NBA Athlete Number 52 - Buck Williams

The "Buck" stops here, with jersey number 52.  He should have been drafted by Milwaukee, but was taken by the New Jersey Nets with the third overall pick in the 1981 NBA draft out of Maryland.  It would be a wise pick by the Nets.

Williams would start in all 82 regular season games as a rook with the former ABA Nets.  The lean Williams not only started for the Nets, he produced.  How 'bout over 1,000 points as a rookie?  Not bad.  He also pulled down over 1,000 rebounds in that first season.

You could call Williams a rebounding machine for his first six seasons in the league.  He averaged over 12.0 boards a game for those first six seasons with the Nets.  He also averaged over 15.0 points per game in that same time span.  

In 1989, Williams was traded to the Portland Trail Blazers for Sam Bowie and a first round draft pick.  While his production on the west coast didn't quite match what it was with the Nets, it was certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Williams actually led the league in field goal percentage in his second and third years with the Trail Blazers, with a better than .600 percentage in each year.  He would stay with Portland for seven seasons, then signing with the New York Knicks for the 1996-97 season.  He retired after two campaigns with the Knicks, at age 37.

Some of William's NBA career highlights:

• 16,784 points
• 13,017 rebounds (14th all-time)
• .549 field goal percentage (15th all-time)
• 4,526 offensive rebounds (4th all-time)
• 1982 Rookie of the Year

Look at his stats at basketball-reference.com.  Is there any doubt that he should be in the Hall of Fame?  

Did you know................that Buck's given first name is Charles?

sources:  basketball-reference.com, wikipedia.com

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