Muggsy Bogues
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Tyrone Curtis "Muggsy" Bogues (born January 9, 1965 in Baltimore, Maryland) is a former NBA basketball player, most well-known for his stint with the Charlotte Hornets, although he played for four teams in his NBA career.
Bogues is the smallest player thus far in NBA history, standing 5'3" (1.60 m) and weighing 136 pounds (62 kg). He played four years at Wake Forest, averaging 11.3 points, 8.4 assists and 3.1 steals per game in his junior year. He followed with a senior campaign in which he averaged 14.8 points, 9.5 assists, and 2.4 steals per game. He also had 3.8 rebounds per contest, remarkable because the taller players generally dominate that statistic.
Bogues was drafted twelfth overall in the talent-laden 1987 NBA Draft by the Washington Bullets, and was part of a draft class that also included David Robinson, Reggie Miller, Scottie Pippen and Kevin Johnson, to name a few. Bogues was only one of three players from Dunbar High in Baltimore to be drafted in the first round of that draft; the others were Reggie Lewis, who did not even start on the Dunbar team, and David Wingate. In his rookie year, Bogues was a teammate of Manute Bol, the tallest player in NBA history, who stood 7'7" (2.31 m). As one might expect, Bol and Bogues appeared on at least one magazine cover together.
The Miami Heat and Charlotte Hornets were set to enter the NBA for the 1988-89 season, and on June 22 1988 Bogues was selected by the Hornets in the expansion draft.
Bogues spent ten years in Charlotte as the Hornets, led by Alonzo Mourning and Larry Johnson, became one of the most popular teams in the NBA and a perennial playoff contender. Charlotte Hornets jerseys were worn by kids all over the country, and Bogues' jersey was right up there in popularity with Mourning's and Johnson's. Bogues was a very popular player on a very popular team, despite the fact that he would never average more than 11.1 points per game in any of his NBA seasons.
In 1996, Bogues appeared in the movie Space Jam as one of several NBA players whose playing ability is stolen by the evil Monstars.
Two games into the 1997-98 season, Bogues' Hornets career ended when he was traded, along with Tony Delk, to the Golden State Warriors in exchange for B.J. Armstrong. Bogues played two seasons with the Warriors, and then signed as a free agent with the Toronto Raptors, where he would essentially conclude his career. Although he was later traded to the New York Knicks and Dallas Mavericks, he did not play a single game for either franchise.
External links
- Muggsy Bogues Statistics @ BasketballReference.com (http://www.basketballreference.com/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=BOGUEMU01)