Billups To Be Inducted Into Basketball Hall Of Fame
by CUBuffs.com
Apr 6, 2024
BOULDER — Chauncey Billups, who in 1997 led the University of Colorado to its first NCAA Tournament berth in 28 years, will be enshrined into the 2024 class of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame this August.
Billups, 47, joins the late Burdette "Burdie" Haldorson as the second Buffalo to be inducted into the Hall. Haldorson, who passed away last October 13 at the age of 89, was a member of the 2010 class. A Denver native, he will also be the first inductee into the Naismith Hall who played his high school ball in Colorado.
"I call it basketball heaven if you will," Billups said upon learning of his impending selection. "But as a kid, I never even thought about it, I never even really knew about it. To be here now is unbelievable, it really is. I played the right way with it, I never chased stats, I never done none of those things, I just played the right way," said Billups.
He is especially proud of being the first Colorado high school alum to be selected for the Naismith Hall.
"That really means a lot, I've taken a lot of pride in everywhere I go to wear the Colorado flag on my sleeve," he said. "I feel like I'm trying to gain respect for everyone who is from there. 'That's Chauncey Billups, he's from Colorado.' I'm just the first one, I want this to go on and on. There are certainly others – players like Joe Barry Carroll and Michael Ray Richardson – he was like a hero to me."
The current head coach of the National Basketball Association's Portland Trailblazers, he is one of a handful of players who played at a Colorado high school, for a Colorado university and professionally for Denver, either the Rockets in the old American Basketball Association (ABA) or the Nuggets in the last two seasons of the ABA and then the NBA.
"The most important thing to me are the sacrifices that my parens (Ray and Faye) made to put me in position to chase this dream," Billups said. "We didn't have much growing up, but we didn't need much. They were there every step of the way, as was my wife (Piper). We've been together since we were 17. She sacrificed a lot sticking with me, on the journey every day, living through all the ups and downs, the disappointments and the great moments."
"Chauncey left an indelible mark on our program and we're both excited and proud that the Basketball Hall of Fame has recognized his achievements in the sport throughout his life," CU athletic director Rick George said. "He is a special person, and his love for the university and really the state of Colorado is unparalleled."
Billups credited several of his coaches throughout his journey.
"I played for so many coaches, and many of them deserve some recognition," he noted. "My little league coaches, Horace Kearney and Rick Callahan; my high school coach, Ed Calloway, and my CU coaches, Joe Harrington and Ricardo Patton up until I got pro. Once in the NBA, Larry Brown and Flip Saunders are the two I really credit for a ton of my development."
"It was always easy to find him, he was going to be one of two places – at home or the Skyland Rec Center," Harrington said. "Ricardo did an excellent job as his lead recruiter. Chauncey could have gone anywhere, but he came to Colorado. He accomplished more at CU than he likely could have anywhere else. He was a star here, he had a longtime following – sometimes you go out of state and you're just another guy. He was a homegrown guy and it just made his career. I think that really helped, and it brought tremendous excitement to the program."
Billups was quoted in the past, "If I had to do it again, 10 times over, I would still be a Buff."
"He was unique. He was a star when he was in the eighth grade, but nothing ever went to his head," Harrington continued. "He accepted it, but he just kept working hard. He worked his tail off from day one, and everything I knew about basketball he wanted to know. He just loved the game and was always open to learning whatever he could.
"His parents were awesome. He was a celebrity from day one, but he never acted like one, and that is to their credit. Chauncey had the full respect of the coaches and his teammates because he had such a great attitude and a great work ethic. We said he was an NBA player before was one, and that was because he knew what he wanted to be and worked hard to get there."
Current Colorado head coach Tad Boyle echoed Harrington's thoughts on Chauncey's parents and his upbringing.
"Chauncey Billups is not only a Hall of Fame player, he is a Hall of Fame human being," Boyle said. "If parents were given a Gold medal for the children they have raised, Mr. and Mrs. Billups would receive one for raising Chauncey and his brother Rodney. All of us at the University of Colorado are proud of this accomplishment for Chauncey and his family."
One of the nation's highly sought-after recruits, he was a four-time, first-team All-State selection playing for coach Calloway at George Washington High School. Starting from his freshman year on, he was Colorado's Mr. Basketball on three occasions his sophomore through senior years, and to this day, was the Denver Post's only four-time state's Player of the Year. As a sophomore and junior, he led the Patriots to back-to-back 5A state titles and a 45-2 record; he averaged 32 points per game for the '94 Patriots, which were ranked as the No. 9 team in the nation. As a senior, he was selected to the 1995 McDonald's All-America Team when he averaged 28 points per game despite playing many games with a shoulder injury. He finished his prep career fifth on the state's (all classes) all-time scoring list with 1,952 points (averaging 23 points per game).
He had dozens of suitors chasing him for his signature on a letter-of-intent, but in the end, he chose Colorado over Kansas, Georgia Tech, Oklahoma State, Arizona, California and Oklahoma. True to form and for his love of the state, he announced where he was headed at Skyland Recreation Center (since renamed in honor of Hiawatha Davis Jr.), where his basketball career began as a youngster. He signed with CU in its 1995 recruiting class.
Billups, a 6-foot-3, 195-pound guard, played two seasons for the Buffaloes, first under Harrington and then Patton, who was named interim head coach midway through Billups' frosh season. That year, he led the Buffs in scoring at 17.9 points per game, just the fourth freshman at the time to do so in school history (and one of only seven to date as well). It set him up for a sensational sophomore season in 1996-97.
