Trent Tucker

Kelvin Trent Tucker (born December 20 1959, in Tarboro, North Carolina) is a retired American professional basketball player who played 11 seasons in the American National Basketball Association.

A 6'5" shooting guard, Tucker attended the University of Minnesota from 1978 to 1982, leading them to a Big Ten Conference championship in his senior year. He was then selected by the New York Knicks with the 6th overall pick of the 1982 NBA Draft. One of the earliest three-point specialists, Tucker represented the Knicks in the first ever Three-point Shootout (1986), making it to the semifinals before being outpaced by Craig Hodges and eventual winner Larry Bird. Tucker would play nine seasons with the Knicks before joining the San Antonio Spurs in 1991, and after one season with the Spurs he joined the Chicago Bulls, who won the 1993 NBA Championship. He retired after that season, having tallied 6,237 career points and 1,532 career assists, and he currently ranks 9th all-time in career three-point field goal accuracy (40.8%).

The Trent Tucker Rule

On January 15, 1990, when Tucker was with New York, with 0.1 of a second remaining in a game against the Bulls, he unbelievably got off a wild three-point shot before the buzzer and made the basket. The shot counted and the Knicks won. The NBA then established a rule that states that "0.3 needs to be on the clock in order for a player to get a shot off whether they make it or not." A shot that is tipped in with less than 0.3 seconds remaining may still count.

Post retirement

After retiring, Tucker worked as a broadcast analyst for Minnesota Timberwolves basketball games. He has also been an active philanthropist; he founded the Trent Tucker Non-Profit Organization in 1998 and has hosted several celebrity golf tournaments to raise money for Minneapolis-area charities. He also has developed a clothing line called "Hoopology" that celebrates the art of basketball. Michael Jordan is his good friend. He is now an announcer for the Big 10 network. Every year he hosts a poker tournament which features many ex and active NBA players, as well as many professional poker players.

External links

* [http://basketball-reference.com/players/t/tucketr01.html NBA stats] @ basketball-reference.com
* [http://www.trenttucker.org/index.html TrentTucker.org]
* [http://www.nba.com/history/allstar/shootout_results_1980s.html#1986 NBA Three-Point Shootout - All Time Results]
* [http://www.hoopology.net Hoopology]