NBLC Alumni: Rodney Buford

6'5

Guard

From Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Tenure: 2011-2013

2x Champion

2013 Sixth Man of the Year

When the NBL Canada was just starting out, it was going to take a lot of top-level talent to draw attention to this new league and prove it could serve as home to the highest of levels of basketball. With his tireless work ethic and rampant offence, Rodney Buford was one of the first players to bring his experience of basketball's highest level to influence the standard of play in the new Canadian league. He played in the NCAA with the Creighton Bluejays in Omaha, Nebraska, playing in the 1999 Division 1 Tournament and the 1998 NIT. His first year with the team he won the Missouri Valley Conference Freshman and Newcomer of the Year awards. His eligibility over in 1999, he would find himself NBA bound.

In 1999 Buford entered the NBA Draft and was chosen 24th overall by the Miami Heat, for whom he played 34 regular season games, averaging 4.3 points in each. He then had his most successful NBA season with the Philadelphia 76ers. He managed just 5.2 points in 47 appearances, but was a champion of the Atlantic Division and was part of the team's entire post-season run, where they won the Eastern Conference title and made the NBA Finals, but lost 4-1 to the LA Lakers.

The following season he signed with the Memphis Grizzlies, managing NBA career bests of 9.3 points and 4.3 rebounds in 23 games started with the team. After a season spent in Greece with Panathinaikos, for whom he averaged 12.5 points in 22 appearances, he returned to the NBA, playing 22 games with the Sacramento Kings in 2003. He returned to the Kings after a season with Virtus Roma in Italy and in 2004 signed with the New Jersey Nets. He started 17 times in 64 games as a Net, averaging 7.0 points at the season's end.

New Jersey would be Buford's last NBA team, he went on to play for a number of teams in Ukraine, Israel, Cyprus, Lebanon, Venezuela and Hong Kong. Most impressive was his time in Germany with Eisbaren Bremerhaven: starting in every game after joining the team in 2009, he averaged 17.5 points for the Bundesliga side at age 32. An indicator that he was still a formidable talent with skills that, in 2011, would be called on for an all-new venture in basketball.

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For the inaugural NBL Canada season, Buford started with the Halifax Rainmen but after four games was traded to the London Lightning. In his first game for London he managed a double-double of 19 points and 10 rebounds and went on to register two more double-doubles and reach double digits in all but ten games in the 2011-12 season.

This was his part in London's campaign which saw them finish first in the regular season standings, going on to sweep the Saint John Mill Rats in the playoffs before taking down Buford's old team, Halifax, in five games to capture the inaugural NBLC championship.

Buford re-signed with London followings season, regularly leading the team as they opened the 2012-13 season with eleven wins in a row. The last of these wins saw Buford put up his NBLC career best scoring show with 26 points against the Moncton Miracles on December 13th.

He had six more twenty-point performances with London, who again finished first overall, this time with a 33-7 record, dropping just two games in the playoffs to repeat their championship. It would turn out to be Buford's last professional season and he bowed out with a 13.3 point scoring average, as well as taking home the Sixth Man of the Year award.

One of the first to make a successful crossover from the NBA, Rodney Buford helped to establish the NBL Canada as serious basketball league where players who have seen the highest heights of the sport could still thrive and compete at the same level. Whereas it can take some players an entire career to establish themselves in one particular location, Buford did it in just two seasons.

Picture: Tim Ellis