Most players in the NBA have enjoyed the spotlight their entire lives – while others have had to battle for recognition each and every step of the way such as Sacramento Kings newly acquired power forward Anthony Tolliver.
One could argue Tolliver, 31, was even overlooked on his nationally ranked Kickapoo High School basketball team as national scouts focused on 6-foot-1 point guard Spencer Laurie, who led the team with 17 points per game during their Missouri class 5A state championship senior season in 2003.
The Springfield, Missouri native instead looks back at his time at Kickapoo and takes pride in being named the 12th ranked team in the nation by USA Today and becoming one of three seniors on the team to play Division I college basketball.
“It was a great environment to grow up in and this town of Springfield itself not a very big town … but I developed great relationships at a young age and was very fortunate to have a great group of peers that were really good at basketball in my age group,” Tolliver told Cowbell Kingdom. “We all grew up playing with and against each other – ended up playing at the national level and competed very well and got a lot of attention for all of us. Coming from a small town in Missouri, sometimes it’s tough to get noticed, but we were able to do that.”
Tolliver, who stands at 6-foot-8 and averaged 15.1 points per game in his final season at Kickapoo High, quickly garnered the attention of Creighton University coach, Dana Altman. He decided to attend the private school in Omaha, Nebraska, but only averaged 6.5 minutes and 17.1 minutes per game in his freshman and sophomore seasons, respectively.
This lack of playing time can be contributed to injuries and a self-described “immaturity” as Tolliver focused more on his offensive game rather than the needs of the team in terms of rebounding and defense.
Fortunately for Tolliver and the Creighton Bluejays, this was the last time in his career that he would ever put himself before the team.
“I finally bought in to what [Altman] wanted me to do with about eight or nine games left in the regular season and we went on a run and … made the [NCAA] tournament. If you ask him, he’ll credit that to me for finally starting to listen because I stopped thinking about myself and I started putting the team first,” Tolliver said. “Coach needed me to rebound and play defense and if that’s what he wanted me to do I vowed that’s what I’d do … I started rebounding the ball very well, playing good defense and we started winning and it kind of changed the trajectory of my college career. It really allowed me to go into my professional life and actually make something out of it.”
This turn around in Tolliver’s college career didn’t come as a surprise to friends and family members such as his father Johnny Tolliver who put it simply: “Anthony has always been a good kid and a religious kid. He’s always been athletic and he’s always been one who made good plays and always paid attention. Any time Anthony set his mind to do something that’s what he did.”
Tolliver enjoyed the fruits of his labor as he managed to average over 13 points and just under seven rebounds per game in his junior and senior campaigns, while earning first-team All-Missouri Conference honors and carrying Creighton to another NCAA tournament appearance in 2007.
“He gave us a tremendous amount of leadership. He was kind of the spokesman for our program because he was so articulate. We felt like he was a great leader for our young guys,” Altman, who now coaches at the University of Oregon, told Cowbell Kingdom. “He was all about the team. If he had to score one night, he tried to score to help us … I was always on him about being a rebounder-defender first then scoring would come and once he took that philosophy his career really took off. For us those last two years, he was the foundation of our program.”
The next step for Tolliver, who graduated from Creighton in 2007 with a finance degree, was to establish a footing among NBA scouts as he hoped to be drafted in the league. The former Bluejay was invited to pre-draft workouts, but it became apparent that he was being used as a player to better judge other prospects from bigger schools.
// “I looked at that as a challenge … In my head I’m like I’m better than these guys so it doesn’t matter if I’m coming from a small school I’m going to go in and compete and beat these guys,” Tolliver said. “One of the guys in my very first workout with the Washington Wizards that was working out with me was from Duke and I felt like I pretty much dominated him and I looked at it like that. He got drafted and I didn’t and I thought that was really funny. He wasn’t the only one – I had about 15 pre-draft workouts – I really played well in almost all of them … every single time I touched the court in front of an NBA scout I took it personal.”
Tolliver carried this chip on his shoulder as he entered the NBA Development League for a few years, before finally breaking out with the Golden State Warriors in the 2009-10 season, by posting 12.3 points and 7.3 rebounds per game in 44 appearances.
After which, the veteran power forward spent two seasons with Minnesota (2010-12), one season with Atlanta (2012-13), Charlotte (2013-14), Phoenix (2014-15) and then two seasons with Detroit (2014-16). Most recently, Tolliver inked a two-year deal worth $16 million with the Sacramento Kings, as first reported by Sam Amick of USA Today.
“Even though my situations have been inconsistent – I’ve played for a lot of different teams in a short amount of time. For me it has always been about the opportunity … I want to be a veteran presence in the locker room while being on that court because I feel like I can help a team win and I have a lot left in the tank,” Tolliver said. “That’s how I came to the conclusion to come to Sacramento … I’ve been on all the different sides of the spectrum and I’m excited to come to a team like Sacramento and I feel like we have a lot of young talent, but we’ve also got a good amount of veterans so it’s a good mix of players that can play now and some players we can sprinkle in and start developing for them to have a team to reckon with down the line.”
Tolliver, who has averaged six points, 3.5 rebounds per game and 35 percent from beyond the arc in his career, hopes to bring leadership, physicality and a knack for knocking down the three ball at the power forward position this year. But that’s not to overlook his desire to be one of the hardest working men on the court in Sacramento every step of the way.
“All that struggle that I had to go through to make it into the NBA really just makes me appreciate it more. Honestly, it pushes me every day, even today … I’ve never been given anything and it’s very important to me,” Tolliver said. “I look back and of course I would’ve loved to be drafted, but I look back now and everything happens for a reason and if I would’ve got drafted I might not be in the NBA today just because of different circumstances, different mindsets, different philosophies that I’ve built based on the fact that I got overlooked from the very beginning and it’s made me a better player.”
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