A former LSU standout and NBA player is returning to Baton Rouge as the newest hire to join coach Matt McMahon's LSU men’s basketball program.
Now that was a basketball game_lowres
Marcus Thornton attacks the basket for two of his 19 points on the night.
Marcus Thornton, who was the 2009 Southeastern Conference Player of the Year, will join the team’s support staff for the 2025-26 season, the program announced Friday.
The former eight-year NBA player will have an off-court role mentoring players. He will also play a role in helping with player development. He is the second former NBA player and LSU star to be hired this offseason after Ronald Dupree became the team’s first general manager in April.
Thornton, 38, was born in Baton Rouge and played two years at Kilgore College before playing his junior and senior seasons at LSU. As a junior in the 2007-08 season, he averaged 19.6 points per game.
In his final season with the Tigers, the 6-foot-4 guard averaged an SEC-high 21.1 points. He led them to an SEC regular season championship with a 13-3 conference record (27-8 overall). LSU reached the second round of both the SEC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament.
Thornton sits sixth in LSU's career scoring average leaders (minimum 1,000 points scored) at 20.41 points and concluded his two-year career 23rd all-time in scoring (1,347 points). His 168 career 3-pointers are also 10th all-time at LSU.
He was a second-round pick in 2009 and played 483 games for seven NBA teams in eight years. Thornton started his NBA career playing for the then-New Orleans Hornets during the 2009-10 season, averaging 14.5 points in 73 games.
His NBA career scoring average is 11.9 points and his highest average for a season was 18.7 points in 51 games for the Sacramento Kings in 2011-12. His final season was in 2016-17 with the Washington Wizards.