T-shirt crop Cover SLAM Hardwood Classics donna Jerry Stackhouse numero 49

Jerry Stackhouse took MVP honors at the '93 McDonald's All American game. As a sophomore he carried the North Carolina Tar Heels to the '95 Final Four, went third overall in the '95 draft, and landed on the NBA's '96 All-Rookie First Team. In March of '01 he covered SLAM 49 in. Nearly none of it was a given.

All that talent Stackhouse kept showing off in high school, in college and early in his pro career could easily have gone to waste.

Philadelphia figured it had a franchise cornerstone. Two-plus seasons later he was gone. By his own admission he was "winging it" back then, a stubborn kid who figured he had nothing left to learn. Detroit is where he showed up needing to shake a bad reputation. Plenty of people expected an overconfident two-guard who'd butt heads with Grant Hill. The reputation got shook, elbowed and dunked on instead. Stack put up a then-career-best 23 points per game in his first season with the Motor City, played second fiddle to Hill and helped push Detroit into the postseason. Hill left that summer, which handed Stackhouse a superstar-sized hole to fill. He filled it.

Year two in Detroit was his best as a pro: he led the League in total points and finished second in points per game at 29.8 ppg. An All-Star nod followed, and any doubts about whether he'd grown up were settled. The issue 49 cover reads like a scream coming off the page: "STACK WON'T QUIT."

He didn't. After that rough start he steadied things and went on to 18 seasons as a player plus 11 seasons and counting as a coach, with Detroit as the launchpad for all of it.

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