Tim Legler

Timothy Eugene "Legs" Legler (born December 26, 1966 in Washington, D.C.) is a retired American professional basketball player in the NBA, and is a current ESPN analyst.

College

Legler attended La Salle University, where he became Academic All-American and scored 1,699 career points in four seasons for the men's basketball team. He is one of 17 Explorers to score 1,000 career points, and is one of only three to be named an Academic All-American. Legler led La Salle to the 1987 National Invitation Tournament championship game at Madison Square Garden, as well as the 1988 NCAA Tournament. He was inducted into the Philadelphia Big 5 Hall of Fame in 1995.

NBA career

Legler went undrafted in the 1988 NBA Draft and went to play basketball in Europe. After playing a few seasons in Europe, he came back to America and played in the Continental Basketball Association with the Omaha Racers. He led Omaha to a CBA championship while leading the league in scoring.

Legler played in the NBA at the shooting guard position from 1989 to 2000. He is probably known most as a player in Washington, where he played four seasons (two with the Washington Bullets and two with the re-branded Washington Wizards) from 1995-1999. His best NBA season was 1995-1996, when he ranked first in the league in both 3-point field goal percentage and true shooting percentage, second in turnover ratio, and won the 1996 Three-Point Shootout during All-Star Weekend. He also was a runner up for the Sixth Man of the Year award, which was won by Toni Kukoc of the Chicago Bulls. He holds the record for a 3-round aggregate of (23, 22 and 20 out of 30 each) 65 points (out of 90).

Legler was well-known as an accurate three-point shooter, making 260 of his 604 attempts from that range in his career, an accuracy of 43%. This figure ranks fourth on the all-time list, behind only Steve Kerr, Hubert Davis, and Drazen Petrovic. Legler also played for the Phoenix Suns, Denver Nuggets, Utah Jazz, Dallas Mavericks, and Golden State Warriors. His career ended after a re-occurring knee problem. During his 10 seasons in the league, Legler made a little over $5.1 million dollars in salary.

Legler is also remembered for his long running feud with Kendall Gill stemming from an on-court altercation in the early 1990s. [http://www.onthemedia.org/yore/transcripts/transcripts_112202_espn.html]

ESPN

Legler currently appears regularly on the ESPN programs "NBA Shootaround", "NBA Fastbreak", "NBA Coast to Coast", and as a basketball analyst for "SportsCenter" and on various shows on ESPN Radio. He has worked at the network since 2002.

Personal

Legler also attended John Randolph Tucker High School in Henrico County, Virginia and St. Mary's Catholic School in Richmond, Virginia. In 2002, he earned an MBA from the prestigious Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

References