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Forward · 1981–82

Bill Robinzine

When Darryl Dawkins shattered a backboard in Kansas City in November 1979, it was Robinzine fleeing beneath the falling glass, and Dawkins worked his name into the dunk's title. He deserved better billing: a tough rebounder and one of the league's better defensive power forwards over seven seasons, five with the Kings, the last with Utah in 1981-82. His father had been DePaul's first African-American basketball player in 1955.

He was out of the league at 29, after a diminished final season in Utah, and died in September 1982.

HOW HE CAME & WENTHe came to Utah from Dallas in the 1981 trade for Allan Bristow and Wayne Cooper. It did not work — his role shrank and he fell out of the rotation inside a season.

Full name
William Clintard Robinzine
Utah Jazz tenure
1981–82
Position
Forward
Born
1953, Chicago
Died
1982
Height
6′7″ (201 cm)
Weight
229 lb (104 kg)
College
DePaul
Drafted
1975, 2nd round, Kansas City
Signature in the archive 8 x10 photo - Kansas City Kings

No photograph of this signature is online yet.

With the Jazz

BILL ROBINZINE · 1981–82 · PER GAME
SEASONTEAMGMPGPPGRPGAPGSPGBPGFG%3P%FT%
1981–82UTA5611.65.82.60.90.70.1.446.813
JAZZ TOTAL1 SEASON5611.65.82.60.90.70.1.446.813

Season by season, regular season, with this franchise only. More info: Basketball-Reference ↗  ·  Wikipedia ↗

Did you know

BILL ROBINZINE · 6 NOTES
  • Averaged double figures for four straight seasons in Kansas City.
  • A relative, Kevin Robinzine, won Olympic gold in the 4x400 metre relay at Seoul in 1988.
  • Teammates and writers knew the left-handed power forward as Robo and as Z.
  • He followed his father to DePaul, playing for the school where his father had broken the color barrier twenty years earlier.
  • Kansas City took him tenth overall in the 1975 draft out of Chicago's Wendell Phillips High School.
  • The expansion Dallas Mavericks revived him, and he became one of their leading scorers alongside Jim Spanarkel.