Gatling was drafted 16th overall by the
Golden State Warriors in the
1991 NBA draft. He spent the first four years of his career with the Warriors, and averaged 13.7 points and 7.6 rebounds per game in his final full season with the Warriors, 1994–95. That same year, Gatling led the NBA in field goal percentage at
0.633-one of the ten highest percentages in NBA history. Gatling was traded, along with
Tim Hardaway, to the
Miami Heat halfway through the 1995–96 season, and also played for the
Dallas Mavericks and
New Jersey Nets during the 1996–97 season (representing the Mavericks in the
1997 NBA All-Star Game a few days before being traded to the Nets). Gatling played 78 games in slightly more than two seasons with the Nets before requesting a trade. He played next with the
Milwaukee Bucks for the final thirty games of the lockout-shortened 1998–99 season. He split the 1999–2000 season with the
Denver Nuggets and the
Orlando Magic. His final two NBA seasons saw him with the
Cleveland Cavaliers and again, the Heat. Gatling retired from the NBA following the 2001–02 season with career averages of 10.3 points and 5.3 rebounds per game, and a .513
field goal percentage. After his NBA career ended in 2002, he played one season in
Russian League with
CSKA Moscow. ==Personal life==