24. Maurice Cheeks
Maurice Cheeks, who is commonly known as Mo and Little Mo, accomplished quite a bit as a Chicago native during his professional playing career in the NBA.
Among the accolades of note include getting inducted as a player into the Hall of Fame, four All-Star Game nods, five All-Defense Team selections and one NBA championship title.
Cheeks made his NBA debut in October of 1978. Around that time, he had already racked up a number of amateur accolades for his play at Du Sable High School in Chicago and West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas.
Cheeks spent a majority of his professional playing career with the Philadelphia 76ers. It is there he would help lead the team to an NBA championship title. Cheeks would also have a few shorter stints with the New York Knicks, San Antonio Spurs, Atlanta Hawks and New Jersey Nets.
Cheeks proved to be quite the floor general during his time in the league. As his track record shows, Cheeks was among the top 20 leaders in assists for six seasons. At the defensive end, Cheeks was shown to be equally, if not more, relentless in getting after his opponents to disrupt playmaking. He ranked among the top 20 in steals for 10 seasons.
Cheeks was not the type of star to be easily replaced. He had two seasons during his playing career where he found himself among the top 20 in games played.
Cheeks is currently an assistant coach for the Oklahoma City Thunder. He’s been assisting the team since the 2015-2016 season. Cheeks holds previous coaching experience with the 76ers, Portland Trail Blazers and Detroit Pistons.