After averaging 20 points, 9.8 rebounds and 4 assists per game through his NBA career, Chris Webber is ready to hang ‘em up.

Growing up in the D.C. Metropolitan-area, the main lingering memory I have of C-Webb is when the Washington Bullets mistakingly traded him to Sacramento for Mitch Richmond and Otis Thorpe, instead of Juwan Howard. No disrespect to Howard, who had his best NBA years in D.C., but C-Webb has Hall of Fame numbers and was much more exciting to watch.

Webber, Howard, Gheorge Muresan, Calbert Cheaney and Rod Strickland helped excite the area when intact and healthy. Here was Mike Wilbon talking about those Bullets as they were fixin’ to pick up Webber from Golden State for three 1st-rounders and Tom Gugliotta:

Even before The Trade had been announced or even completed, there was hysteria. The Washington Bullets didn’t have enough people to answer the phones or take the requests. People were walking up to the front door and pulling out checkbooks, credit cards. A guy from Pennsylvania called and bought four full season tickets — that’s all 41 home games. Lawyers and pols and VIPs called wanting in. Maybe USAir Arena isn’t so far after all. More than 500 season-ticket plans had been sold by 9:30 last night. At one point, hours before anyone knew whether Chris Webber would be coming to town, a Bullets sales staffer stood up and said to anyone who could hear above the screaming telephones, “The town’s on fire!”

The Washington Bullets have a superstar. Someone to put on posters and billboards, someone whose jersey fanatic teenagers will want, someone whom people will happily pay to see, someone who looks at Shaq and Barkley and Kemp and Pippen without blinking, a legitimate all-star prospect who can take a team deep, deep into the NBA playoffs. You think Washington is just a Redskins town? It isn’t. It’s a town long suffering for a Young Hoop God. It’s a town where people will write a check for two seats at $1,200 each to see Chris Webber in uniform, or even at a news conference.

The gang, along with Webber and his hysteria, took the Bullets to the playoffs after a nine-year drought. They fell short of championship dreams thanks to some guy named Michael Jordan. (Who hasn’t MJ made “fall short” at some point during his run?)

As mentioned above, Webber was traded away from Washington in ‘98 after the team decided he was too much trouble and needed to be split from Howard, who was his close buddy at the time.

I reiterate: Washington traded the wrong guy. Case-in-point can be seen by the career-setting stats C-Webb put up in Sacramento:

When Webber arrived, the Kings also signed center Vlade Divac and drafted point guard Jason Williams. In his first year with the Kings (the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season), Webber won the rebounding title averaging a league high 13.0 rebounds per game. The surprising Kings team made the playoffs, almost upsetting the veteran Utah Jazz. In years to come, Webber and the Kings became arguably the most exciting team in the league, and NBA title contenders. He was named to the All-Star team again in 2000 and 2001 while cementing his status as one of the premier power forwards in the NBA. Webber peaked in the 2000-01 season where he averaged a career-high 27.1 points. He also averaged 11.1 rebounds and was 4th in MVP voting. Webber was an All-NBA player five years in a row as a Sacramento King (1999-2003), making the 1st team in 2001 for the only time in his career.

On July 27, 2001 Webber signed a $127 million, seven-year contract with the Kings. In the 2001-02 NBA season, Webber led the Kings to a franchise record 61-21. He also made his fourth All-Star team and they made it to the Western Conference Finals, against the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers. The Kings lost in 7 games.

Webber went on to play for the 76ers, Pistons and a very brief stint with the Golden State Warriors (again). His numbers, as they sit, are Hall of Fame worthy.

(Flickr Image / Vedia)

Webber first stepped into infamy as the lead member of Michigan’s “Fab Five” team — Webber, Juwan Howard, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson — who went to two straight NCAA finals in ‘92 and ‘93 but lost both times. The second loss made C-Webb famous for all the wrong reasons when he called a time-out Michigan did not have with 11 seconds left against North Carolina with his team down 2 at the time. The ensuing two free throws helped UNC seal the victory. Many folks still blame Webber for that loss but I hold to what a coach told me long ago: “No one play determines 40-minute-long games.”

I am not a member of the “sound bite” decision-makers of America club, but those who are will only remember Webber for his last NCAA game. Following the political theater taking place with pundits and opponents jumping on Senator Barack Obama for words of those around him, earlier today on The Starting Five’s message board, I pondered whether C-Webb could coach without having to pop young hoopster knuckleheads upside the head for talking trash about “the time-out incident.”

There are too many persons in the world who, unfortunately, would judge both Obama and C-Webb by one decision of their entire lifetimes.

C-Webb does great work in the community and from everything I’ve read about him is an all-around great person. (I say that from my outsider’s perspective in mind, of course). I hope he keeps up with the charity work and doesn’t fall out of the spotlight. Even during his “get high” days in D.C., C-Webb still smiled, signed autographs and did all the other good stuff for the community.

I respect the socially conscious athlete and hold him in high regard for being one.

Maybe he will push past doubters and become a coach down the road. He will just have to keep in mind that, because of either haters or jokesters, whenever he calls a time-out he had better be ready to pop a couple folks upside the head!