10 best Tennessee basketball NBA careers ever

While college basketball commands the sporting world in March, the NBA is truly the moneymaker. Youngsters shooting hoops in the driveways and parking lots dream of lacing up and playing on basketball’s biggest stage, but clearly only a few NBA dreams come true.

Even some of the brightest stars in college basketball barely get a cup of coffee in the league, if they even get a chance at all. There are just so many basketball players in the world all vying for that chance in the NBA, few realistically will get their moment.

At Tennessee, basketball may not always be the sport of focus, but it’s one with some recent success. The Volunteers have played in more than two down NCAA Tournaments, with more than half of those appearances coming since the turn of the century, including a lone Elite Eight trip as recently as 2010. Tennessee basketball hasn’t had that breakthrough, but they’ve had some breakthrough players.

Over the course of its history, Tennessee has had 45 different players continue their careers in the NBA, though the courses of those careers are quite varied. A few players have barely seen any time while others really made their names known on basketball’s biggest stage.

Today, we’ll be looking at the best NBA players among former Volunteers, narrowing down that list of 45 to the ten best of all time. Frankly, Tennessee is not an elite program and these are not all elite NBA players, but you’re mistaken if you don’t think that each of these former Volunteers was an incredibly gifted basketball player. Let’s start running through their names and their stories.