Full Name: Bernard King Born: 12/4/56 in Brooklyn, N.Y. College: Tennessee Drafted by: New Jersey Nets, 1977 (seventh overall) Transactions: Traded to Utah Jazz (10/2/79); Traded to Golden State Warriors (9/11/80); Signed as free agent with New York Knicks (9/28/82); Warriors matched offer, then traded to Knicks (10/22/82); Signed as free agent by Washington Bullets (10/16/87); Waived by Bullets (1/22/93); Signed as free agent by New Jersey Nets (2/6/93)

Height: 6-7 Weight: 205 lbs. High School: Fort Hamilton (Brooklyn, N.Y.) Honors: NBA Comeback Player of the Year (1981); All-NBA First Team (1984,1985); All-NBA Second Team (1982); All-NBA Third Team (1991); NBA All-Rookie Team (1978)

One of the most explosive scorers of his era, Bernard King had a fascinating career. Major knee reconstruction cost him two years at the peak of his abilities. When he returned to the court despite great odds against a comeback, he had to adjust his style of play to accommodate his diminished physical abilities. He proved many skeptics wrong when he became an All-Star. He poured in more than 19,000 points in a career spent with the New Jersey Nets, Utah Jazz, Golden State Warriors, New York Knicks, and Washington Bullets.

A point machine in stretches, King won the NBA scoring title in 1984-85 by averaging 32.9 points per game. Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE/Getty Images

King came from a distinguished basketball family. His younger brother, Albert, was once considered the greatest high school player in the country and went on to play for several years in the NBA. Bernard was a prep star at Brooklyn's Fort Hamilton High School and moved on to a turbulent career at Tennessee marked by stardom on the court and a number of controversial incidents off of it. He declared himself eligible for the 1977 NBA Draft after his junior year, during which he had scored an average of 25.8 points per game.

The New York Nets (the franchise moved to New Jersey before the 1977-78 season) selected King with the seventh overall pick. As a rookie he led the team in scoring and placed 10th in the NBA with 24.2 points per game. He earned a berth on the NBA All-Rookie Team but lost out on Rookie of the Year honors to the Phoenix Suns' Walter Davis. The Nets, however, brought up the rear in the Atlantic Division with a 24-58 record.

King followed his rookie campaign with a 21.6 scoring average. But although he was a dominating player, his off-court problems continued. The Nets dealt him to Utah, where he played only 19 games in 1979-80 before seeking treatment for substance abuse. "I realized that if I drank, there would be no career, there would be no life," he told HOOP magazine years later. "There's not much more you can say after that."

Before the 1980-81 season, the Jazz traded King to Golden State for Wayne Cooper and a second-round draft choice. King spent two seasons with the Warriors and averaged better than 20 points each year. In 1980-81 he averaged 21.9 points, shot .588 from the floor, and was named NBA Comeback Player of the Year. In 1981-82 he led the team with 23.2 points per game, made his first All-Star Game appearance, and was selected to the All-NBA Second Team. He ranked eighth in the league in scoring and seventh in field-goal percentage at .566.

King was not flamboyant, just effective. A 6-7 small forward, he was a formidable offensive force who was at his best when posting up a defender with his back to the basket, then spinning right or left to shake free for a lightning-quick turnaround jump shot. He shot .500 or better from the field for seven consecutive seasons.

After the 1981-82 campaign, King signed as a veteran free agent with the New York Knicks. The Warriors exercised their right of first refusal, matching the offer and then trading King to the Knicks for Micheal Ray Richardson and a draft choice.

King enjoyed his greatest glory while playing in a New York uniform. His scoring output increased each year with the Knicks, from 21.9 points per game in 1982-83 to 26.3 per contest (fifth in the league) in 1983-84.

King enjoyed his greatest glory while playing in a New York uniform. His scoring output increased each year with the Knicks, from 21.9 points per game in 1982-83 to 26.3 per contest (fifth in the league) in 1983-84. He returned to the All-Star Game that year and earned his first spot on the All-NBA First Team. With King averaging 34.8 points in the 1984 NBA Playoffs, New York advanced to the Eastern Conference Semifinals before losing to the Boston Celtics in seven games.

In 1984-85 King was the main attraction in the Big Apple and beyond. He led the NBA in scoring with an average of 32.9 points per game, including one memorable heat wave in the middle of winter. On Christmas Day he scored 60 points against New Jersey; on January 31 and February 1 he posted back-to-back 50-point outings against the San Antonio Spurs and the Dallas Mavericks; and two weeks later, on February 16, he rained in 55 points against the Nets.

"Talk to any guy who's a scorer, and he'll tell you there are times when you go into a zone," King told Inside Sports. "When I was averaging 30 points a game. I didn't have to think about anything. Everything is happening on a very instinctual level.. On a particular night, no matter what you do, there's a feeling it's going to work. It's an incredible feeling. There's nothing like it."

Then his fairy-tale season had a horror-movie ending. On March 23 at Kansas City, King crumbled to the floor with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee. The knee was so seriously mangled that he missed all of the 1985-86 season and all but the final six games of the following campaign. King scored 22.7 points per contest in those six games, proving that he had successfully rehabilitated himself. But the Knicks were no longer interested in him, and they renounced his rights at the end of the 1986-87 campaign.

New York and the rest of the league then watched in wonder as the small forward scoring machine worked his way back up with the Washington Bullets. He averaged 17.2 points in his first comeback season and increased his scoring for the following three years until 1990-91, when he reached 28.4 points per game (third in the NBA behind Michael Jordan and Karl Malone) and returned to the NBA All-Star Game.

Even more remarkably, King changed his playing style to accommodate the loss of explosiveness he had suffered because of his knee injury. Where most of his points had once come from posting up, flinging in bump-and-fade jumpers from the baseline, and shooting from the perimeter, the "new" King was a face-up player who scored most of his points with slashing moves to the basket. He had become a complete in-the-paint player.

Not only had he reconstructed his knee and his career, but he also had rehabbed his reputation from that of a troubled Brooklyn prodigy to that of a thoughtful (if moody) superstar. He later told Inside Sports, "If I'm going to do something in life, I've always felt I had to be the best at it. That feeling drives me, gives me motivation. I knew that it would take a tremendous amount of effort to play again, but I wanted it. I didn't want to just come back, I wanted to come back as an All-Star."

Another knee operation, this time to remove cartilage, was performed before the 1991-92 season, and it eventually took its toll. He missed that campaign, then was waived by the Bullets in January of 1993. He latched on with the New Jersey Nets and played 32 games before retiring after the 1992-93 season. King had scored 19,655 points for a career average of 22.5 points per game.

King later said that his biggest regrets were not winning a championship ring and, to a lesser extent, not making the 20,000-point club. "But you know what I'm going to do about that?" he asked in Newsday in 1993. "At some point before the winter begins, I'm going to go in the backyard and score 350 points. So that'll bring me up to par."

G	FG%	3PFG%	FT%	Rebs	RPG	Asts	APG	Stls	Blks	Pts	PPG
874	.518	.172	.730	5060	5.8	2863	3.3	866	230	19655	22.5