Syracuse Basketball: Top 50 Players in School History (40-36)

#40: Rakeem Christmas

Power Forward/Center: 2011-2015

Rakeem Christmas was a prime example of a senior who finally put it altogether. Leading up to his senior year, Christmas, a former McDonald’s All-American, seemed like a bust of sorts. He had the skill and potential to be great, but just couldn’t live up to it.

In his sophomore and junior year, he averaged about five points, five rebounds, and two blocks a game, according to Sports-Reference.com. Then, after an offseason training hard, he opened up his senior season strong, and never let up.

Christmas looked like a completely different player. He finally looked like a starter, and was a threat on both sides of the court for opposing teams. In that senior season, Rakeem Christmas finally proved he was worth an NBA Draft pick. He would score 18 points, grabs nine rebounds and block three shots a game.

Christmas wasn’t quite a double-double machine, but it looked like it on each games’s box score. He would have been higher in our rankings had he put it altogether sooner, but sometimes you need take baby steps before you walk. Such was the case with Rakeem Christmas.

His hard work in his senior season paid off as Christmas was selected 36th overall in the 2015 NBA Draft by the Minnesota Timberwolves, according to ESPN.com. He didn’t stay there long and soon drifted to the D-league for awhile, but lately he has been playing well for the Indiana Pacers.

Christmas wasn’t the best power forward or center Syracuse has ever had, but his senior season is evidence to the fact that hard work can pay off. We felt he belonged in these rankings because of how far he’s come to be where he is today. Christmas’s SU career is a strange tale, but one, that luckily for Syracuse, had a happy ending.