John Salley
 Salley at LA Direct magazine's "Remember to Give" Holiday Party, December 2007. |
|
| No. 22, 16 | |
|---|---|
| Power Forward / Center | |
| Personal information | |
| Born | May 16, 1964 Brooklyn, New York |
| Nationality | American |
| High school | Canarsie (Brooklyn, New York) |
| Listed height | 6 ft 11 in (2.11 m) |
| Listed weight | 230 lb (104 kg) |
| Career information | |
| College | Georgia Tech (1982–1986) |
| NBA Draft | 1986 / Round: 1 / Pick: 11th overall |
| Selected by the Detroit Pistons | |
| Pro career | 1986–2000 |
| Career history | |
| 1986–1992 | Detroit Pistons |
| 1992–1995 | Miami Heat |
| 1995–1996 | Toronto Raptors |
| 1996 | Chicago Bulls |
| 1996 | Panathinaikos (Greece) |
| 1999–2000 | Los Angeles Lakers |
| Career highlights and awards | |
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| Career NBA statistics | |
| Points | 5,228 (7.0 ppg) |
| Rebounds | 3,356 (4.5 rpg) |
| Blocks | 983 (1.3 bpg) |
| Stats at Basketball-Reference.com | |
John Thomas Salley (born May 16, 1964) is a retired American professional basketball player, actor and talk show host. He was the first player in NBA history to play on three different championship-winning franchises.
After being drafted in the first round out of Georgia Tech in 1986, the 6'11" (2.11 m) Salley played both power forward and center for the Detroit Pistons, Miami Heat, Toronto Raptors, Chicago Bulls, Panathinaikos BC and Los Angeles Lakers. He was a long-time host of the former Fox Sports Net show The Best Damn Sports Show Period.
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[edit] Early life
Salley was born in Brooklyn, New York. Salley played high school ball at Canarsie High School in Brooklyn.[1] He is a 1988 graduate of Georgia Tech's College of Management.[2] He holds Georgia Tech's blocked shot record, and has had his jersey number 22 retired—a very rare honor in college basketball.[3]
[edit] Basketball career
[edit] Detroit Pistons
Salley was drafted by the Detroit Pistons in the first round of the 1986 NBA Draft out of Georgia Tech. After joining the Pistons, he became close friends with Adrian Dantley, who taught him proper nutrition, how to exercise, and how to conduct himself off the court. Salley, for his part, called Dantley "The Teacher." Salley would become good friends with comedian Eddie Murphy and made several appearances at comedy clubs in the off-season. In 1989 and 1990, he played on two Pistons championship teams. He is among the Pistons' all-time leaders in blocked shots.
[edit] Heat and Bulls
He was traded to the Miami Heat in 1992 and, a few years after that, was left unprotected by Miami in the 1995 expansion draft. Following a short stint with the inaugural Toronto Raptors team where he received little playing time, he negotiated a buyout of his contract in order to sign with the Chicago Bulls, where he helped Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and former Pistons teammate Dennis Rodman (as well as former teammate James Edwards) lead the Bulls to a record-breaking 72-win season, after which Salley retired. However, in 1996, he came out of retirement to join the Greek team Panathinaikos BC for a few games.
[edit] Lakers
In 1999, he joined a Lakers team led by Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant. He saw little action for the Lakers en route to their first of three consecutive NBA championships from 2000–2002. In 2000 he retired again following the first Lakers championship season after proudly proclaiming that he had won "four championship rings, with three different teams, in three different decades and two different millenniums."[4]
[edit] Post-basketball career
John Salley had a role in Bad Boys and Bad Boys 2, as a thick-glassed computer hacking nerd who gets out of jail because he helps crack files for the Miami Police Department. In 1996, Salley appeared as a veteran basketball player alongside Whoopi Goldberg in the film Eddie, about a fan who takes over as coach of the New York Knicks.
In the fall of 1998, Salley hosted the game show I Can't Believe You Said That, which aired on the Fox Family Channel. During that time, he also guest-starred as a panelist on Hollywood Squares.
In 2001, Salley made an appearance in the Luther Vandross music video, "Take You Out".
In 2004 he was part of the panel of celebrity judges in the TBS Superstation show He's a Lady.
In 2006, Salley was named the Commissioner of the American Basketball Association.
In 2007, Salley appeared in the ABC reality television series Fast Cars and Superstars: The Gillette Young Guns Celebrity Race, featuring a dozen celebrities in a stock car racing competition. In the first round of competition, Salley matched up against professional wrestler John Cena and tennis star Serena Williams. Salley also became the host of the new BET show Ballers.
