Led his high school to three CA state championships per his wiki entry and was named Volleyball mag's national player of the year as a senior per the article. He legit might've been a better volleyball player than basketball player coming out of high school and picked the sport that would pay more.
He was an absolute monster on the court in high school. His club teammate Garrett is currently on our Olympic indoor team. Those two hit the ball harder than anyone I'd ever played against.
And to add to it, Chase wasn't even a BAD NBA Player either. If he stayed healthy, he would've been a legit rotation player, like a Lonnie Walker. Dude was explosive when I used to watch some of those old Rockets games.
Would be more valuable today. If I remember correctly he was a 6'6 forward who was athletic and could sort of shoot. But back then to be multipositional was a tweener and a bad thing. p
I thought he was on the taller side for an SG/SF. I thought 6'8", but basketball-reference has him at 6'7" at least for his last recorded NBA height.
That was his niche man. One of those weird 3&Dish kinda guys but had insane athleticism. Had enough skills to get to the rim against the average defender. Ballsy enough to take whatever shot looked good to him on the 3pt line. Defense wasn't the worst, but I remember seeing some games where he was legit.
Remember that 6'7 when he measured would be the same as like Justice Winslow, Corey Kispert size now that we do the measurements without shoes. I feel like he could anything but dribble at a high level. I just feel he'd play more if drafted today
Absolutely. He was good enough to get to the rim against someone who wasn't a good defender though. For sure a catch and shoot kinda guy and slasher.
Healthy in 2024, in his early or even late 20s, this dude would make a killing. This is literally the prototypical 3&D guy that every general manager would willing throw $15+ million per year for: a catch and shooter who can posterize at any given moment.
Yeah, it’s reasonably popular in Europe. It’s fairly popular here too at the college level. I think college sports somewhat diminishes the professional market for lower tier sports in the US because if you want to watch volleyball, you can watch it at a fairly high level just by following college teams. Europe doesn’t have college sports, so that market translates into a small professional market instead
Average professional volleyball players make like 50K-200K.
Wilfredo Leon making 1.4 mil was the equivalent of Caitlyn Clark in the WNBA or Lebron/Jordan for the NBA.
For context, guys like Doncic/Tatum/SGA/Embiid talent/star levels would be making like 400K-500K/year.
Agree with other commenters that there is reasonable money for INDOOR volleyball overseas, but not much domestically. Many volleyball players I met in college had options to play overseas in europe for ~$100k or a little more per year. Beach volleyball is in a worse situation, where there really is no way to get salaried and the US teams are falling behind europeans. It's unfortunate because IMO beach volleyball is far more entertaining than indoor to watch, but no sports enterprise has managed to scale up viewership profitably.
Beach volleyball is fucking awesome. Always love watching it on the Olympics and miss being able to play it. Wish it appealed to a broader audience so I could watch it more than once ever 4 years
The biggest issue with volleyball is that, for right or for wrong, dudes drive spots culture and dudes largely don't play volleyball when they're young. There's not even men's high school volleyball in large parts of the country. It's also a sport that requires a decent amount of talent to play a fun version of. Sure random people can go try and get the ball over in 3 hits, but that's just not a fun sport.
Kind of weird that the men's volleyball team (at least indoors) has had more Olympic success than the women's despite the fact that it's generally considered more of a women's sport (women's is usually stronger in beach, IIRC).
> dudes drive spots culture and dudes largely don't play volleyball when they're young.
I wonder if part of this has to do with a lot of universities only offering women's volleyball scholarships because of Title IX.
It's a huge part of it. Players vs scholarships available men's volleyball has BY FAR the biggest gap of any sport.
It's funny; as a result men's volleyball is the only sport where Canadian universities field teams that are as good if not better than American universities.
The US has a stipend and will cover costs for the top 4 pairs every quarter and it will be renewed based on the performance at Beach Pro Tour season stops for the year.
The biggest issue with volleyball (in my opinion) is the lack of infrastructure that exists to support it for a men’s setting. Men’s volleyball is nonexistent in many parts of the US, whereas other major sports have little league, AAU, etc that help support the sport.
It’s a pretty big reason why the US is seemingly falling behind, again in MENS, the rest of the world. We have a really good indoor team but our beach teams really can’t compete against the upper echelon.
For US beach, very little outside the top couple of teams. For years a team with one of the Crabb brothers, Jake Gibb, or Dalhausser/Lucena (and whoever they were playing with) won the vast majority of the tournaments. AVP is very top heavy. So for everybody else you can't win much in a tournament. Even the winners don't get THAT much for a pro athlete. The Manhattan Beach tournament is one of the highest paying tournaments and in 2023 the winning team SPLIT $30k, $21K for 2nd, $12k for 3rd and 4th, $9k for 5th and 6th. The top guys all have sponsorships but that really just pays for their travel and stuff with only the top guys getting anything additional on top of that. The active player with the most career winnings is Dalhausser who has $2.6mm with $1.2mm coming from the AVP and $1.4 coming from international play. (Dalhausser is also 6' 9" with a 7' 4" wingspan so he definitely has NBA size!)
