The NBA season is coming to a close with game seven of the NBA Finals set to take place on Sunday, and while a champion will be crowned between the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder, seven former Buckeyes wrapped up their campaigns earlier in the year.
Mike Conley Jr. made it the furthest of the bunch, reaching the Western Conference Finals with his Minnesota Timberwolves before they lost in five games to the Thunder. Jae’Sean Tate’s Houston Rockets were bounced in a seven-game first-round series by Golden State, while E.J. Liddell’s Bulls lost in the NBA Play-In Tournament.
It was a mixed bag for the former Ohio Staters, some progressing in their careers and some taking a step back. Here’s a rundown of how all seven of their seasons went:
Mike Conley Jr., G, Minnesota
Conley remains one of the most accomplished former Buckeyes in the NBA since Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek assembled Hall of Fame careers in the 1960s and 70s. He won’t find his way into the ol’ Naismith like those two, but Conley is in his 18th year as a rock-steady point guard, with an All-Star appearance in 2020-21 and a second-team All-Defensive nod in 2012-13. He is now 27th all-time in the NBA for assists, and will likely climb those rankings a few more pegs next year.
The 2007 NCAA Tournament runner-up lost a step in 2024-25, playing career-low minutes (24.7 per game) and scoring the fewest points per game of his career with 8.2. His assists per game stayed solid, however, at 4.5.
For all Conley’s accomplishments, he’s never been to an NBA Finals, despite making it to the conference finals in back-to-back years the last two seasons with Minnesota and the second round of the playoffs six times across his career with the Timberwolves, Jazz and Grizzlies. He failed to score in Minnesota’s elimination game on May 28.
“When I was walking off the floor I was thinking, ‘Not again.’ It was a nightmare, man,” Conley said afterward. “Hearing the music and the fans, it was kind of a moment where you hope it ain’t your last chance. You look at every last detail of everything going through your mind. You don’t want to forget it. And you don’t want it to be your last memory of it.”
Regardless of how Conley’s twilight plays out, he’s had an incredible career, though sometimes overlooked for not being a flashy scorer but the consummate team player at point guard. Former Memphis teammate Tony Allen and Ohio State teammate Greg Oden summed it up best on Allen’s podcast, Out The Mud:
Brice Sensabaugh, SF, Utah
Sensabaugh’s second year brought a solid leap from his first, as the No. 28 overall pick in the 2023 NBA draft saw his role and production increase for the Jazz. In 71 games with 15 starts, he posted 10.9 points per game and went from 29.6% to 42.2% on 3-point attempts.
Highlights of Sensabaugh’s season included a career-high 34-point outing at Miami on Jan. 4 and a 27-point game the next day at Orlando, boosting Utah to a win in both games. He also closed the season with three consecutive games of 22 points or more.
After some healthy scratches and infrequent usage early in the season, Sensabaugh felt he evolved into a strong role player for the Jazz. He believes his newfound touch from outside will give him staying power in a league driven by the 3.
“I have a real niche in this league and that’s shooting the ball,” Sensabaugh said during his end of season press conference on April 14. “So, just making sure I’m in position, and making sure that’s going to be the constant for me throughout my career. It’s something that I’m confident in, and I feel like whether it’s – I don’t want to say, ‘Whether it’s this team or any team’ – but everybody needs shooting. So I just stay constant in that.”
D’Angelo Russell, G, Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn
D-Lo’s 10th season in the league saw him dealt from the Lakers to the Nets, where he previously spent two years from 2017-19, mid-year. In 29 games with Los Angeles and 29 games with Brooklyn, he averaged 12.6 points per game and shot 39% from the field, both career lows.
At 28 years old, Russell has the track record to show he’s capable of better, with a career average of 17.3 points and 5.7 assists per game. He was an All-Star in 2019 and has averaged as many as 23.1 points in a season.
Russell is a free agent this offseason and could land with his fifth different NBA team. There’s a chance the Nets resign him, but otherwise, he’ll test the open market and could take a pay cut for a team in need of a lead guard with shooting ability, as he’s 36.5% from beyond the arc for his career.
Jamison Battle, SF, Toronto
The rookie sharpshooter who played his final collegiate season at Ohio State had perhaps the best story of any Buckeye this year.
Battle went undrafted out of college but got his shot with the Raptors during the NBA Summer League. After scoring 23 points combined in his first two summer league games, Toronto signed him to a contract for the upcoming year.
Still not considered part of the Raptors’ long-term plans at the NBA level, Battle set about changing that. Like Sensabaugh, he carved out a niche as a shooter, knocking down 40.5% of his 3-point attempts. He had one of the best seasons of any undrafted player, scoring 7.1 points per game.
In February, Battle got the payoff for his efforts, a three-year contract with Toronto, securing a roster spot for the future. He closed his season with an excellent showing, too, a 25-point night against San Antonio with seven made 3s.
Malaki Branham, G, San Antonio
Next season is the last of Branham’s rookie deal with San Antonio, and unfortunately, the one-and-done Ohio State star and first-round NBA draft pick took a significant step back in 2024-25. Branham was a healthy scratch from plenty of games and only averaged nine minutes of playing time in the 47 he played.
That resulted in a career-low five points per game. Branham enters the fourth and final year of his rookie deal with the Spurs needing a bounce-back campaign.
Jae’Sean Tate, F, Houston
Tate shocked a lot of people by emerging mostly out of nowhere in 2020-21, three years after his college career ended, to score 11.3 points and pull in 5.3 rebounds per game for the Rockets as a 25-year-old rookie. He maintained similar levels of production for Houston the next two seasons, but his role has diminished in recent times.
After playing 15.9 minutes and scoring 4.1 points per game in 2023-24, Tate saw just 11.3 minutes of action and logged 3.6 points per game in 2024-25. His contract expired at the end of the campaign, and it remains to be seen whether the Rockets will re-sign him or if he tries to take his talents elsewhere.
E.J. Liddell, PF, Chicago
The early stages of Liddell’s career have been partially derailed by injury. A second-round NBA draft pick in 2022, he tore his ACL ahead of his rookie season with the Pelicans and missed all of that year. To date, he’s only played 20 career NBA games.
New Orleans dealt him to Chicago last offseason and Liddell continued trying to kickstart his professional career, appearing in 12 games and scoring 21 total points with nine rebounds. As of now, he’s set to continue his journey with the Bulls in 2025-26.
