Andrew Toney facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Andrew Toney

Toney in 2013
Personal information
Born	(1957-11-23) November 23, 1957 (age 67) Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.
High school	Charles B. Glenn (Birmingham, Alabama)
Listed height	6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)
Listed weight	178 lb (81 kg)
Career information
College	Louisiana (1976–1980)
NBA Draft	1980 / Round: 1 / Pick: 8th overall
Selected by the Philadelphia 76ers
Pro career	1980–1988
Career history
1980–1988	Philadelphia 76ers
Career highlights and awards
NBA champion (1983) 2× NBA All-Star (1983, 1984) 2× Southland Player of the Year (1978, 1980) Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame
Career statistics
Points	7,458 (15.9 ppg)
Rebounds	1,009 (2.2 rpg)
Assists	1,965 (4.2 apg)

Andrew Toney (born November 23, 1957) is an American former professional basketball player for the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1980 to 1988. A two-time NBA All-Star, he won an NBA championship with the 76ers in 1983. Contemporary basketball greats Larry Bird and Sidney Moncrief put Toney on par Michael Jordan offensively. Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe called Toney, “‘the most forgotten great player in NBA history.’”

Early life

Toney was born on November 23, 1957, in Birmingham, Alabama. Toney attended Birmingham’s Glenn High School. On the basketball team, he averaged 31 points per game as a junior and 37 points per game as a senior. He was named Alabama's “Mr. Basketball” as a senior, and was named to All-America teams as a junior and a senior. The team was 80-14 with Toney. He also played baseball and participated in track.

He attended the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette), and played basketball under coaches Jim Hatfield and Bobby Paschal. On the basketball team, he averaged 21 points per game as a freshman, 26.1 as a senior, and 23.6 over his college career. He led the team to a 21-9 record as a senior, going as far as the National Invitation Tournament quarterfinals. He was All-Southeastern Conference in 1980. He set nine school records, and scored 46 points in a game three times, including a game against Auburn to win the Bayou Class Championship.

Professional career

Toney played for the 76ers from 1980 to 1988

Philadelphia 76ers (1980–1988)

During the 76ers' and Celtics' rivalry in the early 1980s he was able to single-handedly dominate games against the Celtics, including Game 7 of the 1982 Eastern Conference Finals when he scored 34 points in the game. He also scored 30 points in Game 2, 39 points in Game 4 and averaged 26.4 points per game in that series.

Toney was drafted by the Sixers out of Southwestern Louisiana (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette) with the eighth pick of the 1980 NBA draft.

He was named to two All-Star teams, in 1983 and 1984, and averaged 15.9 points per game for his career.

Toney was an integral part of the 1982–83 76ers championship team averaging 20 points a game, alongside teammates Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Bobby Jones and Maurice Cheeks, but his career was cut short after seven seasons by chronic foot injuries; the team did not believe that he was hurting before it was revealed that he had stress fractures on both feet. This led to a few years of bitterness between Toney and 76ers management.

Pat Williams, vice president of basketball operations for the Orlando Magic, shared an anecdote with Tony Rizzo while being interviewed on The Really Big Show on ESPN850 WKNR in Cleveland on February 11, 2010, while promoting his latest book about the late Chuck Daly. Williams said that when he was a general manager back in the days of their great rivalry with the Lakers and Sixers (c. 1980–1983), he asked Danny Ainge, the Celtics guard, what player he worried about the most come playoff time. "Not Magic or Dr. J, it's Andrew Toney that keeps me awake at night!" said Ainge. Williams went on to say that were it not for injuries Toney would have been a Hall of Famer. Charles Barkley stated that Toney was the best player he ever played with.

Accolades

Pat Williams, vice president of basketball operations for the Orlando Magic, shared an anecdote with Tony Rizzo while being interviewed on The Really Big Show on ESPN850 WKNR in Cleveland on February 11, 2010, while promoting his latest book about the late Chuck Daly. Williams said that when he was a general manager back in the days of their great rivalry with the Lakers and Sixers (c. 1980–1983), he asked Danny Ainge, the Celtics guard, what player he worried about the most come playoff time. "Not Magic or Dr. J, it's Andrew Toney that keeps me awake at night!" said Ainge. Williams went on to say that were it not for injuries Toney would have been a Hall of Famer. Charles Barkley stated that Toney was the best player he ever played with. Hall of fame player and Toney's former coach Billy Cunningham, like WIlliams, believed Toney would have been in the hall of fame but for his injuries, and that he and backcourt mate Cheeks had just started to grow into their potential together.

Hall of fame Celtics opponent, and member of the NBA 75th Anniversary Team, Larry Bird, praised Toney as one of two shooting guards of whom he was most afraid. The other was Michael Jordan. Hall of fame guard Sidney Moncrief, who won the very first Defensive Player of the Year Award in 1983, and who had to defend Toney, said "Toney was un-guardable .... he could do everything. ... I studied him, and it’s nothing you could do that could stop him from scoring, beyond double-teaming him and getting the ball out of his hands...." He also found Toney very smart, with a counter for whatever the defender tried. Moncrief "always put [Toney] right there with Michael [Jordan]." After the 1983 championships, Hall of Fame Laker coach Pat Riley said “'Toney is probably the toughest clutch shooter in the league today .... He is just impervious to pressure.'”

In one NBA ranking of the greatest backcourt duos in league history, Toney and Maurice Cheeks were ranked eleventh out of seventy pairs.

In 1992, Toney was inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. In 2013, he was inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame. In 2016, Toney was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.

NBA career statistics

Regular season

Playoffs

Personal life

Toney's son Channing played NCAA Division I basketball at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and played a few matches professionally in Poland with Asseco Prokom Gdynia. He also won the second-tier Finnish Division I championship with Bisons Loimaa.

Toney lives outside of Atlanta, and worked as an elementary school teacher, and then took on positions as instructional coach for the Gwinnett County Schools' Community-Based Mentoring Program, and with Project Reconnect.

See also

In Spanish: Andrew Toney para niños