Former Wildcat a part of basketball history

With an illustrious career, a 6-11 big man from the Virgin Islands named Timothy Theodore Duncan racked up 15 all-star selections, 15 total all-defensive team selections, 10 all-NBA first-team picks, five NBA championships, three NBA Finals MVPs, two regular season MVPs, and the 1998 Rookie of the Year in his 19 years with the San Antonio Spurs. Collegiately, at Wake Forest, his awards include the college player of the year, two-time all-American, the ACC Athlete of the Year, two-time ACC Player of the Year, and three-time first-team All-ACC. His No. 21 jersey is retired by both the Demon Deacons and the Spurs, as he holds a plethora of records for both teams. And yet, all of these accolades can be traced back to an athlete from right here in Sampson County.

The “Big Fundamental,” as Tim Duncan is often referred to as, is highly considered one of the best power forwards to ever play the game, but his athletic career started off not on the court, but in the swimming pool. After Hurricane Hugo destroyed the only Olympic-sized pool on Saint Croix in the Virgin Islands, the big man was convinced to play basketball. Enter in fellow big man, a Hobbton graduate who took his talents to Wake Forest to play in college: Chris King, who has a story of his own to tell, outside of helping to recruit Duncan.

“I had an agent by the name of Bob Kingsley — he was out of Chicago, and that’s who represented me when I came out of Wake Forest,” the former Wildcat said. “There was a team he wanted to put together to go to the Virgin Islands, because at the time, they were having some serious violence issues, and we wanted to try and go over as professional players and see if we could stop the violence.

“We put together a group of players — me, Alonzo Mourning, Mark Tillmon, and a couple of other guys,” King continued.

King played for Wake Forest from 1988 to 1992 as a 6-8 forward after collecting over 2,000 points in his career at Hobbton. In his tenure with the Demon Deacons, King was a part of two teams that made the NCAA tournament, the team’s first since the 1984 edition of the tournament.

Before King, Mourning, Tillmon, and their fellow basketball standouts departed for the island southeast of Puerto Rico, Deacon head coach Dave Odom gave King a task: keep an eye out for basketball players.

“I remember, we were playing a game one night, and we were wondering why the game wouldn’t start,” King recalled. “And they said we’re waiting on a guy that swims.”

That swimmer would be future basketball hall of famer, Tim Duncan. King recollected that his first impression was Duncan’s height. While King stands at 6-8, Duncan is nearly a seven-footer at 6-11.

Yet, Chris King has a story of his own, not just as the guy who spotted Tim Duncan for Dave Odom.

The former Wildcat racked up 1,721 points in his career in Winston-Salem across 113 total games, making 702 of his 1,352 field goals attempted for a career .519 shooting percentage. A slew of accolades came King’s way, including being named to the 1989 all-ACC tournament team. He found himself in the top 20 in the ACC in points, points per game, rebounds per game, blocks per game, field goals, and field goal attempts in all four of his seasons for the Deacons.

Dating back to his freshman season — the 1988-89 campaign for Wake Forest — King was a consistent starter. Making his way from Newton Grove to Winston-Salem, the young King started 23 out of the 28 games he played in, his lowest of all four of his collegiate years. To this day, King is seventh all-time for Wake Forest in effective field goal percentage and field goals made, while landing at ninth in field goal percentage.

For the rest of time, Chris King’s name will be emblazoned through the annals of history alongside all-time Deacon greats like Muggsy Bogues, Chris Paul, Randolph Childress, Rodney Rogers, and even the man he recruited to Winston-Salem: Tim Duncan.

But before he was a Demon Deacon, he was a Wildcat. And being recruited in high school was something that was “very stressful” for the Newton Grove native.

“I can remember being recruited by N.C. State, North Carolina, and Duke, and being that I was from Newton Grove, they (the college recruiters) stayed down at the high school all the time. It was a very stressful situation because I had extended family that liked N.C. State, and some that liked Carolina, so it was a process,” King added. “I had coach Kenny Bass — he really helped me with the decision, and Wake Forest came along and told me I’d be able to start right away and I’d be able to play and beat some of the teams that were recruiting me, so that’s what kind of led me there — but it was a stressful process.”

