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Looking forany autographUdoka Azubuike
One collector is trying to find a single signature from every man who ever played for the Jazz — all 370 of them, from the 1974 New Orleans team to today. For many of them, this page is the only one on the internet. Here is Udoka Azubuike: what he did on the floor, a few things most people never knew, and every card that carries his name. If you own something he signed — or you know who might — there is a note at the foot of this page.
Born in Lagos, the youngest of five children of a police officer and a schoolteacher, Azubuike lost his father to an undiagnosed illness at ten and reached America through a Basketball Without Borders scholarship. At Kansas he set the NCAA career record by making 74.9 percent of his shots and swept Big 12 Player of the Year and national defensive honors in 2020. The Jazz drafted him 27th that fall, and he spent three injury-marked seasons in Utah, including foot surgery in 2022.
His high school assistant coach and the coach's wife became his legal guardians in Florida. After a two-way stint in Phoenix, Azubuike now plays for Ironi Ness Ziona in Israel.
HOW HE CAME & WENTUtah took him 27th overall in 2020 and sent Tony Bradley and the 38th pick to Detroit for cash four days later. Injuries held him to 68 games in three seasons. The Jazz declined his fourth-year option and he left in free agency.
- Full name
- Udoka Timothy Azubuike
- Utah Jazz tenure
- 2020–23
- Position
- Center
- Born
- 1999, Lagos, Nigeria
- Height
- 7′0″ (213 cm)
- College
- Kansas
- Drafted
- 2020, 1st round (No. 27), Utah
A card. A photo. A program. A page from an old autograph book. Anything he put his name on.
You do not need to know what it is. Take a photo with your phone and send it to me. I will tell you what you have, for free, whether or not anything comes of it. I pay the postage both ways. I answer every message myself, usually the same day.
With the Jazz
UDOKA AZUBUIKE · 2020–23 · PER GAME| SEASON | TEAM | G | MPG | PPG | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | FG% | 3P% | FT% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020–21 | UTA | 15 | 3.8 | 1.1 | 0.9 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.3 | .444 | — | .800 |
| 2021–22 | UTA | 17 | 11.5 | 4.7 | 4.2 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.6 | .755 | — | .545 |
| 2022–23 | UTA | 36 | 10.0 | 3.5 | 3.3 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.4 | .819 | — | .350 |
| JAZZ TOTAL | 3 SEASONS | 68 | 9.0 | 3.2 | 3.0 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.4 | .769 | — | .512 |
Season by season, regular season, with this franchise only. More info: Basketball-Reference ↗ · Wikipedia ↗
Did you know
UDOKA AZUBUIKE · 8 NOTES- Holds one of the highest career field-goal percentages in NCAA Division I history.
- Born in Nigeria and moved to the United States as a teenager to play basketball.
- In his very first American high school game he faced fellow future Kansas Jayhawk Joel Embiid.
- Kansas coach Bill Self recruited a football player, James Sosinski, just to have someone big enough to guard him in practice.
- He grew up in a Nigerian city he reckoned had only one or two basketball hoops and played mostly soccer.
- At a 2015 AAU event organizers radioed for spare rims after his dunks, and he tore a breakaway rim loose with John Calipari watching.
- A congressman and Kansas officials expedited a visa so his mother Florence could come from Nigeria and see him play for the first time, at the 2018 Final Four.
- He debuted for Phoenix on October 28, 2023 against Utah, scoring two points in six minutes of a win over his former team.