MSL to NBA: Christie Brothers Latest From MSL Selected in NBA Draft
A Look at the History of Players Chosen
Updated November 17, 2024 to add WNBA Draft Picks Haley Gorecki (Fremd) and Abbie Willenborg (Hersey)
Updated December 5, 2024 with Cam Christie making his NBA debut
The Christie family made it two second-round NBA draft picks in three years from Rolling Meadows and the Mid-Suburban League. Max Christie was taken with the 35th pick of the 2022 draft by the Los Angeles Lakers and their cross-town rival Clippers chose Cam with the 46th pick in 2024.
Prior to Max Christie, the last MSL player chosen in the NBA draft was Barrington’s Ike Person in the 10th round in 1983. The number of rounds gradually dropped to its current two in 1990 so that is part of the reason it has been few and far between for NBA draft picks from the MSL. Hersey’s Dave Corzine is the only first-rounder when he was taken with the 18th pick in 1978.
Meadows’ Aaron Williams played 715 games with 10 teams from 1993-2008 but the late bloomer did so as an undrafted free agent out of Xavier when he started his career with the Utah Jazz. Scott Lloyd grew up in Arlington Heights but moved to Arizona before high school and had a six-year NBA career.
Here’s a look at the picks from schools with direct MSL ties.
Roy DeWitz
Barrington
NBA Year/Team: 1958 Detroit Pistons Round: 3rd Pick: 19
College: Kansas State
NBA Career: None
Note: Barrington was in the North Suburban Conference when DeWitz played.
DeWitz, known as “Pee Wee,” led Barrington to the Elite Eight during a senior season where he grew from 5-feet-7 to 5-10. This was the start of DeWitz proving he could play bigger than a lot of opponents as he earned fourth-team all-state honors for the 28-2 Broncos. He was second-team all-state tourney in what was still the one-class Sweet 16 at Huff Gym in Champaign. DeWitz had 15 points in an opening round rout of Litchfield and had 12 before fouling out in a 59-57 overtime loss in the quarterfinals to Edwardsville and future five-time NBA all-star Don Ohl.
DeWitz grew to 6-3½ at Kansas State while playing for Tex Winter, who became a legendary assistant coach for the Chicago Bulls during their dominant championship decade of the 1990s. One of DeWitz’s biggest moments was outrebounding the great 7-1 Wilt Chamberlain of rival Kansas 15-14. DeWitz once said the secret was picking most of them off the floor with three K-State teammates between 6-8 and 6-10 surrounding Chamberlain. According to the Unofficial HIstory of Barrington High School Basketball by former coach and athletic director Mike Obsuszt, DeWitz scored K-State’s last 6 points of regulation and all 9 points in overtime to advance to the 1958 NCAA Final Four with an 83-80 win over Cincinnati and Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson. K-State finished fourth with losses to Seattle and Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor and Temple.
The first-team All-American passed on a possible NBA career after he was selected by the Pistons. They were 28-44 in 1958-59 with Hall of Famer George Yardley, who a year earlier became the first NBA player to score 2,000 points in a season, and all-star and future coach Gene Shue. DeWitz honored an agreement he made to teach and coach at a Manhattan, Kansas high school. DeWitz would go on to be an assistant coach for Winter at Kansas State and Norm Stewart at Missouri.
George Pomey
Prospect
NBA Year/Team: 1965 St. Louis Hawks Round: 15th Pick: 106
College: Michigan
NBA Career: None
Note: Prospect was in the Interim League when Pomey played.
Pomey’s father wanted to be closer to work so the family moved and Pomey transferred from Grant after two seasons to help put Prospect basketball on the map. Pomey earned all-state honors as the Knights’ first two varsity teams, coached by Dick Kinneman and including Fred Lussow, went 47-4 and won a regional title in 1961 (three years before joining the new Mid-Suburban League). The 6-foot-4 Pomey went to Michigan where he played on two Final Four teams alongside Carver High legend and future NBA player Cazzie Russell.
