San Antonio Spurs: 15 players you may have forgot played in San Antonio
No. 4: Dale Ellis (1992-93 – 1993-94)
Here’s our cherry-picked, SportsCenter-type stat: from 1986-87 to 1989-90, only six players could carry a 25-point average or more over the four-year span. Some — Michael Jordan, Dominique Wilkins, Karl Malone, Larry Bird, and Charles Barkley — you might have predicted. As you might’ve guessed, the sixth man was none other than Dale Ellis.
The term “walking bucket” probably wasn’t within verbiage in the mid-1990s, though if it were, it’d have been in Seattle’s vernacular. In 1994, he became the first player to break the NBA’s 1,000 3-pointer barrier, and generated buckets similar to that of Paul Pierce or Khris Middleton.
Most points in first NBA season with Spurs in SA history by non-rookies:
— Jordan Howenstine (@AirlessJordan) March 16, 2019
1. Terry Cummings - 1,818
2. Artis Gilmore - 1,479,
3. DEMAR DEROZAN - 1,367
4. Dale Ellis - 1,366
Though he was older and prone to injury, San Antonio got a chance to see some of that, when they traded for him in the summer of 1992, another Spurs-Bucks deal, this time for veteran forward Tracy Murray.
The deal was somewhat risky. Ellis had dealt with major injuries, including a collapsed lung from a car accident while driving drunk in 1990-91, and then a herniated disk in 1991-92.
But, Ellis missed just five games of a possible 164 in San Antonio, and averaged 15.9 points on 49.7 percent shooting, 39.7 percent from the field, and 78.9 percent from the free throw line, including some spirited performances in 1993 against the eventual Western Conference champion Phoenix Suns.