Former faculty basketball standout and seven-year NBA veteran Chase Budinger will head to Paris subsequent month to compete for the US within the 2024 Summer season Olympics — in seaside volleyball.
The 6-foot-7 Budinger and companion Miles Evans certified Wednesday for the U.S. males’s workforce. They’re tied for thirteenth in the latest world rankings and the No. 2 U.S. workforce behind Miles Partain and Andy Benesh, ranked No. 5.
Budinger, 36, is a Southern California native who grew up enjoying basketball and volleyball, starring in each at La Costa Canyon Excessive College in Encinitas, Calif. A 2006 McDonald’s All-American in basketball, he additionally was named Volleyball Journal’s Nationwide Excessive College Participant of the 12 months in 2005.
He performed faculty basketball at Arizona, the place he averaged 17.0 factors, 5.8 rebounds and a couple of.8 assists in 100 video games (all begins) over three seasons (2006-09).
Chosen within the second spherical of the 2009 NBA Draft, Budinger averaged 7.9 factors, 3.0 rebounds and 1.2 assists with the Houston Rockets, Minnesota Timberwolves, Indiana Pacers and Phoenix Suns in 407 video games (50 begins) from 2009-16.
He performed a season in Europe earlier than shifting to seaside volleyball, becoming a member of the AVP Tour in 2018.
“Most guys, once they end a sport, they’re form of confused, or they’re form of misplaced for the following journey,” Budinger mentioned on the Sandcast volleyball podcast in 2018. “I used to be fortunate sufficient to simply transition into a unique sport instantly and play on the highest stage.”
Budinger will change into the one individual to play an everyday season sport within the NBA and Olympic seaside volleyball, per NBC Sports activities.
Keith Erickson, a member of UCLA’s 1964 and 1965 NCAA championship basketball groups, was a member of the 1964 U.S. males’s indoor volleyball workforce. The Individuals completed ninth within the event in Tokyo. Erickson went on the win the NBA title with the Los Angeles Lakers in 1972.
–Discipline Stage Media/Reuters