Pomey averaged 4.5 points a game off the bench as a junior for the NCAA third-place finisher in 1964. As a senior, he moved into the starting lineup in December to give coach Dave Strack the big guard he was looking for and he averaged 7.5 points as Michigan lost the 1965 NCAA title game 91-80 to UCLA and Hall of Famer Gail Goodrich. Pomey was drafted by a St. Louis Hawks team that included Lenny Wilkens, Zelmo Beaty, Rod Thorn and Paul Silas and had just lost Hall of Famer Bob Pettit to retirement two years earlier.
Pomey came back to Michigan as a full-time assistant for four years and helped recruit Prospect star and future big-league catcher Tom Lundstedt to play basketball and baseball for the Wolverines. Pomey would leave coaching to enter the insurance business but he also worked as an analyst on the Michigan radio broadcasts.
Ron Kozlicki
Palatine
NBA Year/Team: 1967 San Diego Rockets Round: 4th Pick: 41
College: Northwestern
ABA Career: Indiana Pacers 1967-68, 37 games, 2.9 ppg, 1.9 rpg
Note: Palatine was in the North Suburban Conference when Kozlicki played
The 6-foot-7 Kozlicki was arguably the northwest suburbs’ first big basketball star as the all-stater lifted a struggling Palatine program to consecutive North Suburban Conference and regional titles and set the school’s career scoring record. His size and ability got the attention of legendary Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp and he came up to watch Kozlicki play in person and take him and his dad out for dinner. But the younger Kozlicki opted to stay closer to home at Northwestern.
Kozlicki averaged 12.1 points a game and hit 41 percent of his shots at Northwestern while playing out of position at center his last two seasons. In mid-June 1967, Kozlicki eventually chose Indiana of the brand new American Basketball Association over the expansion San Diego Rockets of the NBA and an opportunity to study and play in Milan, Italy. Northwestern coach Larry Glass said in a Paddock Publications story that Kozlicki “will make a fine player for Indianapolis” and that the team did a good job of recognizing his forward skills.
“It’s our feeling that Ron Kozlicki has tremendous potential which to date has been untapped,” Indiana general manager Mike Storen said in a Paddock story after the signing. “Although Ron was an outstanding center at Northwestern we feel he has the mobility and strength to be a great pro forward.”
One of Kozlicki’s ABA teammates was Jerry Harkness, who led Loyola to its historic 1963 NCAA championship and made more history by throwing in a 92-foot shot at the buzzer to win a game for the Pacers. With Roger Brown, Freddie Lewis and Bob Netolicky, they had the nucleus of the team that became the ABA’s Celtics with three titles and five championship series appearances in the league’s nine-year existence.
Kozlicki would be part of another key piece the Pacers needed when he was traded after the season with former York and Illinois star Jim Dawson to Minnesota for big man Mel Daniels. The trade garnered Kozlicki and Daniels a mention in Terry Pluto’s best-selling “Loose Balls” about the history of the ABA and ultimately brought an end to Kozlicki’s brief pro career.
Minnesota was moving its franchise to Miami and “they wanted to reduce my contract,” Kozlicki said in a 1999 Daily Herald column about his induction into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame by Bob Frisk. “That’s when I said, ‘I can do other things than just play basketball.’” Kozlicki went into a successful career in the financial industry. His Palatine career scoring record was broken by future NBA player Kevin McKenna and he now ranks third after Connor May vaulted to the top spot while leading the school to fourth place in the 2024 Class 4A state tournament.
Jim Smith
Maine West
NBA Year/Team: 1969 Los Angeles Lakers Round: 9th Pick: 125
College: Northern Illinois
NBA/ABA Career: None
Note: Maine West was in the MSL when Smith played
Maine West went 24-0 in MSL play to win the first two league titles in 1964 and 1965 as Smith earned two-time all-MSL honors. Smith averaged 15.8 points in 10 league games as a junior and had 196 total rebounds. As a senior he averaged 19.2 points and 12.5 rebounds in league play.
