Wally Szczerbiak

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Wally Szczerbiak
Position	small forward/shooting guard
Nickname	Wally World
Height	6 ft 7 in (2.01 m)
Weight	244 lb (111 kg)
Team	Boston Celtics
Nationality	United States
Born	March 5, 1977 (age 30) Madrid, Spain
College	Miami University (Ohio)
Draft	6th overall pick, 1999 Minnesota Timberwolves
Pro career	1999–present
Former teams	Minnesota Timberwolves (1999-2006)

Walter Robert "Wally" Szczerbiak (born March 5, 1977, in Madrid, Spain) is an American professional basketball player for the Boston Celtics. He was born in Spain while his father Walter (a former ABA player) was playing for the Real Madrid basketball team, and spent much of his childhood in Europe during his father's playing career. When Walter retired, he moved his family back to his native Long Island, New York, where Wally attended high school in Cold Spring Harbor. Szczerbiak competed for the Long Island team in the 1997 Empire State Games.

[edit] College career

In college, Szczerbiak played for Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He graduated from the Richard T. Farmer School of Business at Miami University where he studied Marketing. At Miami he led his team to the Sweet 16 in the 1999 NCAA Tournament. As a #10 seed, Sczcerbiak scored a career high 43 points in a first round win over #7 seed University of Washington. He followed that up by being held to only 24 points in the second round against #2 seed University of Utah, but nonetheless led the team to the Sweet 16, where they would eventually lose to the University of Kentucky 58-48, despite a 23 point performance.

[edit] NBA career

The Minnesota Timberwolves selected Szczerbiak 6th overall in the 1999 NBA Draft. His best year as a pro was 2002 when he was a coach's selection to the Western conference all star team. Later he tied a Timberwolves franchise record of 44 points on April 13, 2003, since broken by Kevin Garnett. Szczerbiak was coming off the bench for the 2004-2005 NBA season. He was uncomfortable with the role and wanted to be a starter. In the 2005-2006 season, the former All-Star returned to the starting role.

On January 26, 2006, Szczerbiak, along with Michael Olowokandi, Dwayne Jones and a conditional first-round draft pick, was traded to the Boston Celtics for Ricky Davis, Mark Blount, Marcus Banks, Justin Reed, and two second-round draft picks.

Szczerbiak is an offensive minded player with an excellent perimeter touch; however, his defense is only average. Wally Szczerbiak underwent knee surgery in the 2006 offseason to fix a knee which had been somewhat injured for many months.

In the 2006-2007 season, Wally played well early on, including a 35-point performance against the Charlotte Bobcats early in the season. However, he was soon plagued by several ankle injuries to both ankles, which greatly affected his performance, namely his shooting and jumping ability. Szczerbiak decided to have season ending surgery on his ankles.