Nater was drafted by The Floridians in the 1972 ABA Draft, and then by the Virginia Squires in the June 1972 ABA dispersal draft after the Floridians’ demise.^[8][9] Nater was also drafted in the first round of the 1973 NBA draft with the 16th overall pick by the Milwaukee Bucks;^[1] he was the first NBA first-round pick to have played in the NCAA without ever starting a college game.^[3] Milwaukee offered him $50,000.^[10] In August 1973, he opted to sign a three-year, $300,000 contract with the Squires, who spread the payments over seven years.^[9][10] On November 21, 1973, the Squires traded Nater to the San Antonio Spurs for a draft pick and $300,000.^[9]

With the Spurs, Nater was the ABA Rookie of the Year after averaging 14.1 points and 12.6 rebounds for the season.^[7][10] He led the ABA in field goal percentage in 1974 and led the league in rebounding in 1975. He was named to the All-ABA Second Team in 1974 and 1975 and participated in the ABA All-Star Game both seasons.^[8] During his three seasons in the ABA, Nater played for the Spurs, Squires, and the New York Nets.

Nater’s NBA career began with the Milwaukee Bucks. During the 1976-77 NBA season, Nater amassed three games where he had at least 20 rebounds and 20 points, including a 30 point and 33 rebound performance in a 126-109 win over the Atlanta Hawks on December 19, 1976.^[11][12] After the season ended, Milwaukee traded Nater to the Buffalo Braves for Buffalo’s first round draft pick, which Milwaukee used to select Marques Johnson. When the Braves moved to San Diego and became the Clippers a year later, Nater became a local favorite. Nater led the NBA in rebounding average during the 1979–80 season, making him the only player ever to lead both the NBA and ABA in rebounding.^[7] On January 12, 1982, he had surgery to remove bone chips from his right knee. The injury limited him to just 14 games in 1981–82 and seven in 1982–83.^[13]

Before the 1983–84 season, Nater was traded by the Clippers along with a just-drafted Byron Scott to the Los Angeles Lakers for Norm Nixon, Eddie Jordan, and a 1986 second-round draft pick (which would eventually be dealt to the Phoenix Suns and become Jeff Hornacek). The Lakers acquired him to backup Kareem Abdul Jabbar.^[14] Nater and Scott helped lead the Lakers to the NBA Finals that year, but the next season the team did not offer him a guaranteed contract.

Nater played for Australian Udine in the Italian League, where he was the best paid player and led the league in rebounding even though the team ended up being relegated. The next season, he initially accepted an offer from Barcelona in the Spanish League, but ultimately he changed his mind and decided to retire.

Mugsy Bogues

Tyrone Curtis “Muggsy” Bogues (born January 9, 1965) is an American former basketball player. The shortest player ever to play in the National Basketball Association (NBA), the 5 ft 3 in (1.60 m) Bogues played point guard for four teams during his 14-season career in the NBA. Although best known for his ten seasons with the Charlotte Hornets, he also played for the Washington Bullets, Golden State Warriors, and Toronto Raptors. Bogues finished in the top seven in assists in six consecutive seasons (1989–1995), and in the top ten in steals in three of those seasons. He had 146 career NBA double-doubles.^[1] After his NBA career, he served as head coach of the now-defunct Charlotte Sting of the WNBA.

Early life

Bogues was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and grew up in the Lafayette Court housing projects.^[2] His mother was 4 ft 11 in (1.50 m) and his father was 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m). He had three older siblings.^[3]

Bogues’s childhood was troubled. At five years old, he was hit by stray buckshot in his neighborhood and had to be hospitalized.^[4] As a child, he witnessed a man get beaten to death with a baseball bat, a sight that haunted him into adulthood.^[5] When Bogues was 12 years old, his father was sentenced to twenty years in prison for armed robbery.^[3] Around the same time, his brother Chuckie began using hard drugs.^[4]

In addition to basketball, Bogues was a standout wrestler and baseball player growing up.^[6][7] As a child playing basketball on playgrounds, he was nicknamed “Muggsy” after a diminutive character from The Bowery Boys.^[3][6]

Bogues initially attended and played basketball at Southern High School in Baltimore. Because Bogues aspired to be a dental technician, he transferred to Baltimore’s Dunbar High School which offered healthcare classes.^[8] At Dunbar, he was coached by Bob Wade, later the head coach at the University of Maryland. He was a teammate of future NBA players David Wingate, Reggie Williams and Reggie Lewis (the latter two of whom were in his graduating class). The Dunbar Poets finished the 1981–82 season at 29–0 during Bogues’s junior year and finished 31–0 during his senior year in 1982–83, and were ranked first in the nation by USA Today.^[9]

