Pelle Larsson became the 28th player in Arizona history to be selected in the second round of the NBA draft when the Miami Heat chose him as the 44th pick overall on Thursday.
The good news for Larsson as a second-round pick from Arizona — all but three of the previous 27 players went on to play a rookie a season in the NBA and five of them had at least a 10-year career in the NBA.
That includes Steve Kerr, who experienced the longest career of the second rounders playing 15 years from the 1988-89 to 2002-03 seasons despite being the lowest pick of the group at No. 59 by the Phoenix Suns in 1988.
.@PelleLarsson_ is heading to Miami! #NBADraft2024 pic.twitter.com/ydnoPDyBnu
— Arizona Basketball (@ArizonaMBB) June 27, 2024
The average career span of an Arizona player selected in the second round of the NBA draft is not entirely bad at 4.8 years.
Kerr’s 910 games in his NBA career is the most by the Wildcats selected in the second round.
It is Arizona’s fifth-most overall behind first-round picks Jason Terry (1,410 games from 1999-2000 to 2017-18), Andre Iguodala (1,231 from 2005-06 to 2022-23), Richard Jeffferson (1,181 from 2001-02 to 2017-18) and Mike Bibby (1,001 from 1988-89 to 2011-12).
Pelle got a special call yesterday from someone specialpic.twitter.com/qL6ZvYX9SD
— Pelle Larsson Muse (@pelle_muse) June 28, 2024
The bad news for Larsson when factoring Arizona’s players who were selected in the second round is that a majority of them — 14 — did not play more than three years in the NBA.
Eight of them (almost 30 percent) played only one season, including most recently Larsson’s former Wildcat teammate Christian Koloko with the Toronto Raptors in 2022-23. That was mostly because of a health reason, however.
In January, Koloko was waived by the Raptors, and a day later, he was put into NBA’s Fitness-to-Play panel due to discovering career-threatening blood clot issues. No teams can claim him off waivers to sign him until he is medically cleared to play.
An interesting fact about Arizona’s second-rounders is four of the five longest-tenured players in the NBA from that group were not highly recruited when they joined the Wildcat program with Lute Olson as coach. Kerr, Sean Rooks, Jud Buechler and Gilbert Arenas were diamond-in-the-rough gems who developed under Olson and his staff.
If Arizona’s second-rounders were matched against the first-rounders the teams would look something like this (based on their NBA careers):
| First-Rounders | Second-Rounders |
| G Mike Bibby | G Steve Kerr |
| G Jason Terry | G Gilbert Arenas |
| F Andre Iguodala | F Luke Walton |
| F Sean Elliott | F Jud Buechler |
| F Channing Frye | C Sean Rooks |
Out of that starting lineup, who would win? Tough call.
A look at the potential top reserves:
| First-rounders | Second-rounders |
| G Damon Stoudamire | G Eric Money |
| G Michael Dickerson | G Salim Stoudamire |
| F Lauri Markkanen | F Chase Budinger |
| F Aaron Gordon | F Derrick Williams |
| C Deandre Ayton | C Bob Elliott |
If combined at the prime of their careers, Money, Salim Stoudamire, Budinger, Williams and Bob Elliott would be formidable but their NBA careers did not develop like Damon Stoudamire, Dickerson, Markkanen, Gordon and Ayton (criticize him for his team play but he is averaging 16.7 points and 10.5 rebounds in his NBA career). Although Dickerson played only five years in the NBA, he averaged 15.4 points and shot 43.2 percent from the field, 40.2 percent from 3-point range. He retired premature due to severe hamstring and groin injuries from which he was unable to fully recover. Bennedict Mathurin certainly has the potential to crack the rotation of the first-rounders with a sustained career.
How Larsson will factor into the top second-round picks from Arizona is if he can surpass the 4.8-year average range and be a factor where he plays much like how Kerr, Arenas, Walton, Buechler and Rooks made their mark as second rounders.
