If you’re an NBA fan who spends some time watching men’s beach volleyball during the Paris Olympics, you may notice a familiar face wearing the red, white, and blue. The United States, which has not won a medal in men’s beach volleyball since 2008, is going into battle this year with 36-year-old Chase Budinger on one of the two teams that qualified for the competition.
Basketball fans will remember Budinger as a hyper-athletic wing who went in the second round of the 2009 NBA Draft after a productive career at Arizona. He suited up for four teams in his NBA career — Houston, Minnesota, Indiana, and Phoenix — before spending a season with Spanish side Baskonia. And one of the high points of his basketball playing career highlighted his remarkable athleticism, as he nearly won the 2012 Slam Dunk Contest.
Budinger retired in 2017, but instead of ending his athletic career altogether, he decided to become a professional volleyball player. A California native and the national player of the year as a senior at La Costa Canyon High School, Budinger had the pedigree to return to the sport, but it’s still not something you see every day.
“I kind of wanted to enjoy being home and enjoy not traveling as much. And there was just a lot of little aspects of my life during that time where I wanted to mostly just stay,” Budinger told Anthony Gharib of ESPN. “That’s ultimately why I switched sports. … I kind of just wanted a different lifestyle change.”
After making his debut on the AVP tour in 2018, Budinger has managed to establish himself as one of the best beach volleyball players in the United States — FIVB has the team of Budinger and Miles Evans ranked as the 13th-best men’s beach volleyball tandem in the world. And back in June, it was announced that Budinger and Evans were one of the two teams that the U.S. would send to Paris as part of its men’s volleyball contingent.
Budinger and Evans have three games in group play on July 29, July 30, and August 2. For information on how to watch, click here.