Portal:Basketball/Selected biography/2007
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This is an archive of selected biographies that have appeared or will appear on the front page of Portal:Basketball. To nominate a biography, please see Portal:Basketball/Selected content nominations.
Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963) is a retired American professional basketball shooting guard. Widely considered one of the greatest basketball players of all time, he became one of the most effectively marketed athletes of his generation and was instrumental in popularizing the National Basketball Association globally in the 1980s and 1990s.
After a standout collegiate career with University of North Carolina Tar Heels, Jordan was drafted by the Chicago Bulls in 1984 and quickly emerged as one of the stars of the league, entertaining crowdss with his prolific scoring and swaggering persona. His leaping ability, most prominently illustrated by his thrice performing a slam dunk from the free-throw line at the NBA Slam Dunk Contest, earned him the nicknames Air Jordan and His Airness, but he also gained a reputation as one of the best defensive players in the sport; he ultimately placed nine times on the NBA All-Defensive Team.
In 1991, Jordan led the Bulls to the 1991 NBA championship, and the side thereafter three-peated, claimed the 1992 and 1993 titles; Jordan garnered honors as the NBA Most Valuable Player after the 1990-91 and 1991-92 seasons and was named the most valuable player of the Finals after each championship. Jordan retired abruptly in October 1993 and briefly pursued a career in baseball, contesting games for the Birmingham Barons, a Southern League affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, and the Scottsdale Scorpions of the Arizona Fall League. On March 18, 1995, having failed to advance to Major League Baseball, Jordan announced his intention to return to professional basketball.
Chris Bosh is an American professional basketball player in the National Basketball Association who plays for the Toronto Raptors. Garnering an array of basketball accolades since his high school days, Bosh left college after one season to enter the 2003 NBA Draft. He was selected fourth overall in what proved to be a very competitive draft class. Since his NBA career began, Bosh, who plays the forward position, has emerged as one of the most established young stars in the NBA. In the process, he has become a two-time NBA All-Star, appeared for the USA National Team, and taken over former fan-favorite Vince Carter as the current face and leader of the Raptors franchise. Bosh has led the Raptors to their first NBA Playoffs berth in five years, and their first ever division title, in the current 2006-07 NBA season.
Owing to his initials and jersey number, Bosh is nicknamed CB4, a name first coined by Toronto Raptors play-by-play commentator, Chuck Swirsky. The nickname also alludes to a cult movie of the same name. Off the court, Bosh is noted for his philanthropy and active community service.
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Anthony Parker is an American professional and international basketball shooting guard currently with the Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association. Born to parents who played sports collegiately at the University of Iowa and a sibling of Candace, ultimately the 2007 John R. Wooden Award winner, Parker played high school basketball at Naperville Central High School and then matriculated at Bradley University, where in his third season he averaged 18.9 points per game and converted 42 per cent of his three-point field goal attempts to earn Missouri Valley Conference most valuable player (MVP) honors. Parker was made the 21st overall pick of the 1997 NBA Draft by the New Jersey Nets but was immediately traded to the Philadelphia 76ers, who traded Parker to the Orlando Magic before the 1999-2000 season. Having played just 55 games over his NBA career, Parker was released by the Magic in January 2000 and briefly played in the Continental Basketball Association before moving to Israel to pursue a career with Maccabi Tel Aviv. Parker enjoyed success with Maccabi, helping the team to two consecutive Ligat Ha'al and Israeli National Cup championships and to the 2001 Suproleague title. Parker signed with Virtus Roma of the Italian Serie A in 2003 but decided to return to his Israeli home and to take up again with Tel Aviv, for whom he excelled across the following three seasons, earning the Ligat Ha'al MVP award in 2004 and capturing Euroleague MVP honors in 2005 and 2006 while helping his side to the 2004 and 2005 league championships.
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Seth Greenberg is the current head basketball coach for the Virginia Tech Hokies men's basketball team. Greenberg is currently in his fourth season as head coach of the Hokies. In his first three seasons, he led the Hokies to an overall record of 45-44. After his initial season coaching the team in the Big East, he guided the Hokies through their first two full seasons in the Atlantic Coast Conference starting in 2004-2005, earning the team a first-round bye in the ACC tournament and their first post-season tournament appearance since 1996 with a trip to the NIT.
Greenberg's success in 2005 earned him the ACC Coach of the Year by the Atlantic Coast Sports Media Association.
He once bought all the students tickets to the NIT game against Temple.
During the 2006-2007 season, Greenberg led the Hokies to signature victories against #5 Duke on the road and #1 UNC at home in an eight-day span. The victories landed the Hokies in the AP Top 25 for the first time in over a decade, and earned their first NCAA tournament appearance since the 1995-1996 season. They received a #5 seed in the West bracket, but fell to Southern Illinois University Carbondale in the second round.
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James Naismith (November 6, 1861 – November 28, 1939) was the inventor of the sport of basketball and the first to introduce the use of a helmet in American football. He was also the first basketball coach to assemble a team of 5 players.
In 1891, while working as a physical education teacher at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, Naismith was asked to make a game that would not take up much room, was not too rough, and at the same time, could be played indoors. He had no idea he would invent what would become the most popular indoor sport in the United States.
