New Orleans Hornets

Julian Emil-Jamaal Wright is an American professional basketball player who last played for the NBA's Toronto Raptors. He played collegiately for the University of Kansas. Julian Wright played competitive basketball at Homewood-Flossmoor High School in Flossmoor, Illinois. There he led the Vikings... to second place in the IHSA state AA tournament his junior year, losing to Peoria Central in the championship game, who were led by Shaun Livingston of the Charlotte Bobcats. In 2005 he was selected to the McDonald's All-American team, and he was rated among the top ten basketball players in his class by several recruiting services due to his talent and versatility. At 6'8" and 225 lb , Wright combines good size with excellent athleticism and skills, which allowed him to play numerous positions in high school, including point guard, small forward, and power forward. Wright entered the 2005–2006 NCAA season for the Kansas Jayhawks as the pre-season freshman of the year in the Big 12 Conference. Though he did not start at the beginning of the season, he quickly played his way into the starting power forward slot.
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Hilton A. Armstrong, Jr. is an American professional basketball player who currently plays for ASVEL Basket. He played forward/center for the University of Connecticut Huskies. He formerly played for the New Orleans Hornets, Sacramento Kings, Houston Rockets, Washington Wizards, and Atlanta Hawks.... After graduating from Peekskill High School, Armstrong started off slowly as a college athlete, averaging under 4 points in each of first 3 seasons at UConn. However, he greatly improved in his senior year, averaging 9.7 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 3.1 blocks, and shooting 61% from the field. He followed after his teammate Josh Boone and won the Big East Defensive Player of the Year in the 2005–06 season. He was declared eligible for the 2006 NBA Draft and was selected by the New Orleans Hornets with the 12th overall pick. Known for his shot-blocking and athleticism, he was anticipated by analysts to be an instant contributor to the Hornets front line, but the team then traded for the Chicago Bulls center Tyson Chandler. Chandler was named the starting center, and Armstrong did not do much to improve in the following off-seasons.
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The San Antonio Spurs are an American professional basketball team based in San Antonio, Texas. They are part of the Southwest Division of the... Western Conference in the National Basketball Association . The Spurs are one of four former American Basketball Association teams to remain intact in the NBA after the 1976 ABA-NBA merger and is the only former ABA team to have won an NBA championship. The Spurs have won four NBA championships, more than any NBA franchise except the Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, and Chicago Bulls. The Spurs' perfect record in NBA Finals series is surpassed only by the Chicago Bulls, who have won six without a loss; the Bulls and Spurs are the only two teams to maintain perfect records through multiple Finals series. As of July 2009, the Spurs rank third among active franchises for the highest winning percentage in NBA history; they have only missed the playoffs 4 times as an NBA franchise. In their 33 NBA seasons since 1976–1977, the Spurs have captured 17 division titles, which gives the Spurs the most division titles in the NBA during that 33-year span .
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The Los Angeles Lakers are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles, California. They play in the Pacific Division of the... Western Conference in the National Basketball Association . The Lakers play their home games at Staples Center, which they share with their local NBA rival, the Los Angeles Clippers, the Los Angeles Kings of the NHL, and the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA. The Lakers are one of the most successful teams in the history of the NBA, and have won 16 championships, their last being in 2010. As of 2012, the Lakers are the most valuable NBA franchise according to Forbes, having an estimated value of $900 million. The franchise started with the 1947 purchase of a disbanded team, the Detroit Gems of the NBL. The new team began play in Minneapolis, Minnesota, calling themselves the Lakers in honor of the state's nickname, "Land of 10,000 Lakes". The Lakers won five championships in Minneapolis, propelled by center George Mikan, who is described by the NBA's official website as the league's "first superstar". After struggling financially in the late 1950s following Mikan's retirement, they relocated to Los Angeles before the 1960–61 season.
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The Utah Jazz is a professional basketball team based in Salt Lake City, Utah. They are currently a part of the Northwest Division of the Western... Conference in the National Basketball Association . The franchise began in 1974 as the New Orleans Jazz, in New Orleans, Louisiana, but the team moved to Utah in 1979 after just five seasons. The Jazz were one of the most unsuccessful teams in the league in their early years, and it would be 10 years before they made a playoff appearance . They would not miss the playoffs again until 2004. During the late 1980s, John Stockton and Karl Malone arose as the franchise players for the team, and formed one of the most famed point guard–power forward duos in NBA history. Led by coach Jerry Sloan, who took over for Frank Layden in 1988, they became one of the powerhouse teams of the 1990s, culminating in two NBA Finals appearances in 1997 and 1998, where they lost both times to the Chicago Bulls, led by Michael Jordan. Both Stockton and Malone moved on in 2003. After missing the playoffs for three consecutive seasons the Jazz returned to prominence under the on-court leadership of point guard Deron Williams.
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The Phoenix Suns are a professional basketball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference in... the National Basketball Association and the only team in their division not to be based in California. Their home arena since 1992 has been the US Airways Center, which was formerly known as America West Arena, in downtown Phoenix. The Arena is often referred to as the "Purple Palace" due to its purple seats. The Suns began play as an expansion team in 1968. The franchise owns the NBA's fourth-best all-time winning percentage, winning 56 percent of its games, as of the end of the 2010–2011 season. In forty-three years of play, they have made the playoffs 29 times, posted nineteen seasons of 50 or more wins, made nine trips to the Western Conference Finals, and advanced to the NBA Finals in 1976 and 1993. As a result, based on their all-time win-loss percentage, the Suns are the winningest franchise to have never won an NBA Championship. The Suns were one of two franchises to join the NBA at the start of the 1968–69 season, alongside the Milwaukee Bucks.
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