Kiki Vandeweghe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ernest Maurice "Kiki" Vandeweghe III (born August 1, 1958 in Wiesbaden, Germany), is a former National Basketball Association player and the former General Manager of the Denver Nuggets. Vandeweghe is the son of former NBA player Ernie Vandeweghe and Colleen Kay Hutchins, the winner of the 1952 Miss America pageant. Vandeweghe is also the nephew of another NBA player, four-time All-Star Mel Hutchins. As a player, Vandeweghe was regarded as an excellent scorer and outside shooter, as well as an excellent passing forward; his teams made the NBA Playoffs in 13 of his 14 seasons in the league. However, he was generally considered to be a poor defensive player and rebounder.

Vandeweghe was a collegiate star at UCLA, where he (along with head coach Larry Brown) led the Bruins to the 1980 NCAA championship game, which they lost to Louisville. He was then drafted 11th overall in the 1980 NBA Draft by the Dallas Mavericks, but refused to play for Dallas and demanded a trade. (For virtually the remainder of his career, he was subjected to boos whenever he played in Dallas). He got his wish, and was traded to the Nuggets on December 3rd of that same year. As a member of the Nuggets, Vandeweghe was twice selected to the NBA Western Conference All-Star team, in 1983 and 1984.

In the summer of 1984, Vandeweghe was traded to the Portland Trail Blazers in exchange for Calvin Natt, Wayne Cooper, Fat Lever, and a draft pick. Vandeweghe had several productive seasons in Portland, where he averaged nearly 25 points a game. He paired with Clyde Drexler to form a dynamic scoring duo. However, during the 1987-1988 season, Vandeweghe suffered a back injury and lost his starting job to Jerome Kersey. He was traded the next year to the New York Knicks (where his father played his entire career); with whom he played for several years apart from half a season with the Los Angeles Clippers before retiring from the league after the 1992-1993 season.

On August 9, 2001; Vandeweghe was named to the Nuggets' General Manager position. As general manager, Vandeweghe has overseen a return by the Nuggets to the NBA playoffs; major moves by Vandeweghe have included the drafting of Carmelo Anthony in 2003 and the hiring of George Karl as head coach in 2005. However, some other moves by Vandeweghe have backfired outright or failed to produce the desired returns, such as the drafting of draft bust Nikoloz Tskitishvili in 2002, and the signing of Kenyon Martin to a free agent contract. Shortly following a somewhat embarrassing first round playoff elimination at the hands of the Los Angeles Clippers in the 2006 playoffs, the Nuggets announced that Vandeweghe's contract would not be renewed.

Currently, he works as a NBA analyst for ESPN appearing on the channel's SportsCenter and KIA NBA Shootaround programs among others.

Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.