Athletes - Bernard King

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	Athletes - Bernard King

Bernard King (born December 4, 1956 in Brooklyn, New York), is a former professional basketball player, a forward in the NBA with the New Jersey Nets (1978-1979), Utah Jazz (1980), Golden State Warriors, (1981-1982), New York Knicks (1983-1987), the Washington Bullets (1988-1992), and again in 1993. He attended college at the University of Tennessee.

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 selected twice to the NBA First Team and four times to the NBA All-Star Game and during the 1983-84 NBA season, he made history, on January 31, 1984, as a Knick in a game vs. The San Antonio Spurs at San Antonio, he went 20 for 23, and made 10 free throws to score 50 points (The Knicks won that game 117-113), the next night in a game against the Dallas Mavericks at Dallas, he went 20 for 28, made 10 free throws and became the first NBA Player since 1964 to score 50 points in back-to-back games (The Knicks won that game too 105-98), and officialy became the toast of the Big Apple.

At the peak of his career, 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, and he missed all of the 1986-87 season and almost all of the next season before returning. However, his explosiveness was diminished, prompting the New York Knicks to release him at the end of the 1987 season. It should be noted that his injury, combined with the downfall of the Knicks prior to 1985, allowed them to get the draft pick that would allow the Knicks to get Patrick Ewing. However, King would have a very successful comeback with the Washington Bullets, improving his scoring average each year and returning to the All-Star Game one last time in 1991. After a brief stint with the New Jersey Nets, his knee problems forced him into retirement in 1993.

Although nominated in 2004, King has yet to be elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. Arguably, his candidacy is handicapped by the relatively few 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.

His 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 in popular culture

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.

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Athletes - Bernard King

Bernard King in popular culture

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