Maurice Cheeks
Teams
Philadelphia 76ers - 1978-89
San Antonio Spurs - 1989-90
New York Knicks - 1990-91
Atlanta Hawks - 1991-92
New Jersey Nets - 1993
Playoffs
Appearances - 13 (1979,1980,1981,1982,1983,1984,1985,1986,1987,1989,1990,1991,1993)
Conference Finals - 5 (1980,1981,1982,1983,1985)
NBA Finals - 3 (1980,1982,1983)
Championships - 1 (1983)
Awards and Honors
All-NBA Second Team - 0 (1986)
Hall of Fame - 2018
*(actual in bold, deserved in italics)
All-Time Ranks
Total Steals - #6
Steals Per Game - #11
Total Assists - #15
Assists Per Game - #33
Field Goal Percentage - #64
League Leads
Total Steals (#2-1982,1986, #3-1981, #5-1979,1983,1984)
Steals Per Game (#2-1982, #3-1987, #4-1981,1984,1986)
Total Assists (#3-1982, #4-1986)
Assists Per Game (#3-1982, #5-1986)
Maurice Cheeks averaged 16.8 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 5.7 assists as a senior at West Texas A&M, a Division II school that most people have never heard of, but he played well enough to be noticed by the Philadelphia 76ers, who drafted him in the second round of the 1978 NBA Draft.
Cheeks became the starting point guard for Philly immediately, starting every game of his rookie season while averaging 8.4 points, 5.3 assists, and 2.1 steals per game, and in the playoffs he set an all-time record by averaging 4.1 steals per game in the postseason. He would go on to average at least 2 steals per game in each of his first 10 seasons, and at least 5 assists per game in each of his first 13 seasons.
The next season, the 76ers, led by Julius Erving, would reach the NBA Finals, but would ultimately fall to Kareem, Magic, and the Lakers in 6 games. They fell just short of that the next year, losing in the Conference Finals to the Celtics, but made it back to the Finals in 1982, where they again fell to the Lakers in 6 games.
The next year is when both Philadelphia and Cheeks got over the hump. Cheeks was named to the All-Defensive Team for the first of 5 straight seasons and made his first All-Star team, and the 76ers won 65 regular season games after trading for Moses Malone, then stampeded through the playoffs, losing only 1 game on the way to a championship, a feat that has only been matched twice since.
Cheeks got better statistically in each of the next few seasons, raising his scoring average each year until it peaked at 15.6 in 1987, while his assist average reached 9.2 in 1986. Despite his increased level of play, the 76ers fortunes started to slip, with one more Conference Finals appearance in 1985, the last deep playoff run of Cheeks' career.
After the 1989 season, as he started to show signs of age, the 76ers traded Cheeks to the San Antonio Spurs, and he spent the next few years being traded around, playing short stints for the Knicks, Hawks, and Nets as well before retiring in 1993.
When Cheeks retired, he was the league's all-time leader in steals, though he has since fallen to #6, and he was #5 in assists when he hung it up, and is still at #15. Cheeks was not a big scorer, but he was a great defensive player and distributor, and he was the starting point guard for a 76ers team that made deep playoff runs nearly every year in the early 1980s and won a championship. Even though he was never considered a superstar, he can't be left out of the conversation of the best players of all time.
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