Without sounding like a broken record, there’s reason to the argument that the dissection of the original Pacific-12 Conference was downright ghoulish, in hindsight.
While we’ve addressed how the original Conference of Champions has deep ties with the Women’s National Basketball Association, today’s newsletter is going to take a swing at the other league that plays its games during the late spring months.
That’s right, folks, surprisingly enough I’ve gotten word that they have a Men’s National Basketball Association now (crazy, I know), though the league’s acronym doesn’t include the gender of players, for some reason.
Currently, the plucky upstart headquartered in New York City has two teams that have advanced to their respective conference’s final (the Oklahoma City Thunder in the West and the New York Knicks back East).
On top of that, four teams are still alive on the other side of the bracket in each conference, with the San Antonio Spurs and Cleveland Cavaliers holding 3-2 series leads right now.
With that in mind, I decided to take a similar look at how many players from the original Pac-12 are still playing basketball in the men’s league, while also spelunking Basketball-Reference.com to come up with a benchmark on which programs have produced the most successful players out of that group.
ASU’s Quality Over Quantity Advantage
The self-described “Worldwide Leader in Innovation” has found a new way to punch above its weight class, with the Arizona State Sun Devils having the most win shares (201) of any Pac-12 program with at least one player that’s still playing postseason basketball.
The Sun Devils did all this, despite ASU’s last NCAA Tournament win coming in James Harden’s second and final season in Tempe.
Speaking of Harden, the 17th-year guard is the reason why ASU’s win share total dwarves the rest of the Pac, with the 11-time All-Star producing 182.4 win shares by himself in 1,221 career games.
Harden and Oklahoma City Thunder veteran forward Lugentz Dort (who has 18.6 win shares in 432 games played) are the lone ASU players still standing in the NBA postseason, but produce enough by themselves to blow away the next closest Pac-12 program.
So, Who Else Is Pumping Out NBA Playoff-Caliber Players?
Good question. three other Pac-12 OG’s (USC, UCLA and Washington) have combined win share totals that range from 45 on the dot for the Trojans to 44.6 for their rivals from Westwood and 42.6 for the Huskies.
In USC’s case, having 2024-25 All-NBA forward Evan Mobley helps a whole lot, as the 24-year-old has the third-highest win share total among Pac-12 alums, at 34.8 (behind Kyle Anderson’s 41.3).
Throw in fellow veteran Jordan McLaughlin of the San Antonio Spurs, who has 10.2 win shares to his name across 332 games played, and you have the Trojans’ contribution to this year’s postseason field.
For UCLA, having Anderson suiting up each night for the Minnesota Timberwolves helps, as he’s racked up 41.3 win shares across 757 games with the club since getting picked 30th overall in the 2014 NBA Draft.
On top of that, the Bruins can also claim Anderson’s longtime teammate in Minnesota, Jaylen Clark, who has 3.3 win shares in his second NBA season after getting picked in the 2nd round of the 2023 NBA Draft, giving UCLA a second alum to claim this postseason.
Are There Any Other Pac-12 Programs That Are Sitting Pretty?
Yes, dear reader. The Washington Huskies, like ASU, have two players still competing in this year’s postseason, despite the fact that UW hasn’t reached the Big Dance since 2019.
Between Timberwolves’ forward Jaden McDaniels (who has 23.1 win shares in 439 games) and Detroit Pistons’ big-man Isaiah Stewart and his 19.5 career win shares (fifth-most among Pac-12 alums), the Huskies are well-represented in the NBA Playoffs this year, scoring the fourth-most win shares of any team that once called the Conference of Champions their home.
Three more now-former Pac-12 programs (Cal, Stanford and Utah) can claim at least one player that’s still in the field, while one of the ‘2-Pac’ schools (Washington State) has a player of their own (Isaac Jones) to lean on.
Interestingly, the program that won the final Pac-12 regular season title (Arizona) has zero alums left that suited up for the Wildcats during their run in the conference. The lone Wildcat still standing is Carter Bryant of the Spurs, who played one season in Tucson, in 2024-25, which was UA’s first as a member of the Big 12.
Aside from Bryant, there’s still plenty of Pac-12 love in this year’s MNBA postseason, though the Wildcats’ rivals from Tempe can claim the title of innovating their way to basketball relevance at the professional level, despite abdicating any pretense of caring about it on the collegiate tier for years.