7 year NBA Vet Chase Budinger and his partner Evans steamroll France’s best beach volleyball team in their olympic debut.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIDOsQBS8RA
by porkchop487
@National Basketball Association
7 year NBA Vet Chase Budinger and his partner Evans steamroll France’s best beach volleyball team in their olympic debut.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIDOsQBS8RA
by porkchop487
17 Comments
backstory: Chase Budinger was the number 1 ranked high school volleyball prospect in 2006 but chose to concentrate on basketball at Arizona in college. He was drafted by the pistons and traded to Rockets and played 7 NBA seasons with over 400 games as a bench player averaging 8/3/1 on 20mpg. He even competed in the 2012 dunk contest where he lost by only 1% of the vote.
He had a career earnings of $18mil and once he was out of the NBA in 2017 picked back up volleyball, this time as a beach volleyball player. He worked hard over the next 7 years and was able to snag a last minute spot on Team USA with his partner for the olympics. Their first game they faced off one of the top tanked teams and beat them handily.
With this match he became the first person to ever play in an NBA game and an Olympic Beach Volleyball match (and the first to win one of each).
They were awesome
Air Bud is still looking good.
The white Wilt Chamberlain
I’m curious for the five people here who are both volleyball and basketball heads.
Or even just volleyball heads really, I just assume you’re here cause you also like basketball.
Just how important is height in volleyball? Wilt seems to have made an impression there, my dumb view of the sport makes me think height is very good, as is jumping ability, as is lateral movement. So what’s the deal, would NBA players just kill it in volleyball or is there more going on?
edit: absolutely incredible answers below, learning about sports you’re largely clueless about is great, it’s why I dig the Olympics <3
Chase is every bit a natural in volleyball and the athleticism/size sets him over the top, plus these two now have a fair bit of time together as a pair and know one another’s strengths, tendencies, and how to best set themselves up for points. Got a great chance for the Gold!
Congrats to him and his partner for doing this together! We’ve made a lot of progress in recent years.
Too bad vball is such a meme in NA, its taken seriously in EU and South america, and you can make a living as a professional there. Beach ball is such a relaxed party atmosphere, as a spectator theres nothing like it
Hey bud! Let’s party!
Is there more than one French team in the tournament?
You would assume the “best team” part would be implied if you’re in the Olmypics right?
Now when you say partner…..
Probably my favorite uofa player ever.
Beardown
He’s the haikyu and slam dunk crossover
That’s incredible what Chase Budinger is doing. It also gives me another level of appreciation for NBA players to be doing to be athletic and talented enough to represented their country at a different sport at age 36.
18 mil in career earnings over 7 year NBA career is crazy!
A lot of people talking about how Budinger was the top volleyball prospect of his class, but that’s underselling things. He wasn’t a LeBron tier talent, but more like an “every five years” type of guy – an AD rather than a KAT. Even with that it took half a decade working on the transition before he made it to a truly world-class standing.
In HS, this kid who was 6’6 played JV basketball first year, varsity bench 2nd year; then 3rd year he switched to volleyball and made varsity then got recruited to play D1