Jerome Keith James (born November 17, 1975) is an American former professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

player. Originally from

Tampa, Florida Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and ...

, James played

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

Florida A&M Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), commonly known as Florida A&M, is a public historically black land-grant university in Tallahassee, Florida. Founded in 1887, It is the third largest historically black university in the Un ...

for three seasons and was the national leader in blocks per game in the 1997–98 season, his junior year. James declared for the

1998 NBA Draft The 1998 NBA draft took place on June 24, 1998, at General Motors Place in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This draft helped turn around four struggling franchises: the Dallas Mavericks, the Sacramento Kings, the Boston Celtics, and the To ...

after his junior year, and the

Sacramento Kings The Sacramento Kings are an American professional basketball team based in Sacramento, California. The Kings compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Western Conference Pacific Division. The Kings are the oldest ...

selected James in the second round of the draft. Over the course of his career, he has played for the Kings,

Seattle SuperSonics The Seattle SuperSonics (commonly known as the Seattle Sonics) were an American professional basketball team based in Seattle. The SuperSonics competed in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member club of the league's Western Confe ...

and New York Knicks. He has also played for KK Budućnost Podgorica and the Harlem Globetrotters.

Early life and college years

James was born and raised in the neighborhood of Northview Hills

, one of ten children. His father Jessie was a Port Of Tampa

longshoreman A stevedore (), also called a longshoreman, a docker or a dockworker, is a waterfront manual laborer who is involved in loading and unloading ships, trucks, trains or airplanes. After the shipping container revolution of the 1960s, the number o ...

and his mother Ruth, a Hillsborough County school teacher. After graduating from the Pentecostal Church of God Christian Academy of Winter Haven in 1993, James worked driving delivery trucks for Sunny Florida Dairy and also part-time at a local feed lot in the Tampa Bay Area and learned the meaning of hard work from his father. A friend of James's mother saw James playing pickup basketball at a community center and called Ron Brown, coach of the

Florida A&M University Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), commonly known as Florida A&M, is a public historically black land-grant university in Tallahassee, Florida. Founded in 1887, It is the third largest historically black university in the Un ...

Rattlers basketball team. Brown came and saw James's basketball skills and immediately offered James an athletic scholarship to Florida A&M. James

redshirted Redshirt, in United States college athletics, is a delay or suspension of an athlete's participation in order to lengthen their period of eligibility. Typically, a student's athletic eligibility in a given sport is four seasons, aligning with the ...

the 1994–95 season and played for Florida A&M from 1995 to 1998. In an interview with ''

The Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington ...

'', James said that meeting Shaquille O'Neal at an Orlando Magic practice inspired him to pursue a professional basketball career. With Florida A&M, James played 81 games with career averages of 16.0 points, 9.2 rebounds, and 4.48 blocks, with 49.5% on field goal attempts. In his junior season (1997–98), James led NCAA Division I basketball with 4.63 blocks per game. James was an All- MEAC selection in his sophomore and junior seasons. One class short of a

pre-law In the United States, pre-law refers to any course of study taken by an undergraduate in preparation for study at a law school. The American Bar Association requires law schools to admit only students with an accredited Bachelor's Degree or it ...

degree, James declared for the

after his junior season.

Professional career

Harlem Globetrotters and Sacramento Kings (1998–2000)

The

selected James in the second round as the 36th overall pick in the

. Due to the NBA lockout, James played for the Harlem Globetrotters in the fall of 1998 in a nine-country tour of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

. James joined the Kings once the NBA lockout ended in 1999. Playing 16 games for the Kings as a reserve, James averaged 1.5 points and 1.1 rebounds. James sat out the entire season due to a knee injury. The Kings waived James on October 20, 2000.

KK Budućnost and ASVEL Villeurbanne (2000–2001)

For the 2000–01 season, James played 10 games for

KK Budućnost KK Budućnost (, ), currently known as Budućnost VOLI () for sponsorship reasons, is a professional basketball club based in Podgorica, Montenegro. The club competes in Montenegrin Basketball League, Adriatic League and Eurocup. It is a part o ...

of the

YUBA League The YUBA League was the top-tier men's professional basketball league in Serbia and Montenegro (previously FR Yugoslavia). Founded in 1992 and folded in 2006, it was run by the Basketball Federation of Serbia and Montenegro. The name ''YUBA Le ...

with 12.1 points and 6.7 rebounds per game and was part of the 2001 league championship team. James later signed with ASVEL Basket of the French LNB Pro A. Competing with ASVEL in the LNB playoffs, James averaged 9.5 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 2 blocks.

Seattle SuperSonics (2001–2005)

On September 5, 2001, James returned to the NBA and signed with the

. In the season, James played 56 games with 40 starts and averaged 5.3 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 0.4 steals and scored on 49.1% of field goal attempts. James also led the team in blocks with 86. James has averaged 4.3 points and 3.1 rebounds per game in 358 career games (180 games started). James played well for the

during the

2005 NBA playoffs The 2005 NBA playoffs was the postseason tournament of the National Basketball Association's 2004–05 season. The tournament concluded with the Western Conference champion San Antonio Spurs defeating the Eastern Conference champion Detroit Pi ...

, averaging 12.5 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.8 blocks in 11 games against the Kings and

San Antonio Spurs The San Antonio Spurs are an American professional basketball team based in San Antonio. The Spurs compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Southwest Division. The team plays its home ...

