11/18/09 TRIVIA

OK what I think is a tough one.

Name the only player in NBA history to increse his scoring average in each of his first 8 years in the league?

beat,

Got this one Greg Kite

Pete

Sorry. At least Kite played more than 8 years. But his puny average varied from1.1 to a little over 5. and bounced between those figures his entire career.

But the guy got a pair of rings with the C's!

beat

Has to be Kevin Mchale

Sorry Pete
Hint: He never played with the C's
But McHales average did go up each of his first 7 seasons!! (then went down in each of his next 6) But I need 8 consecutive going up to start a career.

beat

Tough one. Wild guess time.

Elvin Hayes

Nope Not Elvin

beat

Couple more hints

Average went from 5.7 first year and increased yearly to a career high of 19.7 8 yrs later.

Did this all with one team but later in career playe dwith other teams.
Was actually on his original team 11 years

beat,

Sheed

nope not sheed

beat

Alex English

Nope not Alex English

Final Hint

He was a 1st round pick in 1983

beat,

One of your hints stated other teams, plural.

Based on that I'll go with Derek Harper.

My other guess would have been a player for Portland.

Harper is correct!!!!

beat
Harper played with other teams late in his career but the first 11 were with Dallas!

beat

beat,

Can I answer this one now? Or would you like me to wait a little longer? I think it's been a few hours...

bob

I was going to go with Clyde the Glide, but he only played with one other team.

I better pay more attention to that work thing now...

Bob

Go Ahead

Did you know it when you saw it at first?

I was surprised when I looked at McHale's stats. First 7 years upped his PPG each season then last 6 went down each season.

beat

beat,

A very difficult question.

I had a few first thoughts, but it turns out they went up for the first 6 years and then dipped. I then came up with another few but they had a dip in a year somewhere around year 5 and then went up again.

Some of my first choices were Bernard King, Hornacek, Havlicek (I thought coming off the bench might have started him off slow, plus I was hung up on the whole "ends in 'cek' thing") and Frazier. I even considered Jim Barnett, drafted by the Celtics with the 8th pick in 1966. Barnett does the color commentary for the Warriors now. He had a good run, but didn't do 8 straight increases.

What made this so tricky is that it either had to be a bench player who became a starter and got to score more OR a defensive player who blossomed offensively late (perhaps due to being on a better team). It can't be a superstar, because they'd always have high scoring averages, yet it has to be a name we'd recognize because he got up to 19.7ppg. You're not anonymous when you're almost a 20ppg scorer.

Derek Harper.

I started down that path when I thought of Rolando Blackman. When I saw who was on his team with him at Dallas, I knew I was onto something.

bob