Tony Massenburg

Tony Arnel Massenburg (born July 31, 1967 in Sussex County, Virginia) is an NBA basketball player for the San Antonio Spurs. He shares an NBA record with Chucky Brown for having played with thirteen different teams over a career.

Biography

Massenburg was initially signed by the San Antonio Spurs in 1990, when he was chosen in the NBA's second round of the 1990 NBA draft, as the 43rd pick overall. During his first stint with the Spurs, he was able to play alongside David Robinson. He played 35 games during the 1990-1991 NBA season. Massenburg has had major trouble with injuries, which might have helped him tie Brown's record for the players that have played with the most franchises in history.

As part of his first injury's rehabilitation program, Massenburg went to Italy, where he averaged almost 23 points and 10 rebounds per game in four games with the Reggio team.

After playing only one game for Spurs in the 1991-1992 season, Massenburg was traded to the Charlotte Hornets where he played for three games before moving on to the Boston Celtics for seven games, and also the Golden State Warriors for another seven games; ending with a total of 18 games, 90 minutes and four franchises that season.

Massenburg did not play during the 1992-1993 and 1993-1994 seasons, but he came just short of playing an entire season for the first time in his career during 1994-1995, when he was a member of the Los Angeles Clippers for 80 games.

Massenburg was taken in the expansion draft in 1995 by the Toronto Raptors. After 24 games there, he was shipped to the Philadelphia 76ers, where he played 30 games.

During the 1996-1997 season, Massenburg once again came very close to playing an entire season for the first time in his career, seeing action in 79 games with yet another team, the New Jersey Nets. Massenburg returned to Canada for the 1997-1998 season, playing with the Brian Winters-coached Vancouver Grizzlies. In Vancouver, Massenburg backed up center Bryant Reeves. He played two seasons in Vancouver before being traded before the 1999-2000 season to the Houston Rockets. With the Rockets, he played ten games, then was promptly returned to the Grizzlies before the 2000-2001 campaign. When the franchise relocated to Memphis in 2001, so did Massenburg. During the Grizzlies' first season on US soil, Massenburg played 73 games, averaging 5.5 points per game. In successive years, he was a member of the Utah Jazz and the Sacramento Kings.

Massenburg returned to the Spurs for the 2004-2005 season. By then, much was being talked about Massenburg being the only player in thirteen teams to never win an NBA championship. Whereas Chucky Brown had also played with thirteen teams, Brown had actually won an NBA title with the Rockets.

Massenburg finally achieved his dream of becoming an NBA champion, when the Spurs defeated the Detroit Pistons, four games to three, with Massenburg mainly observing from the bench as his teammates clinched the Spurs' third title in seven years.

He has participated in 683 NBA games over 15 years, scoring 4,238 points for a career average of 6.2 points per game, collecting 2,964 rebounds for a total of 4.3 rebounds per game, and handling 266 assists, for 0.4 assists per game.

External links

NBA.com's Massenburg page