Clyde Austin "Clyde The Glide" Drexler (born June 22, 1962) is a former National Basketball Association shooting guard and small forward. A ten-time All-Star and member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, the NBA named him one of basketball's fifty greatest players as of 1996. Drexler won an Olympic gold medal in 1992 and an NBA championship in 1995 with the Houston Rockets. He is currently the color commentator for Rockets home games.
Drexler was selected in the 1st round, 14th overall pick in the 1983 NBA Draft by the Portland Trail Blazers. He was passed over in the 1983 NBA Draft by the Houston Rockets, who drafted Ralph Sampson and Rodney McCray, before Drexler was selected. Along with teammates Terry Porter, Jerome Kersey, Buck Williams, Kevin Duckworth, and Clifford Robinson, Drexler helped lead Portland to the NBA Finals in 1990 against the Detroit Pistons and 1992 versus the Chicago Bulls.
In 1992 he was selected to the U.S. Olympic basketball team, nicknamed "The Dream Team", which won the gold medal in Barcelona. In the 1991-92 season he finished second to Michael Jordan in MVP voting.[9] He met Jordan's Chicago Bulls in the NBA Finals that same season only to fall short, as Jordan and the Bulls went on to win their second consecutive championship. In the six-game series against Chicago, Drexler averaged 24.8 points, 7.8 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game.[10]
On February 14, 1995, with the Blazers out of serious contention for a championship, Portland honored Drexler's request to be traded to a contender and sent the Blazer great to the Houston Rockets in exchange for Otis Thorpe in mid-season, right before the trade deadline. Despite finishing the regular season with a record of 47–35, which placed the Rockets 6th out of 8 playoff teams in the Western Conference, Drexler and long-time friend Hakeem Olajuwon helped propel them to an improbable second consecutive championship in 1995, sweeping the Orlando Magic. In his third NBA Finals appearance, Drexler averaged 21.5 points, 9.5 rebounds and 6.8 assists per game.
During the 1995 NBA Playoffs, Drexler was the subject of a controversial ejection during a game between the Rockets and the Phoenix Suns by referee Jake O'Donnell, which allegedly stemmed from a personal feud between the two at the time.[12] This would turn out to be the last NBA game O'Donnell would referee, as he was not assigned any further games in the playoffs that year, and eventually retired a few months later. In 1996, on ESPN's "NBA Today", O'Donnell commented, "I wouldn't give Clyde Drexler much leeway because of the way he reacted with me all the time. I thought at times he would give cheap shots to people, and I just would not allow it."[13]
On February 13, 2009, Drexler participated in the NBA All-Star Weekend's Celebrity Game. Other celebrities participating include NBA Hall of Famer's Dominique Wilkins, Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Terrell Owens, actor Chris Tucker and four Harlem Globetrotters.
Clyde "The Glide" Drexler, as he was nicknamed at the University of Houston and throughout his professional career, was famed for his speed and athleticism on the court and his easygoing and quiet demeanor off the court.
No comments:
Post a Comment