Tamika catchings

Tamika catchings
Information about the player
Full name	Tamika Devonne Catchings
Nickname	Catch , Meek
birthday	21st July 1979 (age 41)
place of birth	Stratford , New Jersey , United States
size	188 cm
position	Small forward
college	University of Tennessee
WNBA Draft	2001 , 3rd pick, Indiana Fever
Jersey number	24
Clubs as active
2002-2005	Chicago Blaze
2005-2006	Spartak Moscow
2008-2009	Lotos Gdynia
2009-2010	Galatasaray Istanbul
WNBA clubs as active
2002-2016	Indiana Fever
1 As of August 15, 2017

Tamika Devonne Catchings (born July 21, 1979 in Stratford , New Jersey , United States ) is a former professional basketball player. She was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and Women's Basketball Hall of Fame as a player in 2020 .

Career

college

Tamika Catchings played as a small forward from 1997 to 2001 for the Tennessee Lady Volunteers , the University of Tennessee's women's basketball team .

WNBA (2001 to 2016)

Catchings was drawn third in the 2001 WNBA Draft by the Indiana Fever . She had to skip the 2001 season due to an injury. Thus, her WNBA career began in 2002 in which she was voted Rookie of the Year . Catchings has been one of the best players in the WNBA since her first season and stayed with the Indianapolis team throughout her career. After the team successes remained low at the beginning, the Fever for Catchings has always reached the playoffs since 2005 and thus reached the longest series in the history of the WNBA at the end of the 2016 season with 12 playoffs in a row. During this period, the WNBA finals could be reached three times, in 2012 the WNBA title was won. In 2009 and 2015 , the final series were lost.

In addition to these team successes, she also collected many individual awards. The Kim Perrot Sportsmanship Award for the fairest player in the league was received in the 2010 , 2013 and 2016 seasons . She received the award for the best female defensive player of the regular season a total of five times ( 2005 , 2006 , 2009 , 2010 and 2012 ), making her the record winner of this award. Also none of the other WNBA awards have been given to a player that often. In the 2011 season she received the MVP Award, the coveted award for best player in the WNBA. After the team won the WNBA championship in 2012, the final MVP honor went to a member of the team , as usual, and this honor was bestowed on her.

After she ended her active career after the WNBA season 2016 and the Olympic Games in Rio, Catchings was officially bid farewell on June 24, 2017 as part of a Fever home game and at the same time it was announced that her jersey number 24 will no longer be awarded in the team in the future.

Up to this point, she played in 15 WNBA seasons in the regular season 457 games, she was 448 times in the starting lineup and scored 7380 points, 3316 rebounds and 1488 assists. In 68 playoff games (67 of them in the starting line-up) she scored 1,141 points, 598 rebounds and 223 assists.

She was chosen for her achievements in the WNBA both in 2006 in the WNBA All-Decade Team consisting of ten players and in 2011 for the 15th anniversary of the league as one of the WNBA's Top 15 Players of All Time .

Europe

During the WNBA season break, Catchings played like many WNBA players in Europe. She was on the field for teams from Russia, Poland and Turkey after she previously played for the Chicago Blaze in the National Women's Basketball League during the season break in the WNBA .

International

Tamika Catchings is also very successful in the national jersey. She has won gold medals four times with the US national basketball team at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens , the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing , the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro . She was also able to win the title in the US team in 2002 and 2010 at the basketball world championships. Only the 2006 Basketball World Cup ended for her and her team after finishing third without a title.

Web links

• WNBA player profile
• Statistics about the player on basketball-reference.com (engl.)
• FIBA overview of participation in international tournaments
• FIBA Europe overview of participation in European tournaments

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Matthew VanTryon: Tugs and tears: Tamika Catchings' jersey retired in emotional ceremony. Indystar, June 24, 2017, accessed August 15, 2017 .