Brian Wade Grant (born March 5, 1972, in Columbus, Ohio) is a retired American basketball player. He played the power forward and center positions for five teams during 12 seasons in the National Basketball Association. He was known for his tenacious rebounding and blue-collar defense. During his career, he played with the Sacramento Kings (where he made First Team All-Rookie in the 1994-1995 season), Portland Trail Blazers, Miami Heat, Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns.
College career
He was picked up on the Xavier college basketball team where he was second on the all-time leading scorers' list. He became the two-time Midwest Collegiate Conference Player of the Year at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. He continued to practice with the coaches after each practice and continue to get better. All four seasons with Xavier University he led his team in rebounding, and was third on the all-time leading rebounding list. He was named to the Associated Press' honorable mention All-American team in his junior year, after ranking second in the nation in field goal percentage with 65.4 percent.
Xavier Stats
YEAR TEAM G MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG TO PF PPG
90-91 Xavier 32 29.1 .572 -- .694 8.5 0.6 0.9 0.8 2.4 3.4 11.6
91-92 Xavier 26 28.0 .576 -- .583 9.1 0.9 0.7 1.0 2.5 3.0 11.8
92-93 Xavier 30 31.5 .654 -- .692 9.4 1.5 0.8 1.0 2.0 2.2 18.5
93-94 Xavier 29 30.8 .559 .333 .713 9.9 1.6 0.9 1.6 2.3 2.5 16.7
Total 117 29.9 .594 .333 .676 9.2 1.2 0.8 1.1 2.3 cal 14.7
NBA career
Grant was drafted in the first round of the 1994 NBA Draft by the Kings. He signed a 5-year, 29 million dollar contract.
Grant opted out of the deal following the 1997 season to sign a 6-year, 67 million dollar deal with the Trail Blazers. After three years as the Blazer's number one big man off the bench, Grant once again opted out of his deal to become a free agent, hoping to land a starting gig elsewhere.
In the summer of 2000 Grant signed a mega-deal with Miami: 7 years, $86 million. Grant had just come off season averages of 7.5 ppg and 5.5 rpgg. The deal was met with much scrutiny from the national media, but Heat GM Pat Riley insisted that Grant was the missing piece to the Heat's championship puzzle.
During the summer of 2004, he was traded (along with Caron Butler, Lamar Odom and a future first-round draft pick) to the Lakers in exchange for Shaquille O'Neal. Grant was released the following off-season and signed with Phoenix. He was traded in the 2006 NBA Draft to the Boston Celtics with the rights to Rajon Rondo in exchange for a future first-round draft pick. After being waived by the Celtics on October 27, 2006, Grant formally announced his retirement.
He is nicknamed "The General" after growing up in the same town as Civil War Union general and President Ulysses S. Grant.
Grant's cousins include former San Francisco 49ers cornerback Ahmed Plummer and actor/model Steven Grant.
External links
NBA player profile @ NBA.com
Official Website
NBA.com - Brian Grant Through the Years Photo Gallery @ NBA.com
Brian Grant Statistics at Basketball-Reference.com
v • d • e
1994 NBA Draft
First Round
Glenn Robinson • Jason Kidd • Grant Hill • Donyell Marshall • Juwan Howard • Sharone Wright • Lamond Murray • Brian Grant • Eric Montross • Eddie Jones • Carlos Rogers • Khalid Reeves • Jalen Rose • Yinka Dare • Eric Piatkowski • Clifford Rozier • Aaron McKie • Eric Mobley • Tony Dumas • B. J. Tyler • Dickey Simpkins • Bill Curley • Wesley Person • Monty Williams • Greg Minor • Charlie Ward • Brooks Thompson
Second Round
Deon Thomas • Antonio Lang • Howard Eisley • Rodney Dent • Jim McIlvaine • Derrick Alston • Gaylon Nickerson • Michael Smith • Andrei Fetisov • Dontonio Wingfield • Darrin Hancock • Anthony Miller • Jeff Webster • William Njoku • Gary Collier • Shawnelle Scott • Damon Bailey • Dwayne Morton • Voshon Lenard • Jamie Watson • Jevon Crudup • Kris Bruton • Charles Claxton • Lawrence Funderburke • Anthony Goldwire • Albert Burditt • Željko Rebrača
NBA Drafts
47 • 48 • 49 • 50 • 51 • 52 • 53 • 54 • 55 • 56 • 57 • 58 • 59 • 60 • 61 • 62 • 63 • 64 • 65 • 66 • 67 • 68 • 69 • 70 • 71 • 72 • 73 • 74 • 75 • 76 • 77
78 • 79 • 80 • 81 • 82 • 83 • 84 • 85 • 86 • 87 • 88 • 89 • 90 • 91 • 92 • 93 • 94 • 95 • 96 • 97 • 98 • 99 • 00 • 01 • 02 • 03 • 04 • 05 • 06 • 07 • 08
v • d • e
J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award
1975: Unseld | 1976: Watts | 1977: Bing | 1978: Lanier | 1979: Murphy | 1980: Carr | 1981: Glenn | 1982: Benson | 1983: Erving | 1984: Layden | 1985: Issel | 1986: Cooper & Sparrow | 1987: Thomas | 1988: English | 1989: Bailey | 1990: Rivers | 1991: K. Johnson | 1992: M. Johnson | 1993: Porter | 1994: Dumars | 1995: O'Toole | 1996: Dudley | 1997: Brown | 1998: Smith | 1999: Grant | 2000: Divac | 2001: Mutombo | 2002: Mourning | 2003: Robinson | 2004: Miller | 2005: Snow | 2006: Garnett | 2007: Nash | 2008: Billups
NewPP limit report
Preprocessor node count: 1516/1000000
Post-expand include size: 36132/2048000 bytes
Template argument size: 18495/2048000 bytes
Expensive parser function count: 0/500
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Grant"
Categories: 1972 births | Living people | African American sportspeople | American basketball players | Los Angeles Lakers players | Miami Heat players | Phoenix Suns players | Portland Trail Blazers players | Sacramento Kings players | Xavier Musketeers men's basketball players | People from Columbus, Ohio | Centers (basketball) | Power forwards (basketball)
Views
Article
Discussion