Smith started his college career at Mineral Area Community College in Missouri and Memphis before spending his final two seasons at Northern Illinois, where he averaged 20.1 points and 14.4 rebounds in 48 games. The 6-foot-7 Smith averaged 19.1 points and 14.1 rebounds as a junior and 21.2 points and 14.6 rebounds as a senior to become the first NIU player chosen in the NBA draft. He was also taken in the fifth round of the 1969 ABA draft by the Miami Floridians. Smith also stood out against future NBA all-stars with 29 points and 16 rebounds on Michigan’s Rudy Tomjanovich and 16 points and 20 rebounds on New Mexico State’s Sam Lacey.
The Lakers, with Hall of Famers Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, lost the 1969 NBA finals in seven games to the Celtics and would lose again in seven games in the 1970 finals to the New York Knicks. Smith would play in for a U.S. Army team in 1971 and was a Hall of Fame inductee for Maine West (1984), NIU Athletics (1988) and the IBCA (2000). He was also named to the NIU All-Century Team in 2000-01. Smith passed away June 22, 2018 at 71 from kidney cancer.
Chuck Lloyd
Arlington
NBA Year/Team: 1970 Seattle Supersonics Round: 10th Pick: 159
College: Yankton College (S.D.)
ABA Career: Carolina Cougars 1970-71, 14 games, 4.7 ppg, 1.8 rpg
Note: Arlington was in the West Suburban Conference when Lloyd played
“Awkward Prep in ‘63 … Pro Pick in ‘70; Chuck Lloyd Has Come A Long Way!” was the headline on Bob Frisk’s Herald Kickin’ It Around column on April 3, 1970. Lloyd had good prep success with 407 points in two varsity seasons at Arlington and started as a senior on the 1965 regional champions but didn’t make the all-league teams for the West Suburban Conference. Frisk was watching a preseason practice before Lloyd’s junior year when Arlington coach Ted Wissen came up and said, “I know he doesn’t look like much now but just wait. This kid could be a good one some day, a very good one … maybe not even in high school but as he develops, matures and learns more and more about this game.”
Naturally, the path to the pros for the 6-foot-8 Lloyd was also unconventional. He briefly went to Kansas but through a coaching connection ended up at Yankton College, an NAIA school in southeastern South Dakota on the Nebraska border that closed in 1984 after more than 100 years. Yankton’s best-known athlete, football legend Lyle Alzado, was in school at the same time as Lloyd.
Lloyd became a three-time NAIA District All-Star who averaged 20.7 ppg as a junior and 23.2 as a senior. Going 14-for-18 in an NAIA tourney game put him on the pro radar but Frisk still wrote that the news of Lloyd having pro interest and getting drafted by Seattle was a shock. Wissen said Lloyd “did work” and “was enthusiastic about the game” as he jumped rope, lifted weights, ran track and played football to help his improvement. Lloyd also played the bass drum in Arlington’s marching band.
Lloyd decided to go to the ABA’s Carolina Cougars as a free agent since there would likely be more opportunities to play. Lloyd was cut in training camp and hooked on with the Scranton Apollos of the Eastern Basketball Association, the forerunner to the popular Continental Basketball Association (CBA). Lloyd averaged 20.3 points and 12.6 rebounds in 19 games as Scranton won the league title and he got a chance with Carolina in late February 1971. His best offensive game was his debut with 11 points against the Virginia Squires.
Lloyd would play at Scranton in 1971-72 and for the Allentown Jets in 1972-73 and he averaged 16.6 points and 8.2 rebounds in 81 EBA games. He played two more years professionally in France and told Frisk in a 1980 column it was “the greatest experience I’ve ever had,” before a broken foot ended his career. Lloyd had also played against Dr. J (Julius Erving) in the famed New York City Rucker League and owned a car interior business in Phoenix when Frisk talked to him in 1980. The family moved from Arlington Heights to Arizona just before Lloyd’s brother Scott, who played six years in the NBA, got to high school.
