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Herb Williams

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Herb Williams
Personal information
Born (1958-02-16) February 16, 1958 (age 66)
Columbus, Ohio, U.S.
Listed height6 ft 10 in (2.08 m)
Listed weight262 lb (119 kg)
Career information
High schoolMarion-Franklin (Columbus, Ohio)
CollegeOhio State (1977–1981)
NBA draft1981: 1st round, 14th overall pick
Selected by the Indiana Pacers
Playing career1981–1999
PositionCenter / power forward
Number32
Coaching career2003–2019
Career history
As player:
19811989Indiana Pacers
19891992Dallas Mavericks
19921996New York Knicks
1996Toronto Raptors
19961999New York Knicks
As coach:
20032014New York Knicks (assistant)
2004, 2005New York Knicks (interim)
20152019New York Liberty (assistant)
Career highlights and awards
Career NBA statistics
Points11,944 (10.8 ppg)
Rebounds6,509 (5.9 rpg)
Blocks1,605 (1.5 bpg)
Stats at NBA.com Edit this at Wikidata
Stats at Basketball Reference Edit this at Wikidata

Herbert L. Williams (born February 16, 1958) is an American former basketball player in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for eighteen seasons from 1981 to 1999. Williams served as the interim head coach and the assistant coach of the NBA's New York Knicks. He was last an assistant coach for the New York Liberty of the WNBA.

College career

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Williams was a four-year starter for the Ohio State Buckeyes, scoring 2,011 points (then a team record) and pulling down 1,111 rebounds (still second in team history only to Jerry Lucas).[1] Williams is the school leader in career field goals made, with 834 in 114 games. He is second all-time in career blocked shots with 328.

Williams was named to the All-Big Ten team as a junior, when Ohio State finished the year with a 21–8 record and advanced to the NCAA regionals. He led the Buckeyes in scoring that year with an average of 17.6 points per game.

Williams was a team co-captain in both his junior and senior years.

Professional career

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Williams was a first-round draft choice of the Indiana Pacers in 1981, where he played from 1982 to 1989 and had his most productive years.

A consistent and productive center, Williams averaged double figures in all seven of his full seasons as a Pacer, including a career-best 19.9 points per game during the 1985–1986 season. He remains among the Pacers' top ten career leaders in rebounds (4,494), blocks (1,094), and games played (577).

Williams was traded to the Dallas Mavericks midway through the 1988–1989 season on February 22 in exchange for forward Detlef Schrempf.[2]

In 1992, he was signed by the New York Knicks, where he spent seven years backing up perennial All-Star Patrick Ewing. Williams played one game (31 minutes) for the Toronto Raptors in 1996 before being waived and quickly returned to the Knicks. The team made the 1994 and 1999 NBA Finals, with Williams serving as a team leader.

After the 1999 Finals, Williams retired at the age of forty-one after six regular season games and eight playoff games in 1999. Four years later, he returned to the Knicks as an assistant coach. He worked under head coaches Don Chaney and Lenny Wilkens. When Wilkens resigned in 2005, Williams took over as head coach.

On July 26, 2005, Larry Brown was hired as the head coach of the Knicks, thus ending Williams's head coaching tenure. Williams was the acting head coach of the Knicks for the final two games of the 2005–2006 season, when illness kept Larry Brown away from the bench for the final two games of his Knicks career.

After that season, Brown was fired by the Knicks and replaced as head coach by Isiah Thomas. Williams worked as an assistant coach under Thomas and Mike D'Antoni, and continued to be in the coaching staff under Mike Woodson until Phil Jackson fired the entire staff in 2014. He has coached for the Knicks' NBA Summer League team.

