Damon Stoudamire

He holds the record for being the third-lowest Draft pick (7th overall) to ever win the Rookie of the Year award, with the lowest being Malcolm Brogdon (36th in the second round.) He is also known as the shortest player to ever win this award.

He did not play the last 10 games of his rookie season due to tendinitis in his left knee.

The Raptors finished that year and his rookie season with 21 wins and 61 losses.

Damon Lamon Stoudamire (born September 3, 1973), nicknamed Mighty Mouse, is an American college basketball coach and former player who is currently the head coach for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).

Playing basketball for the Trojans, he led his team to a 74–4 record and state championships in 1989 and 1991.

For his career, he averaged 26.1 points, 9.2 assists, and 3.6 rebounds per game.

He earned two Oregon Player of the Year awards and one Converse High School All-America Team selection during his senior year.

Stoudamire played point guard for the Arizona Wildcats and coach, Lute Olson.

He was a first-team All-American and finalist for College Player of the Year.

He teamed with Khalid Reeves his junior year to lead the team to the Final Four.

During his senior year he earned the All-American honors for his 22.8 points per game.

He also finished his college career first on the Wildcats' all-time list in three-pointers made (272), second in points (1,849), fourth in assists (663), and was the only player in Arizona history to have two 40-point games.

Despite being the youngest player on the roster of the United States men's national basketball team, Stoudamire led the team in assists and steals en route to a gold medal at the 1993 Summer Universiade.

Stoudamire made an impact with the Raptors before he ever set foot on the court for them.

The 5ft 10in, 171 lb point guard was selected with the 7th overall pick by the Toronto Raptors in the 1995 NBA Draft and won the 1995–96 NBA Rookie of the Year Award.

He played collegiately at the University of Arizona, and professionally for the Toronto Raptors, Portland Trail Blazers, Memphis Grizzlies and San Antonio Spurs.

Stoudamire was born to Willie Stoudamire and Liz Washington in Portland, Oregon; he was the only child, with three stepsisters; his parents never married.

Willie Stoudamire moved away to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to work in a brewery when Damon was seven years old.

Stoudamire was raised by his mother, Liz, and his grandmother, Wanda Stoudamire-Matthews.

While Stoudamire was growing up, his uncles, Charles and Anthony Stoudamire, got him involved in sports, mainly basketball and football.

They acted as fathers and personal coaches to Stoudamire in his younger years, as he grew up watching his favorite player, Nate Archibald, and attempted to pattern his game after his childhood hero.

As he grew older, Stoudamire began to play basketball at Irving Park in the Portland–Irvington neighborhood and at the Matt Dishman Community Center in Portland.

Stoudamire attended Holy Redeemer grade school (a Catholic school) and Harriet Tubman Middle School, then attended Woodrow Wilson High School.

During his junior year in high school, his grandmother Wanda died of cancer.

He would later tattoo Wanda's face and her address on his left arm in remembrance.

He was expected to attend and play basketball at Oregon, but chose to attend Arizona instead.

Stoudamire attended Wilson High School (now Ida B. Wells-Barnett High School).

Stoudamire scored his career-high 45 points at Stanford University on January 14, 1995.

He was named a 1995 Wooden Award finalist after sharing the Pac-10 Player of the Year award with Ed O'Bannon.

At the 1995 NBA Draft held in Toronto, the fans in attendance chanted loudly for the Raptors to select UCLA standout Ed O'Bannon with their first ever Draft pick, loudly booing when the team announced their first pick would be Stoudamire instead.

Years later, Stoudamire would tell Maclean's that the boos did not bother him, being extra motivation for him, with the fans turning around on him once they saw him play for the first time.

Stoudamire would go on to a noteworthy rookie season with the Raptors, averaging 9.3 assists and 19 points per game.

He earned the nickname "Mighty Mouse" because he stands only 5ft 10in, and because he had a Mighty Mouse tattoo on his right arm going into his rookie season.

He set the record for three-point field goals made by a rookie with 133 breaking the record at the time held by Dennis Scott.

This record has been broken several times over since Stoudamire's 133 mark.

It is currently held by Donovan Mitchell, who made 187 threes in his rookie season.

Stoudamire is third in assist average by a rookie.

He ranked second in scoring among all rookies in 1995–96, and led all rookies in minutes played and assists.

He received the Schick Rookie of the Month award twice and unanimously made the Schick All Rookie First Team, and eventually won the Rookie of the Year award, receiving 76 of the possible 113 votes, and the MVP award of the Rookie All-Star Game.

Stoudamire previously held the record for most triple doubles with the Toronto Raptors with 3 triple doubles, a record that stood until 2014, when it was broken by Kyle Lowry.