Trail Blazers. Following the 1989-90 season, he was named the NBA rookie of the year, and subsequently SEGA produced a game featuring him entitled David Robinson's Supreme Court.
In the succeeding years, the Spurs kept making the NBA playoffs, but not winning the championship. Robinson also made the 1992 US Olympic Dream Team that won the gold medal in Barcelona. During the 1993-94 season, he became locked in a duel for scoring champion with Shaquille O'Neal, and by the last game of the season, he scored 71 points against the Los Angeles Clippers to win it.[1]
Robinson went on to win the MVP trophy in 1995, and in 1996 he was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. Still, from 1991 to 1998, the Chicago Bulls and the Houston Rockets thwarted Robinson's quest to claim the NBA championship that he desired so much to win. The losses against the Rockets were particularly painful for Robinson, because during these games the Rockets' center, his rival Hakeem Olajuwon, outscored him. Robinson's NBA title dreams seemed to vanish when he was seriously injured in 1997, and the Spurs subsequently fell to a dismal 20–62 record. However, his injury proved to be a blessing in disguise: due to their dismal season record in 1997, the Spurs enjoyed the first pick in the next year's college draft, and with it they selected Tim Duncan, who would become in subsequent years the final key to their quest for an NBA title.
[edit] Champion
Before the start of the 1998-99 season, the NBA owners and the NBA commissioner David Stern locked out the NBA Players' Association to force negotiation on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. This lockout lasted for 202 days, well into the regular NBA season, until finally an agreement was reached. Thus, the NBA season began late on February 5, 1999, making it literally the 1999 NBA season. After playing a truncated 50-game season, the Spurs finished with an NBA-best record of 37–13, giving them the home-court advantage throughout the playoffs.
The Spurs blitzed through the first three rounds of the NBA playoffs, beating the Minnesota Timberwolves, Los Angeles Lakers, and Portland Trail Blazers by a combined record of 11–1. In the NBA finals, the combination of Robinson in the post and second-year, 6 ft 11 in (2.11 m) forward Tim Duncan proved overpowering, and the Spurs beat the New York Knicks in five games to become the NBA champions. Although Duncan was named the Finals MVP, many credited Robinson's leadership as the essential component in the Spurs' championship run.
[edit] Champion again
Robinson announced he would retire from basketball after the 2003 campaign.
On June 15, 2003, in a fitting finale to Robinson's career, the Spurs sealed another NBA title with an 88–77 victory over the New Jersey Nets in Game Six of the 2003 NBA Finals. The ever-modest Robinson, who scored 13 points and grabbed 17 rebounds in his final game, credited God for the win. And fittingly, he and the year's MVP Tim Duncan—together known as the "Twin Towers" —shared Sports Illustrated magazine's 2003 Sportsmen of the Year award.
Robinson's NBA career averages are 21.1 points per game, 10.7 rebounds per game, 3.0 blocks per game, and 2.5 assists per game. Also, he is one of only a very small group of players to have scored over 20,000 career points in the NBA, as well as being one of only four players to have recorded a quadruple-double[3] (with 34 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists, and 10 blocks against the Detroit Pistons on February 17, 1994).
[edit] Career awards/accomplishments
His list of awards and accomplishments is long and include a number of records as well as sharing a number of distinctions with very few other luminaries of the game; for his on the court play, he was named among the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History.
- NBA Champion (1999, 2003)
- NBA MVP (1995)
- NBA Defensive Player of the Year (1992)
- NBA Rookie of the Year (1990)
- All-NBA First Team (1991, '92, '95, '96)
- All-NBA Second Team (1994, '98)
- All-NBA Third Team (1990, '93, 2000, '01)
- All-Defensive First Team (1991, '92, '95, '96)
- All-Defensive Second Team (1990, '93, '94, '98)
- 10-time NBA All-Star
- Only player in NBA history to win the Rebounding, Blocked Shots, and Scoring Titles and Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and MVP
- One of only four players to have recorded a quadruple-double
- NBA Sportsmanship Award (2001)
- Third player in NBA history to rank among the league’s top 10 in five categories (7th in scoring (23.2 ppg), 4th in rebounding (12.2 rpg), 1st in blocks (4.49 per game), 5th in steals (2.32 per game) and 7th in field-goal percentage (.551))
- First player in NBA history to rank among the top five in rebounding, blocks and steals in a single season
- Fourth player ever to score 70+ in an NBA game
- 3-time Olympian (1988, '92, '96)
- One of 50 Greatest Players in NBA History (1996)
- Led NBA in Scoring (1993–94 season) - 29.8 ppg
- Led NBA in Rebounding (1990–91 season) - 13.0 rpg
- Led NBA in Blocked Shots (1991–92 season) - 4.49 bpg
- Holds record for most IBM Awards (1990, '91, '94, '95, '96)
- His 10,497 rebounds and 2,954 blocked shots are the most by any player wearing a San Antonio Spurs jersey, and his 20,790 points are second most behind only George Gervin's 23,602. (Had only Gervin's NBA numbers been taken into account, Robinson would be #1 in this category; Gervin scored 4,219 of his points while the franchise was in the American Basketball Association.)
