My bad. I misread concerned’s post to be about the players who played at the University of Utah, not simply those who were from Utah.
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Also, who is the USU player who played in the NBA the past couple of years or so? He played hs ball in Utah. There must be a couple more.
Tom Chambers for sure! He is the first NBA player that comes to mind as a Utahn and a former Ute. He had a 16 year career, was a first round draft pick, a six? time all-star and was a lot of fun to watch.
Minor quibble. He played high school basketball in Colorado.
You’re missing Jeff Judkins, Fred Roberts, Sean Bradley and Devin Durrant, who all played at least a couple of years in the NBA. Judkins was the eighth player picked in the second round.
Those players would be terrific now in college. Imagine Judkins with the three-point shot.
But more to the point, the state no longer produces as many great collegiate players of even the Alex Jensen caliber as it used to. And the state’s population has grown substantially.
I agree it’s somewhat of a mystery. But football’s dominance is the best explanation I can come up with.
P.S. throw in players from Utahesque culture though out of state, like Greg Kite, Danny Ainge, and Pace Mannion, and the drop off really appears stark.
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He wasn’t wholly Utahn though. He spent time in Ogden, but IIRC he was recruited from Colorado. I think he had been all over the place growing up.
you are very right about the additional players, but the drop off is statisticallly meaningless. It is like going from 0.01% to 0.0001%.
I also wonder if part of the reason is that the pro game has changed so much. With the floor spread as much as it is, and the league valuing players with ‘twitch," Utahhs kids dont have the attributes valued. Judkins might have been an exception, but he would have been slow and defended by a lot of 6’7’ guys much quicker (the 3 point shot existed during his career). Chambers OTOH, would have a field day now, sort of playing the role Lauri M. plays for the Jazz.
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There is also an entire generation of kids out there that also played soccer while growing up. and for many good athletes, by the time they’re are in Junior High, they have to choose between soccer and basketball. Both soccer and basketball now. start to be more or less fulltime endeavors when you reach the age of 12 or 13. For basketball, there are super leagues, and then AAU, and for soccer there are comp leagues and even indoor soccer and futsal for the winter.
And yes, both become expensive, with lots of travel and costly leagues and coaching.
My son was a spectacular basketball and soccer player as a young person but eventually had to choose one, and chose soccer. As a result, he was still good enough to play high school basketball, but not good enough to start.
Gone are the days that good athletic kids would have the benefit of the breadth of experience and training you received in the old three sport era.
I coached soccer, and worked with a friend (who played collegiately at Weber State) assisting in coaching basketball from the time my son was about 4 until about the age of 13. We always tired to keep all the kids play several sports and having fun as long as we could, but inevitably, they begin to realize that if they don’t specialize, they will fall behind. We completely lost a couple of good basketball players to football by the time they were about 12.
I coached three kids that would easily have played high school basketball, who opted for soccer and played high school and collegiate soccer instead.
I also watched a few gifted kids completely burn out by the time they got to high school and end up playing no sport.
I’m not LDS, but I grew up in Utah, and so I know that decades ago, all of the LDS kids played Ward Ball much of the winter. My son grew up playing in Catholica leagues, so I have no idea, but does Ward Ball even exist any more?
There are lot’s of reasons there are not as many good native Utah basketball players. And the same reasons partially explain the fact that there are not so many butts in seats at Utah basketball games.
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No. The 3 did not exist during Judkins’ career. 1986, well after he left in 1978. https://www.si.com/college/2020/04/02/ncaa-introduces-three-point-line-this-day-history
Seems to me the 3 would help players with Utah attributes. Steve Kerr would have never smelled the NBA without the 3 shot.
Britton Johnsen played in the NBA a couple of years.
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I thought the 3 point line was adopted in 1979, but that was only on a one year trial basis. Would Kerr survive in today’s NBA? Maybe, maybe not, but he didn’t play Judkin’s position. Kerr also had the great fortune to play on the championship bulls and Spurs. JJ Reddick had a great career. Who is Judkin’s comp today? He would have to defend the 3 as well as shoot it.
It was in the NBA, but not in college.
Yeah i looked it up again, it was adopted in 1979 on a trial basis, then made permanent going forward. So it didnt prolong Judkin’s career if he was out of the league by 1978.
It was adopted by the NCAA in 1986.
Not really. Growing up, that’s all the older boys did (and a few older girls) - play bball. Now a congregation has a hard time finding 5 youth out of 20 that are interested in playing at all. And gyms in general are more closed - fewer keys to the building and harassment if you are there without an adult (but needed because there have been issues). Even adult ball is aging (with people dropping out once they tear an acl). Just not really part of the fabric anymore.
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Byron Scott was born in Ogden Utah, but played high school ball in Inglewood.
And is the son of Allen Holmes, who played with McGill.
Also Josh Grant.
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My point is he would be a great college player today.
You can’t have it both ways. You’ve also argued that since then the college game has been degraded by early exits for the NBA. (I don’t agree, however.)
Bad faith on your part. The entire conversation had been why have so few Utah high school players become NBA players. My point was that the NBA game has changed so much that even those local players who played for a year or two twenty years ago might not be suited to the NBA today, like Judkins. The conversation had nothing to do with whether they would be good college players today. Any of them would improve Utah’s current roster.
College basketball is much worse than it was a generation ago, and longer. You can tell that just by noting that college players for more than a year barely get drafted. You think any college team of the last 10 years could have beaten the UNLV, Duke, or Kentucky teams from the early to mid-90’s?
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I agree with Concerned that the NBA game has changed a lot, too. The sheer amount of talent on NBA rosters is breathtaking. It’s a completely different game.
Remember when it was a big deal to have “twin towers” / two 7-footers?
Being a 7 footer doesn’t mean much in today’s NBA, though most teams have multiples. The Jazz have Markkenan and Kessler, with Kessler being probably 5" “taller” on reach, similar to Gobert, Markkenan is really a stretch 4 with terrific shooting.
The athleticism is crazy, too. Every guard can throw it down any way you want it. Frank Jackson at 6-3 was an athletic freak in the State of Utah at the HS level and went to Duke, but really struggles in the league.
(Also agree about distractions & other challenges with producing HS players inside the State of Utah. Just saying the NBA is a lot higher level than it used to be.)