Dave Corzine
Hersey
NBA Year/Team: 1978 Washington Bullets Round: 1st Pick: 18
College: DePaul
NBA Career: Four teams in 13 years (1978-91), 8.5 ppg, 5.9 rpg
Corzine provided early glimpses of future stardom with a still-MSL title game record 45 points as a Hersey sophomore in 1972. Then he drove the Huskies to become the MSL’s first team to reach the Elite Eight in Champaign in 1974, where they gave heavily favored Bloom all it could handle in a 56-51 Class AA quarterfinal loss. The 6-foot-11 Corzine was a first-team all-tourney pick and in a 39-31 supersectional win over Waukegan at Northwestern he had 20 points and 11 rebounds to 16 points and 4 rebounds from future NBA center Jerome Whitehead.
Corzine then joined former Hersey teammate Andy Pancratz to start the renaissance of DePaul basketball under Ray and Joey Meyer. Corzine averaged 17.1 points, 10.4 rebounds and 3.2 assists in his four-year college career and as a senior averaged 21 ppg, 11.3 rpg and 3.8 apg as the Blue Demons were ranked third in the final regular-season Associated Press poll. Corzine had 46 points, 9 rebounds and played all 50 minutes of a double-overtime Sweet 16 win over Louisville but was hampered by a dislocated finger in an Elite Eight loss to Notre Dame.
While the Demons would make the Final Four the next season, Corzine was beginning his 13-year NBA career as the first-round pick of the defending champion Washington Bullets. Corzine told the Daily Herald’s Bill Hill he thought he would be drafted by Phoenix or Boston, but the Suns had the 19th pick and the Celtics’ Red Auerbach used a junior eligible pick to take a guy named Larry Bird out of Indiana State at No. 6 and long-range gunner Freeman Williams at No. 8.
“I like it,” Corzine told Hill. “They (Bullets) have got a good team and I think I will fit in well there because they run a good offense.”
Corzine told Hill he wished he was drafted by his hometown team but the Bulls took high-scoring UNLV guard Reggie Theus with the ninth pick.
“I would really have liked to play for them,” Corzine said, “but I found out early they were looking for guys to fill other positions.”
Corzine would eventually come home, after two-year stints in Washington and San Antonio, in a July 1982 trade with Mark Olberding for Artis Gilmore. Corzine’s first year with the Bulls was his best in the NBA statistically at 14 ppg and 8.7 rpg while shooting 49.7 percent from the field. Corzine would be a regular part of the rotation during the formative Michael Jordan years and was traded to Orlando after the 1989 season for a pair of second-round picks, one of which was used to get Toni Kukoc.
Corzine was durable and dependable - playing 82 games five consecutive seasons (1980-81 to 1984-85) and six times overall - and from 1979-80 to 1988-89 he played at least 78 games a season. Corzine finished his NBA career with Seattle in 1990-91 and has been a longtime radio analyst for DePaul basketball.
Kevin McKenna
Palatine
NBA Year/Team: 1981 Los Angeles Lakers Round: 4th Pick: 88
College: Creighton
NBA Career: Four teams in 6 years (1981-87), 5.4 ppg, 1.3 rpg
McKenna not only overcame the odds of making the NBA as a fourth-round pick, he got a championship ring as a rookie during the Los Angeles Lakers’ memorable roller-coaster 1981-82 season that was part of the popular HBO series “Winning Time.” The 6-foot-7 McKenna left Palatine as its career scoring leader (he’s now No. 2 to Connor May) and had a solid four-year Creighton career where he averaged 13.3 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.9 assists a game and went to NCAA tournaments as a freshman and senior.
McKenna and first-round pick Mike McGee of Michigan were the only rookies to make the Lakers from the 1981 draft. Their second- and third-round picks never played in the NBA and only seven players taken after McKenna in the 10-round draft saw any NBA action.
“I was drafted by a first-class organization and here I am playing with Magic (Johnson), Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar) and the Los Angeles Lakers,” McKenna said in a Daily Herald story after he made the regular-season roster. “We’ve got an awesome team and to be able to play well and contribute is pretty great.”