- Gold Medal in Basketball World Championship (1986)
[edit] Charitable efforts
Robinson will not only be remembered for his outstanding accomplishments throughout his NBA career, but also for his contributions in his community.
In 1991, Robinson visited with fifth graders at Gates Elementary School in San Antonio and challenged them to finish school and go to college. He offered a $2,000 scholarship to everyone who did. In 1998, proving even better than his word, Robinson awarded $8,000 to each of those students who had completed his challenge. In perhaps his greatest civic and charitable achievement, David and his wife, Valerie, founded the Carver Academy in San Antonio, which opened its doors in September 2001. To date, the Robinsons have donated more than $9 million to the school, believed to be the largest contribution ever made by a professional athlete.
In recognition of his outstanding contributions to charity, in March 2003, the NBA renamed its award for outstanding charitable efforts in honor of Robinson. Winners of the NBA's Community Assist Award receive the David Robinson Plaque, with the inscription "Following the standard set by NBA Legend David Robinson who improved the community piece by piece." The award is given out monthly by the league to recognize players for their charitable efforts.
[edit] See also
- List of National Basketball Association players with 60 or more points in a game
- List of Individual NBA Scoring Champions
[edit] References
- ^ databasebasketball.com, 4/24/1994 NBA Box Score, accessed January 26, 2007
[edit] External links
| Preceded by Johnny Dawkins |
Naismith College Player of the Year (Men) 1987 |
Succeeded by Danny Manning |
| Preceded by Walter Berry |
John R. Wooden Award Winners (Men) 1987 |
Succeeded by Danny Manning |
| Preceded by Lisa L. Ice Jon L. Louis Cheryl Miller John C. Moffet Dub W. Myers Megan L. Neyer |
Today's Top VIII Award Class of 1988 Regina K. Cavanaugh Charles D. Cecil Keith J. Jackson Gordon C. Lockbaum Mary T. Meagher David Robinson |
Succeeded by Dylann Duncan Suzanne T. McConnell Betsy Mitchell Anthony P. Phillips Thomas K. Schlesinger Mark M. Stepnoski |
| Preceded by Brad Daugherty |
NBA first overall draft pick 1987 NBA Draft |
Succeeded by Danny Manning |
| Preceded by Hakeem Olajuwon |
NBA Most Valuable Player 1994–95 |
Succeeded by Michael Jordan |
| 1992 Olympic Champions Men's Basketball – "Dream Team" |
|---|
| Charles Barkley | Larry Bird | Clyde Drexler | Patrick Ewing | Magic Johnson | Michael Jordan Christian Laettner | Karl Malone | Chris Mullin | Scottie Pippen | David Robinson | John Stockton |
| Coach: Chuck Daly |
| 1996 Olympic Champions Men's Basketball – United States |
|---|
| Charles Barkley | Penny Hardaway | Grant Hill | Karl Malone | Reggie Miller | Hakeem Olajuwon Shaquille O'Neal | Gary Payton | Scottie Pippen | Mitch Richmond | David Robinson | John Stockton |
| Coach: Lenny Wilkins |
Categories: 1965 births | Living people | African American basketball players | American basketball players | San Antonio Spurs players | NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award winners | Olympic bronze medalists for the United States | Olympic competitors for the United States | Olympic gold medalists for the United States | Basketball players at the 1988 Summer Olympics | Basketball players at the 1992 Summer Olympics | Basketball players at the 1996 Summer Olympics | United States Naval Academy graduates | United States Navy officers | American Christians | People from Key West, Florida | Basketball centers
