Anthony Jerome Roberts (April 15, 1955 – March 29, 1997) was an American professional basketball player for the

Denver Nuggets The Denver Nuggets are an American professional basketball team based in Denver. The Nuggets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. The team was founded as the D ...

and

Washington Bullets The Washington Wizards are an American professional basketball team based in Washington, D.C. The Wizards compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The team plays ...

in the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United S ...

(NBA). He was selected in the first round as the 21st pick in the

1977 NBA draft The 1977 NBA draft was the 31st annual draft of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The draft was held on June 10, 1977, before the 1977–78 season. In this draft, 22 NBA teams took turns selecting amateur U.S. college basketball players ...

by the Nuggets and spent five seasons playing the NBA.

Early life

Roberts was born in

Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. Located along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia, it also extends into Marion County on its western end. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, ...

. He attended Riverside High School in his hometown.

Basketball career

High school

Roberts played at Riverside High School in Chattanooga and was the MVP of the Tennessee state championship team in 1972.

College

Anthony Roberts attended

Oral Roberts University Oral Roberts University (ORU) is a private evangelical university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Founded in 1963, the university is named after its founder, evangelist Oral Roberts. Sitting on a campus, ORU offers over 70 undergraduate degree programs ...

(ORU) from 1973–74 to 1976–77. During his four-year career, he averaged 21.7 points and 7.4 rebounds per game, including a

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

season in which he averaged 34.0 points and 9.2 rebounds. He is only one of two players in

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

(NCAA) Division I history, along with

Hall of Fame A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or Wiktionary:fame, fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actu ...

Pete Maravich Peter Press Maravich ( ; June 22, 1947 – January 5, 1988), known by his nickname Pistol Pete, was an American professional basketball player. Maravich was born in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, and raised in ...

, to score 60 or more points in a single game versus a Division I opponent more than once. Roberts scored 66 points on February 19, 1977, against

North Carolina A&T North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (also known as North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina A&T, N.C. A&T, or simply A&T) is a public, historically black land-grant research university in Greensboro, North Caro ...

and 65 against

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

on March 9, 1977. His total against Oregon came in the first round of the

National Invitation Tournament The National Invitational Tournament (NIT) is a men's college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Played at regional sites and traditionally at Madison Square Garden (Final Four) in New York City ...

(NIT), setting the still-standing tournament record. In 108 career games, Roberts made 1,006 of 2,007

field goal A field goal (FG) is a means of scoring in gridiron football. To score a field goal, the team in possession of the ball must place kick, or drop kick, the ball through the goal, i.e., between the uprights and over the crossbar. The entire ba ...

attempts while finishing with 2,341 points and exactly 800 rebounds. He earned honorable mention

All-America The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed upon an amateur sports person from the United States who is considered to be one of the best amateurs in their sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an All-Am ...

n honors for his final three years as a Titan. Later on, Roberts would become enshrined in the ORU athletics hall of fame as a member of their inaugural class.

Professional

On June 10, 1977, Roberts was selected in the first round of that year's NBA Draft. The

selected him with the 21st overall pick. He spent his first three NBA seasons with Denver. He was eventually waived by the Nuggets and then signed by the

for the 1980–81 season. On September 2, 1981, the Bullets also waived Roberts, and he would not re-join another NBA team until February 16, 1984, when the Nuggets signed him to a 10-day contract. Nine days later he was signed for the rest of the season, where he would finish out his NBA career. The Nuggets waived him once again on July 25, 1984, and no other NBA team ever signed him. For his NBA career, Roberts scored 1,658 points, grabbed 837 rebounds and recorded 265 assists in 213 games.

Death

Anthony Roberts was shot and killed while arguing with two men in the parking lot outside his apartment complex on March 29, 1997. Brent Alan Kilby, 19, was charged with his murder. Kilby was sentenced to life in prison in 1998. Roberts was 41 at the time.

References

External links

Basketball-reference statistics
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roberts, Anthony 1955 births 1997 deaths American expatriate basketball people in the Philippines American men's basketball players Atlantic City Hi-Rollers players Barangay Ginebra San Miguel players Basketball players from Tennessee Deaths by firearm in Oklahoma Denver Nuggets draft picks Denver Nuggets players Male murder victims Oral Roberts Golden Eagles men's basketball players Philippine Basketball Association imports Shooting guards Small forwards Sportspeople from Chattanooga, Tennessee Washington Bullets players Wyoming Wildcatters players People murdered in Oklahoma American murder victims