Bogues received scholarship offers to play college basketball for several schools including Virginia, Penn State and Seton Hall.^[10]

College

Bogues attended Wake Forest University and played college basketball for the Wake Forest Demon Deacons for four years. He averaged 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, 3.8 rebounds and 2.4 steals per game. In 1986–87, he led the Atlantic Coast Conference in steals and assists and received the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award.^[11][12] As a senior, he received the Arnold Palmer Award as Wake Forest‘s most valuable athlete. When his collegiate career ended, he was the ACC career leader in steals and assists.^[3]

Wake Forest retired his number within a few years of his leaving the program.^[13] In 2001, he was inducted into the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame.^[14] As of 2021, he remains Wake Forest’s all-time leader in both steals and assists.^[15]

Bogues played for the USA national team in the 1986 FIBA World Championship and won the gold medal.^[16] Under head coach Lute Olson, Bogues played in all ten of the team’s games and led them in assists and steals.^[17]

Professional career

Rhode Island Gulls (1987)

Bogues was selected second overall in the 1987 United States Basketball League draft by the Rhode Island Gulls.^[18] Bogues was a fan favorite in the USBL and the Gulls led the league in attendance.^[18][19] In his only season in the league, he averaged 22.2 points and 8.4 assists per game and led the league in minutes per game before an ankle injury ended his season.^[20]

Washington Bullets (1987–1988)

Bogues was drafted twelfth overall in the 1987 NBA draft by the Washington Bullets, and was part of a talent-laden draft class that also included David Robinson, Reggie Miller, Scottie Pippen, and Kevin Johnson.^[21] Bogues made his NBA debut on November 6, 1987, against the Atlanta Hawks at Omni Coliseum; he started and led the team in assists.^[22] At the time of his debut, he was 16.5 inches (42 cm) shorter than the average NBA player.^[3] In his rookie year, Bogues was a teammate of Manute Bol who stood 7 ft 7 in (2.31 m) tall. They were the tallest and shortest players in NBA history at the time, with 28 inches (71 cm) difference between them. Bol and Bogues appeared on three magazine covers together.^[23] Bogues’s playing time dropped dramatically when coach Kevin Loughery was fired and replaced with Wes Unseld.^[24] On March 4, 1988, Bogues recorded seven steals (and scored 10 points) during a 95–88 win over the Indiana Pacers.^[25] Despite starting only fourteen games as a rookie, Bogues led the Bullets in both steals and assists.^[26]

Charlotte Hornets (1988–1997)

The following season, the Bullets left Bogues and Jay Murphy unprotected in the 1988 NBA expansion draft and he was selected by the Charlotte Hornets.^[24][27] Bogues told the Washington Post that he had “no quarrel” with the Bullets for leaving him unprotected and his agents reported that he was excited to start anew in Charlotte.^[24][27]

In Charlotte’s first season, head coach Dick Harter confined Bogues to the bench, preferring to use him to provide short bursts of energy as a substitute. Harter was fired during the following season and Bogues began to flourish in the up-tempo offenses run by his successors, Gene Littles and Allan Bristow.^[28][6] Bogues went on to play parts of ten seasons with the Hornets, spending the vast majority of his time as a starter and becoming one of the faces of the Hornets alongside Alonzo Mourning and Larry Johnson.^[29][30]

During his time in Charlotte, the Hornets rose from mediocrity to a serious contender; Bogues three times led the team to the playoffs.^[29] During this time, Bogues was wildly popular among basketball fans, as were the Hornets.^[4][6] In all six seasons between 1989 and 1995, he finished in the top ten in the league in assists, only once finishing worse than fourth.^[31] In 1992–93, Bogues had the NBA’s best assist-to-turnover ratio. One of his best seasons came in 1993–94 when he averaged a double-double, including a second-place finish in assists per game. In the 1994–95 season, he set a career high with 10.8 points per game.^[29] However, in August 1995, after six consecutive seasons of an increasing scoring average, he underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left knee. The recovery and repeated setbacks saw him placed on the injured list at least three separate times in the 1995–96 season.^[32] He finished the season with only fourteen points in six games. Bogues returned to action in earnest the following season but missed 17 games and his production had dropped off slightly across the board.^[29]

