NEW YORK -- Former Bradley men's basketball star Anthony Parker is the Atlantic Division winner of the 2006-07 NBA Sportsmanship Award and will receive a $10,000 donation to the Toronto Raptors Foundation in his name by the National Basketball Association, the league office announced today.
Chicago Bulls forward Luol Deng is the recipient of this year's Joe Dumars Trophy as the top vote-getter in the league-wide vote of players for the Sportsmanship Award. The other divisional award winners are Houston's Shane Battier (Southwest), the Los Angeles Clippers' Elton Brand (Pacific), Utah's Derek Fisher (Northwest) and Atlanta's Joe Johnson (Southeast).
Originally presented following the 1995-96 season, the Sportsmanship Award honors a player who exemplifies the ideals of sportsmanship on the court -- ethical behavior, fair play and integrity -- and the trophy is named for former Detroit Pistons guard and Hall of Famer Joe Dumars, the award's first recipient. Each team nominated one of its players for the award, then former NBA stars Mike Banton, Eddie Johnson, Tom “Satch” Sanders, Kenny Smith and Steve Smith selected the six divisional winners from a pool of the 30 nominees. For the third consecutive year, NBA players voted on the divisional winners, with 11 points given for each first-place vote, nine points for second, seven for third, five for fourth, three for fifth and one for sixth.
Another former Bradley star, Hersey Hawkins, won the 1998-99 NBA Sportsmanship Award while a member of the Seattle Supersonics.
Parker starred at Bradley from 1993 through 1997, finishing his career eighth on the school's all-time scoring list with 1,683 points and winning the 1996 Missouri Valley Conference Player-of-the-Year award. Selected 21st overall in the 1997 NBA Draft by New Jersey, Parker played parts of three injury-plagued seasons for Philadelphia and Orlando before developing into one of the top players in Europe during five seasons with Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Parker returned to the NBA last summer by signing a three-year contract with the Raptors and he immediately helped Toronto to the Atlantic Division title. Although he missed nine games with an ankle injury, Parker started all 73 games he played during the regular season, finishing third on the team by averaging 12.4 points per game, while also adding 3.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.0 steal per game. He also tied for fourth in the league in 3-point field goal percentage by making 44.1 percent (115-261) of his attempts. Through the first five games of Toronto's first-round playoff series against New Jersey, Parker is second on the team by averaging 15.8 points and 6.2 rebounds per game. Trailing 3-games-to-2, the Raptors will try to stave off elimination Friday when they visit New Jersey in Game 6 of their first-round series (ESPN 7 p.m. CDT).