New York Knicks (2005–2009)

After the 2004–05 season, James signed a 5-year, $30 million free-agent contract with the Knicks on the strength of an outstanding performance in the 2005 playoffs in which he greatly exceeded his regular-season statistics. He arrived at his first training camp out of shape and in his first season he only averaged 3.1 points and 2.1 rebounds in 9 minutes per game. James missed much of the season due to injury and when he was not injured, he frequently played insignificant minutes. James was suspended on January 2, 2006 for not being prepared to practice. James is often cited as one of many questionable signings by Knicks general manager Isiah Thomas. He is also sometimes cited as an example of the " contract year phenomenon", where an athlete with impending free agency plays at a higher level than he ever has before, only to return to his normal level of play once he signs a new long-term contract. Chris Mannix of ''Sports Illustrated'' wrote "James was a chronic underachiever who cashed in on a brief moment of excellence". In the 2007–08 NBA season he played in only two games (January 18 and 21) for a total of five minutes, while earning a salary of $5.8 million. James made his only field goal shot and two

free throw In basketball, free throws or foul shots are unopposed attempts to score points by shooting from behind the free-throw line (informally known as the foul line or the charity stripe), a line situated at the end of the restricted area. Free throws ...

s of the season at Washington. He played another 2 games the following season, scoring 6 points, but suffered a season-ending torn Achilles tendon injury. On February 19, 2009, James was traded by the Knicks along with Tim Thomas and Anthony Roberson to the

Chicago Bulls The Chicago Bulls are an American professional basketball team based in Chicago. The Bulls compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Central Division. The team was founded on January ...

in exchange for

Larry Hughes Larry Darnell Hughes Sr. (born January 23, 1979) is an American former professional basketball player. Hughes played for eight different teams during his 14-year career in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Hughes attended Saint Louis Un ...

. James never played any minutes for the Chicago Bulls due to injury. He was waived by the Bulls shortly before the 2010 playoffs.

Puerto Rico

James returned to professional basketball in 2012, signing with the

Caciques de Humacao Caciques de Humacao was a professional basketball team based in Humacao, Puerto Rico. The club competed in the National Superior Basketball (, BSN). History In 2010, Antonio "Tonin" Casillas, owner of the Grises de Humacao, decided to give the ...

of the Puerto Rican BSN league on February 28. In 7 games, James made 43% of field goal attempts and averaged 9.1 points and 7.4 rebounds. James returned to Puerto Rico in 2015, signing with Atenienses de Manatí. He was released by Atenienses on March 18Atenienses de Manati signed Ekene Ibekwe to replace Jerome James
/ref> but stuck around with the club for a further three games pending the arrival of Ekene Ibekwe.

NBA career statistics

Regular season

, - , align="left" , , align="left" ,

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

, 16 , , 0 , , 2.6 , , .375 , , .000 , , .500 , , 1.1 , , .1 , , .1 , , .4 , , 1.5 , - , align="left" , , align="left" ,

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, 56 , , 40 , , 16.9 , , .491 , , .000 , , .500 , , 4.1 , , .4 , , .4 , , 1.5 , , 5.3 , - , align="left" , , align="left" ,

, 51 , , 16 , , 15.0 , , .478 , , .000 , , .587 , , 4.2 , , .5 , , .2 , , 1.6 , , 5.4 , - , align="left" , , align="left" ,

, 65 , , 24 , , 15.2 , , .498 , , .000 , , .660 , , 3.5 , , .5 , , .3 , , .9 , , 5.0 , - , align="left" , , align="left" ,

, 80 , , 80 , , 16.6 , , .509 , , .000 , , .723 , , 3.0 , , .2 , , .3 , , 1.4 , , 4.9 , - , align="left" , , align="left" , New York , 45 , , 9 , , 9.0 , , .463 , , .000 , , .625 , , 2.0 , , .3 , , .1 , , .5 , , 3.0 , - , align="left" , , align="left" , New York , 41 , , 11 , , 6.7 , , .418 , , .000 , , .556 , , 1.6 , , .1 , , .1 , , .4 , , 1.9 , - , align="left" , , align="left" , New York , 2 , , 0 , , 2.5 , , 1.000 , , .000 , , 1.000 , , 1.5 , , .0 , , .0 , , .0 , , 2.0 , - , align="left" , , align="left" , New York , 2 , , 0 , , 5.0 , , .375 , , .000 , , .000 , , 1.5 , , .0 , , .5 , , .5 , , 3.0 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 358 , , 180 , , 13.3 , , .485 , , .000 , , .617 , , 3.1 , , .3 , , .3 , , 1.1 , , 4.3

Playoffs

, - , align="left" , 1999 , align="left" ,

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

, 1 , , 0 , , 4.0 , , .500 , , .000 , , .750 , , 2.0 , , .0 , , .0 , , .0 , , 5.0 , - , align="left" , 2002 , align="left" ,

, 5 , , 1 , , 14.0 , , .391 , , .000 , , .000 , , 2.4 , , .8 , , .0 , , 1.0 , , 3.6 , - , align="left" , 2005 , align="left" ,

, 11 , , 11 , , 26.8 , , .514 , , .000 , , .767 , , 6.8 , , .5 , , .5 , , 1.8 , , 12.5 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 17 , , 12 , , 21.7 , , .493 , , .000 , , .722 , , 5.2 , , .5 , , .4 , , 1.5 , , 9.4

References

External links

ESPN.com profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:James, Jerome 1975 births Living people African-American basketball players American expatriate basketball people in France American expatriate basketball people in Montenegro ASVEL Basket players Baloncesto Superior Nacional players Basketball players from Tampa, Florida Caciques de Humacao players Centers (basketball) Florida A&M Rattlers basketball players Harlem Globetrotters players KK Budućnost players New York Knicks players Sacramento Kings draft picks Sacramento Kings players Seattle SuperSonics players American men's basketball players 21st-century African-American sportspeople 20th-century African-American sportspeople