With the NFL Draft fast approaching, much of the national sports focus has shifted from basketball players in meaningful games to football players in tee shirts and shorts. While basketball players admittedly have a similar uniform to off-season football players, there is only one football-related event that throws a wrench in the jostling for NBA Playoff position: the NFL Draft.
The NFL Draft is annually held during what is normally the first round of the NBA Playoffs. Draft workouts and combine coverage grow as the regular season in the NBA winds down and hits the crescendo for a three-day period as top seeds are sweeping bottom seeds in the NBA’s first round. This year, with a shifted and accelerated basketball schedule, the NBA’s regular-season jostling is bumped back and into the NFL Draft’s window.
What’s resulted is more national coverage on the NFL Draft than the shaky NBA standings. For the moment, the former amateurs in tank tops and shorts playing with an egg-shaped ball are more important than the pros in tank tops and shorts playing with a round one.
But what about the athletes that have done both? What about the NBA and NBA bound players that have experience on the gridiron? Here’s how some of hoopers faired on the football field-
Jalen Suggs
Jalen Suggs is the newcomer to the crew, as he just declared for the NBA Draft last week. Suggs was an All-State Quarterback that was also named Mr. Football for Minnesota. Suggs was the first person in the history of Minnesota to win both the Mr. Football and Mr. Basketball awards. ESPN ranked Suggs as a Four-Star recruit as a dual-threat quarterback. While he is going pro in basketball much sooner, there’s a not-so-crazy alternate timeline where we’re debating if Suggs is a top-tier draft pick (who then gets inexplicably bumped for some Alabama quarterback because… Alabama).
Pat Riley
Riley’s college career is famous for being on the Wildcat side of the famous championship game between Kentucky and Texas Western. TWU, now UT-El Paso, was the first university to start five Black players and beat Riley’s talented Kentucky team. Riley went on to play for the San Diego Rockets and Los Angeles Lakers before eventually coaching the Lakers, Knicks, and Heat. Riley currently serves as the President of the Miami Heat.
Before all of that? Pat Riley was also a wide receiver on the Kentucky football team. Riley was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys before choosing football. Riley was an 11th round draft pick in 1967. Safe to say he chose the right game in the long run… but makes us wonder what could have been?
Charlie Ward
Charlie Ward may be the most successful football-basketball combination athlete. Ward was both a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback in football and a career record holder in basketball for the Florida State Seminoles. Ward would later become the only Heisman Trophy winner to play in the National Basketball Association. His football commitments led to playing shortened basketball seasons, which make his career numbers for the Seminole basketball program even more impressive.
Ward was drafted in 1993 and 1994 professional baseball drafts (even though he hadn’t played baseball since high school). Ward had been adamant that if he weren’t a First-Round pick in the NFL, he was going to choose basketball. That likely hurt his chances, as once he fell out of the NFL Draft’s First-Round teams stopped considering him. He was a First-Round pick in the NBA Draft in 1994, and was asked about being a back-up quarterback for Joe Montana in Kansas City.
For good measure, Ward also won the Arthur Ashe Amateur Tennis Tournament in 1994. Ward played 12 seasons in the NBA.
Allen Iverson
Allen Iverson’s football legacy is well known. Iverson was a high school quarterback and safety in Hampton, Virginia. In his junior year, he led Bethel High School to a state championship, and to this day Iverson claims in his teens he was a better football player than a basketball player. Considering Iverson was inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame in 2016, the claim is fairly bold.
But his play on the gridiron may back it up.
His calling card on the hardwood was his toughness. As an undersized basketball player, Iverson relentlessly threw his body into every aspect of basketball. That in itself translates well into football. The handful of folklore tales feel fictional, but the stadium sell outs for his JV games -as an 8th grader- were real. The state record for five interceptions in a single game is real. Iverson as a tremendous football player… and the alternate reality that has him in the NFL is not very far out there.
Glen Davis
Glen Davis drew a lot of hate for being built like an NFL lineman, but Big Baby really did have an early football career. For ten years, Davis held the single-game rushing-touchdown record in the state of Lousiana. Davis was a six-foot-six 345 lbs fullback and defensive lineman… who danced his way to 215 yards and five scores in a single game in 2002. While the game was filmed on early 2000’s cellphone footage, he clearly didn’t just run through people. He caught passes, made spin moves, and even hurdled defenders trying to take him out by the ankles. Davis played eight years in the NBA, but who knows what could have been in the NFL.
Nate Robinson
Yes, kryptonite green Knicks jersey Nate Robinson from the dunk contest was probably a better football player than a basketball player. Robinson enrolled at the University of Washington on a football scholarship. Nate Robinson had two picks and six starts in 13 games for UW as a true freshman, and he joined the basketball team after the Huskies’ football season was over. . Robinson conversely ended up on the All-Pac-10 Freshman Team, and stuck with basketball from thereon. He played 11 years in the NBA, but he didn’t close the door on football. Robinson tried out for the Legion of Boom secondary in Seattle in 2016. While he wasn’t picked to join a historic Seattle secondary, it stands to reason that the NFL was not out of reach for a younger Robinson. Who knows what he would have been capable of had he spent his college years focused on football?
Draymond Green
Draymond Green’s football career was short-lived but bears mentioning. Green has made a career as an undersized Center, Point Forward, and trash talker for the Golden State Warrior Dynasty. At six-foot-seven, 230 pounds, Green projected as a giant Tight End and, back in 2011, wanted to see if he had what it takes.
In short, he definitely needed more than one Spring season of practice. Green famously told the reporters after the game “I like my future in basketball a little better,” than football. To be fair, Green had clearly played a lot more basketball. Who knows if he would have had a future with the pigskin?
LeBron James
One of the most famous footballing hoopers is the King himself, LeBron James. In high school, LeBron James had 27 touchdowns in just two full seasons of varsity football. That still ranks seventh all-time at St. Vincent-St. Mary’s, and was good enough for him to earn All-State honors both seasons. In looking at his physical maturity, James likely would have become some combination of Rob Gronkowski, Calvin Johnson, and Julio Jones. Yes, that’s three future Hall-of-Famers… but NFL GMs who saw the tape agree that James was a future Hall-of-Fame football player. Mark Murphy, a high school coach in Akron, OH, and former Green Bay Packer, claimed James was good enough and athletic enough to go pro out of high school -the route he took in basketball- in football.
James was recruited to Michigan, USC, Miami, and Ohio State to play football and basketball. Urban Meyer, then an assistant coach at Notre Dame, claims James and his high school coach had a good chuckle about playing college football… But there is little doubt that, had he chosen it, James could have been as impactful a pass-catcher as he is a basketball player.
