Corliss Williamson

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Corliss Mondari Williamson (born December 4, 1973 in Russellville, Arkansas) is a retired American professional basketball player, who played for four teams during his 12-year NBA career. His nicknames are "Scoreless Corliss" and "Big Nasty"^[1], a moniker he received from his cousin when he was 13.

In college, Williamson was a dominating power forward but became an undersized power forward in the NBA and mostly played at the small forward position.

Williamson starred at the University of Arkansas. He led the Razorbacks to a 31-3 record in 1994. Williamson was named Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament while helping the Razorbacks to win their only NCAA Basketball Championship under coach Nolan Richardson by defeating the Duke Blue Devils. Williamson's stellar play led the team into the championship game in 1995 as well, before being defeated by UCLA, and finishing 32-7. In the 1992-1993 season, Corliss led Arkansas to a 22-9 record and a Sweet 16 appearance in the NCAA Tournament. In three seasons at the University of Arkansas, Corliss was named to the SEC All-Freshman Team in 1993, and was 1st Team All-SEC from 1993 to 1995. He was also named the SEC Player of the Year for the 93-94 and 94-95 seasons, and was named 2nd Team All-American for both years as well. In addition to the 1994 NCAA National Championship, Corliss also led the Razorbacks to the SEC West Division title all three seasons, and the SEC regular season championship in 1994 and 1995. He declared for the NBA Draft following his junior season, and was selected by the Sacramento Kings as a 13th overall pick in the first round of the 1995 NBA Draft.

His best career year was in the 1997-98 season when he played 79 games and averaged 17.7 points per game for the Kings. After Sacramento traded him prior to the 2000-01 season to the Toronto Raptors (in exchange for Doug Christie), for whom he played 42 games, Williamson was traded to the Detroit Pistons where in the 2001-02 season he was named the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year and eventually was a member of the Pistons' 2003-04 NBA Championship team. After being traded by the Pistons along with an undisclosed amount of cash to the Philadelphia 76ers for Derrick Coleman and Amal McCaskill on August 8, 2004, he was again traded back to the Kings along with Brian Skinner and Kenny Thomas for power forward Chris Webber on February 22, 2005.

Williamson has gained certain fame for being one of the few professional basketball players to win national championships at three different levels, AAU, the NCAA with Arkansas, and the NBA with Detroit.

Williamson announced his retirement in September 2007 to become an assistant coach at Arkansas Baptist College.^[2]

[edit] References

1. ^ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named basketball-reference
2. ^ Williamson to retire, take assistant job at Arkansas Baptist College

[edit] External links

• NBA Player Profile