Richard Allen Jefferson, small forward positioned player of basketball is an American national and a professional player of basketball. Currently he is serving San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association (NBA).
He is a player with swift moves and has always entertained his spectators with his way of playing game. Basketball playing has always been his passion and he leaves no room in preparing for any of the game with the toil.
Richard Jefferson was born on June 21, 1980 in Los Angeles at California. Jefferson was born to a Christian Missionaries family.
Though he was born in Los Angeles but he was raised in the Phoenix at Arizona. He has also received his education there at Arizona. Jefferson has joined Moon Valley High School in West Phoenix at Arizona.
That was a place from where Jefferson has started playing basketball. He has almost adopted it as a base to keep this sport a profession in his life. Jefferson has started participating in inter school basketball tournaments. In 1998, Jefferson has won the 4A State Championship.
After the high school studies, Jefferson has joined University of Arizona. In this university, he was being trained by the coach Lute Olson. Lute Olson has polished him from 1998-2001. At this time, Jefferson has played 84 games in total and he has averaged 11.2 points per game with 5.0 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game. He has made it possible for the Arizona to win 2001 National Championship.
Being a player of National Basketball Association, Jefferson was also a member of USA Men’s National Basketball Team. He remained its member in two of the events; 2003 Tournament of Americas and Athens 2004 Olympics.
Richard Jefferson has marked his professional career with numerous titles and medals in his sports life too. It was 2003 FIBA Americas Championship when Jefferson has won a first gold medal of his career at San Juan in United States. Then, in 2004 when Olympic Games were held at Athens, Jefferson was rewarded with the Bronze medal in the career life of basketball. In 2003, Jefferson has also participated and competed in the NBA Slam Dunk Contest.
After his Rookie season with the New Jersey Nets, Jefferson has signed a contract of six years to play with them. This contract holds a worth $78,000,000. On a layup attempt by Detroit Pistons, when the opponent player has undercut him, his wrist got injured and later when t was diagnosed then the ligament of left wrist was ruptures.
Because of this injury Jefferson was unable to attend the games of season 2004-05 of the NBA.
The year 2007-08 was one of the best in his career. When he has only played first 7 games of this season, he has marked his career by averaging26.9 points with 5.6 rebounds and 2.4 assists. At that time, he has given 97.1 % free throws and 49.1% field goals.
When it was 2008-09, Jefferson has joined Milwaukee Bucks. Jefferson was traded to Milwaukee Bucks unwillingly because he was extremely contended with the Nets. Then, on June23, 2009; Jefferson has joined San Antonio Spurs and is still playing for them.