Professional career
Workman was selected 22nd in the second round (49th overall) in the 1989 NBA Draft. Unfortunately for Workman, the Hawks cut him six games into the season, opting for the services of Sedric Toney in backing up Doc Rivers and Spud Webb at the point. Workman would go on to play for the Topeka Sizzlers of the CBA, where he was named to the 1989–90 CBA All-Rookie Team after averaging 17.1 ppg, 4.6 apg and 4.3 apg in 46 games. He then went back to the Hawks for a 10-day contract, and then to the Illinois Express of the World Basketball League (WBL).
In August 1990, the Bullets invited Workman to rookie camp. However, he was pulled from the court after a day and a half. As the Express were preparing for the WBL playoffs, which extended into August, Workman went AWOL to try out with the Bullets. WBL president Steve Erhardt insisted that Workman had to retire from the WBL to participate in camp and was threatening to sue. Eventually Workman paid a fine and never returned to the WBL.
Workman made the full Bullets training camp at Bowie State and fought with Tony Harris and Larry Robinson for a spot on the team, while Darrell Walker, Steve Colter and second-round draft pick A. J. English were already in the fold at the guard position. With the absence of Eackles, Colter, the backup point in the previous season, was asked to play more shooting guard. Darrell Walker was also experiencing tendinitis in his Achilles tendon. Ultimately, Harris was cut and Colter, who was at odds with Washington head coach Wes Unseld, was shipped to the Sacramento Kings in exchange for Byron Irvin, who was more adept at playing two guard. Both Workman and Robinson would start the first two games of the season at the guard positions. When Walker, who actually played 58 total minutes between games 1 and 2, was inserted back into the starting lineup for game 3, Workman went to the bench and Robinson continued to start for the next seven games. However, Workman had impressed enough, so when Ledell Eackles finally signed and returned to the court in November, Robinson was released.
Fresh off a five-game losing streak in mid-November, Unseld went with the starting lineup of Darrell Walker and Haywoode Workman, and it paid off. Workman scored 14 points and hit a game winner with 3.1 seconds left to beat Reggie Miller and the Indiana Pacers at the Capital Centre, putting a temporary halt to mounting losses. In the end, Haywoode Workman appeared in 73 games for the Bullets, starting 56 of them (he missed nine games in February because of a pulled groin). For the season, he averaged 8.0 points, 4.8 assists (2nd on the team), 3.3 rebounds, and 1.2 steals per game (tied for 1st on the team). In his starts, he averaged 9.2 points and 5.4 assists.
Before the following 1991–92 season, Workman signed a two-year, $400K+ per contract with Italian League champion Scavolini Pesaro, which came with the perks of a BMW and a house on the Adriatic Coast. The Bullets gave Workman a qualifying offer of the $120,000 minimum, which could have been a non-guaranteed $250,000 if he made the team. But the writing was on the wall as the Bullets traded for Michael Adams and drafted LaBradford Smith that summer. [1] Workman averaged 15.0 ppg, 4.6 rpg and 1.8 apg in 58 career games in the Italian League.
After two years in Italy, he returned to the NBA in 1993 by signing with the Indiana Pacers. He started 52 games for the Indiana Pacers in the 1993–94 season, averaging almost eight points and 6.2 assists during the Pacers' first trip to the Eastern Conference finals that year. He notched a playoffs career-high 11 assists, and a Pacers' playoff record seven steals, against the Orlando Magic in Game 1 of the 1994 Eastern Conference first round. Despite the Pacers trading in the summer of 1994 for a more experienced point guard in Mark Jackson, Workman, along with players such as Antonio Davis, Sam Mitchell, and Dale Davis became invaluable to the Pacers' depth and was integral to the team's consistent post-season success in the mid to late nineties. However, on November 9, 1996 in a game against Washington Bullets he suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, due to which he missed the remainder of the 1996/97 season (he underwent surgery on November 22) and the entire 1997/98 season. This injury derailed the remainder of his playing career.
Workman finished off his career by playing his final two seasons with the Milwaukee Bucks and Toronto Raptors. He had his best game as a Raptor when he posted team-highs of 19 points (4–8 FG, 10–12 FT), 8 assists and 7 rebounds in a 94–85 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves on 3 March 1999. He also spent time playing for Hapoel Jerusalem in Israel, before calling an end to his basketball playing career.
Officiating
While working out in Florida in the summer of 2001, he ran into NBA referee Bob Delaney, who asked him about trying to become a referee. There, he started refereeing local games and became involved with the Tampa Bay Pro-Am league. He started in California in 2002, working the pro-am leagues at Venice Beach and West Los Angeles out of his own pocket. Encouraged, he responded quickly by sending his resume when he heard the CBA was looking for new officials. He worked 15 games that CBA season and later worked the pre-draft camp in Chicago. In July 2003, he worked the NBA summer league in Boston. [2] He moved up to refereeing NBDL games in 2004.
Workman was on the NBA referee roster in 2006–07 and 2007–08 as a preseason referee, while working both of those seasons as an NBA Development League official. He was one of three NBA referees hired for the 2008–2009 season. He is the third ex-NBA player to become an NBA referee, the first two being Bernie Fryer and Leon Wood. [3]
Workman is working with the NBA league office to recruit other former NBA players and former college players to become referees. [3]
Anfernee Deon "Penny" Hardaway is an American college basketball coach and former professional player who is the head coach of the Memphis Tigers men's team in the American Athletic Conference (AAC). Hardaway played college basketball at Memphis and 14 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), where he was a four-time NBA All-Star and a three-time All-NBA Team member.
