Bernard King

King attended college at the University of Tennessee and played college basketball for the Tennessee Volunteers. The New York Nets selected King with the seventh overall pick in the 1977 NBA draft,[2] Months later, the Nets relocated from Uniondale, New York, to New Jersey and became known as the New Jersey Nets.

At 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m) and 205 pounds, King was an explosive, high-scoring small forward utilizing long arms and a quick release. King was a tremendous scorer, and led the NBA in scoring in the 1984–85 season with 32.9 points per game and was selected twice to the All-NBA First Team and four times to the NBA All-Star Game.

In 1977–78, his rookie season, King set a New Jersey Nets franchise record for most points scored in a season with 1,909, at 24.2 points per game. He would surpass this record with his 2,027-point season in 1983–84, earning the first of his back-to-back All-NBA First Team selections.

King played for the Utah Jazz in the 1979–80 season and averaged 9.3 points per game in 19 games.

The Jazz traded King to the Golden State Warriors before the 1980–81 season. Over two years, he averaged 21.9 points per game, in his first year playing alongside players such as 1980 NBA All-Star World B. Free, Joe Barry Carroll, and Clifford Ray and 23.2 points per game in his second year with the team. Just before the start of the 1982–83 season, King was traded to the New York Knicks in exchange for Micheal Ray Richardson.

On a Texas road trip on January 31 and February 1, 1984, King made history by becoming the first player since Rick Barry in 1967 to score at least 50 points in consecutive games. He scored 50 points on 20 for 30 shooting with 10 free throws in a 117–113 Knicks' victory over the San Antonio Spurs on January 31. King followed this with another 50-point performance at Dallas, setting a Reunion Arena single-game scoring record in the process. He scored 11 points in both the first and second quarters and 14 points in both the third and fourth quarters. King drew 13 fouls on Dallas Mavericks defenders, including Mark Aguirre, who fouled out. King shot 20 for 28 from the field with 10 free throws in the 105–98 win over the Mavericks.[3][4]

The next season, on Christmas Day, 1984, King lit up the New Jersey Nets for 60 points in a losing effort, becoming just the tenth player in NBA history to score 60 or more points in a single game. King had scored 40 points by halftime, and finished the game with 19 of 30 shooting from the field and 22 of 26 from the free throw line.[5]

At the peak of his career, however, King suffered a devastating injury to his right leg[1] while planting it under the hoop attempting to block a dunk by Kansas City King Reggie Theus. The March 23, 1985, injury, which included a torn anterior cruciate ligament, torn knee cartilage, and broken leg bone,[6] required major reconstruction, causing King to miss all of the 1985–86 season. To that point no NBA player had returned to form after such a potentially career-ending injury, surgery, and loss of time.

Rehabilitating completely out of the media spotlight, King drove himself back into competitive shape. Despite averaging 22.7 points per game during his first six games back, he had not recovered his pre-injury explosiveness and was released by the Knicks at the end of the 1987 season.

King spent the 1987–88 season climbing back to his former stature as a scorer with the Washington Bullets. That season, during which King, fellow all-star journeyman Moses Malone, and Jeff Malone teamed up to form a formidable trio, would be the only time Washington made the playoffs during King's tenure. In the first round, the Bullets lost a contested five-game series 3–2 against the up-and-coming Detroit Pistons, who would go on to make the NBA Finals.[7]

On November 3, 1990, King scored 44 points in a win over Michael Jordan and the Bulls, which was the most points King had scored in a game since his devastating 1985 knee injury.[8] On December 29, in a game against the Denver Nuggets, King scored a season high 52 points in a 161–133 victory. It was the most points a Washington player had scored since the team moved from Baltimore in 1972.[9] That season, King was selected to his fourth all-star team.

From 1989 to 1991, King averaged 20-plus points in three consecutive seasons. His scoring average peaked at 28.4 points per game at age 34 in 1991, which included ten games where King scored more than 40 points.[10]

After a year-and-a-half hiatus due to yet another knee injury, King returned for a 32-game stint with the New Jersey Nets at the end of the 1992–93 season, until knee problems forced him to retire from the NBA permanently.[11][12]