Clyde Drexler

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Basketball player
Clyde Drexler
Clyde Drexler 01.jpg
Player information
Full name Clyde Austin Drexler
Nickname Clyde the Glide
birthday 22nd June 1962 (age 58)
place of birth New Orleans , Louisiana , United States
size 201 cm
Weight 95 kg
position Shooting Guard / Small Forward
college Houston
NBA draft 1983 , 14th pick , Portland Trail Blazers
Clubs as active
1983-1995 United StatesUnited States Portland Trail Blazers
1995-1998 United StatesUnited States Houston Rockets
National team
1992 United StatesUnited States United States
Clubs as coaches
1998-2000 United StatesUnited States University of Houston ( NCAA )

Clyde Austin Drexler (born June 22, 1962 in New Orleans , Louisiana ) is a retired American professional basketball player . The ten-time NBA All-Star spent his first eleven professional years in Oregon with the Portland Trail Blazers before being transferred to the Houston Rockets for Otis Thorpe in February 1995 in his 12th professional year . In 1995 Drexler won the NBA championship together with Hakeem Olajuwon in Houston .

Drexler was nicknamed "The Glide" because of his elegant style of play. As a member of the legendary Dream Team , he won gold with the national basketball team at the XXV games in 1992 . Olympics . Drexler was named one of the 50 best players in NBA history in 1996 for the 50th anniversary of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2004 . As a member of the Dream Team, Drexler became a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame a second time in 2010.

Career

Drexler played four years before his professional career at the University of Houston , where he founded the Phi Slama Jama with Hakeem Olajuwon , which were known for their spectacular playing style. With the Cougars Drexler reached the final of the NCAA Division I Basketball Championship in 1983 , but where the North Carolina State University was defeated by Thurl Bailey in the last second.

Drexler was selected in the subsequent 1983 NBA draft by the Portland Trail Blazers in 14th place. In his debut season Drexler was only a bank player and scored 7.7 points on average, but in his second year he became a starter and increased his point average to 17.2 points. In 1986, he received his first of ten All-Star nominations. Drexler became one of the best players in the league in the late 1980s. In 1990 he led the Blazers to the NBA Finals with an average of 26.4 points . In the finals they lost to the Detroit Pistons . A year later he achieved a team-historical record victory record with the Blazers with 63 wins in 82 games. However, they lost in the playoffs in the conference finals of the Los Angeles Lakers to Magic Johnson . In 1991/92 Drexler played a strong season again and came in second behind Michael Jordan in the MVP election . The rivals Jordan and Drexler met in the NBA finals, where Drexler lost again.

After the Blazers were no longer a serious title contender during the 1994/95 season , Drexler demanded a team change and was transferred to defending champion Houston Rockets for Otis Thorpe , where his friend and teammate from college, Hakeem Olajuwon, had played for years. The Rockets, who had started the season mediocre until then, played particularly well in the playoffs and advanced again to the NBA finals, where they defeated the young Orlando Magic around Shaquille O'Neal and defended the title. Thus Drexler was able to win the NBA championship for the first time and was behind Olajuwon, the second best scorer of the Rockets. The next three years tried the Rockets with the commitment of Charles Barkley again to win the title, but this did not succeed. Drexler, who scored 18 points on average by the end of his career, ended his NBA career in 1998 and became a trainer at the University of Houston , which he supervised for two years with no success before he gave up the post in 2000.

In his NBA career Drexler scored 20.4 points, 5.6 assists, 6.1 rebounds and 2.0 steals on average in over 1000 games this season. Drexler was only the 24th player to break the 20,000 point mark in the NBA and is one of only five players (alongside Kobe Bryant , LeBron James , John Havlicek and Oscar Robertson ) who have earned more than 20,000 points in their careers , 6,000 rebounds and 6,000 assists.

After the playing career

Drexler now works as a commissioner for Ice Cubes BIG3 - 3 × 3 basketball league.

honors and awards

See also

Web links

Commons : Clyde Drexler  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 1991-92 NBA Awards Voting
  2. ↑ COLLEGE BASKETBALL; Drexler Bows Out After Two Seasons
personal data
SURNAME Drexler, Clyde
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Drexler, Clyde Austin (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American basketball player
DATE OF BIRTH June 22, 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH New Orleans , Louisiana