Bernard King
For the Australian television personality, see Bernard King (television)Bernard King (born
December 4,
1956 in
Brooklyn,
New York), is a former professional
basketball player at the
small forward position in the
NBA and one of the NBA's all-time leading scorers. He played all or part of 14 seasons with the
New Jersey Nets (
1977–
1979),
Utah Jazz (
80),
Golden State Warriors, (
1981–
1982),
New York Knicks (
1983–
1987), and the
Washington Bullets (
1987–
1992;
1993).
Bernard King attended college at the
University of Tennessee and was selected 7th overall in the 1977
NBA Draft by the
New York Nets, who months later relocated from
New York to
New Jersey and became known as the New Jersey Nets.
At 6'7" and 205 pounds, Bernard King epitomized the NBA
small forward of the
1980s. While arguably not as explosive as many of his peers, King was known as a tremendous scorer, leading the NBA in scoring in
1985 with 32.9 points per game. He was twice selected to the All-NBA First Team and three times to the
NBA All-Star Game.
In
1977-78, his rookie season, he set a
New Jersey Nets franchise record for most points scored in a season with 1,909. He would later surpass this record with his 2,027 point season in
'83-84, earning the first of his back-to-back All-NBA First Team selections.
On
January 31,
1984, as a Knick, King made history by becoming the first player since
1964 to score at least 50 points in consecutive games: scoring 50 points on 20 for 23 shooting with 10 free throws in a 117-113 Knicks victory over the
San Antonio Spurs on January 30, and following it up with another 50 point performance in another road victory - this time in a 105-98 win over the
Dallas Mavericks - on 20 for 28 shooting and 10 free throws. The next season, on
Christmas day,
1984, King lit up the New Jersey Nets for 60 points, becoming just the tenth player in NBA history to score more than 60 points in a single game.
At the peak of his career, however, King suffered a devastating knee injury - a torn
anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee against the then-
Kansas City Kings in
Kansas City, Missouri on
March 23,
1985. It required major reconstruction, causing King to miss all of the
1985-86 season and all but the final six games of the
1986-87 campaign. Despite averaging 22.7 points per game during his first six games back, it was clear that King's explosiveness was diminished, and this prompted the New York Knicks to release him at the end of the
1987 season. However, King would have a very successful comeback with the
Washington Bullets, improving his scoring average each year with the squad and returning to the All-Star Game one last time in
1991, his final full season in the NBA. After a year-and-a-half hiatus and a brief 32-game stint with the
New Jersey Nets at the end of the
'93 season,
knee problems forced Bernard King into retirement. King retired with 19,665 points in 874 games, for an average of 22.5 points per game during his career. At the time of his retirement, King ranked 16th on the all-time NBA scoring list.
*Bernard King's career point total of 19,665 ranks him 31st in total scoring in NBA history, as of May 2006. Of the 30 players with more career points, only
George Gervin,
Bob Pettit and
Elgin Baylor played fewer games than King.
*His 32.9 points per game average in
'84-85 is the 19th highest single-season scoring average of all time.
*His career scoring average of 22.5 points per game is the 23rd highest all time, as of May 2006.
*Bernard King is currently 28th on the all-time field goals made list, with 7,830.
*One of 19
NBA players to score more than 60 points in one game.
* Recorded eight games of scoring 50 or more points.
During the 2006 NBA All-Star Game, a panel of basketball analysts for the
TNT network selected Bernard King as one of the
"Next 10", a list of 10 unofficial additions to the
NBA's 50 greatest players list in honor of the
NBA's 60th anniversary.
In
2004, King was nominated for election into the
Basketball Hall Of Fame. However, he has not yet been elected. Some say his candidacy is handicapped by the relatively small number of games he played (874) and the abundance of high-scoring
small forwards of the era such as
Dominique Wilkins,
Adrian Dantley,
Alex English, and
Mark Aguirre.
*Bernard's younger brother, guard/forward
Albert King spent nine years in the NBA between
1981 and
1992, playing for the New Jersey Nets,
Philadelphia 76ers,
San Antonio Spurs, and Washington Bullets.
*Bernard King appeared in a
1979 comedy film called
Fastbreak playing "Hustler." King also played a memorable role in the 1980s television series
Miami Vice, playing "Matt Ferguson", the son of a powerful local judge (played by former
NBA superstar
Bill Russell) in an episode called "The Fix". In the episode, the character's father is in gambling debt, forcing him to consider "fixing" a basketball game.
*In
FOX television series,
The X-Files, main character
Fox Mulder (played by
David Duchovny), experiences a
flashback scene in the episode "
Little Green Men", in which his
younger sister is abducted by extra-terrestrials while the two of them are in the lounge room of their home. In the scene, the twelve-year-old Mulder can be seen wearing a
New York Nets replica Bernard King #30 jersey. However, to keen-eyed basketball fans, this is an
anachronism. It is established that Mulder was born in the year
1961, and at age twelve, that would have placed the storyline's incident in around
1973 — four years before King entered the league.
*
List of National Basketball Association players with 60 or more points in a game*
NBA stats @
basketballreference.com*
Bernard King bio @
NBA.com*
"The Incandescent King" @ nytimes.com