One of those contributions would come early in the season when he had a key basket with 33 seconds to play in a double-overtime win at indiana. That was also after Magic lashed out about head coach Paul Westhead’s switch to a slower, more patterned offense and right before Westhead was fired and replaced by Pat Riley. McKenna averaged 1.9 points in 36 games as the Lakers responded to the coaching change and won their second title in three years.
McKenna spent the next season in the Continental Basketball Association (CBA) and returned to the NBA in 1983-84 to average 6.3 points in 61 games with Indiana. He also averaged 7.2 points in 56 games with the New Jersey Nets in 1986-87 and made his only postseason appearance and played one season with Washington. He helped lead the LaCrosse Catbirds to the 1990 CBA title as a player-assistant coach and is the only Missouri Valley Conference player to win regular season and postseason MVC titles and NBA and CBA crowns.
McKenna was also a CBA head coach, NBA scout, assistant at Creighton to Dana Altman and head coach at Indiana State and Nebraska-Omaha. McKenna just completed his 14th season as an assistant to Altman at Oregon.
Ike Person
Barrington
NBA Year/Team: 1983 Detroit Pistons Round: 10th Pick: 213
College: Michigan
NBA Career: None
Note: Barrington was in the North Suburban Conference during Person’s sophomore season and moved to the MSL in 1977-78.
The 6-foot-7 Person gave Barrington exactly what it was missing when he arrived with coach Gary Cook from Rockford after the city’s public schools cut high school sports programs for the 1976-77 school year. Person became eligible in January and averaged 14.4 points as the Broncos went to the Elite Eight in Champaign for the first time since 1954. Barrington went to the Sweet 16 the next two years and won the MSL title in 1979 behind Person and John Tomlinson. Person was a two-time Daily Herald All-Area pick who averaged 21 points and 10 rebounds as a junior and 20.5 points as a senior.
Person went to Michigan where he played for four years. As a junior in 1981-82 he started all 27 games and averaged 9.8 points and 6.5 rebounds, but in his senior year his playing time and numbers dropped to 5 ppg and 4 rpg with the arrival of a talented group of freshmen led by future NBA players Roy Tarpley and Richard Relliford.
Person was drafted by the Pistons but didn’t make the cut with first-year coach Chuck Daly leading Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer and Kelly Tripucka to a 49-33 season. But a friend and teammate, Leo Brown, suggested Sweden as an option to play professionally.
“I was really down when I got cut from the Pistons,” Person told the Daily Herald’s Phil Brozynski in May 1984. “After the Pistons didn’t work out I decided to go (to Sweden) and take my chances. I don’t know how I could have it much better. The last six months have just been great.”
Person averaged 40 points and 20 rebounds a game in his first of three seasons in a lower league and then made a successful jump up to a higher level for three more seasons. Sweden also became his home as he married basketball player Ingegerd Lundmark and they had three children, according to his Wikipedia page.
Ike Person became a well-respected coach and skills trainer before he passed away on August 18, 2022 at 61 after an illness, according to an on-line story by Sweden’s Sveriges Radio that referred to him as a legend in the headline. Person was clearly revered in Sweden and a Twitter/X post from Uppsala Basket had pictures with a large crowd at his memorial service and a message that translated to English said, “Incredibly heavy. But an incredibly nice memorial for Ike Person.”
Abbie Willenborg
Hersey
WNBA Year/Team: 2000 Houston Comets Round: 4th Pick: 64
College: Marquette
WNBA Career: None
Willenborg was one of the best three-sport athletes in MSL history in volleyball, basketball and soccer. She graduated from Hersey as the basketball program’s No. 2 career scorer and rebounder and two Elite Eight trips in volleyball included a third-place finish in 1993. “She just came to play every game as if it were her last,” Hersey basketball coach Linda Mass told John Leusch for the 1996 Daily Herald All-Area basketball team.
