Even though he only played there for a handful of his NBA seasons, I’ll always remember Chris Dudley as a New Jersey Net of the powdery, cloudy-blue uniform-wearing variety. The Nets that had Derrick Coleman and Chris Morris and Drazen Petrovic. Dudley was a career bad player by NBA standards. He’s one of those guys who averaged nearly as many fouls as points, but if it’s one thing we learn about usefulness, it’s that being sexy isn’t the only way to make a baby. If that doesn’t make sense, that’s fine, but just know that Dudley made a career of being physical, defensive-minded center. He appeared in 886 career games from 1987 to 2003 and made over $35-million playing basketball. One year, the loose-pocketed Knicks even gave him $7.1-million – and this was a year he averaged 1.2 points and 2.1 fouls.
Dudley, all big white man shoulders and friendly haircut. He was a Yale graduate, the only one in the NBA’s history, but where some of us make dumb assumptions like white people from Yale should be good free throw shooters, Dudley proves our ignorant bias by shooting a putrid 46% from the line for his career.
There’s a lot more to the Chris Dudley story, but in terms of basketball, this is the man I remember.
It’s kind of funny how different people seem to link players to different teams based on their memories of them. Chris Dudley was a journeyman center that played for several teams, and he was certainly not an all-star player by any means. Just as you said you will always remember him as a New Jersey Net, I always seem to link him with the Portland Trail Blazers in my memory. It was also a bit of nostalgia for me seeing the picture of that Chris Dudley trading card, as that was a card that I had in my collection way back in the day.
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It’s kind of funny how different people seem to link players to different teams based on their memories of them. Chris Dudley was a journeyman center that played for several teams, and he was certainly not an all-star player by any means. Just as you said you will always remember him as a New Jersey Net, I always seem to link him with the Portland Trail Blazers in my memory. It was also a bit of nostalgia for me seeing the picture of that Chris Dudley trading card, as that was a card that I had in my collection way back in the day.