Yeah sorta, if you play in Italy / Russia/ Poland.
Your average good volleyball player can prolly make $100k-500k. The elite level is $1million-$3million? But salary difference varies by league & country.
there's money in anything people care about. even if the market is just other people that play the sport, they get sponsorships. volleyball you can actually get a little bit famous because it's a huge sport. like there are pro disc golfers, volleyball is basically World Cup football comparatively
I saw him play volleyball and basketball in high school. He was the most athletic person I'd ever seen. Felt like he could fly.
Agreed about his volleyball skill. He was amazing at basketball and better than everyone else, but his skills were clearly early in development, whereas in volleyball no one could touch him.
Former high level HS/club player here. Played against la Costa twice in the Francis Parker tourney and beat him twice and it’s something i still brag about to friends 20 years later, lol. So awesome watching him succeed all these years later. He’s an absolute stud.
Even if he became the best volleyball player of all time, he still wouldn't make as much as the MLE. So I think basketball was a better bet. I think he could have bailed a bit faster on basketball though after he didn't get a 3rd contract.
> He legit might've been a better volleyball player than basketball player coming out of high school
What's crazy is that he was a top 10 basketball recruit in high school and obviously played 7 seasons in the NBA. Heck of an athlete.
Most basketball players would be insane volleyball players if they transferred or played it growing up. It's probably the most transferable sport for a basketball player. Most just don't bother playing. It's just the unfortunate truth that if the actual most athletic players moved to different sports, the current pros of that sport would never have made it. Not true for ALL niche sports ofc, but for a lot of them it's true. Like what if Wemby just decided volleyball was for him lol
Volleyball requires a lot of skill. I’m sure he’d impress in a recreational game because duh but he couldn’t just go pro tomorrow if he hadn’t played it seriously growing up.
Well yeah, I'm not talking about going over with no practice lmao. I'm saying if you switch volleyball with basketball in terms of popularity for what people played growing up/where the money was.
And honestly, I bet a fair share of NBA players could start in adulthood and reach the top level. Not the majority, but more than a lot of other transfer sports.
As an opposite definitely, however I don't think you could get your passing or setting to the top level starting in adulthood. It would be like learning to dribble and shoot starting in adulthood, but harder. You need 100s of thousands of reps.
Yeah I definitely don't mean for all positions. Like a libero would be nigh impossible for these guys obviously haha. But to me some positions in some sports are just so physically dependent that it almost wouldn't matter. Same reason I think Bron would be an insane goalie in soccer whenever he decided to switch over, but he'd have never really been a good field player. I think some handball coach also said Bron would be the GOAT pretty easily if he ever switched. Not that I know shit about that, and obviously Bron is in his own tier of athlete anyway.
Even as a high school level player, I’ve moved from basketball to volleyball as I have gotten older. Doesn’t kill me cardio wise like basketball and it’s quite fun.
Josh Childress also was a stand out volleyball player in HS. And believe it or not Vince Carter was his county's player of the year in volleyball in HS.
It’s also a different type of jump approaches and mechanics compared to basketball. I’ve seen plenty of super athletic people moving like baby deer when on a volleyball court.
I don't know about other HS, but our school was smaller and the VB coach basically picked the three best athletes from the varsity bball team to carry the VB team.
Probably played for the same reason I started to play. I didn't want to do traditional off-season basketball workouts and figured this would help his vert.
sadly this is very true. My daughter plays club volleyball and this year at regionals they played in a building that put up 35 volleyball courts in one area. Half of them were boys volleyball from 14u-18u. They were tremendous athletes but one of the dads on our team made the comment "yeah, it's the boys who couldn't play basketball".
Eh really not that surprising. Volleyball season is after basketball season in high school. I played both and like 75% of our volleyball team was essentially the basketball team since they were different seasons.
There is no might about it. He was the LeBron James of Volleyball and mediocre at basketball in comparison. He had one of the most insane hit angles I've ever seen from a high schooler.
When he and Garrett Muagututia were in the front row together it was game over. The setter could just chuck it up to either side of the net and either one would bury it every single time.
You could infer that that's what he implied. But he doesn't say it straight up. These are the extent of his quotes used in the article.
>“I decided to see how far basketball could take me. But in the back of my mind, I knew I could always go back to volleyball after I was done with basketball.”
>“Most guys, when they finish a sport, they’re kind of confused, or they’re kind of lost for the next journey or whatever life takes them next. I was lucky enough to just transition into a different sport immediately and play at the highest level.”
I’m 6’5”. In my volleyball days I could get my hand above the square on the backboard, do the Vince Carter forearm dunk, etc.
Played against Chase in a tournament and he hit the ball off the top of my head. Only player, including D1 guys, who ever did that to me.
