So I went through the current rosters of every NBA team and I began to notice the large amount of players from particular schools.

I’m a diehard Duke fan, and I started to wonder what it would be like if all of my old favorite college players were together on one NBA roster, and how well they would do against the competition.

I then became curious what would happen if every NBA team was assigned a specific college (or in most cases, region of colleges/high schools) from which they could acquire their players.  What if the Knicks could only have players who were actually from New York?  What if Toronto could only sign international players to their squad?

So I set out to see if (1) this were even possible, using the current pool of NBA talent, and (2) there would be enough roster balance considering that some states have more NBA teams as well as more university representation than others.  Turns out, with a little math and little geographical organization, it is possible.  I was able to arrange it so every team had at least 12 players.  Some had way more, which you will see.

Below I’ll list all colleges included with each NBA team, but not high schools, even though many rosters will have 1 or 2 players who didnt attend college but played for a high school in that region/state.

I started with the big schools like UCLA, Duke, UNC, Kentucky, etc.  and since almost all of them had enough alumni to fill an NBA roster, I put them all on specific teams based on their region.  After sorting together all the colleges in each state, I then realized I had a ridiculous amount of foreign players to account for too.  In order to include the ever-growing number of international players, 4 NBA teams ended up being strictly for them, (somewhat) based on region.

After spending way too much time on this, here’s how it all played out:

 

LA Lakers became the UCLA alumni team, with 13 players and a possible starting 5 of Westbrook, Ball, Afflalo, Ariza, and Love.

 

LA Clippers then got the rest of the southern california schools which included 12 players from San Diego St, UC-Santa Barbara, USC, Cal Poly Pomona, and Long Beach St.  Notable players were Kawhi, Derozan, Nick Young, and Taj Gibson.

 

Golden State got all the northern California schools which included 17 players from Stanford, St Marys, Fresno St, Oakland, and UC-Berkeley.  Notable players were Paul George, Ryan Anderson, and the Lopez twins.

 

Sacramento was then forced to take on players from another state.  I ended up forming this team using all 12 players from Univ. of Washington, Washington St, and Eastern Washington.  Basically all Washington schools except Gonzaga.  Notable players: Fultz, Isaiah Thomas, Klay Thompson, and Terrence Ross.

 

Phoenix then of course became U. of Arizona alumni team, but since they didn’t quite have enough to fill the roster, I also added Arizona St. to give them a solid 14 players.  Notables include Harden, Iguodala, and Aaron Gordon.

 

Portland was naturally the grouping of Oregon and Oregon St.  Since they still came up short, I also added Gonzaga’s alumni to this roster, making a total of 12 players.  Notable players: Olynyk, Zach Collins, Dillon Brooks, and Sabonis.

 

Utah includes 16 alumni from the state of Utah and the state of Nevada, which were U. of Utah, Utah St, Weber St, UNLV, and Nevada.  Notable players: Lillard and Javale McGee.

 

Denver was formed by several schools with small amounts of alumni, which gave them a total of 20:  Colorado, Colorado St, Wyoming, Wichita St, Kansas St, Iowa St, Creighton, Missouri, and St Louis.  Notable players: Roberson, Korver, Clarkson, Nance Jr, and Demarre Carroll.

 

OKC included all Univ. of Kansas alumni as well as Oklahoma and Oklahoma St alumni, totalling 19.  Possible starting 5: Embiid, Griffin, Wiggins, Josh Jackson, and Marcus Smart.

 

Minnesota became my first team to only have international players from a certain region which covered Germany, France, and Switzerland and totalled 18 players.  Notable players: Dirk, Gobert, Batum, Schroder, and Fournier.

 

Dallas got all U. of Texas alumni, but since they didnt have quite enough, I added all Baylor players too, which gave them a total of 15.  Notable players: Durant, Aldridge, Avery Bradley, and Tristan Thompson.

 

Houston then got all other Texas schools (including HS) like Texas A&M, Univ. of Houston, Lamar, and SMU, as well as alumni from New Mexico and New Mexico St., which gave them 14 players in all.  Notable players: Deandre Jordan, Middleton, Snell, and Mudiay.

 

San Antonio then became our second all international team, which got all players from Argentina, Brazil, Australia, Turkey, Cyprus, as well as all African nations, making a current total of 18.  Notable players: Ibaka, Biyombo, Ginobili, Ingles, and Exum.

