Jimmy King
Five years after he last shot hoops for Plano East Senior High School, Jimmy King is coming home. The 23-year-old, who spent his rookie year in the NBA with the Toronto Raptors, was traded this summer to the Dallas Mavericks, and he couldn’t be happier. Of course, the pressure is sure to be on—not just because he’ll be sharing the court with the Mavericks’ dynamic duo, Jason Kidd and Jim Jackson, but also because the team has a new owner (Ross Perot, Jr.), a new coach (Jim Cleamons), and a newly stoked desire to compete with the Houston Rockets and the San Antonio Spurs for Texas’ affection. Yet pressure is nothing new for King, who played in consecutive NCAA championship games as a member of the University of Michigan’s fabled Fab Five. In fact, he’s been aching to hit the big time since he was a kid. “As soon as I was able to walk,” he says with a grin, “I would pick up socks and throw them. That’s when I started playing basketball.”