From there it was up to Marquette where Willenborg experienced tremendous team and individual success that led to her induction in the school’s “M Club” Hall of Fame in 2006 and having her jersey No. 34 retired in 2011. She averaged 15.4 points and 9.9 rebounds and shot 49.8 percent from the field for her career as Marquette had an 86-32 record and made the NCAA tournament during all four of her seasons. Willenborg was a second-team all-American as a senior in 1999-2000, a three-time, first-team all-Conference USA pick and made the all-CUSA freshman team. She graduated as the program’s career leader in points and rebounds.
Willenborg was the last pick of the WNBA draft by defending champion Houston and was with the team until the final days of training camp. She opted not to play overseas to try and get back to the WNBA. “I had always dreamed of playing professional basketball and I was excited to get drafted,” Willenborg told the Herald’s Patricia Babcock McGraw. “It was a great experience being drafted and trying out for the WNBA. It’s something I can take for the rest of my life.”
Allie Willenborg Gutzmer would go into teaching and coaching. She led the St. Viator girls basketball team for three seasons (2003-06) and had a successful seven-year stint as Vernon Hills’ girls volleyball coach (2007-13) with five 20-win seasons and two of the program’s three regional titles. She is currently a math teacher and assistant volleyball coach at Vernon Hills.
Haley Gorecki
Fremd
WNBA Year/Team: 2020 Seattle Storm Round: 3rd Pick: 31
College: Duke
WNBA Career: Phoenix Mercury (2021), 3 games, 0 points, 2 rebounds
One of the best players in MSL history added another chapter as the first player from the league to play in the WNBA. Gorecki led the Vikings to four MSL West titles and three overall league crowns and she is the only girls or boys player to score 20 or more points in four MSL title games. She was a four-time Daily Herald all-area pick and as a senior she led Fremd to second place in the Class 4A state tournament and its first state trophy in 38 years. “Her consistency has been amazing,” Fremd coach Dave Yates told the Daily Herald’s John Leusch. “When she puts her uniform on you can almost guarantee 20 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals.”
Gorecki battled through to significant hip injuries in her first two years at Duke to average 14.3 ppg, 5.5 rpg and 3.4 assists per game and make 170 3-pointers in her four-year career. She was a third-team all-American selecton by the U.S. Basketball Writers of America as a senior (17.2 ppg, 7.1 rpg, 3.9 apg) and the two-time all-Atlantic Coast Conference pick averaged 18.5 ppg, 6.6 rpg and 4.4 apg as a junior. “Basketball is such a big part of my life and I wasn’t going to let injuries stop me,” Gorecki told the Herald’s Patricia Babcock McGraw after she was drafted by Seattle in 2020. “It’s definitely a blessing to be back and to be able to play at the highest level.”
Gorecki did not make the Storm but in 2021, she signed a contract in May with the Phoenix Mercury and appeared in 3 games with 2 rebounds and 1 shot attempt before getting released in June. She also had training-camp trials with Seattle in 2021 and Indiana in 2022 and played professionally in Europe, most recently in Poland in 2022-23 where she averaged 12.9 ppg, 3.9 rpg and 3 apg.
Max Christie
Rolling Meadows
NBA Year/Team: 2022 Los Angeles Lakers Round: 2nd Pick: 35
College: Michigan State
NBA Career: Los Angeles Lakers (2022-current), 3.8 ppg, 2.0 rpg
Two years after the 6-foot-6 Christie broke the MSL career scoring record of Buffalo Grove’s Brian Allsmiller and finished with 2,100 points he was playing for one of the NBA’s iconic franchises at age 19. Christie was a four-year starter at Rolling Meadows and in a COVID-shortened senior season in 2021 he led the Mustangs to an MSL title and a 15-0 overall record.
Christie then went to Michigan State to play for Tom Izzo and made the Big Ten’s all-freshman team as he averaged 9.3 points, 3.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 35 games. After the season he opted to enter the NBA draft and was chosen by the Lakers.
