Brian Cardinal

Brian Lee Cardinal is a professional basketball player from the United States of America and plays as a power forward. Cardinal went to the Unity High School and led the team to an incredible 86-25 record in his 4 years in high school. While in his junior year, Cardinal was averaging 23.5 points, he picked his game up a notch with 24.1 points per game in his senior year along with two games where he scored over 40.

Brian was named as the Coca Cola All-American MVP after scoring 24 points and grabbing 13 rebounds in the High School All-American game pitting the East against the West.

Cardinal went on to play for Purdue University and was redshirted so that he could play for one more year at the collegiate level. So although Brian was a part of Purdue University in 1995 and was practicing with the team, his actual collegiate basketball career began in 1996-97 when he made it to the first team. Averaging 10.6 points per game, Cardinal took 182 rebounds in the season and in just his second game, got to his first double-double.

In his sophomore year, Cardinal was named as the team captain and averaged 12 points while giving the Boilermakers a 28-8 record on the shoulders of his 178 rebounds. He led the boilermakers to the Sweet Sixteen round of the NCAA tournament.

In his junior year, Cardinal was named to the third team All-Big Ten conference and with a 23-13 record, led the Boilermakers to a successive NCAA Sweet Sixteen round.

In his last season in college, Cardinal went on to grab 203 rebounds and had 13.9 points per game, which got him into the second team All-Big Ten conference and also helped Purdue reach the Elite Eight stage. Cardinal graduated with the school record for career steals with 259 as well as for career starts, with 125.

For his four years of contributions to Purdue basketball, Brian left as the only player from the college to have won both the “Mr. Hustle” and “Courage” awards for all four years.

Picked at 44th overall, Cardinal made the natural progression from the college level into the NBA, with the Detroit Pistons picking him in the 2000 NBA Draft. Playing just 15 games in his rookie year, Cardinal didn’t have much to write home about after averaging just 2.1 points per game. That average remained the same in his second year as well, as Cardinal’s appearances dropped to just 8 for the entire season.

In 2002, inevitably, the Detroit Pistons traded Cardinal out to the Washington Wizards and after just 5 games with the Wizards, Cardinal found himself waived off and jobless.

After being snubbed by the NBA, Cardinal decided to head to Europe and went to Pamesa Valencia for the remainder of the 2002-03 season. Cardinal had quite the opposite start to his career in Spain as he became one of Pamesa’s most important players on the way to the ULEB CUP championship win.

His performance was impressive enough to warrant a return to the NBA and the Golden State Warriors were lying in wait for the forward. Playing 76 games in the season for the first time, Cardinal was scoring at 10 per game with 4 rebounds, giving him the chance to win the NBA Most Improved Player award, although it was won by Zach Randolph. He stayed with the Warriors for a single season before moving to the Memphis Grizzlies in 2004.

Cardinal decided to apply for free agency at the end of the season and the Memphis Grizzlies picked him up for 4 seasons during which time, Cardinal was almost similar in stats by averaging around 6 points each year. Injuries crept in as he began getting lesser time on court and at the end of the 2007-08 season, Cardinal was traded out to the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Playing 64 games for the T’wolves, Cardinal averaged just 3 points per game after playing just 14.2 minutes on an average.