Inspired by a game he played as a child in Canada called "Duck on a Rock," Naismith's game started December 15, 1891 with thirteen rules (modified versions of twelve of those are still used today), a peach basket nailed to either end of the school's gymnasium, and two teams of nine players. On January 15, 1892 Naismith published the rules for basketball. The original rules did not include what is known today as the dribble. They initially only allowed the ball to be moved up the court via a pass. Following each "goal" a jump ball was taken in the middle of the court. Although it was not a rule, players would commonly use the dust of coal to cover the palms of their hands, allowing them to get a better grip on the ball. The coal palm was used up until the early 1930s. Also interesting was the rule concerning balls out of bounds - the first player to retrieve the ball received possession.
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LeBron James is an American professional basketball player who currently plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers of the National Basketball Association. Commonly nicknamed "King James" and "The Chosen One", the Akron, Ohio-born James was highly promoted in the national media as a future NBA star while still in high school, and was named Ohio's "Mr. Basketball" three times. At the age of 18, he was selected with the first overall pick in the 2003 NBA Draft by the Cavaliers.
Before his NBA debut, James signed an unprecedented US$90 million shoe contract with Nike. He has since set numerous youngest player records. In his first season, he received the NBA Rookie of the Year Award and in the following three seasons received All-NBA and All-Star honors. He led the Cavaliers to back-to-back playoff appearances in 2006 and 2007; the latter year the team advanced to the Conference Finals for the first time since 1992 and the NBA Finals for the first time in Cleveland's history.
James is listed as a small forward, but can also play point guard and shooting guard. This versatility has led to his unofficial classification as a "point forward". James was a member of the United States men's national basketball team that won the bronze medal in the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, and he finished second in the league Most Valuable Player balloting in 2006.
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Oscar Robertson (born November 24, 1938 in Charlotte, Tennessee), nicknamed "The Big O", is a former American NBA player with the Cincinnati Royals and the Milwaukee Bucks. The 6-foot-5, 220-pound Robertson played the guard position, and was a twelve-time All-Star, eleven-time member of the All-NBA Team, and one-time winner of the MVP award in fourteen professional seasons. He is the only player in NBA history to average a triple-double for an entire season, and he is regarded as one of the best and most versatile NBA players of all time. He was a key player on the team which brought the Bucks their only NBA championship in the 1970-71 NBA season. However, his playing career, especially during high school and college, was plagued by racism.
For his outstanding achievements, Robertson was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1980, and was voted one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996. The United States Basketball Writers Association renamed their college Player of the Year Award the Oscar Robertson Trophy in his honor in 1998, and he was one of five people chosen to represent the inaugural National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame class in 2006.
Robertson was also an integral part of the Oscar Robertson suit of 1970. The landmark NBA antitrust suit, named after the then-president of the NBA Players' Association, led to an extensive reform of the league's strict free agency and draft rules and, subsequently, to higher salaries for all players.
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Skip Prosser (November 3, 1950 - July 26, 2007) was an American college basketball coach who was head basketball coach at Wake Forest University at the time of his death. He was the only coach in NCAA history to take three separate schools to the NCAA Tournament in his first year coaching the teams. In 21 years as a collegiate coach, he made 18 postseason appearances.
Previously, he coached Xavier University for seven seasons, where he achieved great success. He spent his first year of coaching at the collegiate level at Loyola College in Maryland, where he took the Greyhounds to the team's only modern-day NCAA Tournament appearance.
Prosser was the Atlantic Coast Conference Coach of the Year in 2003. His teams have at times been participants in the NCAA Tournament in March, although Wake Forest did not participate in the 2006 or 2007 seasons.
Prosser was born and raised in the Pittsburgh suburb of Carnegie, Pennsylvania and graduated from Carnegie High School, where he played football and basketball. He played basketball and rugby at the United States Merchant Marine Academy, where he earned a degree in nautical science in 1972.
Prosser coached at Linsly Military Institute in Wheeling, WV, where he achieved a 38-9 record. He then was hired as a history teacher at Wheeling Central Catholic High School, where he coached his teams to a state championship in 1982, five regional championships and three conference titles over a period of six years and a record of 104-48. Prosser would say later in his career that he would be happy if he were still teaching and coaching at Central Catholic High. One of the players on his championship team was Doug Wojcik, now head coach at the University of Tulsa. Prosser earned his master's degree in secondary education from West Virginia University while he taught at Wheeling Central.
Yao Ming is a Chinese professional basketball player. He is the tallest player in the NBA today standing at a height of 7'6" (2.29 m). He played for the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) for five years, and now plays center for the Houston Rockets in the NBA. He was selected by Houston as the 1st overall pick of the 2002 NBA Draft and signed with them on October 21, 2002.
Yao was born to his 6'10" (2.08 m) tall father Yao Zhiyuan, and his 6'2" (1.88 m) mother Fang Fengdi, who was the captain of the women’s national team that won the first Asian Championship in 1976. He was born with the weight of 11 pounds, twice the average size in China, and was 5’5” by age ten, and 6’6” (2 meters) by the time he was thirteen. He developed a sickness at age seven that resulted in his losing his hearing in his left ear.
He first started playing basketball at age nine, and he went to the junior sports school at the same age. When he was examined at age ten he was predicted to grow to the height of 7’3”. The Sharks invited him to try out for their junior team when he was thirteen, where he had to practice for 10 hours a day to make the team. He first dunked at age fifteen, and he made the senior team of the Sharks when he was seventeen.
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