Chris Boucher (basketball)

Chris Boucher
No. 25 – Toronto Raptors
Position Power forward / Center
League NBA
Personal information
Born (1993-01-11) January 11, 1993
Castries, Saint Lucia
Nationality Canadian / Saint Lucian
Listed height 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m)
Listed weight 200 lb (91 kg)
Career information
High school Damase Boulanger (Alma, Quebec)
College
NBA draft 2017 / Undrafted
Playing career 2017–present
Career history
2017–2018 Golden State Warriors
2017–2018 →Santa Cruz Warriors
2018–present Toronto Raptors
2018–present →Raptors 905
Career highlights and awards
Stats at NBA.com
Stats at Basketball-Reference.com

Chris Boucher (born January 11, 1993) is a Saint Lucian-Canadian professional basketball player for the Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association (NBA), on a two-way contract with the Raptors 905 of the NBA G League. He played college basketball for the Oregon Ducks.

Early life

Boucher, a 6'10", 201 lb forward, was born in Castries, Saint Lucia. He moved with his mother, Mary MacVane, to Montreal when he was five to see his Canadian father Jean-Guy Boucher.[1][2] However, his parents split up when he was young and Boucher had a poor relationship with his father, who deemed him worthless.[2] He grew up playing soccer and ice hockey but lived in poverty in the Montreal-Nord neighborhood. He dropped out of high school at age 16 and worked as a cook and dishwasher in a Saint Hubert restaurant.[3] In 2012, he was offered a spot on a tournament basketball team, and scored 44 points in the tournament final. Boucher, who previously only played pickup basketball, was offered a spot on AAU team Alma Academy by coaches Igor Rwigema and Ibrahim Appiah.[4] He accepted a spot at the Academy, which was created to help inner-city teenagers with few future prospects, to earn a high school diploma. In a game versus New Jersey's Blair Academy, Boucher attracted the interest of Division I college coaches when he had 29 points and 12 rebounds.[2]

College career

He played one season at New Mexico Junior College, averaging 11.8 points and 6.7 rebounds per game.[5] Then, he went to Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming, where he was named NJCAA Player of the Year and led the team to a 31–5 record. He averaged 22.5 points per game on 62.7% shooting from the inside and 44.4% from three point range, 11.8 rebounds, and junior college's third-highest blocks-per-game average (4.7).[2] Following a campus visit, Boucher transferred to Oregon, who he chose over TCU, Minnesota and Texas Tech.[3]

At the beginning of his first year at the University of Oregon, he worried Ducks coach Dana Altman due to his thin physique but made up for it with his energy.[5] In his second game in a Ducks uniform on November 16, 2015, Boucher was competing against Baylor's Rico Gathers, and Boucher scored 15 points and gathered eight rebounds.[2] He set a single season blocks record for Oregon with 110.[6] Boucher recorded 14 points, 10 rebounds and two steals in the Ducks' 80-68 loss to Oklahoma in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament.[5] Following the 2015-16 season he was granted a hardship waiver to play an extra season and complete his sociology degree.[3] He averaged 12.0 points and 6.8 rebounds in his two-year career for the Ducks. As a senior, he was named to the Pac-12 Defensive Team after leading the conference in blocks with 2.6 per game. Boucher scored 23 points and a career-high 19 rebounds against Montana in December 2016. In the Pac-12 Tournament semifinals against California on March 11, 2017, an opposing player fell on his leg awkwardly, but he continued to play and finished the game with 10 points and four rebounds. The following day, an MRI scan revealed a torn ACL, and he was ruled out for the remainder of the season.[4]

Professional career

Golden State Warriors (2017–2018)

Prior to the 2017 NBA draft, Boucher was unable to work out with teams due to his injury, which hurt his draft stock. He ultimately went undrafted, but was signed by the Golden State Warriors to a two-way contract, the same team which purchased a draft pick from the Chicago Bulls to choose his Oregon teammate Jordan Bell.[7] Boucher became one of the first players to sign up on the NBA's newest two-way contract policy, which went into effect that season, although his deal was not official until July 14, 2017. On November 2, 2017, Boucher was called up to the NBA G-League by the Santa Cruz Warriors after coming back from the ACL injury and made his debut in his first week signed. On March 14, 2018, Boucher played his first NBA game with the Golden State Warriors recording 1 rebound and 1 3 point attempt. Boucher was a part of the Warriors championship team after they swept the Cleveland Cavaliers in four games in the 2018 NBA Finals. On June 22, 2018, the Golden State Warriors waived Boucher.[8]

Toronto Raptors (2018–present)

On July 20, 2018, Boucher signed with the Toronto Raptors as a free agent.[9] On October 12, 2018, the Raptors converted Boucher's contract to an NBA two-way contract.[10]

Career statistics

Legend
  GP Games played   GS  Games started  MPG  Minutes per game
 FG%  Field goal percentage  3P%  3-point field goal percentage  FT%  Free throw percentage
 RPG  Rebounds per game  APG  Assists per game  SPG  Steals per game
 BPG  Blocks per game  PPG  Points per game  Bold  Career high
† Denotes season in which Boucher won an NBA Championship

NBA

Regular season

Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG
2017–18† Golden State 101.0.000.000.0001.0.0.0.00.0
Career 101.0.000.000.0001.0.0.0.00.0

College

Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG
2015–16 Oregon 383525.8.539.339.6857.4.4.82.912.1
2016–17 Oregon 311223.6.524.350.5656.1.4.42.511.8
Career 694724.8.532.344.6416.8.4.62.712.0

College statistics only available for final two years at Oregon.[11]

References

  1. ↑ Meek, Austin (February 28, 2016). "Boucher's journey". The Register-Guard. p. C1.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Winn, Luke (November 8, 2016). "Slim's Chance: Chris Boucher took an unusual route to D-I but makes the Ducks a serious title contender". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved June 25, 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 Uthman, Daniel (February 13, 2016). "Basketball gives Oregon's Chris Boucher a shot at life". USA Today. Retrieved June 25, 2017.
  4. 1 2 Ewing, Lori (June 21, 2017). "Despite injury, Montreal's Chris Boucher hopeful heading into NBA draft". The Canadian Press. Retrieved June 25, 2017.
  5. 1 2 3 D'Hippolito, Joseph (March 27, 2016). "Montrealer overcame early hardship to find success on NCAA courts". Montreal Gazette. Retrieved June 25, 2017.
  6. ↑ Alger, Tyson (June 22, 2017). "Chris Boucher signs with Golden State as undrafted free agent". The Oregonian. Retrieved June 25, 2017.
  7. ↑ Slater, Anthony (June 23, 2017). "What is this two-way contract the Warriors used to sign Oregon's Chris Boucher?". The Mercury News. Retrieved June 25, 2017.
  8. ↑ "Warriors Waive Chris Boucher". NBA.com. June 22, 2018. Retrieved June 22, 2018.
  9. ↑ "Raptors Sign Brown and Boucher". Toronto Raptors. July 20, 2018. Retrieved July 20, 2018.
  10. ↑ "Raptors Convert Boucher to Two-Way Contract". NBA.com. October 12, 2018. Retrieved October 12, 2018.
  11. ↑ "Chris Boucher". Sports-Reference.com. Retrieved July 29, 2018.
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