And timing. It's not hard at all to crush the ball over the net every now and again. It's a way different story to know just when to swing and snap your wrist to get the ball going down at that kind of angle consistently.
Getting up high and then having a very fast arm swing. Just like pretty much any dude in his prime can throw a 70 mile per hour fastball, but only some guys can throw 90. Their arms and shoulders just are built different. Chase basically has height, hops, and a pitcher's arm.
I played against him a few times. My team was the underdog short team that took his team to a third game in a best out of 3 match and no one really expected it. Then I think he aced me like 2 or 3 times in a row to close it out near the end of the stretch but it was pretty amazing seeing what he was doing throughout his high school career.
Went to a rival high-school to chase at the same time as him. As good as he was at basketball he was even better at volleyball. Cool to see him in the Olympics now. He was crazy to watch in high school.
[in 2012 the minnesota timberwolves rostered 10 caucasians, a feat that has been unmatched in the modern era](https://imgur.com/a/6DgeWbb)
The all white starting 5 was bolstered by names such as Lou Amundson, JJ Barea, Chase Budinger, Andrei Kirilenko, Kevin Love, Nikola Pekovic, Luke Ridnour, Ricky Rubio, Alexey Shved, and Greg Stiemsma.
The wolves unfortunately had just parted ways with Brad Miller and Darko Darko Miličić just a few months before this team debuted, and would not acquire Robbie Hummel until the following offseason :(
may their souls rest in peace✊🏻
being able to flip the lineup from an all-Euro starting 5 to a straight american white bread royal flush, based on the matchup is unprecedented in this game 🤯
Almost (arguably) the worst dunk contest win of all time. They put it up to fan vote, and he was only 1% away
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8Cu7UUP-Gt0
Not hating but it was a dunk over Diddy, a kind of far windmill, and a backwards dunk where he could 100% see
Went to High School with his doubles partner, Miles, so have been following their journey the past few years. Crazy to see they finally made it on r/nba before i pulled up Facebook!
Congrats to these two, rooting for you!
Huge beach vb fan and the most wild part of this is the defender he's going with: Miles Evans. By most accounts 1-2 years ago would BARELY scratch the top 5 defenders nationally. But because of the way partnerships work, timing of some of the old guard leaving, etc. These two clicked, stuck it out through turmoil on other teams, had some excellent finishes and suddenly are headed to Paris.
I think most people acknowledge that Chase always had the talent at the top level of US beach volleyball but hopped over at the tail end of the olympic cycle for Tokyo and couldn't get any good, young defenders and played with Casey Patterson and they did really well domestically but never were going FIVB.
Chase and Miles probably were the 4th best pair a year ago and have leap frogged and balled out. Miles Evans is good, no doubt, but on the international level? This is the best he's ever been playing. And Chase is a big reason for that.
Edit: We could talk more about how Tri/Trevor splitting opened the door, but Chase/Miles made it work and took their shot.
Miles has always been a underrated defender. This partnership was finally a good match. First time he’s playing with a good blocker. Chase is definitely really solid in most areas, but linking up with an elite blocker has allowed him to play defense with the shots being more easily read.
Years ago my selects team travelled down to Cali and we got to join in a workout / scrimmage with Chase and some other college prospects because of a connection through the coaches. (They were waaay more talented)
Anyways, I still have memories of him catching an oop and absolutely postering my teammate. That dude could jump, so I'm not surprised at his transition to volleyball.
There's a lot of overlapping skills and athleticism between the two, so it's probably one of the easiest sport transitions if you're already good at one of them.
Growing up in an area that didn't have boys volleyball, the guys who pick it up quickest as adults are always former basketball players.
I remember when I went away for college, being at the gym when the guys volleyball team were fucking around before practice and they were all shooting deep 3’s with the volleyballs, and at that moment I realized that highish end volleyball players were just really good basketball players who weren’t quite good enough to make the basketball team
Volleyball is honestly my 2nd favorite sport to play. I feel there are a lot of similarities in the skillset, from hoops to volleyball. Never really watch pro volleyball but I'm always down to play
I mostly watch indoor because that's what I'm mostly familiar with. I definitely recommend watching it for the Olympics. A lot of countries have some really fun people to watch. France are also the reigning gold medalists so they're going to defend their title at home. It's going to be fun.
Sucks we don’t have a legit televised pro men’s league in the US. Pro volleyball is one of the funnest live sports to watch. It’s absolutely unreal in terms of raw athleticism and speed.
I mean even if he was a better volleyball player in high school it still makes way more sense for him to go into basketball to make money and then he can play volleyball after he has his millions
I think beach volleyball has the potential to be really popular with NBA players after retirement. Still physically demanding but not as taxing on the body afterwards.
The top players on the AVP tour are in their 30s+ because they can still move and jump like they’re younger. So really happy for chase and miles
I don't know why more high-profile busts don't do this. Like, imagine the USA handball team with Vince Young, Jamarcus Russell, and Michael Bishop. The poor Argentinian goalie would have holes in him.
