Trajan Langdon

Trajan Langdon

Langdon with CSKA Moscow in March 2011.
Brooklyn Nets
Position Assistant general manager
League NBA
Personal information
Born (1976-05-13) May 13, 1976
Palo Alto, California
Nationality American
Listed height 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m)
Listed weight 211 lb (96 kg)
Career information
High school East Anchorage
(Anchorage, Alaska)
College Duke (1994–1999)
NBA draft 1999 / Round: 1 / Pick: 11th overall
Selected by the Cleveland Cavaliers
Playing career 1999–2011
Position Shooting guard
Number 21
Career history
1999–2002 Cleveland Cavaliers
2002–2003 Benetton Treviso
2003–2004 Efes Pilsen
2004–2005 Dynamo Moscow
2005–2011 CSKA Moscow
Career highlights and awards
Career NBA statistics
Points 647 (5.4 ppg)
Rebounds 159 (1.3 rpg)
Assists 152 (1.3 apg)
Stats at Basketball-Reference.com
Medals
Men’s basketball
Representing  United States
FIBA World Championship
1998 Greece National team
FIBA Americas U18 Championship
1994 Santa Rosa National team

Trajan Shaka Langdon (born May 13, 1976) is an American basketball executive and former professional player. A 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m)[1][2] and 210 lb (95 kg)[3] shooting guard, he first gained fame in the U.S. while playing college basketball at Duke University.

Following a three year NBA stint, Langdon had a very successful career in Europe. A three-time All-Euroleague Team member and the Euroleague Final Four MVP in 2008, he won two Euroleague titles with CSKA Moscow in 2006 and 2008.

Early career

Born in Palo Alto, California, Langdon moved to Anchorage, Alaska soon after. During his high school career, Langdon attended Steller Secondary School and played for East Anchorage High School. He set the Alaska 4A Record of 2,200 career points and was a 3-Time Alaskan Player of the Year.

He led East Anchorage to the 1994 Alaskan State Championship and he played in the prestigious McDonald's All-American Game, where he won the 3-point shooting contest. He was also the recipient of the Dial Award, given to the nation's top male and female student-athlete. Langdon's win marked the second consecutive year a basketball player was so honored, as Jacque Vaughn had won the previous year.[4]

After high school, Langdon moved on to play for the highly regarded Duke University basketball team, where he set the school record for most career 3-point field goals made (which was later broken by J. J. Redick in 2006) earning him the nickname "The Alaskan Assassin".[5] After his Freshman year at Duke he twice appeared on the popular Anchorage, AK TV sports talk show, Sports Talk Alaska. Langdon was the only guest to ever appear on the show twice.

In the 1999 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament championship game, with Duke down 1 point to the UConn Huskies, with 5.4 seconds to go Langdon attempted to drive the ball into the lane and committed a traveling violation that turned the ball over to UConn. Analysts, as well as Langdon himself, credited the defense of Ricky Moore, who was considered the top defensive player in the tournament, for forcing the travel. A few also questioned why he had attempted to play Moore one-on-one, and had not instead passed the ball to guard William Avery.[6][7][8] When Khalid El-Amin subsequently made two foul shots Langdon received the in-bounds pass and attempted to take a 3-point shot to tie the game, but tripped and lost control of the ball as time expired.[9][10]

Professional career

Langdon was selected by the San Diego Padres in the 6th round of the 1994 Major League Baseball draft,[4] and was also drafted by the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers in the 1999 NBA Draft. Langdon made his professional debut with the Cavaliers on November 2, 1999, when he became the first Alaskan to play in the NBA. Following a three-year career with the Cavaliers, Langdon moved to Europe to play for the Italian League club Benetton Treviso for the 2002-03 season.

The following season, he moved to the Turkish League powerhouse Efes Pilsen. For the 2004-05 season, he moved on to the Russian League club Dynamo Moscow, before moving across town to CSKA Moscow for the 2005-06 season. Langdon was named to the All-Euroleague Second Team for the Euroleague 2005-06 season. CSKA Moscow won the Euroleague Championship that same season.

The following season, he helped CSKA Moscow return to the Euroleague championship game, where they lost to Greek power Panathinaikos on the Greek team's home court.[11] In the process, he was named to the All-Euroleague First Team for the Euroleague 2006-07 season, a feat that he repeated in the Euroleague 2007-08 season. On May 4, 2008, he was named the Euroleague Final Four MVP, after again winning the Euroleague title with CSKA Moscow.[12]

On October 7, 2006, Langdon led his CSKA Moscow team to a 94-75 win over the Los Angeles Clippers in an exhibition game. Coincidentally, he played against his former Duke University teammate Elton Brand, who was playing for the Clippers at that time. He led all scorers in the game with 17 points.[13]

In June 2011 he announced his retirement from basketball. He made his announcement two days after helping CSKA to its ninth consecutive Russian League crown.[14][15]

After his playing days ended, Langdon became a scout for the San Antonio Spurs.

