Standing at 6’6 and 215 pounds, Chase Budinger is a familiar name. After all, his Goldilocks hair is hard to miss. But more importantly, he was quite an intriguing candidate. Intriguingly enough, he’ll now become the first individual to play a regular-season NBA game and Olympic beach volleyball! A California native, Budinger, is of mixed descent. His maternal grandfather, Andrejs Eglītis, was from Latvia and moved to the US shortly after World War II. Notably, it would seem that volleyball held quite an important place in Budinger’s life throughout. His older sister, Brittanie, and brother, Duncan, were both professional volleyball players.

Brittanie played at the University of San Francisco before going professional in Europe. As for his brother, Duncan, he tours professionally. But their youngest sibling had a penchant for basketball as well, from an early age. A standout athlete in both sports, Chase Budinger worked hard in basketball and volleyball while at high school. Interestingly, though, a young Chase decided to shift his full attention to basketball at college.

Despite receiving multiple offers from universities (top names like USC and UCLA) that allowed him to continue pursuing both his interests, Budinger settled in Arizona. It did not and still does not sponsor varsity men’s volleyball. Although he declared for the NBA during his sophomore season, the young forward ultimately decided to return to school after pulling out of the early entry list.

From winning California Mr. Basketball to gracing NBA’s top teams: The NBA career of Chase Budinger

Yes, this is the same individual who was the co-MVP of the 2006 McDonald’s All-American Game alongside Kevin Durant.

Chase was selected as the 44th pick by the Detroit Pistons in 2009. He was traded to the Houston Rockets on draft night. In the seven years with the league, he has spent time with some of the more prominent teams. The best years of his basketball career were, arguably, with the Rockets. He averaged 9.4 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 1.4 assists in 210 games with Houston.

In 2012, he was traded to Minnesota. Since then, Budinger played for the Pacers and Suns. His numbers with the Wolves to the end of his basketball career were 7.0 points, 2.9 rebounds, and 1.0 assists. He achieved this in 255 games. Although he left the NBA, Chase wasn’t completely done with basketball. The 2007 Pac-10 Freshman of the Year spent a year more, as part of Baskonia, a professional Spanish team.

However, it was finally time in 2017. Chase Budinger went back to his first love, volleyball. Rolling back the calendar to his time volleyball stint at high school, he was named National High School Player of the Year by Volleyball Magazine. In an interview with Indianapolis Star in 2019, Budinger said, “That was always the plan. To play beach volleyball when basketball was over.”

And now, along with his partner, Miles Evans, Budinger is living his dream of playing in the Olympics!