Basketball legend Rod Strickland enjoyed a long playing career in the NBA before becoming assistant coach for the South Florida Bulls. During his career, he became a junior All-American, was a first-round NBA draft pick, and an All-NBA Second Team pick, among many other accolades. A native New Yorker, he began his professional career with the Knicks before starring for many other NBA sides, including the Portland Trail Blazers, Washington Bullets, Miami Heat, and Orlando Magic.
Born in The Bronx, Strickland was a precocious talent from a young age — at one point, he was ranked as one of America’s top-ten high school recruits. After a successful collegiate career, he was selected by the New York Knicks in the first round of the 1988 NBA draft and was ever-present in his first professional season. After two seasons, Strickland moved to the San Antonio Spurs, where his career truly began to take shape until injury sidelined him. His career peaked in the late 1990s with the Washington Bullets, where he became one of an elite group of NBA players to have scored 10,000 points and 5,000 assists.
Strickland’s playing career wound down during the early 2000s, and he retired in 2005, having played just shy of 1,100 NBA matches and recorded a total of 14,463 points. After hanging up his trainers, he returned to college basketball, working first at the University of Kentucky and eventually becoming assistant coach at the University of South Florida for three years. With his son and godson both enjoying promising careers, Strickland’s NBA legacy lives on.
