rodneystuckey.jpeg
Stuckey’s driving layup with nine minutes left was NBA.com’s play of the day. Stuckey also had the “assist of the night” on a give-and-go with Antonio McDyess. You can see both plays here.
Stuckey also had two steals–his job, according to what he and Rip Hamilton said after the game, appears to be to bring energy off the bench, and he certainly did that.
On the game broadcast (done masterfully by Mike Breen, Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy, which may be the best b-ball broadcasting trio ever), someone mentioned to Van Gundy that Stuckey’s been likened to a Dwyane Wade. Van Gundy said he wouldn’t got that far. But by the end of the game, he’d changed his tune. “I can see it,” he said.
Stuckey grew up in two homes in Kent–first with his mom, who has disabilities that made it difficult for her to raise her kids, then with a white family that lived a few blocks away, who legally adopted Stuckey and his brother Ronnie when Rodney was in high school, according to a piece by Percy Allen of the Times. Stuckey won’t discuss his father, writes the Detroit Free Press’s Krista Jahnke.
After not qualifying for UW or Wazzu (he had terrible grades his sophomore year of high school), Stuckey was an academic All-American at Eastern Washington, with a 3.4 GPA. He went to the draft after his sophomore year, getting picked #15 last year by the Pistons.
Stuckey averages 7.8 ppg and 2.8 apg in 19 mpg during the regular season. During the playoffs he’s gotten more minutes and responded with more production, 7.8 ppg and 3.4 apg in 21.8 mpg. He started two games in the Orlando series with Chauncey Billups out.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.