Top 3 NBA Players from Alaska
Typically, when you see a "Top ___" article, they usually list five or ten different players. Even in our other articles, most of our "Top ___" articles include either five or ten different NBA teams/players.
However, it's hard to make a Top 5 article when the state has only had THREE NBA Players throughout NBA history... The three NBA players from Alaska are:
Carlos Boozer
Mario Chalmers
Trajan Langdon
Also, to be honest, out of the three, only ONE player was born IN Alaska, Mario Chalmers. The other two, Carlos Boozer and Trajan Langdon, were born in different states/countries. Boozer and Langdon would move to Alaska shortly after being born.
Fun Fact: In 2019, the population of Alaska was 731,545. That means, only 0.0000041% of the Alaskan population has been in the NBA. That's lower, MUCH lower than the odds of being a millionaire (3%). Even the odds of being struck by lightning (0.000007%) are higher than being an NBA Player from Alaska.
Table of Contents:
Carlos Boozer (Juneau, Alaska)
The best NBA player from Alaska is Carlos Boozer, and it's by a long shot. While researching this article, I wasn't expecting to know a single NBA player from Alaska, but I surprisingly know 2/3rds of the NBA players from Alaska; Carlos Boozer and Mario Chalmers.
I also wasn't expecting the NBA players from Alaska to be good. How do you train in a state where the average temperature during the Summer is only 40-60 Fahrenheit. Also, this might be cheating, but Boozer wasn't born in Alaska. He was born in a military base in Germany but grew up in Juneau, Alaska.
Cleveland Cavaliers
Carlos Boozer was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2002 NBA Draft in the Second Round as the 35th pick. Boozer was, without a doubt, the steal of the draft. In defense of every other team that didn't draft Boozer, this draft class was pretty bad. The only other All-Stars (besides Boozer) were:
Yao Ming (1st Pick)
Amar'e Stoudemire (9th Pick)
Caron Butler (10th Pick)
In his rookie season with the Cavaliers, Boozer and the Cavs went 17-65. They were tied with the Denver Nuggets for the worst team in the NBA. Not a good start to Boozer's career! I don't blame him, though. The only good player on this team was Zydrunas Ilgauskas.
The only other decent players were Dajuan Wagner, the 6th pick in the 2002 NBA Draft, and Ricky Davis. Wagner played pretty well in his rookie season. He averaged 13/2/3 in 47 games. Unfortunately, due to injuries, we never got to see Wagner's peak.