Pat Connaughton thanked the Milwaukee Bucks in his farewell message last month for keeping him in the game of basketball after Portland Trailblazers, detailing how he almost left the NBA to play baseball instead.
“7 years ago, the Bucks took a chance on me, a 2nd round draft pick who was recently waived and told to go back to baseball,” he wrote on Instagram.
Turned out, it was not just once that he thought about dropping the basketball and pick up a glove.
The 34-year-old shooting guard was traded by the Bucks to the Hornets, ending his seven-year tenure with the team.
He recently sat down with Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to break down his last year with the Bucks and his future with the Hornets, and there, he admitted that he thought of walking away from the sport again.
“Potentially on the way back to baseball,” Connaughton told journalist Jim Owczarski.
Pat Connaughton is thankful to Milwaukee Bucks community
Connaughton is a dual athlete in college as he played basketball and baseball (as a pitcher) for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
He had his professional baseball debut with the Aberdeen IronBirds of the Low-A New York–Penn League and was picked 121st overall by the Baltimore Orioles in the 2014 MLB draft.
He is still going to play basketball. Even believes that he can still be a high level player for the Hornets.
As for his baseball career, he has no regrets for choosing the Bucks as he will go down as one of its top players in their 2021 title run.
“Even as a guy who wasn’t necessarily expected to be anything for the team in his first year and then slowly grew into a huge part of the championship run and the organization, it’s really cool to see just because of the makeup of the people of Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin,” he said.
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