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[post_author] => 102
[post_date] => 2021-12-16 09:35:33
[post_date_gmt] => 2021-12-16 09:35:33
[post_content] => The Tucker File
- 35th overall pick in the 2006 NBA draft
- One NBA championship, 2021
- One Big 12 Player of the Year award, 2006
- Played professionally in both Germany and Israel
- Birth name: Anthony Leon Tucker Jr.
P.J. Tucker Came Up Short
The Houston Rockets embraced the "small" part of small ball. Like really embraced it.
A front office and coaching staff in unison set the slider as far as it would go, building the smallest team in the league with hopes that dexterity and lethality from deep would keep them competitive in a post-Clint Capela world.
As a result, the Rockets made the playoffs during the 2019-20 NBA season. Their starting center? Long-time 3 and D small forward, P.J. Tucker.
At just 6-foot-5, Tucker was small for a forward, much less a center, especially in a loaded Western Conference.
From Steven Adams to Rudy Gobert; from Kristaps Porzingis to Nikola Jokic. The wild west was complete with big men up and down the standings. In the playoffs, Tucker was the shortest starting center by six inches! Porzingis, the tallest playoff center in the West, was a full 10 inches taller than him.
There's playing bigger than your frame suggests, and there's needing stilts to compete. The experiment failed, though Tucker held up admirably. If nothing else, it cemented that Tucker would do literally anything asked of him on the court if it meant a better shot at a ring.
Thankfully for Tucker, he got his wish, as a forward, in 2021.
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P.J. Tucker