Tony Massenburg
Tony Arnel Massenburg (born July 31, 1967, in Sussex County, Virginia) is an American professional basketball player. He shares an NBA record with Chucky Brown and Jim Jackson for having played with twelve different teams over his career.[1]
Player biography
College career
Massenburg played in college for the University of Maryland from 1986 to 1990, playing under three different head coaches: Lefty Driesell, Bob Wade, and Gary Williams. He had a career field goal shooting percentage of 52.3% and averaged 12.1 points per game in his four year career with the Terrapins. In his senior season, in which he was featured on the cover of the team's handbook on an aircraft carrier, he averaged 18 points and 10.1 rebounds per game. He was one of only two players in the Atlantic Coast Conference to average double figures in both categories that season. His efforts in his senior season earned him a spot on the All-ACC Second Team.
Pro career
NBA
Massenburg was initially signed by the NBA club the San Antonio Spurs in 1990, after he was chosen by the team in the second round of the 1990 NBA Draft, as the 43rd pick overall. During his first stint with the Spurs, he was able to play alongside NBA legend David Robinson. He played in 35 games with the Spurs during the 1990•91 NBA season.
Italy
As part of his first career NBA injury's rehabilitation program, Massenburg went to the Italian League in 1991, where he averaged almost 23 points and 10 rebounds per game in four games with the Italian club Pallacanestro Reggiana.
Back to NBA
After playing in only one game with the Spurs in the 1991-1992 season, Massenburg was traded to the Charlotte Hornets where he played for three games before moving on to the Boston Celtics for seven games, and the also to the Golden State Warriors for another seven games; ending his season with a total of 18 games and 90 minutes played with four franchises that season.
Spain
Massenburg played in the Spanish League with Unicaja-Mayoral and FC Barcelona during the 1992-93 and 1993-94 seasons. He won both the Spanish King's Cup championship and the Catalan League championship with Barcelona in 1994.
Back to NBA again
Massenburg came just short of playing an entire NBA season for the first time in his career during the 1994-95 season, when he was a member of the Los Angeles Clippers for 80 games. Massenburg was taken in the NBA expansion draft in 1995 by the Toronto Raptors. After 24 games there, he was shipped to the Philadelphia 76ers, where he played 30 games.
During the 1996-97 season, Massenburg once again came very close to playing an entire NBA season, seeing action in 79 games with yet another team, the New Jersey Nets. Massenburg returned to Canada for the 1997-98 season, playing with the Brian Winters-coached Vancouver Grizzlies. In Vancouver, Massenburg backed up center Bryant Reeves. He played two seasons in Vancouver before being traded before the 1999-2000 season to the Houston Rockets. With the Rockets, he played in ten games, then was promptly returned to the Grizzlies before the 2000-2001 campaign. When the franchise relocated to Memphis in 2001, so did Massenburg. During the Grizzlies' first season on U.S. soil, Massenburg played in 73 games, averaging 5.5 points per game. In successive years, he was a member of the Utah Jazz and the Sacramento Kings.
Massenburg returned to the Spurs for the 2004-05 season and with them he won an NBA championship ring that year, when the Spurs defeated the Detroit Pistons four games to three in the 2005 NBA Finals. During the series Massenburg mainly observed from the bench as his teammates clinched the Spurs' third NBA title in seven years. Unfortunately however, six weeks after the finals ended, a late-night auto accident badly damaged Massenburg's ankle, leaving him unable to play the following two seasons.[2]
After being out with the ankle injury for two seasons, Massenburg attempted an NBA comeback in the year 2007 with the Washington Wizards, but he was waived by the team before the season started. In his NBA career, Massenburg participated in 683 NBA games over 15 seasons. He scored 4,238 points in his career for a career average of 6.2 points per game. He collected 2,964 rebounds in his career for a career average of 4.3 rebounds per game. He also dished out 266 assists in his career, for a career average 0.4 assists per game.
Post-NBA Career
While hoping to make yet another comeback to professional basketball, Massenburg admitted in a June 2009 radio interview that his odds of returning to the NBA are "very, very slim," due to his age and the recession. Instead, he hopes to play in Europe.[3]
Notes
- ^ Miller, Houston, Oakley ... who else is planning a comeback?, updated August 9, 2007.
- ^ Massenburg, 40, waived by possible 13th team Wizards., updated October 21, 2007.
- ^ Interview on "Sports with Coleman," FOX 1370 AM, June 4 2009. Available at http://sportswithcoleman.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/tony-massenburg-6-4-09.mp3
External links
Categories: 1967 births | Living people | American basketball players | African American basketball players | Basketball players from Virginia | Boston Celtics players | Charlotte Hornets players | Golden State Warriors players | Houston Rockets players | Los Angeles Clippers players | Maryland Terrapins men's basketball players | Memphis Grizzlies players | New Jersey Nets players | Philadelphia 76ers players | Sacramento Kings players | San Antonio Spurs draft picks | San Antonio Spurs players | Toronto Raptors expansion draft picks | Toronto Raptors players | Utah Jazz players | Vancouver Grizzlies players | Liga ACB players | FC Barcelona basketball players | CB Málaga players | Power forwards (basketball) | People from Sussex County, Virginia
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