Chaminade has seen many amazing basketball players play on the court at the Athletictron — David Lee (Class of 2001) and Bradley Beal (’11), just to name a few. But nothing will top the class of 2016 and its multitude of great basketball players. Jayson Tatum, Tyler Cook, Will Gladson, and Mike Lewis II entertained the Red Army and Chaminade fans for many years. After their Chaminade tenures, they’ve all had successful careers in basketball.
Mike Lewis, after his time at Chaminade, played college basketball at Duquesne University. He put up solid numbers at Duquesne, averaging fourteen points per game and a 36% three-point percentage. His great college career led to him moving to Europe to play for PVSK-Veolia, a team in Hungary. He then moved to Poland to play for Dabrowa Gornicza. He had his most successful season in Poland averaging 16.4 points per game. The next season he played in Italy for a season keeping his points per game at sixteen. Now, Lewis is playing in Lithuania for Jonavos CBet, and in October he led his team in points scored with 22.5 points per game.
After being the crucial big man on state championship teams, Will Gladson went on to play for Princeton University. Gladson started his tenure at Princeton leading all freshmen in minutes. He played in twenty-nine games and helped the team to an Ivy League title and a March Madness appearance. In his sophomore campaign, however, he played only fifteen games because of a knee injury that kept him out for most of the season. His junior season was more of the same, only playing seven games because of injury. Unfortunately, after his junior year he did not play another game his entire career because of injury. Although his career ended abruptly because of injuries, his time at Chaminade was special.
Tyler Cook continued his playing career at Iowa after his years at Chaminade. His freshman season started off well, starting in all but seven games due to injury. He averaged twelve points per game on a team that went to the NIT. Next season, he averaged fifteen points and seven rebounds per game. His junior year at Iowa saw the team go to the second round of the March Madness tournament losing to Tennessee. He declared for the NBA Draft and went undrafted but signed to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Cook’s career in the NBA saw him bounce around the league, playing for a total of five different teams, though most of his playing time came when he joined the Detroit Pistons. He then left America to pursue a career overseas, going on to play for Melbourne of the NBL and being named the MVP of the pre-season tournament. Currently, he is playing for Joventut Badalona in the Spanish Basketball League.
And now, for Jayson Tatum, arguably the best player that Chaminade has ever seen. Coming out of high school, Jayson was named the Gatorade National Player of the Year, a highly prestigious award. He was also selected to participate in the McDonald’s All-American game. He was graded as a five star recruit and committed to play at Duke University. He helped the team to an ACC tournament championship but fell short in the NCAA tournament in the second round. After his freshman season, he opted to go into the NBA draft and was selected by the Boston Celtics, third overall. His rookie season he was named to the All-Rookie First Team. In total, Jayson has been named an NBA All Star five times and was on the All-NBA First Team twice (2022-2023). He also helped Team USA to a gold medal in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. His career has continued to reach new highs and he is still going strong at age 25. This season Tatum is averaging 27 points and 8.5 rebounds a game as his Celtics hold the best record in the NBA.