“It’s amazing. It’s surreal,” Christie told reporters in New York in a story by Dan Woike, the Los Angeles Times’ Lakers beat writer and Hersey graduate. “LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony — the list goes on. A bunch of great names, a bunch of great players on the Lakers team. I think I can learn a lot and get a lot better in that organization.”
Christie has averaged 3.8 points and 2 rebounds a game in his first two seasons with the Lakers. As a rookie he also made 9 postseason appearances as the Lakers reached the Western Conference finals. This past year he got into 67 games (7 starts) and averaged 4.2 points and 2.1 rebounds in 14 minutes per game. He just agreed to a four-year, $32 million deal to stay with the Lakers, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Cam Christie
Rolling Meadows
NBA Year/Team: 2024 Los Angeles Clippers Round: 2nd Pick: 46
College: Minnesota
NBA Career: Made NBA debut on with 5 points in loss to Minnesota on Dec. 4, 2024
Cam Christie followed his brother’s path from a stellar four-year career at Rolling Meadows, to the Big Ten’s all-freshman team at Minnesota and a second-round draft pick that has him in Los Angeles with the Clippers with his older brother Max across town with the Lakers.
“It’s just extremely cool,” Cam Christie told NBA.com after he was drafted. “It’s very rare two brothers get in the NBA, let alone in the exact same city. I’m just super grateful and thankful for the opportunity, I’m super excited to get out there.”
The 6-foot-5 Christie was a four-year starter at Meadows and scored 1,889 career points. In his lone season at Minnesota he averaged 11.3 points, 3.6 rebounds and 2.2 assists a game and shot 39 percent from 3-point range. The Clippers, led by Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, went 51-31 last season and were knocked out in the first round of the postseason in 6 games by the Dallas Mavericks. Christie agreed to a 4-year, $7.9 million contract on July 5, according to Michael Scotto of USA Today.
Christie made his NBA debut on Dec. 4 against the Minnesota Timberwolves and scored 5 points in 18 minutes. His first points came on a two-hand breakaway dunk.
The Unchosen One
Aaron Williams
Rolling Meadows
Undrafted
College: Xavier
NBA Career: 10 teams in 14 years (1993-2008), 5.8 ppg, 3.9 rpg
Williams was the quintessential late bloomer who started high school at Forest View during its final year, didn’t play at all as a sophomore, had a high school growth spurt, didn’t get drafted out of college and persevered to play 715 NBA games. Williams grew 4 inches to go from a 6-3 JV player as a junior at Meadows to 6-7 inside force and Daily Herald All-Area player who averaged 14 points, 10 rebounds and 5 blocks per game for the 1989 MSL champions. “He improved a world from last year to this year,” Meadows coach Hank Szymanski told the Herald’s Phil Brozynski.
Williams chose Xavier and coach Pete Gillen after Western Michigan and Loyola fired their head coaches. One of his first big moments came as a freshman in February 1990 with a team that featured future NBA veteran big men Tyrone Hill (14 years) and Derek Strong (10 years) and played Loyola at the Rosemont Horizon (now Allstate Arena). Hill was ill and couldn’t play so Wiliams stepped in for his first college start and had 8 points, 10 rebounds and 7 blocked shots. “You can’t teach somebody to jump that quick,” Gillen told the Herald’s Timm Boyle. “He’s improved by playing against our big guys Hill and Strong in practice.”
Williams grew to 6-9 and averaged 9.2 points and 6.1 rebounds in his college career. He averaged 13.9 points and 8 rebounds as a junior in 1991-92 and 10.9 points and 7.1 rebounds as a senior in 1992-93. He made a big impression in his final two college games in the NCAA tournament with 20 points, 7 rebounds and 6 blocks in a win over New Orleans and 17 points and 10 rebounds in a 3-point loss to Indiana in the second round. Gillen told the Daily Herald’s Mike McGraw during Williams’ final season he thought he had a chance to play somewhere, likely professionally in Europe, but “I don’t think he’ll be ready (for the NBA) right away.”
