Herb Williams

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Herbert L. Williams (born February 16, 1958 in Columbus, Ohio), is an assistant basketball coach and former professional player in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for eighteen seasons from 1982 to 1999. In 2005, Williams served as the interim head coach of the NBA's New York Knicks.

[edit] College career

Williams was a four-year starter for the Ohio State Buckeyes, scoring 2,011 points (then a team record) and pulling down 1,111 rebounds (still second in team history only to Jerry Lucas). Williams is the school leader in career field goals made, with 834 in 114 games. He is second all-time in career blocked shots with 328.

Williams was named to the All-Big Ten team as a junior, when Ohio State finished the year with a 21-8 record and advanced to the NCAA regionals. He led the Buckeyes in scoring that year, with an average of 17.6 points per game.

Williams was a team co-captain in both his junior and senior years.

[edit] Professional career

Williams was a first round draft choice of the Indiana Pacers, where he played from 1982 to 1989 and had his most productive years. He was traded to the Dallas Mavericks after the 1988-1989 season. In 1993, he was signed by the New York Knicks, where he spent six years backing up perennial All-Star Patrick Ewing. Williams played 1 game (31 minutes) for the Toronto Raptors in 1996 before been waived and quickly returned to the Knicks. The team made the 1994 and 1999 NBA Finals, with Williams serving as a team leader.

After the 1999 Finals, Williams retired at the age of forty-one after just 6 regular season games and 8 playoff games in 1999. Four years later, he returned to the Knicks as an assistant coach. He worked under head coaches Don Chaney and Lenny Wilkens. When Wilkens resigned in 2005, Williams took over as head coach.

On July 26, 2005, ESPN.com announced that legendary basketball coach Larry Brown was hired as the next head coach of the Knicks, thus ending Williams' head coaching tenure. Williams was the acting head coach of the Knicks for the final two games of the 2005-2006 season when illness kept Larry Brown away from the bench for the final two games of his Knicks career.

After that season Brown was fired by the Knicks and replaced as head coach by Isiah Thomas. Williams has continued working as an assistant coach for Thomas and the Knicks during the 2006-07 season.

Preceded by Don Chaney	New York Knicks Head Coach 2004 (interim)	Succeeded by Lenny Wilkens
Preceded by Lenny Wilkens	New York Knicks Head Coach 2005 (interim)	Succeeded by Larry Brown

[edit] External links

• BasketballReference.com: Herb Williams (as coach)
• BasketballReference.com: Herb Williams (as player)
• NBA.com: Herb Williams