On March 26, 2015, Williams was hired as the assistant coach of the WNBA's New York Liberty.[3]

Career playing statistics

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Legend
  GP Games played   GS  Games started  MPG  Minutes per game
 FG%  Field goal percentage  3P%  3-point field goal percentage  FT%  Free throw percentage
 RPG  Rebounds per game  APG  Assists per game  SPG  Steals per game
 BPG  Blocks per game  PPG  Points per game  Bold  Career high

NBA

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Source[4]

Regular season

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Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG
1981–82 Indiana 82 75 27.8 .477 .286 .670 7.4 1.7 .6 2.2 11.5
1982–83 Indiana 78 74 32.2 .499 .000 .705 7.5 3.4 .7 2.2 16.9
1983–84 Indiana 69 53 33.0 .478 .000 .702 8.0 3.1 .9 1.6 14.9
1984–85 Indiana 75 70 34.1 .475 .111 .657 8.5 3.4 .7 1.8 18.3
1985–86 Indiana 78 74 35.5 .492 .083 .730 9.1 2.2 .6 2.4 19.9
1986–87 Indiana 74 67 34.1 .480 .000 .740 7.3 2.4 .8 1.3 14.9
1987–88 Indiana 75 37 26.2 .425 .000 .737 6.3 1.3 .5 1.9 10.0
1988–89 Indiana 46 46 34.1 .450 .000 .714 8.6 1.9 .7 1.7 12.6
1988–89 Dallas 30 20 30.1 .396 .000 .632 6.6 1.2 .5 1.8 6.6
1989–90 Dallas 81 19 27.1 .444 .222 .679 4.8 1.5 .6 1.3 8.6
1990–91 Dallas 60 36 30.5 .507 .000 .638 6.0 1.6 .5 1.5 12.5
1991–92 Dallas 75 26 27.2 .431 .167 .725 6.1 1.3 .5 1.3 11.5
1992–93 New York 55 0 10.4 .411 .667 2.7 .3 .4 .5 2.9
1993–94 New York 70 3 11.1 .442 .000 .643 2.6 .4 .3 .6 3.3
1994–95 New York 56 3 13.3 .456 .622 2.4 .5 .2 .8 3.3
1995–96 Toronto 1 0 31.0 .375 8.0 .0 1.0 2.0 6.0
1995–96 New York 43 2 12.6 .410 .250 .650 1.9 .6 .3 .7 3.1
1996–97 New York 21 2 8.8 .391 .000 .750 1.5 .2 .2 .2 1.9
1997–98 New York 27 0 6.6 .419 .125 1.1 .1 .2 .3 1.4
1998–99 New York 6 0 5.7 .500 1.000 1.0 .0 .0 .3 1.7
Career 1,102 607 25.8 .467 .095 .696 5.9 1.7 .5 1.5 10.8

Playoffs

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Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG
1987 Indiana 4 4 33.5 .588 .538 5.0 1.8 .0 .3 11.8
1990 Dallas 3 0 27.0 .609 .813 4.3 1.7 .3 .7 13.7
1993 New York 7 0 9.9 .357 1.000 2.0 .3 .1 .6 2.0
1994 New York 19 0 6.7 .419 .667 1.1 .2 .2 .6 1.5
1995 New York 8 0 6.9 .231 1.000 .9 .0 .6 .6 1.0
1996 New York 5 0 6.6 .600 .750 .0 .0 .0 .4 1.8
1997 New York 3 0 7.7 .400 .3 .0 .0 .0 1.3
1999 New York 8 0 2.0 .200 .4 .0 .0 .0 .3
Career 57 4 9.4 .469 .738 1.4 .3 .2 .4 2.7

Head coaching record

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Legend
Regular season G Games coached W Games won L Games lost W–L % Win–loss %
Playoffs PG Playoff games PW Playoff wins PL Playoff losses PW–L % Playoff win–loss %
Team Year G W L W–L% Finish PG PW PL PW–L% Result
New York 2003–04 1 1 0 1.000 (interim)
New York 2004–05 43 16 27 .372 5th in Atlantic Missed playoffs
Career 44 17 27 .386

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Herb Williams biography". NBA. Archived from the original on February 11, 2001.
  2. ^ "MAVERICKS TRADE SCHREMPF TO PACERS – Deseret News". Deseret News.
  3. ^ "News Archive". New York Liberty. Archived from the original on March 28, 2015.
  4. ^ "Herb Williams NBA stats". Basketball Reference. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved August 25, 2024.
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