Bogues’s relationship with the team soured considerably in 1997. In June, coach Dave Cowens suggested that Bogues should consider retiring due to his nagging knee injury. Only a week later, the Hornets signed point guard David Wesley, his presumptive replacement. In August, owner George Shinn assured Bogues that he would be able to finish his playing career with the team. However, the team later requested that he undergo a preseason MRI on his injured knee.^[33] On November 7, Bogues was traded, along with Tony Delk, to the Golden State Warriors in exchange for B. J. Armstrong. At the time, he was the NBA’s all-time leader in assist-to-turnover ratio^[34] and the franchise leader in steals and assists. After the trade, he severed ties with the organization.^[33] The trade made Dell Curry, Bogues’ closest friend on the team,^[4] the last remaining original member of the Hornets.^[34]

Golden State Warriors (1997–1999)

Bogues led the Warriors in assists in the 1997–98 season despite starting in fewer than half of the team’s games.^[35] He appeared in 36 games in the lockout-shortened following season, missing time due to hamstring and knee injuries as well as chickenpox.^[29][36][37]

Toronto Raptors (1999–2001)

Prior to the 1999–2000 season, Bogues signed with the Toronto Raptors for the veterans’ minimum,^[38] reuniting him with longtime teammate Dell Curry.^[39] With the Raptors in 1999–2000, he played 80 games in a season for the first time since 1992–93, though he started in only five of those games.^[29] At 35 years old on March 3, 2000, he tied a career high with 24 points in a victory over the Boston Celtics.^[29][40]

Due to his chronic knee injury,^[41] Bogues appeared in only three games in the 2000–01 season, which would be his final.^[29] His last game came on January 27, 2001, against the Chicago Bulls, a scoreless outing.^[42] On February 22, 2001, he was traded with Mark Jackson to the New York Knicks for Chris Childs and a 2002 first round draft pick. He was included in the trade for salary cap reasons^[41] and never reported to New York during his stint with them. At the end of the last season in which he played, Bogues ranked twelfth all-time in assists and thirteenth all-time in assists per game in NBA history.^[43][44]

On August 10, 2001, Bogues was traded to the Dallas Mavericks in a three-team deal involving Shandon Anderson, Howard Eisley and Glen Rice.^[29] The Mavericks waived Bogues on October 29, after he told the team that he intended to step away from basketball to care for his mother who was fighting cancer.^[45] On October 31, he became a free agent.^[46]

In July 2002, Bogues told The Baltimore Sun that he had not retired and was still hoping to play again.^[47]

Career statistics

Regular season

John Brian Moore (born March 31, 1958) is an American former professional basketball player. Moore played college basketball for The University of Texas at Austin under head coaches Leon Black and Abe Lemons from 1975 to 1979. He spent his entire NBA career playing point guard for the San Antonio Spurs, save one game for the New Jersey Nets. A rare illness caused Moore to have his career put on hold in early 1986.^[1][2]

College career[edit]

Moore started all 112 games of his four-year college career at Texas.^[3] He finished his career as Texas’ all-time career assists leader, with 714, and remains second all-time in assists per game, averaging 6.38 assists over the course of his four years as the Longhorns’ point guard.^[4] His per-game average of 8.34 assists as a senior remains a UT men’s basketball record.^[4] Moore also posted a double-figure scoring average in each of his four seasons.^[5] He received first-team All-Southwest Conference (SWC) honors following his senior season.^[6]

As a junior, Moore helped guide the Abe Lemons-coached 1977–78 Longhorns basketball team to a 26–5 overall record (then tied with Jack Gray‘s 1947 Final Four team for the most wins in a single season in school history), a share of the Southwest Conference championship, and the 1978 National Invitation Tournament championship.^[7] The following season, Moore helped Texas win a share of the SWC championship for the second consecutive year, defeat a school-record three AP-ranked teams, advance to the 1979 NCAA Tournament as a No. 4 seed, and finish the season with an overall record of 21–8, giving the Longhorns their first back-to-back seasons of 20 or more wins in 31 years.^[7]

NBA career[edit]

Moore was selected by the Seattle SuperSonics in the second round of the 1979 NBA draft as the 43rd overall pick, then the second-highest NBA draft position for any basketball player in UT history.^[8]

Over 520 games in his NBA career, Moore averaged 9.4 points, 7.4 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 1.96 steals per game, and a field goal percentage of 46.0.

Moore recorded 20 assists during three games in his career, once during the playoffs, making him one of only seven players to record 20 assists or more in a playoff game. He also had two games of nine or more steals in a game, being one of only 50 different players to record nine or more steals in a game.

Moore is one of ten players to have his number (“00”) retired by the Spurs.