With the draft down to two rounds Williams wasn’t chosen, went to Italy and was cut and played 5 games with Grand Rapids in the Continental Basketball Association (CBA) when he was signed by the Utah Jazz and played 6 games in the 1993-94 season. “It felt great,” Williams told McGraw. “I felt like I finally did it. Even if it’s only one game, I made it here.”
Williams would miss only two games during his four seasons from 1999-2003 with Washington and New Jersey. His best season came in 2001-02 with the Nets when he played all 82 games and averaged 10.2 points, 7.2 rebounds and 28.5 minutes a game. He finished his career with the LA Clippers.
The One that “Got Away”
Scott Lloyd
Arlington Heights
NBA Year/Team: 1976 Milwaukee Bucks Round: 2nd Pick: 24
College: Arizona State
NBA Career: Four teams in 6 years (1976-83), 4.6 ppg, 3 rpg
Unlike his older brother Chuck, who was a late bloomer at Arlington and tiny Yankton College, the 6-10 Scott Lloyd seemed destined for stardom at Dryden Grade School and South Junior High in Arlington Heights. Lloyd became a three-time all-stater in high school, but Arlington coach George Zigman lamented that it happened in Arizona because the family moved there after their father retired.
Before his final season as head coach at Hersey in 1989, Zigman told the Daily Herald’s Phil Brozynski his 1970-71 team at Arlington might have been the best ever in the northwest suburbs if Lloyd’s family hadn’t moved. “He would have given me another 6-11 kid and added to that club - I’m talking about a team that won 19 ballgames, got to the sectional finals and got beat by New Trier - they would have been just awesome,” Zigman said.
Lloyd went to Arizona State and averaged 13.2 points and 6.7 rebounds in his three varsity seasons. As a senior he averaged 18.1 points and 7.7 rebounds and led the Sun Devils to the NCAA Elite Eight, where he scored 20 points and had 9 rebounds in a loss to retiring John Wooden’s final UCLA championship team.
Lloyd came back to the Midwest and had a promising start to his NBA career with the 1976-77 Bucks when he averaged 5.8 points and 3 rebounds in 69 games. Then he bounced to the Buffalo Braves, who moved to San Diego to become the Clippers, and after 5 games in 1978-79 he was traded to the Bulls. It was not a happy homecoming as Lloyd was a target of Chicago Stadium boo-birds and averaged just 7 minutes, 1.7 points and 1.4 rebounds in 67 games as Artis Gilmore’s backup on a 31-51 team.
“The only good thing I can think of the booing is I don’t know anybody here,” Lloyd told Daily Herald columnist Mike Imrem during the season. “I don’t have any friends here, so the people booing really don’t mean anything to me. That may sound like a cruel and rotten thing to say, but that’s how I’m rationalizing the booing. It does bother me though. I’m working hard, trying to do my job. What can I show people in three minutes? I understand how the fans feel, wanting a winner and somebody to back up Artis. They pay their money and can boo if they want. But, really, I haven’t liked it.”
Lloyd did showcase his sense of humor as a large contingent of Stadium fans chanted, “LLOYD! LLOYD! LLOYD!” when he scored 10 points in a 106-88 St. Patrick’s Day loss to Seattle. “They love me. They always did,” Lloyd joked to Herald Bulls beat writer Bill Hill. “Nah. It’s St. Patrick’s Day. They must have all been drunk.”
Lloyd went to Italy the next year, tried to hook on again with the Bucks and was released but found a spot with the expansion Dallas Mavericks and ex-Bulls coach Dick Motta. He impressed Motta as he averaged 8.8 points, 6.3 rebounds and 30.4 minutes in 72 games. Lloyd also hadn’t lost his sense of humor since there was talk the Mavericks could be in line to draft 7-4 Ralph Sampson if he left Virginia a year early.
“What do I want for Christmas?” Lloyd said in an Imrem column. “Well, I’d like to have a good backup center. Someone like Ralph Sampson.”
Lloyd’s got into 74 games in 1981-82 but his playing time was cut in half. He was waived by the Mavericks in December 1982 after 15 games.