 

Memphis got 19 players from all Tennessee and Kentucky schools (excluding Univ. of Kentucky) which were Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Tennessee St, Murray St, Western Kentucky, U. of Memphis, Belmont, and Louisville.  Notable players: Rose, Marc Gasol, Tyreke Evans, Tobias Harris, and Courtney Lee.

 

New Orleans acquired all players from the states of Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi, which totals 15.  Notable players: Millsap, Al Jefferson, Ben Simmons, Joe Johnson, and Beverley.

 

Chicago got 18 players from all Wisconsin and Illinois schools, including Univ. of Wisconsin, Marquette, Green Bay, Univ. of Illinois, Depaul, and Loyola.  Notable players: Wade, Butler, Crowder, and Livingston.

 

Milwaukee is the third all international squad which got 20 players from Spain, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Bosnia/Herz., and Slovenia.  Notable players: Rubio, Dragic, Antetokounmpo, Gallinari, and Saric.

 

Indiana got all Indiana schools which included 19 players from Univ. of Indiana, Butler, Notre Dame, IUPUI, Purdue, and Valpo.  Notable players: Hayward, Oladipo, Cody Zeller, and Eric Gordon.

 

Detroit naturally got all 14 alumni from Michigan and Michigan St.  Notable players: Draymond, Zack Randolph, Gary Harris, and Tim Hardaway.

 

Cleveland got 17 players from several schools in that region which included: Cincy, Ohio St, Bowling Green, Xavier, Marshall, Pitt, Dayton, and Morehead St.  Notable players: LeBron, Whiteside, Conley Jr, David West, and Deangelo Russell.

 

Two states had so many players from specific schools that I was forced to branch out and relocate them.  The first was Brooklyn who gets all Univ. of Kentucky alumni.  Currently there are about 27 on NBA rosters, so this is a loaded team who wont even be able to keep all of their alums on the roster.  Notable players: Davis, Cousins, Towns, Wall, Booker,etc.

 

New York Knicks got 12 players from all the NY schools, which included Syracuse, St Johns, and St Bonaventure.  Notable players: Carmelo, Waiters, Carter-Williams, and Mo Harkless.

 

Toronto got the last international region of players, 18 in all, from the countries of Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia, Poland, Serbia, Czech Republic, Sweden, China, and Israel.  Notable players: Porzingis, Jokic, and Bogdanovic.

 

Boston is made up of 13 alumni from all schools in Massachusetts (Harvard, Holy Cross, Boston College, Northeastern), and also UConn.  Notable players: Rudy Gay, Kemba Walker, Drummond, and Reggie Jackson.

 

Philadelphia got 12 players from the schools in that region, which includes Villanova, St Joes, Penn St, Lehigh, Bucknell, and Seton Hall.  Notable players: Lowry, JR Smith, and CJ McCollum.

 

Washington gets 14 players from DC, Virginia, and Maryland schools which includes UVA, Virginia Tech, Univ. of Maryland, VCU, Old Dominion, Georgetown, and Norfolk St.  One notable player on this squad is Thon Maker who qualified for many different spots, being that he was born/grew up in Sudan and Australia, went to HS in Virginia, and college in Ontario.  For roster balance, I chose his HS location and put him on this squad.  Other notable players: Porter, Bazemore, Monroe, and Malcolm Brogdon.

 

Charlotte was between either all Duke alumni or all UNC alumni, since both schools had enough to fill an entire roster.  The tiebreaker was the color scheme so I chose to go with UNC here, which had 16 players.  Notable players: Barnes, Marvin Williams, Vince Carter, Ed Davis, etc.

 

Orlando then became the relocation spot of the all-Duke squad of 20 players.  Notable players: Kyrie, Redick, Jabari, Ingram, Okafor, etc.

 

Atlanta then got the rest of the North Carolina schools, along with the states of South Carolina and Georgia.  With 24 players in all, this is the 2nd largest roster in the league.  These included alumni from Wake Forest, NC State, Davidson, Campbell, Clemson, South Carolina, USC Upstate, Georgia, and Georgia Tech.  Notable players: Chris Paul, Steph Curry, Favors, Howard, and TJ Warren.

 

Miami is made up of 17 players from all the Florida schools, including Univ. of Florida, FSU, Univ. of Miami, and UCF.  Notable players: Horford, Noah, Beal, and Parsons.

 

I honestly can’t believe this worked.