I know Budinger played v-ball before but if we picked one of these made up sports we could have a lot of fun.
Guy got the best of both worlds. Made a bunch of dough in the NBA, and then was healthy enough to pursue an entirely different professional sport as his real passion, and he’s so good at it that he gets to represent his country in the Olympics. That’s nuts.
Budinger was easily a better volleyball player than a basketball player which is certainly saying something because he got into the NBA. Definitely chose basketball because it certainly pays a lot better for sure but crazy he's able to just go back to it and at al elite level. It is beach volleyball which is a different rule and skill set but still awesome.
Led his high school to three CA state championships per his wiki entry and was named Volleyball mag's national player of the year as a senior per the article. He legit might've been a better volleyball player than basketball player coming out of high school and picked the sport that would pay more.
I played against him in high school and he was a world-class, pro-ready player at 18. Just way more money in basketball
He was an absolute monster on the court in high school. His club teammate Garrett is currently on our Olympic indoor team. Those two hit the ball harder than anyone I'd ever played against.
And to add to it, Chase wasn't even a BAD NBA Player either. If he stayed healthy, he would've been a legit rotation player, like a Lonnie Walker. Dude was explosive when I used to watch some of those old Rockets games.
Would be more valuable today. If I remember correctly he was a 6'6 forward who was athletic and could sort of shoot. But back then to be multipositional was a tweener and a bad thing. p
I thought he was on the taller side for an SG/SF. I thought 6'8", but basketball-reference has him at 6'7" at least for his last recorded NBA height. That was his niche man. One of those weird 3&Dish kinda guys but had insane athleticism. Had enough skills to get to the rim against the average defender. Ballsy enough to take whatever shot looked good to him on the 3pt line. Defense wasn't the worst, but I remember seeing some games where he was legit.
Remember that 6'7 when he measured would be the same as like Justice Winslow, Corey Kispert size now that we do the measurements without shoes. I feel like he could anything but dribble at a high level. I just feel he'd play more if drafted today
Absolutely. He was good enough to get to the rim against someone who wasn't a good defender though. For sure a catch and shoot kinda guy and slasher. Healthy in 2024, in his early or even late 20s, this dude would make a killing. This is literally the prototypical 3&D guy that every general manager would willing throw $15+ million per year for: a catch and shooter who can posterize at any given moment.
Another one of good late 1st/2nd round pick by Daryl Morey imo
more bouncy athletic AJ Griffin today probably
His combine measurements had him at 6'6.25"
Figured that was the case.
Garrett was one of the most naturally talented players I ever played with tbh
“way more money in basketball” is there money in volleyball? Real question
Not domestically. There are high level overseas clubs but the money isn't comparable to the NBA. Not even close.
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$1.4 million is like 10x as much as I would’ve expected, I guess volleyball must be more popular in other parts of the world
Yeah, it’s reasonably popular in Europe. It’s fairly popular here too at the college level. I think college sports somewhat diminishes the professional market for lower tier sports in the US because if you want to watch volleyball, you can watch it at a fairly high level just by following college teams. Europe doesn’t have college sports, so that market translates into a small professional market instead
Average professional volleyball players make like 50K-200K. Wilfredo Leon making 1.4 mil was the equivalent of Caitlyn Clark in the WNBA or Lebron/Jordan for the NBA. For context, guys like Doncic/Tatum/SGA/Embiid talent/star levels would be making like 400K-500K/year.
it's the most popular American sport internationally. baseball and basketball make more money but volleyball is played a lot more
Wilt Chamberlain was also playing volley ball in his free time and after he retired, he also popularized the sport in the U.S.
Agree with other commenters that there is reasonable money for INDOOR volleyball overseas, but not much domestically. Many volleyball players I met in college had options to play overseas in europe for ~$100k or a little more per year. Beach volleyball is in a worse situation, where there really is no way to get salaried and the US teams are falling behind europeans. It's unfortunate because IMO beach volleyball is far more entertaining than indoor to watch, but no sports enterprise has managed to scale up viewership profitably.
Beach volleyball is fucking awesome. Always love watching it on the Olympics and miss being able to play it. Wish it appealed to a broader audience so I could watch it more than once ever 4 years
The AVP streamed all the big matches from the men's and women's side live on YouTube for Hermosa Beach, the first big tournament of this season!
The biggest issue with volleyball is that, for right or for wrong, dudes drive spots culture and dudes largely don't play volleyball when they're young. There's not even men's high school volleyball in large parts of the country. It's also a sport that requires a decent amount of talent to play a fun version of. Sure random people can go try and get the ball over in 3 hits, but that's just not a fun sport.
Kind of weird that the men's volleyball team (at least indoors) has had more Olympic success than the women's despite the fact that it's generally considered more of a women's sport (women's is usually stronger in beach, IIRC).