ARIZONA PLAYERS SELECTED IN SECOND ROUND OF NBA DRAFT
| Name | Year | Pk | Start | End | G | FG% | 3P% | FT% | MP | PTS | REB | AST |
| Steve Kerr | 1988 | 59 | 1989 | 2003 | 910 | .479 | .454 | .864 | 17.8 | 6.0 | 1.2 | 1.8 |
| Sean Rooks | 1992 | 30 | 1993 | 2004 | 749 | .459 | .091 | .699 | 18.1 | 6.2 | 3.8 | 0.8 |
| Jud Buechler | 1990 | 38 | 1991 | 2002 | 720 | .433 | .366 | .633 | 11.7 | 3.3 | 1.8 | 0.8 |
| Luke Walton | 2003 | 32 | 2004 | 2013 | 564 | .429 | .326 | .715 | 17.2 | 4.7 | 2.8 | 2.3 |
| Gilbert Arenas | 2001 | 31 | 2002 | 2012 | 552 | .421 | .351 | .803 | 35.1 | 20.7 | 3.9 | 5.3 |
| Eric Money | 1974 | 33 | 1975 | 1980 | 426 | .494 | — | .748 | 25.4 | 12.2 | 2.1 | 3.8 |
| Chase Budinger | 2009 | 44 | 2010 | 2016 | 407 | .430 | .352 | .797 | 19.7 | 7.9 | 3.0 | 1.2 |
| Tom Tolbert | 1988 | 34 | 1989 | 1995 | 312 | .460 | .296 | .716 | 18.2 | 6.5 | 4.0 | 0.9 |
| Loren Woods | 2001 | 46 | 2002 | 2008 | 215 | .419 | .143 | .642 | 11.3 | 2.5 | 3.2 | 0.3 |
| Salim Stoudamire | 2005 | 31 | 2006 | 2008 | 157 | .407 | .366 | .882 | 17.0 | 8.0 | 1.4 | 1.0 |
| Bob Elliott | 1977 | 42 | 1979 | 1981 | 141 | .494 | — | .649 | 16.5 | 7.0 | 3.6 | 1.4 |
| Reggie Geary | 1996 | 56 | 1997 | 1998 | 101 | .344 | .328 | .493 | 9.2 | 2.1 | 0.8 | 1.1 |
| Hassan Adams | 2006 | 54 | 2007 | 2009 | 73 | .534 | .000 | .643 | 7.5 | 2.5 | 1.2 | 0.2 |
| Christian Koloko | 2022 | 33 | 2023 | 2023 | 58 | .480 | .083 | .627 | 13.8 | 3.1 | 2.9 | 0.5 |
| Kadeem Allen | 2017 | 53 | 2018 | 2020 | 47 | .435 | .349 | .757 | 13.6 | 5.5 | 1.5 | 2.3 |
| Ben Davis | 1996 | 43 | 1997 | 2000 | 40 | .356 | — | .462 | 3.9 | 1.4 | 1.3 | 0.1 |
| Nico Mannion | 2020 | 48 | 2021 | 2021 | 30 | .342 | .367 | .821 | 12.1 | 4.1 | 1.5 | 2.3 |
| Nick Johnson | 2014 | 42 | 2015 | 2015 | 28 | .347 | .238 | .680 | 9.4 | 2.6 | 1.4 | 0.4 |
| Al Fleming | 1976 | 30 | 1978 | 1978 | 20 | .484 | — | .588 | 4.9 | 2.0 | 1.5 | 0.4 |
| Marcus Williams | 2007 | 33 | 2008 | 2009 | 13 | .318 | — | — | 3.0 | 1.1 | 0.9 | 0.2 |
| Grant Jerrett | 2013 | 40 | 2015 | 2015 | 8 | .269 | .067 | 1.000 | 6.4 | 2.0 | 1.1 | 1.4 |
| A.J. Bramlett | 1999 | 39 | 2000 | 2000 | 8 | .190 | — | — | 7.6 | 1.0 | 2.8 | 0.0 |
| Miles Simon | 1998 | 42 | 1999 | 1999 | 5 | .200 | .000 | — | 3.8 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.0 |
| Ed Stokes | 1993 | 35 | 1998 | 1998 | 4 | .333 | — | .500 | 4.3 | 0.8 | 1.0 | 0.3 |
| Joseph Blair | 1996 | 35 | — | — | 0 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Michael Wright | 2001 | 39 | — | — | 0 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Herm Harris | 1977 | 43 | — | — | 0 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Pelle Larsson | 2024 | 44 | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.
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