Kelly Tripucka
(by Phil Rippa)
This there NBA that the kids watch
today is not the NBA that I watched. The difference is that while both
have truckloads of ugly guys, the ugly guys in my NBA could actually
shoot or at least block a shot or hustle back on defense.
Today, it is nothing but high
schoolers who won’t know Rolando Blackman or World B. Free or Bernard
King if they punched them in the face, dropped 45 points on them and
then smacked them around with their err... never mind. Then there are
the goofy 7’5” stiff internationals with 43 consonants in their name
from France who actually never stepped foot on American soil to play a
regular season game.
Where are the hairy, sweaty,
homely looking white guys? The ones that I might run into at the
ShopRite screaming at the greasy 15-year-old cashier that they gave
them a $20 not a $10. Where are Chris Mullin and Tom Chambers and Dan
Majerle and Jeff Hornacek and Mark Price and Scott Skiles and Mark
Eaton and Craig Ehlo and Chris Dudley and Jack Skima and Mike Giminski
and Danny Schayes and Jon Koncak and Mike Iuzzolino and Matt Bullard
and.... okay, I have probably stepped off the reservation here.
And then there was Kelly Tripucka.
Tripucka is the great forgotten white player. Of course, he went to
Notre Dame because if you are going to be ugly and white in the 80s,
you were going to either Kansas or Notre Dame or St. John’s if you were
an Italian kid afraid of leaving the city. 
The Pistons made him 12th pick in
the ’81 draft (of course, Detroit had selected a fella named Isiah
Thomas with the 2nd pick) and Tripucka decided to have a career year in
his rookie year – putting up over 1700 points (21.6 ppg) along with the
daily handful of rebounds and assists. He made the all-star team, yet
somehow Buck Williams won Rookie of the Year.
He had some silly seasons with the
Pistons (and games – including the night he put up 56 on the Bulls) and
then with the Jazz. (Tripucka was sent West when the Pistons got Adrian
Dantley) He did hang around long enough to score the first points in
Charlotte Hornets history and even lead them in scoring that first
season.
This wouldn’t be a story if it
didn’t include the part were we mention that he was fragile as he
missed large chunks of time in three seasons due to injury. For his
career, Tripucka scored over 12,000 points (the crippled seasons really
torched his ppg average as it is only 17.2, which while isn’t shabby,
it should have probably been over 20).
Let’s not kid ourselves though.
What Tripucka really is going to be known for is:
1) Being in the Polish Sports Hall
of Fame.
2) Being the white equivalent of
Patrick Ewing in the sweating department. No pair of sneakers was safe.
Poor little NBA towel boys.
3) Having an absurd permed mullet
look. Maybe that is what drove the Detroit ladies wild
4) Along with Rex Chapman,
unleashing the horrible “White man with really long spandex underneath
the shorts” look.
Of course, Larry Bird went and
stole my thunder and stepped all over this concept. Stupid white
basketball players.
Tripucka's Basketball Reference Page
The Polish Sports Hall of Fame