Ex-Suns Point Guard Johnson Elected Mayor Of Sacramento

November 8, 2008 6:42 p.m. EST

Sacramento, CA (AHN) - During his 14-year NBA career, Phoenix point guard Kevin Johnson ran the point as good as any player to ever put on a Suns uniform.

Now the Suns all-time leader in assists will be running the entire city of Sacramento.

Johnson defeated two-term incumbent Heather Fargo in a run-off election to become the city's 55th mayor Tuesday.

The run-off ballot was forced after neither Johnson nor Fargo received more than 50% of the vote in the primary earlier this year.

The 42-year old won the election despite allegations he molested a teenage girl in Phoenix 13-years-ago, and similar allegations that arose about an incident last year in Sacramento.

No charges were brought in either case, and Johnson's popularity grew following his efforts to revitalize his Oak Park neighborhood over the last decade.

The son of a Caucasian father and African-American mother, Johnson excelled in sports as a youth and went on to lead the entire state in scoring with 32.5 points per game as a senior for Sacramento High School.

After four years at University of California-Berkeley, he left as the school's all-time leader in assists, steals, and scoring and was drafted seventh overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Suns acquired him in a trade and, in his first full season in Phoenix, he averaged 20.4 points and 12.2 assists to win the NBA's Most Improved Player Award.

Johnson went on to accomplish several statistical feats and is one of only two players, along with Magic Johnson, to have averaged at least 20.0 points and 10.0 assists per game in a season while shooting at least 50 percent from the field.

He made the All-Star team three times and help lead Phoenix to the NBA Finals in 1993 along with Charles Barkley, but the Suns fell in six games to Michael Jordan and the Bulls.

Johnson is Sacramento's first black mayor, pointing to the desire for change he and the President-elect Barak Obama promised as the basis for both their historic triumphs.