NBA: 50 Greatest Players Of The 1990s
By Phil Watson
50 greatest NBA players from the 1990s — 27. Horace Grant
Horace Grant entered the 1990s as an emerging power forward with an emerging Chicago Bulls team that had made him the 10th overall pick out of Clemson in the 1987 NBA Draft.
Grant was an All-Star in 1994 and an All-Defensive selection twice with the Bulls, winning championships in 1991, 1992 and 1993.
In the five-game triumph over the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1991 NBA Finals, Grant averaged 14.6 points, 7.8 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.6 steals in 39.6 minutes per game, shooting .627/—/9-for-12.
In the 1992 Finals, a six-game win over the Portland Trail Blazers, he averaged 9.2 points, 7.8 rebounds, four assists and 2.3 blocks in 37.8 minutes a game, shooting .561/0-for-1/9-for-17.
Chicago beat the Phoenix Suns in six games in the 1993 NBA Finals, with Grant averaging 11.2 points, 10.3 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.5 steals and 1.5 blocks in 38.8 minutes a night, shooting .528/—/11-for-19.
Grant was also third in the NBA with a .579 field-goal percentage in 1991-92.
In September 1994, Grant signed with the Orlando Magic as an unrestricted free agent.
In five seasons with the Bulls in the 1990s, Grant averaged 13.7 points, 9.3 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 1.2 steals and 1.2 blocks in 35.2 minutes per game, shooting .535/2-for-19/.677.
Grant was named All-Defensive twice with the Magic and was third in the NBA with a .567 field-goal percentage in 1994-95.
He also helped Orlando to the NBA Finals in 1995, where they were swept by the Houston Rockets. In that Finals series, Grant averaged 13.5 points, 12 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 42 minutes per game, shooting .532/—/4-for-5.
In five seasons with the Magic to close out the 1990s, Grant averaged 12.1 points, 8.7 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.1 steals and 1.1 blocks in 36.2 minutes per game, shooting .500/.069/.702.
But on draft night in 1999, Grant was traded with the rights to second-round pick Olumide Oyedeji and a second-rounder in 2001 to the Seattle SuperSonics for Dale Ellis, Don MacLean, Billy Owens and the rights to 13th overall pick Corey Maggette.
Grant was on the move again in September 2000, dealt to the Lakers as part of a four-team deal along with Chuck Person, Emanual Davis and Greg Foster, with Seattle acquiring Patrick Ewing from the New York Knicks and also sending Vernon Maxwell, Lazaro Borrell, Vladimir Stepania, two second-round picks in 2001 and a first-rounder in 2002 to the Knicks.
Grant earned a fourth ring with the Lakers in 2001 and signed with Orlando as a free agent in July 2001. In July 2003, Grant returned to the Lakers as a free agent and retired after going unsigned in the summer of 2004.
In the 1990s, Grant was 12th with 6,457 rebounds, 18th with 830 blocked shots and 19th with an average of nine rebounds per game.
He is 44th in NBA history with 1,165 games, 36th with 38,621 minutes played and 43rd with 9,443 rebounds.