Ex-NBA Player Chase Budinger Swaps Hardwood For Sand, Will Compete In Beach Volleyball Tournament At Olympics

I'm always a big two-sport athlete guy. It just fascinates me given how much it takes to compete at the highest level in one sport, let alone two, and come the Paris Olympics, ex-NBA player Chase Budinger will add his name to the list of two-sport athletes when he competes in the Olympic beach volleyball tournament.

Budinger played in the NBA from 2009 to 2016 and had stints with the Houston Rockets, Minnesota Timberwolves, Indiana Pacers, and Phoenix Suns. He then capped off his pro career in Spain, hopefully crushing some paella and various types of expensive ham.

After that, Budinger segued into pro volleyball, and now it's never too late to make an Olympic debut, and that's what the 36-year-old will do in a couple of months.

Budinger and his volleyball partner Miles Evans were caught on camera at the exact moment they realized they were headed to Paris, a city where there's currently an organized movement for a day of mass defecation in the Seine.

Lucky them… but it's for the Olympics and that's cool.

That's awesome.

It's always been my understanding that there's some significant basketball and volleyball crossover. I think the biggest reason for that is simply that taller players are useful.

That height will also give them an advantage during what is likely to be the most boring opening ceremony possibly ever, the slow-speed boat parade down the Seine (which will hopefully be dookie-free by then.

At 6-doot-7 Budinger should be able to see right over the smaller athletes to really take in how excruciatingly boring that ceremony will be.

But regardless of how dull the opening ceremony is, it doesn't change the fact that you've made it to the Olympics.

So congratulations to Chase Budinger on reaching the highest level of not just one sport but two.

That's a heck of an accomplishment.