That's a weird neurosis. Chase is his name. Just like Rafer or Ron. Do you say Bryant and James? Or do you call them Kobe and Lebron like everyone else?
there was a number of things it was mainly since he was highly acclaimed coming out of high school (on par with Kevin Durant) and was the prize recruit of arizona. he had a decent freshman season but when he decided to return back to arizona that sent a lot of unnecessary red flags up for teams thinking there was something bad to that and that if he did have the talent he would have came out his freshman year. Sometimes that is a mistake (Luc Richard Mbah a Moute of UCLA would have been a lottery pick freshman year but stayed and injured himself and ended up being a 2nd rounder) to stay and at other times it helps your game. The high Alexander pic did probably scare off a lot of GMs but Chase is a far superior basketball player when it comes to playing a team game. I was shocked when he dropped so far I thought he would be in the 18-25 range myself, but I am damn glad Morey picked him up. dont get me wrong here, chase wont be an all-star but he will be a solid ball player in the league as a 6-8th man off the bench and he can excel given the right system, and luckily for us it seems that he suits Adelman's system perfectly
i think he could be the white rip hamilton. both are 6'7, both great at coming off curls and shooting. i think budinger's midrange game could be as good as hamilton's.
it amazes me as well. the guy is highly skilled and athletic...smart and hard working. I though he was a lock for being a mid 1st round pick.
Just a random thought related to this topic but why do the athletic white dudes always seem to lose their athleticism so early in their NBA careers? Bob Sura Dan Majerle Keith Van Horn Wally "Sippin' on some syzurp" Szerbiak Brent Barry These are all guys who came into the league with a sick vertical leap and decent lateral quickness (for some reason the white dudes almost never have great lateral quickness) but by their mid to late 20s they look like they have been in the league for 15 years.
Well Budinger dropped to the point that even the Rockets passed up on him once!!! Even though it was 2 picks ahead of where Chase Budinger was selected. I think the Rockets made it clear they want someone that can create offense, like J.Taylor should do. Budinger is a guy who should score off screens and pick and rolls. And from a previous argument in this thread regarding, "because he is white", is flawed. Because we've seen non Blacks get selected in the top of the draft; and make all-star & league MVP's. But, it's unfortunate that non black players in the U.S.A. are lagging behind in the NBA - (personal opinion here... "what's going on is it reverse racism in this country?". Most of the Non Black all-star players are not from the U.S.A. Nowitski - German Gasol - Spain Yao - China Nash - Canada Ginoboli - Argentina
sura was athletic for a while, just not that great of a player. Back troubles slowed him down. I never considered Thunder dan to be "athletic". Keith van horn was never that athletic, just skilled and big. Wally wasn't that athletic either, even in college, he just had a sweet shot. Brent barry was athletic for a long time
They called Majerle "Thunder" Dan because of his dunks. He was a slasher/finisher when he came into the league and a good one. Keith Van Horn had a 40 inch vertical leap. Nuff said. You may be right about Wally. I double checked and keep reading that his vertical was around 30-31 so nothing great there.
These are the reasons why Chase Budinger dropped so far... What Happened to Chase Budinger? June 25, 2009 9:51 AM At some point in the third or fourth hour of tonight's draft, you'll hear the name "Chase Budinger" announced -- quite possibly by Adam Silver, who usually presides over the second round. As recently as a year ago, Budinger was projected as a possible lottery pick. In his first two years Arizona, Budinger averaged 16.4 points and 5.6 rebounds per game. But his fortunes as a prospect slipped during his junior campaign. CelticsHub's Bryan Roy has covered the Wildcats for The Daily Wildcat over the past couple of seasons. He filed this report for TrueHoop on Budinger's strange tenure in Tucson. If your fantasy basketball league required every team to draft a crossbreed of Larry Bird and Napoleon Dynamite, your man is Chase Budinger, soon-to-be rookie from Arizona. Think Brendan Fraser in "Bedazzled.” The light-blond, lighter-skinned wing from Encinitas, Calif., looks like the ideal demographic for tetherball, Irish pubs and SPF 150 sunscreen. Arizona's hot, dry desert sun did all it could to burn Budinger. From all the off-court uncertainties of Lute Olson's retirement, to the promising Wildcats that transferred or ripped up signed Letters of Intent - the appearance of these past three years weren't exactly Arizona's prettiest era for Budinger to showcase his upside. In terms of athletic ability, the 6-foot-7 departing Wildcat was once described as the LeBron James of volleyball after a high school career that, had he kept playing, could have put him on USA Olympic team in 2008. Instead, Budinger opted to pursue basketball for Lute Olson, who called Budinger the most talented athlete he ever coached. Coming from the Founder, Director and CEO of Point Guard U, the bar was sky-high. But these were his realistic and most basic goals to complete before the NBA came calling: 1) Beat his home state powerhouse UCLA. 2) Make a deep NCAA Tournament run. 3) Hone his raw athletic ability into NBA-ready talent. Budinger arrived at Arizona surrounded by the modern-day Five Star Freshman Hype Hoopla. Fans anticipated that Budinger would restore the pre-2005 brand of Arizona basketball and eliminate the funk of underachieving, low-character players. (Related story: Marcus Williams and Mustafa Shakur both left for the NBA and graduated, respectively, after the 2006-2007 season.) After individually satisfying freshman and sophomore seasons - he averaged 16.4 points and 5.6 rebounds per game as an underclassman - Budinger's team goals still left an empty pit in a hungry Wildcat Faithful's collective stomach. From 2006-2008, the Wildcats had: 1) Been embarrassed by UCLA (0-4 vs. the Bruins). 2) Lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament (both times). 