With Wesley Matthews in mind, one can argue that average college basketball players who are not drafted are more likely and willing to fight to earn a career in the National Basketball Association than those who are given the opportunity to earn without it.
The former Marquette Golden Eagles star, who currently plays for the Dallas Mavericks, having previously played for the Utah Jazz and Portland Trail Blazers, was not selected in the 2009 NBA Draft, but still managed to make it to the league this year. Since then, he has become a fixture on all the teams he has played for and, most importantly, has earned the nickname Iron Man, which fans and teammates alike have given him for his willingness and ability to survive minor injuries and pain.
Who is Wesley Matthews? Bio
Wesley Matthews was born on October 14, 1986, in San Antonio, Texas, as Wesley Joel Matthews Jr. He is the son of two-time NBA champions Wesley Joel Matthews Sr. and Pam Moore, although only his mother raised him after his father left the family.
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The boy attended James Madison Memorial High School, where his athletic talents were fully displayed as he competed for both the school’s basketball and soccer teams. But it was only with the basketball team that his talents were widely recognized, earning him the Wisconsin Mr. Basketball Award in his final year of high school in 2005.
After completing his high school education, Matthews decided not to follow in his father’s footsteps and study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but to enroll at Marquette University, where he remained the star player on every court he entered. As a rookie, he averaged 9.0 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game in 23 games. As a sophomore, he averaged 12.6 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game in 34 games. In his junior year, Matthews scored 11.3 points, 4.4 rebounds, and 1.7 assists per game in 35 games. In his last college season, he received a mention for the second-team All-Big East after achieving the highest average points (18.3), rebounds (5.7), and assists (2.5) per game during his college career.
NBA Career
Despite the little hype Wesley Matthews had built around himself as a college athlete, he remained unelected in the 2009 NBA Draft. However, this did not stop him from his dream of making it into the NBA, as he later joined Utah Jazz to play in the Orlando Summer League, where he hoped to impress the scouts. After the Orlando event, Matthews left nothing to chance as he also played in the Las Vegas Summer League with the Sacramento Kings. Before the start of the 2009/10 season, Utah Jazz signed a one-year contract with him and brought him on the team.
Immediately after he joined his new team, the draft reject became a fixture on the team and was named a starter later that year after the player he was replacing was traded away. At the end of the season, the Portland Trailblazers offered Matthews a $34 million five-year contract that Jazz was unwilling to fulfill, allowing him to trade Utah for Portland.
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Wesley Matthews did not leave his career to chance, because he made it into the federation through hard work, he worked even harder and soon found himself a permanent member of his new team. Most importantly, he played 250 NBA games in a row before he was expelled from the NBA due to injury. Matthews’ stay with the Trail Blazers lasted until his contract expired in 2015 when he joined the Dallas Mavericks under a new four-year contract.
He has proven to be a valuable addition to the Mavericks rankings and has consistently scored points from across the arc, making him the seventh Dallas player to score 500 3-point goals with the team as of February 2018.
His Height, Weight, and Body Stats
Wesley Matthews is not on the top five players on the Mavericks list, which includes players over six feet tall such as Dirk Nowitzki and DeAndre Jordan. But if you narrow the parameters down to the guards, Matthews comes in second with a height of 6 feet 5 inches (1.96 m). He also weighs about 220 lb (100 kg) and has a wingspan of 7 feet (1 inch).