Allan Houston (born April 20 1971 in Louisville, Kentucky) is a professional basketball player, currently playing shooting guard for the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association.
Houston played at Ballard High School in Louisville, helping them to win the 1988 Kentucky state championship. He went on to play at the University of Tennessee and graduated in 1993.
Houston was drafted 11th overall by the Detroit Pistons in the 1991 NBA Draft, and averaged 8.5 points per game in his rookie year. His average was boosted to 14.5 and 19.7 points per game in the next two years.
On July 14 1996 Houston signed as a free-agent with the Knicks, where he's been ever since. He kept his scoring average at a consistent 17-point-or-so per-game clip, and led his team to the 1999 NBA Finals. He made the All-Star team in 2000 and 2001.
In 2001, Houston signed a maximum contract extension with the Knicks, and that proved to be a mistake, because it cut deeply into the Knicks' already grim salary-cap situation and prevented them from making any free-agent moves as their team spiraled into mediocrity. In addition, Houston missed 32 games in 2003-04 and stands to miss even more in an injury-plagued 2004-05 season. And his salary cap number makes him virtually untradeable.
