“I didn’t want to sit around waiting” he said.

Budinger is not the first N.B.A. player to transition to beach volleyball. Most notably Wilt Chamberlain and Keith Erickson are both enshrined in the California Beach Volleyball Association Hall of Fame. Beach volleyball is also popular among retired N.B.A. stars such as Luke Walton, Richard Jefferson and Steve Nash, as well as the current Pistons star Blake Griffin, who are all avid four-man players.

Budinger, though, is the first N.B.A. player to pursue pro beach volleyball full-time on two established tours. And here’s the thing about Budinger: he is really good, maybe good enough to star for the United States at the Olympics in two-man beach volleyball, an especially brutal form of the game.

“You can bring out the best athletes in the world and we will absolutely destroy them because the skill base is so important,” said Casey Patterson, a 2016 Olympian and Budinger’s current teammate. “Chase has that history of indoor, and he played a position where those skills were necessary to be an influential player.”

Budinger, who was an outside hitter in indoor, has become part of an age-old trend among elite athletes, who occasionally try to transfer their skills from one sport to another. Bob Hayes won two gold medals in track and then went on to win a Super Bowl ring. Eric Heiden won five gold medals in speedskating then competed in the Tour de France.

Despite his status as an indoor volleyball phenom growing up in Encinitas, Calif., with an older brother and sister who also played basketball and volleyball, there was never anything about volleyball on Budinger’s “dream board .” (Instead, it featured Michael Jordan quotes, the N.B.A. logo, and a silver Ferrari.)