Tyrone Bogues: The shortest player in NBA history
Height does play an important role when playing basketball, but that doesn’t mean that if you’re short you can’t play. Tyrone Bogues is just the biggest example of that. For the people who don't know him, Bogues, better known as Muggsy Bogues, holds the record for the shortest player in NBA history standing at 5 feet, 3 inches.
Muggsy was born in Baltimore, Maryland and grew up in the Lafayette Court housing projects, he played at Dunbar High School. After that he went on to play college basketball for Wake Forest University, averaging 11.3 points, 8.4 assists and 3.1 steals per game in his junior year.
He improved his performance by senior year in which he averaged about 14.8 points, 9.5 assists, 3.8 rebounds and 2.4 steals per game. When his college career ended, he was the career leader in steals and assists, not bad for a player of his stature.
He was drafted by the Washington Bullets in the 1987 NBA Draft as 12th overall pick, a Draft class which included players like David Robinson, Reggie Miller, Scottie Pippen, and Kevin Johnson.
Bogues was a teammate of Manute Bol in his rookie year, who stood 7 ft 7 in (2.31 m) tall, who was the tallest player in NBA at that time. They were recognized as the tallest and shortest players in NBA, with a difference of 28 inches between them. Bol and Bogues appeared on three magazine covers together for this feat.
Later Tyrone moved to Charlotte, where he spent ten years. Settled in Charlotte, he established himself as an exceptional passer, a great stealer, and one of the fastest players on the court. He is the Hornets' career leader in minutes played (19,768), assists (5,557), steals (1,067), turnovers (1,118), and assists per 48 minutes (13.5) and is regarded as one of the most popular players in Hornets history. He moved on to the Warriors and then to Toronto, where he ended his career.
When he was criticized for his size, he responded- "People looked at my size as a disadvantage, but I looked at it as an advantage. Whatever I had in my arsenal I had to use".
He ended his career with 6,858 points (7.7 ppg), 6,726 assists(7.6 apg) and 1,369 steals(1.5 spg). Bogues also managed to block 39 shots throughout his NBA span. He has the best assist to turnover ratio in NBA history, which proves how great he was and when one can believe, anything is possible.