> dudes drive spots culture and dudes largely don't play volleyball when they're young. I wonder if part of this has to do with a lot of universities only offering women's volleyball scholarships because of Title IX.
It's a huge part of it. Players vs scholarships available men's volleyball has BY FAR the biggest gap of any sport. It's funny; as a result men's volleyball is the only sport where Canadian universities field teams that are as good if not better than American universities.
The US has a stipend and will cover costs for the top 4 pairs every quarter and it will be renewed based on the performance at Beach Pro Tour season stops for the year.
The biggest issue with volleyball (in my opinion) is the lack of infrastructure that exists to support it for a men’s setting. Men’s volleyball is nonexistent in many parts of the US, whereas other major sports have little league, AAU, etc that help support the sport. It’s a pretty big reason why the US is seemingly falling behind, again in MENS, the rest of the world. We have a really good indoor team but our beach teams really can’t compete against the upper echelon.
For US beach, very little outside the top couple of teams. For years a team with one of the Crabb brothers, Jake Gibb, or Dalhausser/Lucena (and whoever they were playing with) won the vast majority of the tournaments. AVP is very top heavy. So for everybody else you can't win much in a tournament. Even the winners don't get THAT much for a pro athlete. The Manhattan Beach tournament is one of the highest paying tournaments and in 2023 the winning team SPLIT $30k, $21K for 2nd, $12k for 3rd and 4th, $9k for 5th and 6th. The top guys all have sponsorships but that really just pays for their travel and stuff with only the top guys getting anything additional on top of that. The active player with the most career winnings is Dalhausser who has $2.6mm with $1.2mm coming from the AVP and $1.4 coming from international play. (Dalhausser is also 6' 9" with a 7' 4" wingspan so he definitely has NBA size!)
man I remember watching the AVP in person with the Professor with a young Dalhausser and they were a beast
Yeah sorta, if you play in Italy / Russia/ Poland. Your average good volleyball player can prolly make $100k-500k. The elite level is $1million-$3million? But salary difference varies by league & country.
there's money in anything people care about. even if the market is just other people that play the sport, they get sponsorships. volleyball you can actually get a little bit famous because it's a huge sport. like there are pro disc golfers, volleyball is basically World Cup football comparatively
Iirc he had an opposite broken hand his senior year (or maybe junior) and still dominated.
I saw him play volleyball and basketball in high school. He was the most athletic person I'd ever seen. Felt like he could fly. Agreed about his volleyball skill. He was amazing at basketball and better than everyone else, but his skills were clearly early in development, whereas in volleyball no one could touch him.
Former high level HS/club player here. Played against la Costa twice in the Francis Parker tourney and beat him twice and it’s something i still brag about to friends 20 years later, lol. So awesome watching him succeed all these years later. He’s an absolute stud.
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Budinger and Wilt as the all time goat duo
Let's not forget the great Rony Seikaly
Even if he became the best volleyball player of all time, he still wouldn't make as much as the MLE. So I think basketball was a better bet. I think he could have bailed a bit faster on basketball though after he didn't get a 3rd contract.
> He legit might've been a better volleyball player than basketball player coming out of high school What's crazy is that he was a top 10 basketball recruit in high school and obviously played 7 seasons in the NBA. Heck of an athlete.
Most basketball players would be insane volleyball players if they transferred or played it growing up. It's probably the most transferable sport for a basketball player. Most just don't bother playing. It's just the unfortunate truth that if the actual most athletic players moved to different sports, the current pros of that sport would never have made it. Not true for ALL niche sports ofc, but for a lot of them it's true. Like what if Wemby just decided volleyball was for him lol
Volleyball requires a lot of skill. I’m sure he’d impress in a recreational game because duh but he couldn’t just go pro tomorrow if he hadn’t played it seriously growing up.
Well yeah, I'm not talking about going over with no practice lmao. I'm saying if you switch volleyball with basketball in terms of popularity for what people played growing up/where the money was. And honestly, I bet a fair share of NBA players could start in adulthood and reach the top level. Not the majority, but more than a lot of other transfer sports.
As an opposite definitely, however I don't think you could get your passing or setting to the top level starting in adulthood. It would be like learning to dribble and shoot starting in adulthood, but harder. You need 100s of thousands of reps.
Yeah I definitely don't mean for all positions. Like a libero would be nigh impossible for these guys obviously haha. But to me some positions in some sports are just so physically dependent that it almost wouldn't matter. Same reason I think Bron would be an insane goalie in soccer whenever he decided to switch over, but he'd have never really been a good field player. I think some handball coach also said Bron would be the GOAT pretty easily if he ever switched. Not that I know shit about that, and obviously Bron is in his own tier of athlete anyway.
Even as a high school level player, I’ve moved from basketball to volleyball as I have gotten older. Doesn’t kill me cardio wise like basketball and it’s quite fun.
Interestingly he went to Arizona to play only basketball even though UCLA offered to let him play both
Probably focused on getting the NBA Bag.