On March 8, 2016, he was named the assistant general manager of the Brooklyn Nets.[16]

National team career

After graduating from Duke with degrees in mathematics and history, Langdon played for the USA national basketball team in the 1998 FIBA World Championship, winning the bronze medal.[17]

Career statistics

Legend
  GP Games played   GS  Games started  MPG  Minutes per game
 FG%  Field-goal percentage  3P%  3-point field-goal percentage  FT%  Free-throw percentage
 RPG  Rebounds per game  APG  Assists per game  SPG  Steals per game
 BPG  Blocks per game  PPG  Points per game  PIR  Performance Index Rating
 Bold  Career high

Note: The EuroLeague is not the only competition in which the player participated for the team during the season. He also played in domestic competition, and regional competition if applicable.

† Denotes seasons in which Langdon's team won the Euroleague
Led the league

NBA

Regular season

Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG
1999–00 Cleveland 10 0 14.5 .375 .421 1.000 1.5 1.1 .5 .0 4.9
2000–01 Cleveland 65 5 17.2 .431 .411 .895 1.4 1.2 .6 .1 6.0
2001–02 Cleveland 44 0 10.8 .398 .365 .913 1.3 1.4 .3 .1 4.8
Career 119 5 14.6 .416 .396 .910 1.3 1.3 .5 .1 5.4

Euroleague

Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG PIR
2002–03 Benetton 21 19 28.6 .540 .511 .759 2.7 1.7 1.6 .1 14.8 13.4
2003–04 Efes Pilsen 20 19 33.1 .461 .391 .864 3.0 1.6 1.5 .2 14.3 13.0
2005–06† CSKA Moscow 24 24 31.8 .453 .390 .860 3.1 1.5 1.3 .2 12.8 11.6
2006–07 25 25 29.5 .475 .420 .925 4.0 1.0 1.6 .2 13.5 14.6
2007–08† 25 25 29.1 .512 .458 .884 3.3 .9 1.2 .1 12.6 13.0
2008–09 21 21 28.8 .494 .432 .878 2.7 1.3 1.0 .0 10.6 11.2
2009–10 21 21 32.2 .505 .470 .913 3.0 1.1 1.4 .0 15.0 15.6
2010–11 10 9 27.5 .397 .229 .708 2.2 .5 .2 .0 8.3 4.5
Career 167 164 30.2 .486 .427 .868 3.1 1.3 1.3 .1 13.0 12.7

Personal life

Trajan is the son of social worker Gladys Langdon and Dr. Steve Langdon, a professor of anthropology at the University of Alaska Anchorage.[18] Trajan has traveled with his father on many anthropological trips within southeastern Alaska. His father studied the Tlingit of Alaska.

References

  1. ↑ [http://www.cskabasket.com/team/?a=player&p=9371&season=56&lang=en CSKA Moscow official website player profile
  2. ↑ [http://www.euroleague.net/competition/players/showplayer?clubcode=csk&pcode=BEB Euroleague.net official player profile
  3. ↑ Italian League profile
  4. 1 2 EUROBASKET - Euroleague Men basketball.
  5. ↑ Trajan Langdon.
  6. ↑ "UConn Had 'Moore' Than Enough Talent To Beat Duke". The Salina Journal. 30 March 1999. p. 27. Retrieved August 26, 2014 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/30/sports/ncaa-tournament-men-s-championship-langdon-s-journey-is-a-step-too-long.html
  8. ↑ http://www.umich.edu/~msjrnl/backmsj/990405/current/sports/sports02.html
  9. ↑ http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/1999/09/28/six-seconds-cant-define-langdons-duke-career#.VPUwXo7wrng
  10. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/30/sports/sports-of-the-times-no-mystery-at-the-end-known-factors-not-an-x-factor-won-it.html
  11. ↑ The Euroleague determines the site for each year's Final Four shortly before the previous year's Final Four, before it can possibly be known who will advance. The 2008 event was held in Madrid.
  12. ↑ Euroleague feature: King of the Final Four on YouTube
  13. ↑ ESPN - Langdon leads CSKA Moscow past Clippers - NBA.
  14. ↑ CSKA icon Langdon announces retirement
  15. ↑ "Trajan Langdon retires from basketball". Inside Hoops. Retrieved 20 September 2012.
  16. ↑ "Brooklyn Nets Name Trajan Langdon Assistant General Manager". NBA.com. March 8, 2016. Retrieved October 13, 2016.
  17. ↑ 1998 USA Basketball.
  18. ↑ Lieber, Jill (March 26, 1999). "Following his father's vision, Alaska's Trajan Langdon made it to Duke by . . .". USA Today. Retrieved May 26, 2011.

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