One of the early great passers in the NBA. Guy Rodgers set or broke nearly every existing assists record of his era. A key member of the 60s Warriors teams that would battle and usually lose to the Celtics during their reign. Rodgers is sometimes forgotten in the modern day because he was not the biggest name on his teams nor was he a great scorer. Rodgers played at Temple University near Philadelphia where he would become one of the schools all-time great players. He played only three seasons with the Owls before moving on to the NBA. In his three seasons he had career averages of 20 points and six rebounds; unfortunately assists were not tracked in this era. The Warriors used a territorial first round pick on Rodgers in 1958. Rodgers seen only limited time his rookie year but when he did play he put up good numbers. He appeared in only 45 games but averaged 11 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists. In his second year he become a full time starter and the finish fourth on the team in scoring behind rookie Wilt Chamberlain and veteran’s Paul Arizin and Tom Gola.

The quartet of Rodgers, Gola, Arizin and Chamberlain made the Warriors a formidable team, but because of the Celtics they never made it very far in the playoffs. The Warriors did make the NBA finals after they relocated to San Francisco but would never win an NBA title in the era.

In 1962 Rodgers tied a than career high with 20 assists, but his accomplishment was dwarfed and forgotten because his teammate Wilt Chamber scored 100 points in that game. Rodgers would eventually tie Bob Cousy’s record of 28 assists in a game. The record would hold for 15 years until Kevin Porter broke it in 1978, than later Scott Skiles set the new mark of 30 assists in 1990.

The San Francisco days were the best of Rodgers career. His scoring went up and his assists sky rocketed. He lead the NBA in assists twice and finished 2nd six times and was three times named an all-star as a member of the San Francisco Warriors

In 1966 the Warriors traded Rodgers to the expansion Chicago Bulls where he would once again become an all-star and help lead the Bulls to the playoffs making them the only expansion team to ever do so. He played only 4 games in his second year with the Bulls before being traded to the Cincinnati Royals. He played the remainder of the season as a backup on the Royals before joining the Bucks.

He started his first year with the Bucks than became a backup. He retired following the 1970 season. Had he stayed just one more year with the Bucks he would have won an NBA title. Rodgers died in 2001.

#104                                         Main index                                         #106