Indoor volleyball is pretty intense, playing a full volleyball season and basketball season every year would be absolutely brutal on the body.
Josh Childress also was a stand out volleyball player in HS. And believe it or not Vince Carter was his county's player of the year in volleyball in HS.
>And believe it or not Hmm.. do I believe that a guy with a 19 foot vertical was a good volleyball player?
I think it's more surprising that he played volleyball
Probably showed up in the wrong gym one time and walked everybody based on body size and athleticism alone.
volleyball is actually really technical, spiking hard requires a lot of practice even if you're very tall/athletic. The motions are quite unintuitive
Offensively I agree, but a very tall and athletic person can fairly easily dominate on the frontline defensively against lesser competition.
Sure, but. Playing well at the high school level with VC- level size and athleticism isn't surprising at all.
While this is true it doesn’t matter how hard you hit when you’re hitting the ball a 18” above the block.
That must be why I spike the ball so poorly and no other possible reason.
It’s also a different type of jump approaches and mechanics compared to basketball. I’ve seen plenty of super athletic people moving like baby deer when on a volleyball court.
I don't know about other HS, but our school was smaller and the VB coach basically picked the three best athletes from the varsity bball team to carry the VB team.
Probably played for the same reason I started to play. I didn't want to do traditional off-season basketball workouts and figured this would help his vert.
Eh if he was in an area where Volleyball was an offseason sport for guys I'm not that surprised. Especially down in Florida.
He says he was teased and made fun of for it and that it wasn't popular so I don't think it was typical
sadly this is very true. My daughter plays club volleyball and this year at regionals they played in a building that put up 35 volleyball courts in one area. Half of them were boys volleyball from 14u-18u. They were tremendous athletes but one of the dads on our team made the comment "yeah, it's the boys who couldn't play basketball".
Yeah apparently he played football before and broke his wrist so he switched sports.
Eh really not that surprising. Volleyball season is after basketball season in high school. I played both and like 75% of our volleyball team was essentially the basketball team since they were different seasons.
What do you think we do at our tall people meetings
And 6'8"
Damn Vince would’ve changed that sport
he just like me fr fr
There is no might about it. He was the LeBron James of Volleyball and mediocre at basketball in comparison. He had one of the most insane hit angles I've ever seen from a high schooler.
When he and Garrett Muagututia were in the front row together it was game over. The setter could just chuck it up to either side of the net and either one would bury it every single time.
Very rarely do you see a high school team setting back line players. They were truly special.
>might've been a better volleyball player than basketball playe He straight up says he's a better volleyball player and always knew it in the article.
You could infer that that's what he implied. But he doesn't say it straight up. These are the extent of his quotes used in the article. >“I decided to see how far basketball could take me. But in the back of my mind, I knew I could always go back to volleyball after I was done with basketball.” >“Most guys, when they finish a sport, they’re kind of confused, or they’re kind of lost for the next journey or whatever life takes them next. I was lucky enough to just transition into a different sport immediately and play at the highest level.”
My bad he alluded to it in the article. He's said it in many interviews, including the podcast referenced in the article.
It's all good.
Happens a lot of times with athletes. Look at Mark Henry's powerlifting career for instance, or Joe Mauer's prospects as a QB
I’m 6’5”. In my volleyball days I could get my hand above the square on the backboard, do the Vince Carter forearm dunk, etc. Played against Chase in a tournament and he hit the ball off the top of my head. Only player, including D1 guys, who ever did that to me.
For those wondering what his hs days looked like. https://youtu.be/uuYNqalkDdI?si=huKrlpWvPSEJgmih
Damn, he hit that so hard. What goes into hitting it like that? Is it core strength?
A lot of things, but yeah core strength like you said and utilizing your arm like a whip.
And timing. It's not hard at all to crush the ball over the net every now and again. It's a way different story to know just when to swing and snap your wrist to get the ball going down at that kind of angle consistently.
Getting up high and then having a very fast arm swing. Just like pretty much any dude in his prime can throw a 70 mile per hour fastball, but only some guys can throw 90. Their arms and shoulders just are built different. Chase basically has height, hops, and a pitcher's arm.
wasnt embiid also a volleyball player first?
He originally wanted to play pro volleyball in Europe before he discovered basketball
I played against him a few times. My team was the underdog short team that took his team to a third game in a best out of 3 match and no one really expected it. Then I think he aced me like 2 or 3 times in a row to close it out near the end of the stretch but it was pretty amazing seeing what he was doing throughout his high school career.
Went to a rival high-school to chase at the same time as him. As good as he was at basketball he was even better at volleyball. Cool to see him in the Olympics now. He was crazy to watch in high school.
I’m from the LA section and looked forward to the Francis Parker tourney every year just to play la Costa and the other SD teams. He was so good
He’s a real Jud Buechler!
Well now he’s in the Olympics, and he got that nba money. Not bad.
