Michael Finley
Michael Howard Finley ( born March 6, 1973 in Melrose Park, Cook County, Illinois ) is a retired American professional basketball player who was active in the NBA between 1995 and 2010. His athletic successful period had Finley with the Dallas Mavericks, where he played alongside Dirk Nowitzki.
Career
The 2.01 meter tall Finley began in the Proviso East High School in Maywood, Illinois to play basketball and won in 1991 ( in his last year of school ), together with the later NBA players Sherrell Ford and Donnie Boyce the state championship of Illinois.
After joining the University of Wisconsin, he played until 1995 for the Univiversitätsteam and was the best scorer in the history of the university basketball in Wisconsin. In the 1995 NBA Drafts Finley has been considered as 21 of the Phoenix Suns and began to play in the NBA in the same year.
In his first season, Finley was able to build on the previous achievements and achieved an average of 15 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game. In addition, he was the third Rookie of the Phoenix Suns, who scored more than 1,000 points in his debut season. Through this performance, Finley All- Rookie First Team qualified for the NBA 1995 /96 apply.
After Finley's first season in the NBA, he was transferred for Jason Kidd, Tony Dumas and Loren Meyer to the Dallas Mavericks and was also a leading player. He was the team leader regarding internal points, assists and steals and was formed with Steve Nash, also a former Mavericks player Dirk Nowitzki and the often "The Big Three" called Trio.
2000 and 2001, Finley was appointed to the All Star team in the Western Conference, with which he could win both games. In addition, he was a member of the squad the USA for the FIBA World Championship in 2002 and finished sixth.
After the NBA had committed in 2005 a luxury tax on high salaries in their collective agreement, in addition to the offseason in 2005 introduced an amnesty clause that allowed to dismiss a player and thereby prevent his salary will count against the luxury tax, took the Mavs this clause Finley and released from his current contract another 3 years and thus saved $ 51.8 million over 3 years to luxury tax. He was thus an unrestricted free agent and has been courted by several clubs (Detroit, Miami, Minnesota and Phoenix). He ultimately opted to remain in Texas and moved to the San Antonio Spurs, with whom he won the 2007 NBA championship.
After the 2007/ 08 season, his contract ran out at Spurs. Finley's deciding where he wants to play then ( he was from the Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers and New Orleans Hornets courted ), or whether he still wanted to stay in San Antonio, was in favor of the Spurs. On 22 August 2008, he then signed a new contract with the club from Texas. Was At his request, his contract with the Spurs in 2010, which would run until the end of the 2010/2011 season, was dissolved. On 4 March 2010, the Celtics announced the commitment of Finley. After the season he became a free agent and ended his career. During his 15 year career, Finley scored an average of 15.7 points 4.1 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game.