Life and Career
Abdul-Rauf was born in Gulfport, Mississippi. After a record-setting college career at Louisiana State University, he was selected with the third pick in the 1990 NBA Draft by the Denver Nuggets. He changed his name in 1993, after converting to Islam in 1991. He played with Denver until 1995, and was a key player on that team, winning the Most Improved Player award in 1993. Abdul-Rauf later went on to play for the Sacramento Kings and later the Vancouver Grizzlies. He led the league in free throw percentage in 1994 and 1996, narrowly missing (by one missed free throw) the NBA all-time record for free-throw percentage in a single season in 1993-94 (he went 219-229 from the line for a 95.6 percentage as opposed to Calvin Murphy's 95.8% (206-215) all-time record from 1980-81 to 2008-09, which José Calderón has since broken).
After leaving the NBA he played professional basketball in Europe, retiring at the end of 2004-05 season. For the 2006-07 season, he came out of retirement for the third time in his career to play for Aris Thessaloniki.
In July 2010, he signed a contract with the Kyoto Hannaryz of the bj league of Japan. He averaged 17.9 points in 38 games the previous season.
Abdul-Rauf has a moderate case of Tourette syndrome, conceding that he was driven by his Tourette's to a "quest for perfection".
Read more about this topic: Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf
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