Can you name the last Iowan to be on an NBA championship team?

I guessed Bob Hansen, who played for the Chicago Bulls' 1992 title team after coming to Chicago from the Sacramento Kings early in that season.

I was wrong.

Who is the last Iowan to get an NBA championship ring? I'm talking Iowa natives, not former Iowa collegians. But they can be one and the same, as ex-Hawkeye Hansen was.

Think about it, and I'll have the answer at the end of this post.

Hansen had a 9-year NBA career. He was a third-round draft pick of the Utah Jazz in 1983, back when they had seven rounds in the draft instead of the current two. He played seven seasons for the Jazz, and started 81 games for them in his seventh year.

Then he was part of a three-team trade that shipped him to Sacramento, which was then an NBA exile. Like it is now.

He had one injury-plagued season with the Kings, but was in their starting lineup for the first two games of the 1991-92 season when the defending world-champion Bulls decided to shore up their shooting-guard situation. So they got him from Sacramento with a second-round draft pick for Dennis Hopson. Hansen played in 66 regular-season games for Chicago, but was used sparingly in the playoffs, appearing in just nine of the Bulls' 22 postseason games.

However, Hansen had his playoff moment. Chicago led the Portland Trail Blazers 3 games to 2 in the NBA Finals, but the Blazers built a 15-point lead after three quarters of Game 6 in Chicago.

Bulls Coach Phil Jackson, in a mad-genius moment, sat Michael Jordan. He put in reserves Hansen, B.J. Armstrong (also an ex-Hawkeye), Stacey King and Scott Williams to play with Scottie Pippen. Hansen made a 3-point shot from the deep corner to get the ball rolling. Moments later, he had a steal. The comeback was on. Hansen played just five minutes, but his impact was forever felt. Chicago won, 97-93 for its second-consecutive title. The only Bulls player who hadn't been on the previous season's championship squad was Hansen.

I'm glad for Bobby Hansen," Jordan said repeatedly after the game according to this NBA.com story.

In this video of Game 6, you'll see Hansen's big three at the 4:04 mark. Armstrong hits a short jumper to add to the rally at the 4:55 mark.

That was the last game of Hansen's NBA career. That 3-pointer was his last shot. What a way to go out. He had averaged almost 10 points a game in 40 playoff games with Utah, but his three points in one particular game with the Bulls stand out 20 years later.

However, Hansen did make 15 straight shots in the 1986 playoffs for the Jazz, including a 9-for-9 game against Dallas.

But the answer to my questions isn't Hansen. Rather, it's Matt Bullard, a former Hawkeye from West Des Moines. Bullard was on the 1994 Houston Rockets' title team.

Bullard was a reserve on the '94 Rockets, appearing in just 10 of the 23 playoff games. But he was an 11-year NBA veteran who spent all but two of those seasons with Houston. He is now a commentator on telecasts of Rockets games.

Unless I've really whiffed on something, I'm telling you there hasn't been a former Iowan or former Hawkeye to win an NBA title since. Half of that could change in the next two weeks.

Oklahoma City Thunder forward Nick Collison is an 8-year NBA vet, having spent his entire career with the Seattle/Oklahoma City franchise. He was born in Orange City and went to high school in Iowa Falls.

Good luck to Collison. I know the Thunder up and left Seattle four years ago, but the idea of an NBA championship in Oklahoma is so strange that I can't help pulling for it.