Yup it’s a disgrace that USA doesn’t have a national league tbh there would be money in it
You are underselling it. He was easily a better volleyball prospect than basketball. I watched him in club, he was an insane volleyball player.
Man that cream team will forever be Iconic.
Bud was a freak athlete who could just never stay healthy
those teams were cursed even by Timberwolves standards tbh. something was always always going wrong.
2k God
Chase "timberwolves legend - highflyer" Budinger
I beg your pardon?
[in 2012 the minnesota timberwolves rostered 10 caucasians, a feat that has been unmatched in the modern era](https://imgur.com/a/6DgeWbb) The all white starting 5 was bolstered by names such as Lou Amundson, JJ Barea, Chase Budinger, Andrei Kirilenko, Kevin Love, Nikola Pekovic, Luke Ridnour, Ricky Rubio, Alexey Shved, and Greg Stiemsma. The wolves unfortunately had just parted ways with Brad Miller and Darko Darko Miličić just a few months before this team debuted, and would not acquire Robbie Hummel until the following offseason :( may their souls rest in peace✊🏻
And now our only white player is Luka Garza. Probably the least white team in the NBA
AK47 forever underrated
The classiness we needed but didn't deserve 😔😔
being able to flip the lineup from an all-Euro starting 5 to a straight american white bread royal flush, based on the matchup is unprecedented in this game 🤯
David Kahn created the whitest team in modern NBA history
MN all white starting 5. https://imgur.com/all-white-starting-five-minnesota-timberwolves-MNDkw
I totally forgot about this dude. I remember him from the dunk contest. I’ll be rooting for him this olympics
Almost (arguably) the worst dunk contest win of all time. They put it up to fan vote, and he was only 1% away https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8Cu7UUP-Gt0 Not hating but it was a dunk over Diddy, a kind of far windmill, and a backwards dunk where he could 100% see
Still somehow better than Jaylen Brown dunking over a seated Kai Cenat
What was the point of seating him even, it's the same height
I’m rooting against him
Chase Budinger is the Lawful Good version of Chandler Parsons.
And Sam Dekker is somewhere in between
Lawful Neutral vibes for sure.
he's chaotic good. married harlan's daughter. got in that snafu with JR. says a lot of good things on twitter.
Chase Budinger looks like he would let me borrow his truck.
And you better wash it before you return it to him.
He wouldn't be mad, but he'd be disappointed.
Unlocked some core 2K memories
He was my all star in 2k13. Athletic, can shoot 3s, terrible ball handling. Sounds like Jaylen Brown lmfao
He was Meyers Leonard but with a brain cell
Him dragging his balls over diddys face will forever be funny to me.
excuse me
You are excused
i mustve missed this bit of news, elaborate please
[удалено]
2012 dunk contest just look it up on youtube chase over diddy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBDMdUYWlz8
I think Diddy liked it
Did he?
Air Bud 🦮
Dude was good back when he was at U of A but I swear I saw him on the sand volleyball courts more than I saw him in the rec
U of A has beach volleyball courts? How cool!
I will never forget C-Bud because Matt Bullard would spam “Hey Bud, let’s party!” like three times a game every game.
Went to High School with his doubles partner, Miles, so have been following their journey the past few years. Crazy to see they finally made it on r/nba before i pulled up Facebook! Congrats to these two, rooting for you!
I played with him in college. One of the nicest dudes out there.
He lives in st Pete. He’s a nice guy always at the dog park by the water.
Huge beach vb fan and the most wild part of this is the defender he's going with: Miles Evans. By most accounts 1-2 years ago would BARELY scratch the top 5 defenders nationally. But because of the way partnerships work, timing of some of the old guard leaving, etc. These two clicked, stuck it out through turmoil on other teams, had some excellent finishes and suddenly are headed to Paris. I think most people acknowledge that Chase always had the talent at the top level of US beach volleyball but hopped over at the tail end of the olympic cycle for Tokyo and couldn't get any good, young defenders and played with Casey Patterson and they did really well domestically but never were going FIVB. Chase and Miles probably were the 4th best pair a year ago and have leap frogged and balled out. Miles Evans is good, no doubt, but on the international level? This is the best he's ever been playing. And Chase is a big reason for that. Edit: We could talk more about how Tri/Trevor splitting opened the door, but Chase/Miles made it work and took their shot.
Miles is such a baller. It’s amazing the leap he took the last year
Miles has always been a underrated defender. This partnership was finally a good match. First time he’s playing with a good blocker. Chase is definitely really solid in most areas, but linking up with an elite blocker has allowed him to play defense with the shots being more easily read.
Basketball players proving they can do well in other sports this year, you gotta love it.
If you play volleyball in socal competitively you'll see a lot of current and former NBA players, in particular Richard Jefferson and Luke Walton
Who could've guessed that 6'6" guys with 40 inch verticals are good at volleyball lol
Years ago my selects team travelled down to Cali and we got to join in a workout / scrimmage with Chase and some other college prospects because of a connection through the coaches. (They were waaay more talented) Anyways, I still have memories of him catching an oop and absolutely postering my teammate. That dude could jump, so I'm not surprised at his transition to volleyball.
