There haven’t been many players drafted from the University of Minnesota. And there are fewer that have remained in after making it in. This season has, however, seen some promising basketball talent from Minnesota enter the league. These rookies aren’t just fun to watch but are also likely to make good bets.
Cam Christie – LA Clippers
Christie was drafted as the 46th overall pick in 2024 and plays guard for the Los Angeles Clippers. The 19-year-old is also one of the youngest draft picks ever, making the selection just after his freshman year in college. As a rookie, Christie has had limited play time in the major league as he’s often assigned to the G League San Diego Clippers.
Nonetheless, he is averaging 1.8 ppg, 1.0 rpg, and 0.3 apg. He most notably scored five points over three minutes in the Clippers’ 128-114 win against the Grizzlies earlier this month. He’s got the quality to deliver memorable plays the more time he gets on the court.
Jamison Battle – Toronto Raptors
Battle is a rookie NBA player who’s had an illustrious collegiate run playing for the George Washington Colonials as well as two Big Ten Conference squads – Minnesota Golden Gophers and Ohio State Buckeyes. Battle went undrafted in 2024 but signed with the Toronto Raptors later that year.
The forward boasts pretty good stats for a rookie – 5.5 ppg, 1.8 rpg, 0.8 apg. In a 119-93 road win against the New Orleans Pelicans back in November, he converted a career-high 24 points. Battle has been a regular for the Raptors off the bench, so there should be more opportunities to follow and bet on this 23-year-old from Robbinsdale, Minnesota.
Amir Coffey – LA Clippers
Coffey is the biggest ex-Gophers star on our list. The 27-year-old has been playing for the LA Clippers for five years as a versatile shooting guard/forward. He was a Gopher from 2016 to 2019 and joined the Clippers as a free agent after going undrafted. Coffey’s career high of 35 points in a single game shows that he’s got the caliber of a great player.
He often comes in off the bench and can make good plays on the offense as well as the defense, recording consistent steals in his most recent games. This shows he’s a good bet across multiple stat lines. You can check wincomparator.com for the best betting sites where to place your bets. He’s currently averaging 10.4 ppg, 2.4 rpg, and 1.1 apg, which are some of his best numbers.
Liam Robbins – Milwaukee Bucks
Robbins played for three NCAA teams during his college run, including Minnesota, where he spent the 2020 to 2021 season. He went undrafted in 2023 following his senior year at Vanderbilt, and after a series of setbacks, eventually signed with the Milwaukee Bucks in 2024.
His two-way contract sees him playing both in the major league with the Bucks and the Wisconsin Herd of the G League. He’s credited as part of the team that won the 2024 NBA Cup game, earning his first silverware just a few months into the start of his professional career.
Before 2024, Coffey was the lone former Gopher in the NBA, but this season has seen three fresh new entries. Out of these, Cam Christie was the only player selected during the NBA draft and the first since Daniel Oturu in 2020. Other notable Gophers to have played in the NBA in history include the likes of Kris Humphries and Joel Pryzbilla.