Back in 2014, I was chatting with Malcolm Brogdon about a UVA Basketball win over Harvard, and he mentioned how his final two college choices had been UVA and Harvard, and how his grandmother was upset with him that he chose UVA over Harvard.
She seemed to think he had more to do with his life than just play basketball.
Turns out, she knew his destiny better than he did.
His UVA teammates took to calling him “The President” – at least in part because Brogdon looks and sounds an awful lot like a certain former First Baller.
Brogdon got a medical redshirt after suffering a foot injury at the end of his freshman season, and he decided to use it, staying on for a redshirt senior season, in the 2015-2016 academic sports year, despite being viewed as a borderline NBA prospect.
All he did with the extra year was win the ACC Player of the Year award and see himself named a first-team All-American, while leading the ‘Hoos to the Elite Eight, and working putting the finishing touches on a master’s degree in public policy into the equation as he was doing what he was doing on the court.
When UVA had Brogdon back on Grounds during the All-Star break of his rookie season in the NBA, the basketball program honored him by both retiring his number 15, and presenting him with a framed copy of the master’s.
That doesn’t happen every day, to say the least, right?
At the end of that rookie season, Brogdon, a second-round pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, would be named Rookie of the Year – he would be the first player taken outside of the first round of the draft to win the Rookie of the Year award since way back in 1965.
Later also named a Sixth Man of the Year, Brogdon averaged 15.3 points per game over his nine-year NBA career, which he announced this week was coming to an end.
“Today, I officially begin my transition out of my basketball career,” Brogdon, 32, told ESPN in a statement on Wednesday. “I have proudly given my mind, body and spirit to the game over the last few decades. With the many sacrifices it took to get here, I have received many rewards.
“I am deeply grateful to have arrived to this point on my own terms and now to be able to reap the benefits of my career with my family and friends. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to all who have had a place in my journey.”
The end was inevitable, given how Brogdon had been forced to deal with so many injuries in his years in the NBA – he never did play an entire 82-game regular season, only got into more than 60 games in a season three times, and he missed a total of 99 games over the past two seasons.
Brogdon had signed on with the New York Knicks, a top NBA Finals contender, ahead of the 2025-2026 season, and figured to be on his way to earning a role backing up Knicks star point guard Jalen Brunson, while making one final run at winning a ring.
Instead, he’s transitioning into retirement, after a career that saw him earn a cool $132.5 million – not bad for a guy who had been seen as too slow, not athletic enough, some even suggested almost too smart to be expected to succeed in the NBA.
Off the court, Brogdon partnered with fellow UVA alum Chris Long on a project to bring clean water to East Africa, then started an offshoot of Long’s Waterboys called Hoops4Humanity, which partners with communities to create access to clean water and then support additional initiatives to optimize and equip schools.
One Hoops4Humanity project, involving the Patanumbe Primary School in Arusha, Tanzania, was built around a solar-powered water well that now serves a community of 7,000, including 500 children attending the school.
I wouldn’t dare tell grandma that she was wrong about her Malcolm, that basketball was a distraction from what he needed to be doing with his time on earth – but basketball may have provided Malcolm Brogdon with a bigger platform that will allow him to maximize his impact when it’s all said and done.
In addition to Hoops4Humanity, his JHA Education Project – named for his grandfather, John Hurst Adams, a former civil rights leader, former president of Paul Quinn College and bishop in the AME Church – provides literacy, STEM and college preparatory programming for students in underserved communities.
His retirement from the NBA isn’t the end for Malcolm Brogdon; it’s the beginning, of what’s next.
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Chris Graham