Wake Forest beat UNC to bookend King’s time with the Deacons, winning the first matchup in 1987 by a score of 83-80 before losing 11 straight, winning again in 1992 — meaning King never saw his team beat the Tar Heels. For the Blue Devils, it was a different story. King was a part of the Wake Forest team that upset No. 1 Duke on January 21, 1989, handing a 75-71 road loss to the Devils. King’s junior year saw the Deacons’ biggest win over Duke, an 86-77 decision once again at home for Wake Forest. They repeated against his senior year, handing Duke another road loss at 72-68. After losing three straight to N.C. State between his freshman and sophomore seasons, King and the Deacons four in a row across the rest of his time in Winston-Salem, starting with a 93-91 road win on March 4, 1990.

King’s career at Wake Forest was between two eras of all-time Deacon greats, many would say. The Sampson County forward came after Muggsy Bogues’ time in Winston-Salem but before Randolph Childress, Rodney Rogers, and Tim Duncan. His era of Deacon basketball shouldn’t be written off, though, as the late-’80s and early-’90s kick-started a new era of Wake Forest basketball, one that saw historic wins.

“I had some good coaches,” King said. “It was Bob Staak when I first got to Wake Forest, and Jerry Wainwright — he was really the main key. Muggsy left a great standard, and that’s what they were trying to do at Wake Forest. They wanted to bring in great players and try to see if they would follow (Bogues’ path).

“It was something I thought I could do and make a name for myself there and leave my own name,” he continued. “It was very tough, but I played with great players. I got a chance to play with Rodney Rogers, which made it a little easier for me as well — I got to play with him for two years. And Randolph (Childress), I didn’t get to play with him, because he tore his ACL his freshman year and I was a senior.”

Had Childress not gotten injured, King says he believes that would have been the team that could have gotten Wake Forest to the Final Four.

“I think I got the ball rolling as far as getting top players there, and I like to credit myself with by coming there along with Rodney,” said King.

After his time at Wake Forest, King spent time playing professional basketball. With the 45th pick of the 1992 NBA draft, the Seattle SuperSonics (now the Oklahoma City Thunder) selected King in the second round.

“It was the most amazing experience,” King said. “It was a night I’ll never forget. I thought I would go No. 32 to Minnesota since I had flown out there, but I ended up going to the SuperSonics. I can remember jumping for joy because I had been told just coming where I came from, I would never play in or get drafted into the NBA, and I just felt like that was a surreal moment for me.

“That was my dream, coming from the tobacco field, doing all that hard work growing up there, and for me to get drafted, I just felt like I accomplished something that night,” he added.

While King didn’t have the most illustrious NBA career, he did something that a small percentage of basketball players will ever do by lacing up his shoes and playing in multiple NBA games. An even smaller percentage of those players have played in a team’s inaugural season, but that’s exactly what King did after being selected by the Vancouver (now Memphis) Grizzlies in the 1995 expansion draft. King started 66 games for the Grizzlies in 1995-96 and appeared in 80 contests total.

In another twist of fate, like Wake Forest beating Duke and N.C. State multiple times in King’s career, King tipped in a rebound from a Byron Scott shot in the Grizzlies’ first-ever home game to beat the Minnesota Timberwolves — who passed on him in the draft — in overtime.

King’s last season in the NBA had him playing eight games for the Utah Jazz in 1999, but his career had bounced back and forth between the NBA and leagues abroad. Notably, King was an all-star and slam dunk champion in the 1994 Greek League, but the forward also spent time playing professionally in the Philippines, France, Israel, Uruguay, and Japan, before hanging up his basketball shoes in 2008.

The lanky big man lives in Virginia now, but still has family in Sampson County, like his cousin Richard Simpson, a lengthy freshman for the Wildcats who sent home multiple slams on the basketball court this year, continuing his family’s tradition.