1. Lucien James Longley was born on 19 January 1969 and is an Australian professional basketball coach and former player.
28 Facts About Luc Longley
1. 2.
Luc Longley was the first Australian to play in the National Basketball Association, where he played for four teams over 10 seasons.
3.
Luc Longley began his career in Australia with a brief stint playing for the Perth Wildcats of the National Basketball League in 1986.
4.
Luc Longley played collegiately for the New Mexico Lobos and was drafted 7th overall by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the 1991 NBA draft.
5.
Luc Longley played three middling seasons with the Timberwolves before he was traded to the Bulls in 1994.
6.
Luc Longley was an important component of the team's success and stayed in the Bulls' starting lineup during their championship three-peat.
7.
Luc Longley was born 19 January 1969 in Melbourne, Victoria, to Sue and Richard Luc Longley.
8.
Luc Longley has two brothers, Sam, a journalist and actor, and Griffin, a journalist who played briefly for the Perth Wildcats.
9.
Luc Longley was recruited out of Scotch College in Perth by the University of New Mexico's basketball coach, Gary Colson, who went to Perth to recruit Luc Longley's childhood friend Andrew Vlahov, who ended up attending Stanford University.
10.
Vlahov and Luc Longley both played their junior basketball for the Perth Redbacks on the same team.
11.
Luc Longley attended college at the University of New Mexico, from 1987 to 1991, where he averaged 19.1 points, 9.2 rebounds and 3.6 assists in his senior year.
12.
Luc Longley helped New Mexico reach the NCAA Tournament in 1991.
13.
Luc Longley spent time at the Australian Institute of Sport in 1986 and 1987 under the coaching of Australian Boomers head coach Adrian Hurley, attending the AIS with Vlahov and another emerging basketball player from Adelaide, Mark Bradtke.
14.
When Luc Longley returned home to Perth during college breaks, he regularly suited up for the Perth Redbacks, helping the team to win consecutive State Basketball League championships in 1989 and 1990.
15.
Luc Longley was drafted 7th overall by the Minnesota Timberwolves in 1991.
16.
Luc Longley won three straight championships with the Bulls from 1996 to 1998, becoming the first Australian player to win an NBA title and the only to have won three championships.
17.
Luc Longley played one year with New York before retiring, due to a degenerative condition in his left ankle.
18.
Luc Longley made his international debut for the Australia national basketball team in 1988 and would be, whenever possible, the preferred starting centre for the next 12 years.
19.
Luc Longley appeared in three Summer Olympic Games as well as at the 1990 FIBA World Championship.
20.
In 2001, Luc Longley was inducted into the Australian Institute of Sport 'Best of the Best'.
21.
On 8 October 2009 Luc Longley was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame at its 25th anniversary dinner in Melbourne, becoming only the fourth basketball player to be inducted along with Andrew Gaze, Michele Timms, and Phil Smyth.
22.
Luc Longley has spoken of the importance of the Australian Boomers to his growth as a player, citing it as the reason he wanted to return to the national program as an assistant coach; he would later become the assistant coach of the Australian men's national basketball team from 2013 to 2019.
23.
Luc Longley was married to an American, Kelly Yates, whom he met while he was attending college in Albuquerque and they have two daughters.
24.
Luc Longley married an Australian, Anna Gare, a former musician and current television presenter, in 2008.
25.
The Luc Longley family are well known in the Fremantle, Western Australia area, to the extent that a 25-year-old, then Chicago Bulls player, Luc Longley was present at the Fremantle Football Club's unveiling and launch at the Fremantle Port.
26.
Luc Longley cited Fremantle at the time as "one of the world's great spots".
27.
Luc Longley then bought a warehouse on a nearby street which Gare's father, an architect, converted into a house for their needs.
28.
In December 2009 Luc Longley, who had previously participated in marine conservation efforts, named a newly discovered shrimp species Lebbeus clarehannah after his 15-year-old daughter.