After the post regarding best pro football careers, I decided to look into how Hokies have fared in the NBA. Its a small list as only 11 Hokies have stats in the NBA. I was unable to find a central source that contains data on those Hokies that have played in other worldwide leagues, like Erick Green in the Euroleague, or Deron Washington playing in the Italian Lega Basket Serie A so finding those stats took a little work.
Here are the stats sorted by Games played for the NBA:
It was a fun project as I learned about some players that I had only seen their names peripherally before looking at this. I never realized Glen Combs averaged 17 points per game for almost five years in the NBA. It also reaffirmed my assessment that we have never really had pro ready dominant big men though looking at the rebounding stats, our highest pro rebounder was Bimbo Coles at 3.9 rebounds per game. Thoughts?
For those interested in the recent graduates that are/have played professionally these are the ones I could find:
Several are starters for their current teams, Jeff Allen is his teams leading scorer while Dorenzo Hudson is second in scoring on his team. Terrell Bell seems to be waiting for his team to form in Australia before they can play so I provided the most recent stats I could find on him from Finland. One stat that jumped out at me was how poorly Erick Green is shooting free throws. What else stands out to you?
Comments
One thing that stands out for me is the fact that Steph Curry could have been a hokie..*sigh*
Ha. Was going to be my very first respose. My favorite NBA player. Can't believe we told Tech's leading basketball scorer's son to take a hike for Nigel Munson...
Thanks for doing this. Very cool. Nice to know some of these guys make some $ after college ball at VT. Hope they are enjoying the international thing.
Jamon Gordon is also playing for Anadolu Efes Spor Kulb
And I think my man AD plays in PR
Sbnation or some other sports mag had an article on Delaney and how he is doing really well. Barren Munich is considered a top team. He also explained that there is more money in some of these euro leagues and much better than being in the nba d league.
Was sad to see Ace still up there. Dude has got to be dragging by now. Sad to see a player like him go out like that.
Great post. Thx for the hard work and for sharing! It's hard to believe that so few bball players go on to play professionally. The numbers confirm that as much as we want our bball team to break through and have national relevance, it is very difficult to compete at a high level with average recruits. It pains me to see what "could have been" with the Currys, Harrell at Louisville, Doh-Doh at UF and some of the other big fish we missed out on or retaining. JJ has his work cut out for him: build success with 3-star recruits, establish a competitive, consistent system, and the chips will begin to fall. Sounds like a familiar recipe; but he has to start somewhere, and he has to bring in deeper talent in the future to compete with the upper echelons.