James Alan Les is an American basketball coach and former player who is the head coach of the UC Davis Aggies men's team. A former point guard, Les played seven seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) after his college career at Bradley University.
Edward Gill III is an American former professional basketball player. Gill was born played college basketball at the College of Eastern Utah, Salt Lake Community College, and Weber State University. With the Weber State Wildcats, Gill was MVP of the 1999 Big Sky Conference tournament.
Billy Thomas is an American former professional basketball player who competed in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and several other leagues. A 6'5" tall shooting guard from Shreveport, Louisiana, he last played with the Maine Red Claws of the NBA Development League. Billy Thomas is now the basketball head coach of Rockhurst High School
Michael Adams is an American former professional basketball player and coach. He played college basketball for the Boston College Eagles and was a third-round selection in the 1985 NBA draft by the Sacramento Kings. Adams played 11 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) with the Kings, Washington Bullets, Denver Nuggets and Charlotte Hornets. He was an NBA All-Star with the Bullets in 1992.
Peter Eddie Myers is an American former professional basketball player and a former assistant coach for the NBA team Chicago Bulls. He is most famous for having been Michael Jordan’s replacement player during Jordan’s stint in baseball.
Rodney Strickland is an American basketball coach and former professional basketball player. He is currently the head coach at Long Island University. Prior to LIU, he served as the program manager for the NBA G League's professional path. Strickland played college basketball at DePaul University, where he was awarded All-American honors. He had a long career in the National Basketball Association (NBA), playing from 1988 to 2005. Strickland was an assistant coach for the South Florida Bulls, under Orlando Antigua from 2014 to 2017. He formerly served in an administrative role for the University of Kentucky basketball team under head coach John Calipari and was the director of basketball operations at the University of Memphis under Calipari. He is the godfather of current NBA player Kyrie Irving. Strickland was inducted into the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame with the Class of 2008.
Vern Fleming is an American former professional basketball player who played twelve seasons in the NBA from 1984 until 1996 for the Indiana Pacers and New Jersey Nets. He played college basketball for the Georgia Bulldogs.
Darrick David Martin is an American basketball coach, most recently head coach for the Reno Bighorns of the NBA G League. He played basketball for more than a decade, shuttling between the Continental Basketball Association (CBA), where he won the 2003 CBA Playoffs MVP, and the NBA. In 2003, he even played for the Harlem Globetrotters. He then went on to play for the Los Angeles Lightning of the Independent Basketball Association (IBL). He was named the head coach of Reno in June 2016.
John Jay Humphries is a retired American professional basketball player who played in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He later served as the first head coach of the NBA D-League's Reno Bighorns. He last worked as an assistant coach for the Brooklyn Nets.
Kevin Porter is an American former professional basketball player. He played eleven seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and led the league in assists four times in his pro career.
Miguel Ali Berdiel is a Puerto Rican professional basketball player for Leones de Ponce of the Baloncesto Superior Nacional (BSN). Berdiel has played in the NCAA, CBA, the NBA G League, and the BSN. Internationally, Berdiel has played in Belgium, Slovenia, Cyprus, Mexico and Uruguay. Berdiel was a member of the Puerto Rico national basketball team from 2007 until 2014.
Rodney Norvell Stuckey is an American former professional basketball player. He played seven seasons for the Detroit Pistons and three seasons for the Indiana Pacers and played college basketball for Eastern Washington University.
Joshua Michael Pace is an American former professional basketball player who spent the majority of his ten-year career playing in the New Zealand National Basketball League. He also had successful stints playing college basketball for Syracuse and playing in the ABA for the Mavericks. He currently serves as the head coach for the Western New Mexico Mustangs women's basketball team.
Charles "C. J." Akeem Watson Jr. is an American former professional basketball player. He played college basketball for the University of Tennessee.
Eumarkjah Tywan "Mark" Sanford, is a retired American professional basketball player.
Perry Young is an American former professional basketball shooting guard who played one season in the National Basketball Association (NBA) with the Portland Trail Blazers and the Chicago Bulls during the 1986–87 season. He was drafted by the Trail Blazers during the third round in the 1985 NBA draft from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Barry Mitchell is an American former professional basketball player.
Kelsey Russell Weems was an American professional basketball player. A point guard from the state of Georgia, Weems played college basketball at NC State and stayed four years despite limited playing time. He went undrafted in the 1989 NBA draft, and played several seasons in the CBA, earning two selections in the United States national team: he won the gold medal during the 1993 Tournament of the Americas and the silver medal at the 1995 Pan American Games.
Charles Wayne Gaines is an American professional basketball player who last played for the Anhui Dragons of the Chinese National Basketball League. He played high school basketball in his native city of Houston, and he spent two years at Southwest Missouri State in the MVC before transferring to Southern Miss, where he played his two remaining years of college basketball eligibility. After going undrafted in the 2004 NBA draft, he started his professional career in the Continental Basketball Association with the Michigan Mayhem, leading the league in rebounding. After several years in Europe, one year in the NBA D-League and one in Israel, Gaines moved to the Chinese Basketball Association. While in China he earned an All-Star selection, was the 2011 scoring champion, and he twice led the league in rebounding.