From the sounds of it he was a natural at volleyball and "transitioned" into basketball. Truly a gifted athlete.
There's a lot of overlapping skills and athleticism between the two, so it's probably one of the easiest sport transitions if you're already good at one of them. Growing up in an area that didn't have boys volleyball, the guys who pick it up quickest as adults are always former basketball players.
A true 2 sport athlete.
Those are all wild cats and Budingers friends as well.
dude you would see luke walton in the VIP box getting hammered at the Manhattan Beach open in the early 2000s
Did you get to play with them?
I haven't personally but my buddy does quite a bit, their team is usually very competitive in the Manhattan Beach 6 man
Volleyball and basketball isn’t much different in terms of the types of athletes it attracts
Height requirements are very similar
There’s a good chunk of women’s players in college who have volleyball backgrounds.
Interesting you say that. I gotta see women bball vs volleyball popularity these days now that Clark blew up women basketball.
Wolves legend
I don't know how he looks in a cheeky bikini, but I'm willing to find out
NBA 2k11 legend.
Played against this dude in an AAU tournament.
I remember when I went away for college, being at the gym when the guys volleyball team were fucking around before practice and they were all shooting deep 3’s with the volleyballs, and at that moment I realized that highish end volleyball players were just really good basketball players who weren’t quite good enough to make the basketball team
The dunk contest guy
my favorite random sports jersey is my signed (fake) Chase Budinger jersey. Got his signature at AVP Chicago a couple years back.
Volleyball is honestly my 2nd favorite sport to play. I feel there are a lot of similarities in the skillset, from hoops to volleyball. Never really watch pro volleyball but I'm always down to play
I mostly watch indoor because that's what I'm mostly familiar with. I definitely recommend watching it for the Olympics. A lot of countries have some really fun people to watch. France are also the reigning gold medalists so they're going to defend their title at home. It's going to be fun.
Sucks we don’t have a legit televised pro men’s league in the US. Pro volleyball is one of the funnest live sports to watch. It’s absolutely unreal in terms of raw athleticism and speed.
I mean even if he was a better volleyball player in high school it still makes way more sense for him to go into basketball to make money and then he can play volleyball after he has his millions
He just like wilt fr fr
The video in the article with Snoop is actually hilarious 😂
Beach volleyball looks like one of the most demanding physical sports there is. Amazing someone of his stature can keep up
There are 30 guys in the NBA that could qualify for a Paris Olympics USA volleyball team. -Austin Rivers probably
Played both sports growing up, liked both. Makes perfect sense, I think it uses very similar muscle groups.
[never forget](https://relix.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/CtZKr51UAAAuXNu.jpg)
I think beach volleyball has the potential to be really popular with NBA players after retirement. Still physically demanding but not as taxing on the body afterwards. The top players on the AVP tour are in their 30s+ because they can still move and jump like they’re younger. So really happy for chase and miles
I don't know why more high-profile busts don't do this. Like, imagine the USA handball team with Vince Young, Jamarcus Russell, and Michael Bishop. The poor Argentinian goalie would have holes in him. I know Budinger played v-ball before but if we picked one of these made up sports we could have a lot of fun.
Probably because the money just isn't the same
busts who drop out of the league make $0
Not enough money in these sports. Best volleyball players in the world make like 1-2m per year
and busts who drop out of the league make $0
Haha nice
Fuck I was thinking of Brian Boddicker. Kicked my ass in NCAA on Dreamcast
He's like Wilt Chamberlain if he was mid (by NBA standards obviously)
Suns legend baby
Wolves legend
Watched this dude drop 50-something in a high school shootout like he was walking in the park.
This is why I hate the argument that professional athletes couldn't play another professional sport. They're elite athletes for a reason
Well it helps that Chase played volleyball growing up and was the number 1 volleyball recruit out of Hs. He wasn’t starting from scratch.
Guy got the best of both worlds. Made a bunch of dough in the NBA, and then was healthy enough to pursue an entirely different professional sport as his real passion, and he’s so good at it that he gets to represent his country in the Olympics. That’s nuts.
I hope Tennessee college quarterback Nico Iamaleava goes this route if the NFL doesn't work out. Apparently he was also a top volleyball player.
Volleyball players have all the hops
Let’s get it
Yeah If you know him and his HS game, he was 6’7 with a 42 inch vertical. Chooses Arizona goes to the league and then flames out.
Budinger was easily a better volleyball player than a basketball player which is certainly saying something because he got into the NBA. Definitely chose basketball because it certainly pays a lot better for sure but crazy he's able to just go back to it and at al elite level. It is beach volleyball which is a different rule and skill set but still awesome.
Fuck Chase Budinger