Arron Afflalo

Arron Agustin Afflalo is a professional basketball player from the United States of America and plays as a shooting guard. Born at the UCLA Medical Center, Afflalo was a student at the Compton Centennial High School where he helped the team win the California Division-III title in the 2003-04 season. The title came as a graduation gift for Afflalo who went on to play for UCLA and was a starting shooting guard for the UCLA Bruins.

As a freshman at UCLA, Afflalo started all 29 games in his first year in college. Playing in a more defensive role, he scored at just 10.8 points per game in his freshman year. Things got more interesting for Afflalo once Dijon Thomson graduated and handed over more of the scoring responsibility on Afflalo. Despite continuing with some strong defense, Afflalo picked up his scoring rate as well, going at 15.8 points per game for the sophomore year.

Afflalo continued his dominance on court during the 2006 NCAA tournament, helping the team stage a comeback against Gonzaga University. He was considered solely responsible for beating University of Memphis in the Elite Eight stage of the tournament by stopping Rodney Carney. The team lost out in the Final Four stage however, in his Junior year, he would again shine for UCLA.

At the end of the sophomore year, Afflalo toyed with the idea of getting into the NBA and for the first time, declared for the draft. However, before the deadline, he pulled out of the draft and since he hadn’t hired an agent, he was still eligible for college.

Junior year was year of defensive excellence for Afflalo and he demonstrated numerous excellent games including a game against California State University where he held Ayinde Ubaka, their star player, to a zero-point game. Afflalo also took his scoring to 17.4 points per game and was voted as Pac-10 Player of the Year by the coaches in the conference.

At the 2007 edition of the NCAA tournament, Afflalo was named as the West Regional Most Outstanding Player, an award that was his after a major 24-point game with some huge plays against the Kansas Jayhawks. However, the team wouldn’t progress too far and foul trouble for Afflalo saw him play a limited part against the Florida Gators, sending UCLA crashing out of the tournament.

As part of his collegiate ball achievements, Afflalo was named to the All-Freshman team for the Pac-10 conference in 2004-05. He was named to the Pac-10 First team in 2005-06 and 2006-07 while being named to the All-American first team in 2006-07 by ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Sporting News and Associated Press, amongst others. Afflalo was also named as the USBWA player of the year in 2006-07.

At the 2007 NBA Draft, Afflalo was picked at 27th overall, by the Detroit Pistons.

In his rookie year with Detroit, Afflalo scored at 3.7 points per game after playing just 12.9 minutes per game. He played 79 games although only 9 of those games were as part of the starting lineup. In the 2008-09 season, although Afflalo’s appearances dropped to 74 with 8 starts, he got more minutes per game (16.7) while averaging 4.9 points per game.

In July of 2009, Afflalo was traded out to the Denver Nuggets along with Walter Sharpe inexchange for a second round draft pick at the 2011 NBA Draft.