Athletes - Clifford R. Robinson

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	Athletes - Clifford R. Robinson

Clifford Ralph Robinson (commonly referred to as just Cliff or Clifford Robinson; born December 16 1966 in Buffalo, New York) is a professional basketball player currently signed with the New Jersey Nets of the NBA. Robinson played collegiately at the University of Connecticut, and was selected with the 36th overall pick (2nd round) in the 1989 NBA Draft by the Portland Trail Blazers. He should not be confused with the other Clifford Robinson, who entered the league ten years earlier.

When he first entered the NBA, many NBA executives and analysts considered Robinson a tweener - at Connecticut he primarily played a perimeter-oriented game, despite being 6' 10". Many scouts thought he wouldn't succeed in the pros, believing he lacked the strength and size to play the power forward position, and the quickness and shooting ability to play small forward. As a result, he slipped to the second round of the draft, despite many predictions he would be taken in the first round. Robinson quickly proved his critics wrong, as throughout his NBA career he has been known as an excellent defender who can guard all three frontcourt positions (twice named to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team), and a skilled three-point shooter (who participated in the NBA 3-point shootout in 1996). Some consider Robinson an early prototype of the modern NBA power forward--a quick, mobile big man who is equally adept at shooting from the outside as he is at playing a rugged interior game. Robinson has also been an extremely durable player throughout his career--he had a consecutive-games streak of 461 games, and has missed only 19 games due to injury during his career. However, he has been one of the worst rebounding big men in NBA history.

He also has, over his career, been a somewhat colorful character; going by the moniker "Uncle Cliffy" (and occasionally performing an on-court dance of the same name) and wearing different colored headbands during games (long before the wearing of headbands became a popular trend among NBA players). In his early years in the league, he was notorious for removing his headbands and breaking them apart in fits of frustration during gameplay.

After being selected by the Trail Blazers, Robinson embarked on a relatively solid rookie campaign, which was far more productive then that typically expected of a second-round draft pick. He averaged 9.1 points and 3.8 rebounds per game while playing a full 82-game season. He served as a sixth man for the Blazers, backing up all three frontcourt starters (Jerome Kersey, Buck Williams, and Kevin Duckworth). He continued in this role for several years.

In 1993 he received the NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award, averaging 19.1 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.99 blocks per game off the bench. The following season he was promoted to the starting lineup (replacing Kersey, whose skills had started to deteriorate due to age and injury), marginally lifting his averages to 20.1 points and 6.7 rebounds per game. That year, he was an All-Star.

However, during his career in Portland (other than the 90 and 92 campaigns, when the Blazers reached the NBA Finals) was generally marked by playoff failure. For several seasons in a row, Robinson's productivity (in particular, his scoring) plummeted during the playoffs, this caused him to acquire a reputation (among Portland fans) as a "choke artist". When his contract expired in 1997, the Trail Blazers decided not to re-sign him.

After departing the Blazers, Robinson signed with the Phoenix Suns on August 25, 1997, where he remained for three seasons. The highlight of his tenure with the Suns was registering a career-best 50 points against the Denver Nuggets on January 16, 2000. Eighteen months later he was traded to the Detroit Pistons, where he played for two seasons until being shipped again, this time to the Golden State Warriors. On February 14, 2005, after one-and-a-half seasons in Golden State, the Warriors traded him to the New Jersey Nets in exchange for two second round draft picks.

Robinson holds career numbers of 15.1 points, 4.7 rebounds, 1.06 blocks and 1.08 steals in 1,250 games.

As of 2005, he is currently the only member of the 1989 draft class still active in the league. He also is the only player taller than 6' 10" to make more than 900 three pointers; he has made 1,168 threes as of the start of the 2005-06 season and currently ranks 19th all-time in career 3-point field goals made.

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