A first-team All-Big 12 performer, he led the Buffaloes to a 22-10 record and their first NCAA tournament berth in since 1969. He had 24 points in CU's 80-62 first round win over coach Bobby Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers (spoiling the NCAA's desired second round match-up between Knight and Dean Smith's North Carolina Tarheels—with two wins in the tournament, he'd become the all-time leader in the NCAA). Though UNC ended CU's season, it was historic at the time with the most wins in school history. Billups averaged 19.1 points, 4.9 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 2.1 steals, while making 40.1 percent of his three-pointers and 85.4 percent of his free throws.
In leading CU to an 11-5 conference mark in the first year of the Big 12 (second place behind Kansas), he averaged 21.8 points and 5.3 rebounds. The Buffaloes won six straight league games to start the conference slate, a streak that wasn't matched until this year's team at the end of the year. His six 30-point games are the sixth-most in school history, with his collegiate best a 35-point night against Nebraska his sophomore campaign. He was a first-team All-American by Basketball Times and a second-team by the majority of all other selectors, along with being a unanimous first-team All-Big 12 pick (he was second-team All-Big Eight as a freshman).
Billups had numerous big plays during his time in Boulder, including a buzzer-beater on January 11, 1997 at Texas Tech that had plenty of significance. He drove the lane and made an off-balance jumper as time expired, giving CU an 80-78 win over the 20th-ranked Red Raiders. That ended the nation's longest home winning streak at the time (35 games), was CU's first road win over a ranked team in 24 years and enabled CU to open 3-0 in league play for the first time since 1969.
Drafted third overall in the 1997 NBA Draft by the Boston Celtics, he played for seven teams over the course of his pro career, the most with Detroit (eight seasons), Denver (five, over two different stints), L.A. Clippers (two), Minnesota (two) and Boston, New York and Toronto (one each); he was traded during a season three times.
As a 17-year veteran in the National Basketball Association (the longest NBA career of any Buff), he was a five-time All-Star and three-time All-NBA team member. Over the course of his career that spanned the 1997-98 through 2013-14 seasons, he averaged 15.2 points, 2.9 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 1.0 steals in 1,043 career regular season games. He was named second-team NBA All-Defense (2004-05, 2005-06), and his career free throw percentage of 89.4 (4,496-of-5,029) ranks the sixth-best in the combined histories of the NBA and American Basketball Association (ABA).
His teams qualified for the NBA playoffs in 12 of those seasons, and in those 146 games, he averaged 17.3 points, 3.4 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 1.0 steals (and made 88.0 percent of his charity tosses). But his most outstanding postseason came in the spring of 2004, when he led the Detroit Pistons to the NBA title. He was named the MVP of the Finals, averaging 21.0 points, 3.2 rebounds and 5.2 assists as the Larry Brown-coached Pistons beat the Los Angeles Lakers, with Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, in five games. He sizzled from 3-point range (.471) and the free throw line (.929), while making over half his field goals overall (.509). He was the Pistons' team captain in 2005-06, when the club posted a franchise best record of 64-18.
He also helped the Denver Nuggets reach the 2009 NBA Western Finals, where they lost to the Lakers in six games; he averaged 17.1 and 6.0 assists in that series. After he retired, he was an analyst on ESPN for NBA games and was an executive with his hometown Nuggets until Portland hired him as head coach ahead of the 2021-22 season.
Billups was inducted into the National High School Hall of Fame in 2013, the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame and CU's Athletic Hall of Fame, the latter two both in 2015, and the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 2020. NBA veterans Vince Carter, Michael Cooper and the late Walter Davis, who also spent time with the Nuggets, are among the 13 to be enshrined in the 2024 Naismith Hall class. Carter, along with two other eventual NBA stars, Kevin Garnett and Stephon Marbury, were McDonald's All-Americans with Billups in 1995.
Billups picked up three unique nicknames as his career progressed, dating back to fourth grade when he was tagged with, "Smooth." That stuck through junior high, high school and college. "The King of Park Hill" emerged when he returned for his second stint as a Nugget in 2008. But the one he became best-known for came in-between, when he was in his sixth season in the NBA with the Detroit Pistons, as team announcer Rick Mahorn nicknamed him, "Mr. Big Shot."
That came about after a tremendous run of last-second heroics. Starting on Dec. 18, 2002 at Cleveland, with the score tied at 103, he scored eight straight points that led the Pistons to a 111-106 victory. Two days later in a rematch with the Cavaliers, he made a three-pointer with 3.9 seconds left to force overtime in a 109-107 Detroit win. On Jan. 10, he sank two free throws that gave the Pistons a 101-99 overtime victory at New Orleans. He later nailed a 28-foot three-point shot to beat Golden State, 107-105, and had another three-pointer with 0.2 seconds left for a 102-99 win over Atlanta. Then in a division clinching, 110-107 double-overtime win at Memphis, he scored the last eight points in the second overtime.
Billups has been married to his high school sweetheart for 22 years, the former Piper Riley, and the couple has three grown daughters, Cydney, Ciara and Cenaiya.
The Class of 2024 will be enshrined during festivities in Springfield, Mass., the Birthplace of Basketball, as well as the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn., on August 16-17.
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