Syracuse’s Best NBA Players

Syracuse has a long and distinguished basketball history. We all know it was in the Big East, but before that the Orange was a powerful regional Independent. It shared upstate New York with schools like Niagara and St. Bonaventure for a time before emerging at the dominant power in that part of New York.

Syracuse has put out some great players but we’re just interested in five. And here they are:

• Dave Bing - Bing was Jim Boeheim’s back-court partner at Syracuse. He went on to a Hall of Fame career, to become a fine businessman and, later, the mayor of Detroit. He was a superb basketball player.
• Carmelo Anthony - Anthony was one of the best scorers in NBA history and he was also a major asset to Team USA in multiple games.
• Derrick Coleman - A brilliant talent, Coleman was consistently criticized for, more or less, a lack of desire to be great. He was very close anyway.
• Rony Seikaly - A very solid big man for the Miami Heat, he was their first ever draft pick. He was also, if we’re not mistaken, the first NBA player from the Middle East (he was originally from Lebanon).
• Dion Waiters - A 6-3 shooting guard, Waiters carved out a nice NBA career with a 13.1 ppg career average.