New Orleans Pelicans: Which Player Could Jump to Another Sport?

Past Examples of Two-Sport Athletes

The most successful examples of athletes playing two different sports professionally are football and baseball crossovers Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders; less while known is Brian Jordan, who was a member of the same defensive backfield as Sanders and played professional baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals.

My favorite example doesn’t come from the professional ranks. Jim Brown earned 13 varsity letters in high school by playing football, lacrosse, basketball, baseball and track; then he went to Syracuse University and earned 10 varsity letters in college (football, basketball, track and lacrosse), he’s also a member of three different Hall of Fames (pro and college football and lacrosse).

A two-sport athlete would be more likely to play in baseball and football because the seasons don’t overlap as much as football and basketball or baseball and basketball. You couldn’t have your starting small forward missing from Thursday to Saturday in the fall and winter or playing a three hour baseball game then 30 minutes in a basketball game.

The New Orleans Pelicans as Two-Sport Athletes

Looking at this roster, I was hoping to find more information about some players being All-State in other sports while in high school. Sadly that wasn’t the case; I think the height of this roster has something to do with that as well as the growing trend of specialization in one sport at a young age.

That just means I’ll have to translate their basketball skills into other sports and guess if they’d be good or not.

While it seems to me the most used example of a basketball player excelling in another sport is as a tight end in football, that option is off the table for this article. Yes, I think Zion would be an absolutely unstoppable tight end but it feels too easy to say if Zion was on the Saints he would be better than young Jimmy Graham.

I’m also taking being a fielder in baseball out, the skills required to hit a Clayton Kershaw curve ball take years of practice (major leaguers still flail at it helplessly) and few of the Pelicans had a baseball background.

With all that being said, let’s examine the New Orleans Pelicans.