2024 Basketball Eligibles
Professionally, Corey Brewer was a journeyman player who served 13 seasons in the NBA, highlighted by winning an NBA Championship with Dallas in 2011. He was never close to being an All-Star, but the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame cares about collegiate accomplishments, and Brewer helped lead Florida to win two NCAA Titles while winning a Final Four MVP. Many Hall of Fame players has three fewer Championships than Brewer.
A late First Round Pick from Missouri (27th in 2010), DeMarre Carroll was a journeyman player who had stints for Memphis, Houston, Denver, Utah, Atlanta, Toronto, Brooklyn, and San Antonio, but for a hot second, while he was with the Hawks, it looked like Carroll was about to break out. Named the Co-Player of the Month in January of 2005, Carroll finished the year fourth in Effective Field Goal Percentage. Carroll never broke that threshold, but he…
After a year at Michigan, Jamal Crawford declared for the NBA Draft where the Chicago Bulls took him ninth overall. Crawford would not blossom into a superstar, but he is one of the rare men to have competed in 20 NBA seasons, an astounding achievement for any athlete. The sharpshooter began a 16-year streak of at least 10 Points per Game in 2002-03, with half of them exceeding 17, peaking with a 20.6 PPG when he…
Joakim Noah, the son of International Tennis Hall of Fame inductee, Yannick Noah, was a two-time NCAA Champion with the Florida Gators and a Final Four MVP. Naturally, this is a pedigree of a Lottery Pick, which he would be in 2007, when the Chicago Bulls drafted him Ninth Overall. The 6’ 11” Center would not become a potent scorer, only having five years in the NBA where he had at least 10 Points per Game,…
J.R. Smith will best be known as an eccentric individual whose penchant for bad on-court decision-making cost his team a Finals Game, but he was still a coveted role player for years who won two NBA Championships; Cleveland in 2016 and Los Angeles in 2020. Smith’s individual highlights include finishing in the top ten four times in 3-Point Field Goals, winning the 2013 Sixth Man of the Year, and earning three consecutive Rookie of the…
Kyle Korver was a two-time Mountain Valley Conference Player of the Year at Creighton, but it was not expected that he would have a long career as a professional, and thus, he slid down late in the Second Round. Initially drafted by the Nets but traded to Sixers afterward, Korver established his worth as a long-range sharpshooter, leading the NBA in that stat four times, becoming the first player to do so. Also, a two-time leader…
Ryan Anderson was a late First Round Pick (21st Overall) from California in 2008 by the New Jersey Nets, and after playing there only one year, he was traded to Orlando, where in 2011/12, he was named the Most Improved Player in the NBA. Anderson, who led the league in 3-Point Field Goals that year, never built on that season, and he arguably never had a better season. Anderson continued his career with New Orleans, Houston, Phoenix,…
We honestly think that Tyson Chandler is among one of the most underrated players in the history of basketball, and is that not a strange thing to say out a former second overall pick who played twenty years. So why would we say that? Chandler began his pro career with the Bulls, and the hype around him and Eddy Curry was bloated. They could not bring Chicago back to the promised land, and the five years he…
Vince Carter played his college ball at North Carolina, where he was a First Team All-ACC Selection in 1998. He was drafted fifth overall in 1998 by the Golden State Warriors, who swapped him in a draft-day trade to the Toronto Raptors. Carter brought Toronto to their first playoff and was one of the most popular figures in Canada, helping to raise the game's profile and inspiring a wave of young Canadians to play the game. Carter…