Salley joined the cast of the reality competition show I'm a Celebrity…Get Me out of Here!, which premiered on June 1, 2009.[5] He came in third place with Lou Diamond Phillips winner and Torrie Wilson runner-up. On the show he became friends with Patti Blagojevich who is the wife of Rod Blagojevich.
He also appeared in the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic in 2009 as a member of the shopaholic help group, and had a bit role as a pimp named Kotex in the blaxploitation spoof Black Dynamite.[6]
He was one of the hosts of The Best Damn Sports Show Period on Fox Sports Network. Salley hosted The John Salley Block Party, a radio morning show on Los Angeles station 100.3 The Beat from May 2005 - 2006.
For a short time, Salley provided analysis for NBC's NBA Showtime.
Salley appeared in the Disney Channel original movie, The Ultimate Christmas Present as a tall elf.
Salley hosted a podcast on Adam Carolla's ACE Broadcasting Network with sportswriter Kevin Hench entitled Spider and the Henchman.[7] The show was canceled on March 18, 2011.
Salley also hosted VH1's Basketball Wives.
In 2012, he appeared as a celebrity judge on RuPaul's Drag Race (season 4, episode 2).
He is also ambassador for Operation Smile.
[edit] Personal life
Salley is a vegan and has appeared on PETA's testimonial videos,[8] as well as in promoting alternatives to practices of massive factory farming.[9]
On May 4, 2010, it was announced that Salley had joined the Simply Raw team. The group of individuals who produced the documentary Raw for 30 had approached Salley with their video about reversing diabetes, and "it instantly got his attention" since his father had the disease. http://www.rawfor30days.com/blog/?p=83
Salley teamed up with Farm Sanctuary in 2010 to host their New York City Walk for Farm Animals on Sunday, October 24, 2010.[10]
Salley has been married to Natasha Duffy since 1993 and they have 3 children together.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Anderson, Dave. " Sports of The Times; City Teen-Agers Hold A Calm Garden Party", The New York Times, March 19, 1995. Accessed October 10, 2007.
- ^ Leigh Montville. "Holy Cow, What Digs!". Sports Illustrated. November 6, 1989. Retrieved on January 9, 2010.
- ^ The retiring of players' jerseys is not uncommon in college basketball, but retirement of numbers is far more rare. The main reason is that far fewer numbers are available for use by college teams than in the NBA. NCAA rules, unlike those of the NBA, prohibit the use of any digits greater than five in player numbers. Georgia Tech has not only retired Salley's number 22, but also the number 25 worn by Salley's teammate Mark Price, the number 15 worn by current NBA player Matt Harpring, the number 20 worn by former NBA player Tom Hammonds, and the numbers 21 and 40 worn by Roger Kaiser and Rich Yunkus, respectively.
- ^ "John Salley Trivia & Quotes". TV.com. 1993-07-31. http://www.tv.com/people/john-salley/trivia/. Retrieved 2011-12-16.
- ^ "I'm a Celebrity Cast Announced; Blagojevich Inexplicably Still Involved". TVGuide.com. http://www.tvguide.com/News/Im-Celebrity-Cast-1005446.aspx. Retrieved 2009-04-24.
- ^ "Film Review: Black Dynamite". http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film-reviews/film-review-black-dynamite-1003933830.story. Retrieved 2010-03-08.[dead link]
- ^ Spider and the Henchman[dead link]
- ^ "I am an athlete and I am a vegan", Featured Veggie Testimonial, PETA, Accessed July 4, 2008.
- ^ Meld je aan of registreer je om een reactie te plaatsen! (2010-11-20). "John Salley on Animals as Food". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx_xtVCfB3E. Retrieved 2011-12-16.
- ^ "New York City Teams Up with NBA Champion John Salley for the 2010 Walk for Farm Animals". Farmsanctuary.org. 2010-10-08. http://www.farmsanctuary.org/mediacenter/2010/pr_john_salley.html. Retrieved 2011-12-16.
[edit] External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: John Salley |
- NBA stats @ basketballreference.com
- John Salley at Basketball-Reference.com
- FOX Sports: The Scoop On John Salley
- John Salley at the Internet Movie Database
- 1964 births
- Living people
- African American film actors
- African American basketball players
- African American television personalities
- American expatriate basketball people in Canada
- American expatriate basketball people in Greece
- American game show hosts
- American sports radio personalities
- American vegans
- People from Canarsie, Brooklyn
- Chicago Bulls players
- Detroit Pistons draft picks
- Detroit Pistons players
- Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets men's basketball players
- Los Angeles Lakers players
- Miami Heat players
- National Basketball Association broadcasters
- Panathinaikos BC players
- Participants in American reality television series
- I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! contestants
- Power forwards (basketball)
- Toronto Raptors expansion draft picks
- Toronto Raptors players
- Basketball players from New York
- Vegan sportspeople
