UK Men’s Basketball Trio Lead LA Lakers to NBA Championship
ORLANDO, Fla. – It was only fitting that the NBA Playoffs, dominated by former Kentucky men’s basketball players, culminated with three Wildcats (two players and a coach) winning the NBA championship over a trio of former UK stars (two players and one executive).
Anthony Davis, Rajon Rondo, Frank Vogel and the Los Angeles Lakers finished off Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro and Pat Riley’s Miami Heat in the NBA Finals on Sunday with a 106-93 victory to win the series 4-2.
Davis was masterful throughout the series and the postseason run, averaging 25.0 points, 10.7 rebounds and 2.0 blocks in the final series. Rondo, dipping into the Fountain of Youth, looked like the young point guard that led the Boston Celtics to an NBA title in 2008 while providing important leadership and experience.
For Davis, it’s his first NBA ring. In capturing the championship, he joins an exclusive club as one of only eight players to win an NCAA crown, an Olympic gold medal and an NBA title. He is the first player with Kentucky ties to earn that distinction.
It’s Rondo’s second NBA championship after being a part of the “Big Three” in the aforementioned Boston run in 2008. He becomes just the third Wildcat (Frank Ramsey in 1957, 1959 and 1960-64; Los Tsioropoulos in 1957 and 1959) to win multiple NBA titles as a player.
Vogel, a former UK manager and video coordinator in the mid-1990s, won his first NBA title as a coach.
Pat Riley, Miami’s team president, was seeking his third ring as an executive. He’s a five-time NBA champion head coach and also won a title as a player.
The finals marked just the fifth time in NBA history (according to STATS) that four players from the same college played in the same NBA Finals. La Salle (1956), UCLA (1980), North Carolina (1991) and Arizona (2017) previously set the benchmark. The playoffs, held at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, started with a nation-leading 13 former Kentucky players on an NBA postseason roster.
The Lakers, after a tough loss in game five, left nothing to doubt in game six. Davis imposed his will early in the game and Rondo stunned the Heat with 19 points and three 3-pointers. With Rondo starting 6 for 6 from the field, the fourth player to start 6 of 6 from the field in the NBA Finals since 1997, Los Angeles raced to an early lead and never looked back.
Davis, an All-NBA First Team selection who was in the running for the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player award – an honor given to LeBron James – averaged 27.7 points, 9.7 rebounds and 1.4 blocks for the Lakers in their first appearance in the postseason since 2013. With Davis among the leaders, the Lakers went 16-5 in the NBA Playoffs. The 6-foot-10 forward shot 57.5% from the floor and was 30 for 32 from the free-throw line in the finals.
Perhaps the brightest highlight of the run was Davis’ game-winning, buzzer-beating 3-pointer in game two of the Eastern Conference finals to give the Lakers a 2-0 series lead. Three times in that series Davis scored 30 or more. Just a few nights ago, Davis provided two big plays down the stretch with a dagger from beyond the arc and a key block on Jimmy Butler as the Heat tried to mount a comeback.
Rondo, now in his 14th season in the NBA, proved to be exactly the crafty veteran the Lakers needed in returning to the top of the league. The longest-tenured Wildcat in the NBA averaged 7.1 points, 5.0 assists and 3.0 rebounds for the Western Conference’s top-seeded team during the regular season but upped those numbers to 8.9 points, 6.7 assists and 4.4 boards per game in the postseason, underscoring why his league brethren call him “Playoff Rondo.”
Although Rondo missed the first series because of an injury, he still managed to dish out eight or more assists in seven games. In fact, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, Rondo’s 105 assists are the most off the bench in a postseason since starts were first tracked in 1970-71. In game two, he dazzled with 16 points, 10 assists and four rebounds.
Davis and Rondo made up one half of Kentucky’s player representation in the NBA Finals. Adebayo and Herro were among the playoff’s best storylines in getting to the championship series.
After becoming the second-youngest player in NBA history to have a 15-10-5 season, trailing only Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson, Adebayo took his game to another level in the NBA Playoffs by averaging 17.8, 10.3 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game. His game-winning stuff of Jayson Tatum in the final seconds of the first game of the Eastern Conference finals will go down as one of the best blocks in NBA Playoffs history. He then clinched the series with a career-high 32 points to go along with 14 rebounds and five blocks to clinch a spot in the NBA Finals. His value was felt the most when he missed games two and three with an injury.
Herro captivated NBA fans with an unwavering confidence seen in few rookies in the postseason. He hit clutch shot after clutch shot in the NBA bubble, highlighted by a 37-point night vs. the Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals. According to StatMuse, he became the youngest player to drop 30 points in a playoff game off the bench. After scoring 12 points Friday, Herro broke Alvan Adams’ 1976 record for most consecutive double-figuring scoring games with 20 straight. He was also the youngest player ever to start in the NBA Finals.
Combining Herro, Adebayo and Davis with Jamal Murray, who ascended to superstar status with a combined 142 points in a three-game stretch vs. the Utah Jazz in the first round – one of only three players to score that many points in a three-game span in the NBA Playoffs – UK became the first school with four former players to post 30 or more points in the conference finals.
Those weren’t the only historic scoring marks the Wildcats set in the postseason. Before the NBA Finals had even begun, Kentucky alumni had already scored more points in this playoff run than any other school in NBA postseason history. Former UK players totaled 2,249 points in the 2020 NBA Playoffs, 1,458 more than the next-closest school. The second-most points ever is 1,593 by North Carolina in 1993, 656 short of Kentucky’s final tally this season.
