Marcus Fizer
Years on Bulls 2000-2004
Stats: 10.5 ppg, 5 rpg, 1.2 apg, 21.9 mpg
My Bulls Memory: I remember clamoring for Marcus Fizer to get more minutes on a very mediocre Bulls team. If you actually look at his per 36, he had the capability of averaging 17 points and 8 rebounds a game if he had been given the run. He turned the ball over a lot, but I liked his ability to use his size and stockiness combined with pretty good speed to face up in the post.
It was also pretty cool to have a dude with a ton of tattoos on a team that was so socially conservative at one point they infamously banned the entire team from wearing headbands for years. In fact, Fizer had 31 tattoos as of 2006. Pretty impressive.
Unfortunately for him, he wound up playing behind the likes of Elton Brand, who quite honestly looked like a perennial all-star at that point, then sharp shooting Donyell Marshall a little later on.
There was a year in between though where his only competition for minutes at the power forward position was a… mature shall we say… Charles Oakley and he still only managed 25.8 minutes per game, good enough for 8th most minutes on the roster. It’s pretty confusing, but that was a confusing time, so it’s not altogether shocking.
Career Accomplishments: Fizer had a stellar college career at Iowa State, a school that has such an unhealthily close, near shadow-like relationship with the current management of the Chicago Bulls that one day I’m going to get to the bottom of it. He was recruited by none other than Tim Floyd, who was soon to be named the head coach of the Chicago Bulls, and went on to snag All-Big 12 and national accolades, Big 12 tournament victories, and an appearance in the Elite 8 in the NCAA Tournament.
Fizer put up respectable numbers in a 6 season NBA career and even managed to snag a gold medal in the Goodwill Games in Brisbane, Australia in 2001. Sadly, he tore his ACL in 2003 and never fully recovered. He played ball in Spain, Puerto Rico, Israel, and Argentina after his NBA career was over.
Where are they now? Marcus Fizer seems to be doing well for himself in retirement. According to his LinkedIn and Twitter pages, he’s the owner of a anti-slip floor treatment company in the Las Vegas, Nevada area. He’s also listed as the assistant coach of the Desert Oasis High School boys team, but it looks like he hasn’t been involved for a few years since his son, Aamondae
Coleman, graduated.
Coleman, with Fizer’s coaching help, lead the Desert Oasis Diamondbacks to their best season in school history in 2016. You can watch Coleman play for the Fresno Pacific University Songbirds these days where he’s accumulating accolades just like his father, albeit on a slightly smaller stage.
Marcus Fizer has at least one other son playing ball as well. Video surfaced this year of Darnell Marcus Fizer Jr. playing at a traveling basketball invitational. Marcus Fizer must be one proud papa.