Pat Dooley’s Book of Lists – Volume 20: The 10 greatest Gator NBA players
Former longtime Gainesville Sun sportswriter Pat Dooley contributes on a weekly basis to Gators Wire with “Pat Dooley’s Book of Lists,” chronicling his thoughts on the past, present and future of Gators sports. Look for more frequent contributions during football season.
The NBA draft is coming up Thursday and it has been very, very good to the Gators over the last two decades. Not Kentucky good, but when you consider that 21 players were drafted before Billy Donovan walked through that door and 19 players recruited by Donovan (that includes transfers) were drafted, well, you see why a massive picture of Billy D still towers over the lobby of the practice facility.
Unfortunately for Mike White, Florida is now on a seven-year run of getting shut out in the draft. That will almost certainly end this year with Tre Mann being touted as a high first-round pick (probably late in the first) and Scottie Lewis with an outside shot at being a second-round pick.
The draft is a lot more fickle than it was BB (Before Billy) with only two rounds and so many more foreign players in the mix. Back in 1968, David Miller was selected in the 12th round.
That sounds like a long day of drafting practice players.
Certainly, there have been plenty of Gator players who went on to have excellent careers (not to mention lucrative careers overseas).
Here are the 10 best Gator NBA players:
Matt Bonner
Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports
Although he was drafted by Toronto and played there for two years, he made his mark in San Antonio where he acquired the nickname “Red Mamba.”
Matt Bonner never averaged in double figures and finished his 12-year NBA career at 5.8 points per game. But he did all the things necessary as the Spurs were always in the playoffs and won a pair of NBA titles.
Corey Brewer
Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports
Corey Brewer got the most out of his career by playing for 18 seasons and eight different teams.
The former Most Outstanding Player of Florida’s second march to a national championship, Brewer ended up starting 310 games in his NBA career and averaged in double figures in six seasons.
He was also a part of the Dallas NBA title team in 2011 despite missing most of the season with an injury and twice played in all 82 games. He also played in 17 playoff games for Houston in 2015 and averaged 11.2 points a game in the playoffs.
Jason Williams
Doug Pensinger /Allsport
OK, so he only played in 20 games for the Gators. But he was something even in his brief stint at UF.
At the next level, well, just go Google “Jason Williams highlights” and you will see what I mean. We all became Sacramento Kings fans for a while.
The man they called “White Chocolate” was one point shy of 1,00 points in his second year in the league.
He played for Memphis for five years, and also had stints at Orlando and Miami, and was a frequent visitor to Gator basketball games.
For his career, J-Dub averaged 10.5 points and 5.9 assists per game. There were a lot of “10s” among his 4,611 assists.
Joakim Noah
Caylor Arnold-USA TODAY Sports
Joakim Noah was a fan favorite of the Rowdy Reptiles and would have likely been the first pick in the draft had he turned pro after the Gators won the NCAA title and he was the MOP. But, like the other Oh-Fours, he came back to win another one.
When he was picked in the first round by Chicago, a columnist there named Rick Morrissey said he would eat his words if Noah became a productive NBA player under the headline “You Must Be Joakim.”
Well, he ate the column with a little hot sauce while Jo watched.
Noah had four seasons in which he averaged a triple-double and was a double-figures scorer in five straight seasons. His production fell off a bit and he spent his last seasons in New York (after signing a huge contract) and Memphis and then had five games with the Clippers before retiring.
His final numbers – 8.8 points and 9.0 rebounds per game.
David Lee
Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
Lee hit the jackpot in a sign-and-trade move that sent him from the Knicks to the Warriors and paid him $101.4 million over 10 years. Although his play began to decline late in his career before he retired in 2017, Lee put up some monster numbers including a pair of triple-doubles.
Twice in his career, Lee averaged more than 20 points a game including his final year with the Knicks when he averaged 20.2 points and 11.7 rebounds.
He was a part of one world championship team – the 2015 Warriors – and made two All-Star game appearances.
Vernon Maxwell
Tim DiFrisco/IMAGN
“Mad Max” certainly had his share of problems both on and off the court at Florida and in the NBA. But he is in the argument of best players ever at UF, even if the school has expunged some of his records.
To say he was erratic would be an understatement. But he helped two different teams the NBA titles and made tons of big shots during the Rockets’ first championship season.
He is also one of nine players to score 30 points in a quarter and was a tenacious defender with 82 blocked shots in his career even though he was a guard.
Bradley Beal
Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports
This is still an ongoing story and it would have been great to see more than just a year of Bradley Beal at Florida.
But he certainly has made his mark in the NBA in nine seasons with the Wizards.
Beal led the NBA in scoring last year, his second straight season averaging more than 30 points a game.
His career average is at 22.0 per game and he has also averaged 4.0 assists per game. It would have been fun to see him in the Olympics and he made the team only to get shot down by COVID.
Mike Miller
Justin Ford-USA TODAY Sports
Although his numbers dropped because he played for 17 years, Miller had an amazing career.
How many guys can say they were the Rookie of the Year and the Sixth Man of the Year for different teams? Or that they were the first NBA player ever to hit seven 3s in three consecutive games?
Or that they helped their team to an NBA title by becoming the first player to hit seven threes in an NBA Finals game?
Plus, he married his college sweetheart and hit the biggest shot in Florida basketball history.
It’s been a wonderful life, Michael.
Udonis Haslem
Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
There is something about Udonis Haslem. Wherever he goes, the team does really well.
And the funny thing is that nobody wanted him after four years at Florida.
Instead, he went overseas, lost a lot of weight because he didn’t like the food and became a special player.
His life has been something of a dream come true playing in his hometown and helping the Heat win three NBA Championships.
Al Horford
AP Photo/John Bazemore
Al Horford might be my favorite Gator basketball player ever and certainly was the muscle behind the two national titles. He stepped right into the NBA being the only unanimous choice on the All-Rookie team in his first season. Horford has been an All-Star five times and averaged in double figures every year during a career that has seen him start 122 playoff games. [listicle id=47108] [listicle id=46760] [listicle id=46301] [listicle id=45728] [listicle id=44527] [listicle id=44084] [listicle id=43481] [listicle id=43028] [listicle id=42417] [listicle id=42096] [listicle id=41436] [listicle id=40927] [listicle id=40265] [listicle id=39904] [listicle id=39122] [listicle id=38481] [listicle id=37635] [listicle id=37168] [listicle id=36455]
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