Chauncey Billups, Colorado Athletic Hall of Fame

Chauncey Billups, Basketball

1996-97 First Team All-American; All-Big 12
One of Two Buffs With 1,000 Points In Two Seasons
Third pick of the 1997 NBA Draft
17 Year NBA Career; 2004 NBA Finals MVP

A first-team All-American and unanimous All-Big 12 performer as a sophomore in the 1996-97 season, he led the Buffaloes to a 22-10 record, including an 11-5 mark and a second place finish in the inaugural season of the Big 12, as well as their first NCAA Tournament appearance in 28 years ... In two seasons at Colorado before declaring for the NBA Draft, he averaged 18.5 points, 5.6 rebounds and 5.1 assists in 55 games played; he also connected on 120 three-point field goals and converted at 85.7 percent from the free throw line ... He averaged 19.1 points as a sophomore, and scored 24 in an 80-62 upset over Indiana and its legendary coach Bobby Knight in the first round of the NCAA's.

He hit a last-second 15-foot shot to give CU an 80-78 win over No. 20 Texas Tech in Lubbock earlier that year, snapping the Red Raiders' home court winning streak at 35 games, which had been the longest in the nation at the time; it was also CU's first road win over a ranked team since 1973 (he had 29 points in that game) ... In 1995-96, he set the school freshman records for points (465), scoring average (17.9) and assists (143), and was the second fastest player to score 500 points in a career, doing so in just 28 games (and is one of just two players to score 1,000 points in just two seasons in Boulder) ... The Boston Celtics made him the third pick overall in the 1997 NBA Draft, but would trade him to Toronto a little over halfway into the season ... He would eventually play 17 seasons in the NBA with seven teams (Boston, Toronto, Denver?twice, Minnesota, Detroit?twice, New York and the Los Angeles Clippers), but would rise to the ultimate stardom with Detroit, as he led the Pistons to the 2003-04 NBA title and would be named the Finals MVP ... In his second stint with the Nuggets, in 2009 he helped the team reach the Western Conference finals for just the third time in franchise history ... A five-time All-Star, he averaged 15.2 points, 5.4 assists and 2.9 rebounds per game, with his 89.4 free throw percentage the fifth-best in NBA history (his 38.7 percentage from three point range ranks 65th, but there's no ranking for game winning or clutch shots, as he would be even higher considering he earned the nickname “Mr. Big Shot”) ... He retired prior to the 2014-15 season and lives full-time in his native Colorado ... One of just a handful of players to be named All-State four times as a prep at Denver's George Washington High School, and was named Colorado's “Mr. Basketball” three times ... He was on the North team that won the gold medal in the 1995 Olympic Sports Festival ... In 2013, he was inducted into the National High School Sports Hall of Fame (one of just four CU athletes to be honored, along with Byron White, Joe Romig and Bill Fanning), and in 2015, he was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.

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