With Davis collecting a ring 15 former Kentucky players have won an NBA championship as a player. Jodie Meeks won with the Toronto Raptors last season. Jamaal Magloire was on the bench as an assistant. Davis is the first former John Calipari player from Kentucky to win an NBA title.
Anthony Davis at Kentucky
Davis was the 2012 NCAA Final Four Most Outstanding Player after leading Kentucky to the 2012 national championship. While leading UK in scoring and rebounding and setting the program’s single-season blocks record, Davis was considered the consensus national player of the year in 2012 before being drafted No. 1 overall by the New Orleans Pelicans (formerly the New Orleans Hornets) in 2012.
Rajon Rondo at Kentucky
Rondo played two seasons at Kentucky. He made the All-Southeastern Conference Second Team in his sophomore season and the All-SEC Freshman Team in his first campaign with the Wildcats. He’s the school’s leader in career steals per game and single-season leader in total steals and steals per game. Rondo was drafted 21st overall by the Phoenix Suns in the 2006 NBA Draft.
Bam Adebayo at Kentucky
In his lone season at Kentucky, Adebayo averaged 13.0 points, 8.0 rebounds and 1.5 rebounds. He was tabbed to the All-SEC Second Team by both the media and the league’s coaches. He was also an All-SEC Freshman Team selection and a member of the SEC All-Tournament Team after helping lead UK to the crown. He registered eight double-doubles with the Wildcats, who advanced to the Elite Eight that season, before being selected 14th overall by the Heat in 2017.
Tyler Herro at Kentucky
Herro was not only Kentucky’s second-leading scorer (14.0 points per game) and leading 3-pointer shooter (60 3-point field goals) during the 2018-19 season, he was one of UK’s most important pieces to its success. The Wildcats were 19-0 when Herro scored 15 or more points and 11-7 when he didn’t. In Kentucky’s 30 wins, he averaged a team-high 14.9 points, 49.5% shooting and 39.7% from 3-point range. Shooting 93.5% from the free-throw line, he not only set a new single-season school record for free-throw percentage but also for the SEC (with players between 50 and 100 attempts).
Frank Vogel at Kentucky
Vogel got his start with the Wildcats, first as a manager and then as a video coordinator. He served as a manager for the 1995-96 national championship season and was the video coordinator during the 1996-97 national runner-up run. He is a 1998 graduate of Kentucky.
Pat Riley at Kentucky
As a Wildcat, Riley was a member of the 1966 national runner-up team. The All-American won SEC Player of the Year, UK’s first, in 1966, made the All-NCAA Final Four Team in 1966, and NCAA All-Region MVP honors while leading UK to the national championship game. Riley scored 1,464 career points, which ranked in the top five in school history at the end of his collegiate career. He averaged 18.3 points for his career and double figures in all three seasons played, including 21.9 during the 1966 season. Riley was selected in the first round of the 1967 NBA Draft by the San Diego Rockets.
Kentucky in the NBA
Kentucky has enjoyed unprecedented success at putting players in the NBA under current head coach John Calipari. In the 10-plus seasons of the Calipari era, 38 players have been selected in the NBA Draft, more than any other school. Included in the recent run are 29 first-round picks, three No. 1 overall selections (Davis, Karl-Anthony Towns and John Wall) and 21 lottery selections. A staggering 29 players from Kentucky were on NBA opening-day rosters (including two-way and inactive lists), the most of any school. Thirteen former Wildcats were on rosters for the NBA Playoffs, which also led the country.
Calipari’s players are not only reaching the next level, they are succeeding when they do. His players have garnered 22 All-Star selections. Derrick Rose (from Memphis) was named league MVP in 2011. Five of his players have been tabbed All-NBA (Rose, Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Davis and Towns), three have been named NBA Rookie of the Year (Rose, Tyreke Evans and Towns), and 14 players from Calipari’s first 10 teams at Kentucky have made the NBA All-Rookie teams. UK has produced more All-NBA players, more NBA All-Rookie and more NBA All-Defensive players than any other school in the Calipari era.
Using figures compiled by basketball-reference.com and spotrac.com, Calipari-coached players only (which includes Rose but not Rondo) have amassed more than $2.26 billion in career NBA contracts. In the 11 seasons Calipari has been the head coach at Kentucky, his players have totaled nearly $1.9 billion in NBA contracts.
In just the 2019-20 season alone, UK players were slated to make more than $255 million. Calipari-coached players only (which includes Rose but not Rondo) will make more than $260 million.
Calipari has had at least one player selected in the top 10 of the draft in each of the last 12 seasons, dating back to his time at Memphis. No other school or coach in the country has had a first-round pick in each of the last 11 seasons. Calipari is the only coach in the history of the sport to have four players drafted No. 1 overall (Rose – 2008, Wall – 2010, Davis – 2012, Towns – 2015).
For the latest on the Kentucky men’s basketball team, follow?@KentuckyMBB?on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and on the web at UKathletics.com.
How ’bout dem WILDCATS?!?? #BBN #WeAreUK #GoCats #Lakers #NBAFinals #Kentucky pic.twitter.com/4BZNqwuC2l
— Michael Eaves (@michaeleaves) October 12, 2020
Rondo and his son soaking it in ??? pic.twitter.com/H2LIuRmwTw
— ESPN (@espn) October 12, 2020
