Johnson, Marques K.
Basketball
b. Feb. 8, 1956, Natchitoches, LA
Johnson's family moved to Los Angeles when he was young and, urged on by his father, he became a high school basketball star. Recruited by more than 200 colleges, he elected to stay at home with UCLA. Under Coach John Wooden's general policy of using upperclassmen as starters and bringing younger players along slowly, Johnson was a substitute forward in his freshman year. Although he started as a sophomore in 1974-75, when UCLA won the NCAA championship, his playing time was limited and he averaged just 11.6 points per game.
In his junior year, Johnson came into his own. The 6-foot-7, 225-pounder used quick, agile moves around the basket and an accurate short-range jump shot to average 17.3 points. In his final season at UCLA, 1976-77, his average was 21.4 and he also had more than 10 rebounds a game. He was a consensus All-American and a unanimous player of the year selection.
Johnson was on the NBA All-Rookie team with the Milwaukee Bucks, with a 19.5 point-per-game average, and he scored more than 20 points a game in each of the next three seasons. The Bucks traded him to the Los Angeles Clippers in 1984, and back problems began to hamper his play, but he was named the league's comeback player of the year when he scored 20.3 points a game in 1985-86.
Still, the back problems recurred. Johnson could play only 10 games in 1986-87 and he retired for two seasons. After a brief comeback with the Golden State Warriors in 1989, he retired for good. In his eleven NBA seasons, Johnson scored 13,892 points, an average of 20.1 per game.
Johnson appeared in several movies, including White Men Can't Jump, then became a basketball analyst for the Seattle Supersonics and Fox Sports. Two of his sons, Kris and Josiah, wore their father's old number while playing for UCLA.