A former star basketball player has qualified for the 2024 Summer Olympic games in Paris – but he’ll be playing on a completely different kind of court.
Chase Budinger, who last played basketball professionally back in 2017, has made Team USA‘s beach volleyball squad for the Olympics.
Budinger retired back in 2017 after a lengthy NBA career to focus on beach volleyball and has been a star on the AVP circuit ever since.
Now, the former University of Arizona product and his partner Miles Evans will be off to Paris to represent the United States.
Coming out of high school, Budinger was a star player in both basketball and beach volleyball. In the latter sport, he was named the National Player of the Year in 2006 and even earned MVP honors in a junior Olympic volleyball tournament.
Chase Budinger is headed to the Olympics representing Team USA in beach volleyball
Before the Olympics, Budinger was a star basketball player and even played in the NBA
But once it became time to choose, he left beach volleyball behind temporarily and pursued basketball at Arizona.
After a stellar sophomore season in 2007-08 he declared for the NBA Draft – where he was a projected first round pick, but backed out.
He returned to play again for one more season and went to the draft again in 2009 – where he was picked 44th overall by the Detroit Pistons.
On draft nights, his rights were traded to the Houston Rockets – which were his first team.
In his first three seasons, he averaged between 20-22 minutes a game and shot between 42 and 44 percent from the field.
He was traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves – where he played fewer games over the course of three seasons.
Budinger was traded once again to the Indiana Pacers. He played 49 games and was waived in March – eventually signing with the Phoenix Suns three days later.
After that season, he signed briefly with the Brooklyn Nets where he was waived again – leading to a brief stint in Europe.
He played for the Rockets, Timberwolves, Pacers, and Suns before retiring to focus elsewhere
That became a successful career on the sands of the AVP beach volleyball tour
He retired in 2017 – deciding to turn his full focus onto the sand and has been on the AVP tour ever since.
‘Most guys, when they finish a sport, they’re kind of confused, or they’re kind of lost for the next journey,’ Budinger said on the Sandcast volleyball podcast in 2018.
‘I was lucky enough to just transition into a different sport immediately and play at the highest level.’
Now he’ll play at a level even higher than before – competing for his country on the world stage.
He’ll become the first person to play Olympic beach volleyball and play a regular-season NBA game.
The only person who followed a similar path was Keith Erickson – who was on the indoor volleyball team at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and won an NBA title with the Los Angeles Lakers in 1972.