3) Not seen Budinger lead them when it mattered most. Fans wondered when Big-Game Budinger would arrive on campus. By 2009, the No. 34 Budinger jerseys were destined to hit the UA Bookstore's clearance rack regardless of his decision to turn pro this summer. The shot clock of expectations expired. A senior season for Budinger would've meant the McDonald's All-American (he earned co-MVP honors with Kevin Durant) lost ground during his junior campaign. In the star-studded 2008 NBA Draft, projections listed Budinger as a late first-round to early second-round selection. A significantly weaker 2009 Draft meant Budinger could've just tread water and still moved up in the rankings. There wasn't much water in the desert to tread. By his junior year, Arizona needed (and expected) Budinger to step up both as a leader and dominant force in the Pac-10 if it wanted any hope at continuing the school's most coveted statistic of 25 straight NCAA Tournament appearances. Our first glimpse of it came after Arizona's embarrassing loss to UAB. After Jamelle Horne Superman-dove to commit a foul at halfcourt in a tie game with seconds left in regulation, the mood in the locker room was uncomfortably somber. Reporters pretended to scribble down notes and avoid eye contact while players showered and shot blank stares into the trophies along wall. After Horne came out of the shower, a few of us headed over to ask: What the hell were you thinking? (He later said it was a miscommunication). Budinger, who watched the entire scene unfold, quickly told us to back off. It wasn't anything rude or out of line, Budinger just took a big brother role to Horne, a sophomore visually upset with unthinkable foul. It showed a lot of guts and spoke volumes on Budinger's unspoken leadership part, I wrote the next day. Just like that, he became the guy that glued together a wounded and abandoned 2008-09 team that was "rocked to the core” after Olson suddenly retired days before the season. Midway through the season, however, once Budinger suffered through his Second Annual "Where's Chase?” Midseason Shooting Slump when he averaged 10.5 points in a four-game span, fans couldn't help but wake up in a cold sweat, recalling recent Wildcats that derailed into the same trend. Those five-star high school recruits that never blossomed became weeds after four very, very dry years in the scorching desert. Can't say I've seen anybody on campus wearing a Shakur jersey, or be willing to spend $75 on one. Had the Budinger III failed, maybe you could give the kid a free pass from an obvious scapegoat: Arizona's brilliant back-to-back interim head coaches strategy. It's a sure-fire way to stun the growth and development of 18-year-old AAU phenoms that, in turn, develop everything but team leadership. Then, all those what-ifs evaporated when Aubrey Coleman came to town and earned himself a future Christmas Card from the Budinger family. The infamous Coleman Face Stomp 2009 broke Budinger out of his soft-spoken shell. After Houston's go-to guy slammed his foot into Budinger's courtside face after the whistle, Budinger sprung up with Mike Tyson-esque fury and fire. Later that game, with under one minute to play, Arizona overcame a 10-point deficit to win in overtime. The pivotal (literally, Coleman planted his pivot foot into Budinger's left temple) moment saved the Wildcats' season, started an seven-game winning streak and put Arizona on the national radar for good reasons. Budinger's decision to return for his junior season paid dividends. Sure we saw him put up lines like 20, 10, and five against teams like Oregon State, but it was his 20 points, eight rebounds and four steals against No. 5-seeded Utah in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament solidified his legacy at Arizona -- or at least, avoided a negative one. The Sweet 16 banner that gets raised into the McKale Center rafters will have Budinger's finger prints all over it. After an exhausting three-year span of Olson, Kevin O'Neill and Russ Pennell, Budinger enters his second go-around of the summer pre-Draft workouts with his trifecta: 1) Killing UCLA at home. (84-72 win) 2) Reaching the Sweet 16 after barely earning an at-large bid (No. 10 seed). 3) Developing the crucial mental game in pressure situations. Beyond his final junior year line -- 18.0 points, 6.2 rebounds in 37.6 minutes per game -- Budinger picked up a missing intangible that would've set his professional ceiling at "D-League All-Star” if he hadn't returned to Arizona and met those goals after his sophomore season. I'm no professional scout or basketball talent expert, but it's obvious that the mental part of Budinger's game was his missing component after watching two full seasons of his style. He needs confidence to knock down his jump shots. His ballhandling skills are much improved. Budinger can use his length and ups as an oversized 2 or 3 in the NBA. Most importantly, he can use Arizona's adversities when the don't-take-it-personal business deals go through at the professional level. It's been a crazy three years, symbolically parallel to a signature Arizona pool party, where students (yes of course, that includes athletes) have always showed off bronze bodies in the No. 34 jersey. Soon, a new Budinger jersey will once again be on "new items” rack. And that's something fans can be excited about. http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-41-145/What-Happened-to-Chase-Budinger-.html
Okay, no offense, I like you Old Man, but this statement is just plain ignorant. What you mean by a "winning" program? Because in the last two decades or so, Arizona has just been as successful as programs like Duke, especially when it comes to producing NBA talent (in fact, it can be argued that Arizona has produced the most quality NBA talent the last decade or so) -25 straight tourney appearances, 1 Nat'l Championship, multiple Final Fours, tons of Elite Eights/Sweet Sixteens -only one season out of top 25 -multiple consecutive top 5 recruiting classes -Richard Jefferson, Gilbert Arenas, Andre Iguodala, Jason Terry, etc How is does that not qualify as a "winning" program? Sorry for the probably fanboyism but Chase coming out of Arizona had nothing to do with his stock dropping. Yes we were never in the top 25 the last two seasons, but people forget that we swept through the first two rounds in the tourney as 16 seed, easily.
