Morris Peterson

Morris Peterson

Peterson in 2007
Personal information
Born (1977-08-26) August 26, 1977
Flint, Michigan
Nationality American
Listed height 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m)
Listed weight 220 lb (100 kg)
Career information
High school Flint Northwestern
(Flint, Michigan)
College Michigan State (1995–2000)
NBA draft 2000 / Round: 1 / Pick: 21st overall
Selected by the Toronto Raptors
Playing career 2000–2011
Position Shooting guard / Small forward
Number 24, 9, 42
Career history
20002007 Toronto Raptors
20072010 New Orleans Hornets
2010–2011 Oklahoma City Thunder
Career highlights and awards

Morris Russell Peterson Jr. (born August 26, 1977) is an American retired professional basketball player. He is also a cousin of former basketball player of the Indiana Pacers and the New York Knicks, Jonathan Bender. Peterson currently serves as an analyst for a Canadian broadcaster, The Sports Network, on its coverage of his former team, the Toronto Raptors and other capacities including coverage of the NCAA March Madness tournament, where Peterson was part of the Michigan State Spartans Men's Basketball team, won the National Championship in 2000.

College career

Born in Flint, Michigan, Peterson played collegiate basketball at Michigan State University, and helped lead them to the 2000 NCAA title.

In his senior year at MSU, Peterson led the team in scoring, field goal percentage, and free throw percentage. He had a team-high 30 double-digit scoring efforts. He was voted Big Ten Player of the Year and First Team All-Big Ten, and he placed as first or second team All-American on five different polls.

He was selected 21st overall by the Raptors in the 2000 NBA draft, and was a starter in the majority of their games during his first three seasons. On January 17, 2009, MSU retired his number 42 with MSU's other all-time greats before their game against the Illinois Fighting Illini.

NBA career

Toronto Raptors

Drafted in the first round by the Raptors in 2000, Peterson was a fan favorite from the moment he stepped on the floor. While enjoying some early success in his professional career, Peterson's production faced a steady decline, before stepping up in the wake of the new era of Raptor youngsters being ushered in, taking on a more expansive leadership role and transforming himself into an elite perimeter defender, a clutch performer and consistent scorer. He is known for his three-point shooting, acrobatic shots, defense, and fearless driving to the basket.

On December 28, 2005, Peterson set a record for career games played as a Raptor, surpassing Alvin Williams with 418 games played. Peterson also leads the NBA in longest consecutive games played, appearing in 371 straight until November 22, 2006, when he missed his first game in over four years.

Peterson posted career highs in points and rebounds averaging 16.8 points and 4.6 rebounds and threw in 2.3 assists per game through 82 games played in the 2005–06 season.

Perhaps the biggest highlight of his career occurred against the Washington Wizards on March 30, 2007 in a game that helped determine the two teams' playoff seeding. The Raptors trailed 109–106 with only 3.8 seconds left and no timeouts remaining. The Wizards' Michael Ruffin intercepted the full-court pass and tried to toss the ball high into the air so that the clock would run out. But the ball slipped from his hands and was not thrown high enough. There was still enough time on the clock as Peterson caught the ball and launched a "Hail Mary" three-pointer and sank it to send the game into overtime. Peterson only played 55 seconds in the game, with his first shift beginning with only 9.3 seconds left in the fourth quarter.[1] The Raptors went on to defeat the Wizards, 123–118.[2]

After signing Bryan Colangelo, it became apparent that the re-building process of the Raptors would not include Peterson. It was only a matter of time before his contract expired in the summer of 2007 that he would be gone.

New Orleans Hornets

On July 13, 2007, the New Orleans Hornets signed Peterson to a four-year contract, worth $23 million.[3]

Oklahoma City Thunder

On July 8, 2010, the Hornets traded Peterson along with #11 overall pick in the 2010 draft, Cole Aldrich to the Oklahoma City Thunder for two 2010 first-round draft picks (#21 and #26).[4]

Charlotte Bobcats

On February 24, 2011, Peterson was traded to the Charlotte Bobcats along with D.J. White in exchange for Nazr Mohammed.[5] He was waived four days later when his contract was bought out by the Bobcats.[6]

Broadcasting career

On January 14, 2015, TSN announced that Peterson will join their broadcast team as an analyst. For the network's package of Toronto Raptors games, Peterson joined TSN's broadcast team of Jack Armstrong, Leo Rautins, Matt Devlin, and Rod Black both in the TSN Studio and on-site at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. Peterson will also deliver analysis for SportsCentre and appear throughout the network's expanded NCAA coverage, including TSN's wall-to-wall coverage of NCAA March Madness.[7]

Accolades

NBA career statistics

Legend
  GP Games played   GS  Games started  MPG  Minutes per game
 FG%  Field goal percentage  3P%  3-point field goal percentage  FT%  Free throw percentage
 RPG  Rebounds per game  APG  Assists per game  SPG  Steals per game
 BPG  Blocks per game  PPG  Points per game  Bold  Career high

Regular season

Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG
2000–01 Toronto 80 49 22.6 .431 .382 .717 3.2 1.3 .8 .2 9.3
2001–02 Toronto 63 56 31.6 .438 .364 .751 3.5 2.4 1.2 .2 14.0
2002–03 Toronto 82 80 36.0 .392 .337 .789 4.4 2.3 1.1 .4 14.1
2003–04 Toronto 82 29 26.2 .405 .371 .809 3.2 1.4 1.1 .2 8.3
2004–05 Toronto 82 61 30.6 .420 .385 .832 4.1 2.1 1.1 .2 12.5
2005–06 Toronto 82 77 38.3 .436 .395 .820 4.6 2.3 1.3 .2 16.8
2006–07 Toronto 71 12 21.3 .429 .359 .683 3.3 .7 .6 .2 8.9
2007–08 New Orleans 76 76 23.6 .417 .394 .765 2.7 .9 .6 .1 8.0
2008–09 New Orleans 43 9 12.0 .399 .388 .632 2.0 .4 .3 .1 4.4
2009–10 New Orleans 46 39 21.2 .385 .363 .611 2.7 .9 .5 .1 7.1
2010–11 Oklahoma City 4 0 5.8 .400 .000 .000 .8 .3 .0 .0 1.0
Career 711 488 27.2 .418 .373 .773 3.5 1.5 .9 .2 10.7

Playoffs

Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG
2001 Toronto 8 3 13.8 .514 .444 .750 1.5 1.9 .8 .0 5.4
2002 Toronto 5 5 30.8 .367 .118 .800 2.8 2.2 1.0 .6 9.2
2007 Toronto 6 2 30.5 .517 .500 .833 4.5 .3 .3 .3 6.8
2008 New Orleans 12 12 23.1 .485 .471 .667 2.6 .6 .5 .2 7.2
2009 New Orleans 2 0 10.5 .200 .333 .750 1.5 .5 .5 .0 3.0
Career 33 22 22.6 .457 .387 .767 2.6 1.1 .6 .2 6.7

References

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