Top 10 Best Educated NBA Players of All-Time

By Edcel Panganiban March 01, 2024 08:38 GMT+4 min read

The NBA generally has athletes coming from great sports backgrounds and excelling at academics. However, there are quite a few player whose careers on this court have been accompanied with success in the classroom.

Mason Plumlee

Mason Plumlee of the Denver Nuggets, a typical example that hardwork can combine with top success in school. He plays in NCAA at power forward and center position, and went on to get his degree at Duke University.

Jaylen Brown

Another highly educated NBA star is Boston Celtics forward Jaylen Brown. Critics labeled him "too smart for professional sports" as Brown took up the study of magnet chemistry as well as Spanish fluency at California-Berkeley while also majoring in history.

Kelly Olynyk

It is therefore clear that selective breeding bears fruit in Toronto ONT, the city in which the Miami Heat's Kelly Olynyk grew up and still calls home. Olynyk went to Gonzaga University, where he worked hard in the classroom. He was named an Academic All-American for his efforts.

Russell Westbrook

Russell Westbrook is one big guy - not just physically but mentally too. High school saw him graduate with a 3.9 GPA making it abundantly obvious to all and sundry his academic proficiency. Although he left college two years ahead of schedule to join the NBA, Westbrook's resume remains intact.

Rajon Rondo

A phase-II high school student before his senior year, Rondo, however, is nonethless equally adept at being a ballplayer. Both on and off the court, he also has many materials describing his learning experience His math is as good as it gets, and has devoted away from school to teach kids this excellent knowledge.

Even after spending just one year there at the University of Kentucky before beginning his NBA career Rondo is much more than just a basketball player.

Chris Dudley

Beside his successful basketball career, Chris Dudley also has the distinction of being a diabetic NBA player and one rather full of education. He graduated from Yale university, in political science and economics, was one of the first graduates ever to go directly into finance.

Dikembe Mutombo

If you call someone who speaks nine languages a true polyglot then Dikembe Mutombo is definitely one of them. At Georgetown University he got a bachelor's degree first and after that a Ph.D. in linguistics.

Chris Bosh

Academic performance was not at all a problem for Chris Bosh. Even before he got to basketball, he was in the graphics club at school.

Pau Gasol

Pau Gasol: native son of the Basque Country, Spain. His medical studies ended ultimately at the London School for Hygiene and Tropical Medicine after a twist of fate led him there. Gasol's track record in the worlds of both health and education can be seen this past year when he worked as a doctor in hospitals caring for children.

Jeremy Lin

Jeremy Lin, a Harvard economics graduate, became the first basketball player in history from Harvard's team to score 1500 points and did it with over 45% field goal accuracy while also contributing a myriad of rebounds, assists and steals for which he is known.