John Poulakidas shared what it's like to be an Ivy League alum playing in the NBA.
There are only three active NBA players who hail from Ivy League colleges and universities, and two more have previously spent time at Ivys.
One of them is Dallas Mavericks rookie John Poulakidas, the Yale grad who was acquired midseason after a solid G-League rookie season as a 3-point specialist.
Other Ivy products include Tosan Evbuomwan (Princeton) and Bez Mbench (Yale). Chris Manon spent three seasons at Cornell before ending his college career at Vanderbilt, and Danny Wolf was at Yale for two years before Michigan.
Poulakidas shared his experience of being one of the few representations of the illustrious fraternity of alums playing at the highest heights of professional basketball.
"I carry that with a lot of honor – representing the university," Poulakidas said to Mavs.com. "At the same time, I just take a lot of pride in the work that I put in to get here, because obviously there’s stigma around players in the Ivy League and I wanted to prove that incorrect."
Poulakidas spent four seasons at Yale and led the Ivy League in scoring last season with 19.4 points per game. He finished his career with a 40.2 3-point percentage on over five attempts a game.
He went undrafted this past summer and joined the Los Angeles Clippers' G-League affiliate before signing a two-way deal with the Mavs.
Poulakidas explained that the intricacies of day-to-day life in the NBA is a reality that surprised him since he's made the jump.
“When you’re a young kid you just see the bright lights and the Friday night and Saturday night games. You don’t see the late travel dates and the back-to-backs, and the beat up bodies," he said. "So, I feel like that part of it has been great for me to see and just understand and learn as much as I can from the vets as far as to make sure my mental is just as strong as my physical."
One person who's helped Poulakidas in this transition has been Mavericks guard Max Christie, who grew up near the same area as Poulakidas did in Illinois. Christie is a native of Arlington Heights, which is a half-hour drive from Poulakidas' hometown of Naperville in the Chicago suburbs.
"It wasn’t really until I got to Yale that we actually had the same trainer back home," Poulakidas said. "So, when I would go home in the summers, I was in the gym with him and his younger brother every now and then. So, we kind of got to know each other through that over the last few years. But honestly it really kind of just transcended through me getting here."
"We grew up pretty close to each other and it’s always cool to see someone like that succeed," Christie said. "It’s just a testament to his hard work and a testament to his determination and his drive to continue to be great.
"He’s off to a great start and I’m going to continue to support him, continue to help him out on his journey and it’s just fun to watch."
Poulakidas is averaging 5.0 points and 2.0 rebounds per game in his five NBA appearances with the Mavs.
