HoopWatch

When neither the Chicago Bulls nor the Milwaukee Bucks made an offer to former Bull Toni Kukoc, he decided to retire and hang his jersey. Kukoc can best be remembered for teaming up with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen with the Chicago Bulls where they won three consecutive titles from the 1995-96 to 1997-98 seasons.

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At age 38, Kukoc can still contribute for any team. He can dribble, pass, drive and shoot the ball from long range. He is a very versatile big man. The only jinx to his armor is his defense or the lack of it. He feels that he can still play at most 20 minutes per game, but does not want to move his family away from Highland Park III in Chicago where his family has lived ever since his Bulls days. There are offers from other teams though.

Kukoc was a three-time European Player of the Year and won Olympic silver medals for Yugoslavia in 1988 and for Croatia in 1992. He joined the Bulls in 1993, during Jordan’s first year of absence. He spent six full seasons with the Bulls, before being traded to Philadelphia in the middle of the 1999-00 season. He has spent the last four years with the Bucks.

Personally, I think Kukoc is the first “Dirk Nowitzki,” a near seven-footer who can handle the ball, shoot from the perimeter, drive to the whole, and is even deadly from beyond the arc. He is a 6-11 guard so to speak, just like Nowitzki, who is a 7-footer with the skills of a guard. Kukoc was named the Sixth Man of the Year for the 1995-96 season, fittingly, when the Bulls achieved an all time record 72 wins. He helped the Bulls win three titles, thanks to long range streak shooting. For 13 NBA seasons, Kukoc has averaged 11.6 points, 4.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists.