It’s not an unusual complaint that fashionable NBA basketball is reduced by constant player movement.
Critics come with a mix of the following: rivalries don’t form as easily, fan loyalty can’t succeed at deep levels, and players’ legacy is confusing because of the time they spend jumping between franchises.
This may be true in part, but whoever deplores the lack of stability also ignores a vital fact: eight players in NBA history have recorded careers of at least 16 seasons with an unmarried team, and seven of them played in the 2000s. Single team races came here from players who were still active for more than five years.
So while we’re seeing an increase in player movement in general, we haven’t lost the superstar to a team and a race. In any case, we’ve noticed it more than ever.
We will rank the most productive races into a single team based on criteria that come with team success, individual rewards, importance to city or sport, and statistical achievements. Volume is a key element. Those with less than a dozen years of gameplay for a franchise will not be among the five most sensible, and making an honorable mention without at least as much service time will be difficult. Possibly it would seem unfair, but the number of years has a lot to do with the legacy of a single team of a player.
Restricting a team removes a long list of miles from the biggest of all time in the game.
Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Shaquille O’Neal and Oscar Robertson are out; More stars like Kevin Garnett, LeBron James, Steve Nash, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, James Harden and Russell Westbrook are also disqualified.
We still have enough skill to get started.
The more time you spend since Bill Russell’s mythical career, the more complicated it becomes to kindly compare his accomplishments.
The league he ruled was smaller, consisted of only 8 groups in the first five years and never surpassed 14 in his career. The strategy and tone of the game were absolutely different. The files you have accumulated are almost highly unlikely to contextualize correctly. almost literally talking about another game, in the box and in its advertising operations.
The flexible agency, for example, would not resemble its form of supply until 1988, two decades after Russell’s retirement. , essentially there is no impediment to remaining a star player surrounded by others.
But then: 11 championships in thirteen seasons, all for the Boston Celtics, and all with Russell as the maximum force on the team.
How do you compare your unprecedented dominance to today’s players?
Well, at least we don’t. We’re in the land of apples and oranges.
If you think Russell is the greatest team player of all time, you have a lot of evidence to prove it. If you think the game in which it crashed for thirteen years is also different from the one we know today, it’s hard to contest that position.
Let’s accept that Russell is the most productive player on a team (and perhaps only one player, minus the qualifier) of his time. There’s no dispute.
John Havlicek, Boston Celtics
Frank Ramsey deserves to be identified for necessarily inventing the role of the sixth man, yet John Havlicek remains the opposite rule to which stocks of light candles are measured.
In 16 NBA seasons, all with the Boston Celtics, Havlicek averaged 20. 8 points, 6. 3 rebounds and 4. 8 assists, came out of the pine in each of his first seven seasons. He formed an All-NBA team in 1963-64 Array. . . as a reserve This had not happened before and has not happened since.
Havlicek called it a career in 1978 as 13 times All-Star, 11 times All-NBA Team, 8 times All-Defensive. He won an MVP award in the Finals in 1974 and a key contributor in 8 championship seasons with Boston.
He, like many others in this segment (and Russell before), is tied up to play in a bygone era that complicates fashion comparisons, but don’t worry, the Celtics will still be represented in the five most sensitive.
Isiah Thomas, Pistons de Detroit
Isiah Thomas was an All-Star when he was a 20-year-old rookie with the Detroit Pistons and won the same honor for the next 11 years. His final year in the league, 1993–94, the only one in which he did not do the NBA. mid-season show.
Consecutive champion (Finals MVP in 1990) and five times in the All-NBA, thomas’ legendary courage. That toughness helped profile the Bad Boys Pistons, who faced the Magic Johnson Lakers and hardened a young Michael Jordan.
Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors
There are only five single team players with titles and MVPs. Stephen Curry is far from over, but since he’s already in a club that only includes Russell, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Tim Duncan, he’s earned a spot here.
It seems only a matter of time before he moves someone out of the maximum of five sensitive, as he detonated the three-point revolution that adjusts the league, the ultimate productive player in some of the maximum productive groups of all time and presided over a sequence of success. History of the Golden State Warriors.
Reggie Miller, Indiana Pacers
Reggie Miller spent 18 years with the Indiana Pacers, forming five All-Star Games and 3 All-NBA teams. Added a bonus to be a harbinger of the triples revolution that would ravage the league nearly a decade after its retirement in 2005.
If his career had lined up so cleverly with Michael Jordan’s, Miller could also have a championship trophy in his name.
Jerry West, Lakers of Los Angeles
Jerry West, an All-Star in each of his 14 seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers, won a 1969–70 scoring title, which was also the first of four consecutive years in which he would be a member of the first All-Defensive team. Is this for two-way play?
West landed on a dozen All-NBA teams, peaked nine times (winner of the Finals in a team lost in 1969) and won a ring in 1971–72.
It’s an impregnable resume, because it covered much of the same era as Russell’s. For consistency, we also want to stay west out of the five most sensitive.
Elgin Baylor, Minneapolis / Los Angeles Lakers
Elgin Baylor’s career ended in 1971–72, however, he remains fourth on the Lakers’ all-time scoring list, ahead of Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The 6. 5″ ahead played his first two seasons in Minneapolis before the franchise. moved to Los Angeles in 1960-61, West’s rookie year.
The Baylor era is one of the inflated counting statistics; He achieved 40. 0 minutes consistent with his career’s game in a faster-paced league, but the 27. 4-number, 13. 5 rebound race averages are hard to forget under any circumstances. Rookie of the Year 1958-59 was All-Star 11 times and had 10 All-NBA honors on his résumé.
Even more impressive, Baylor in the six most sensible MVP voting 8 times, adding six in a row from 1958-59 to 1963-64.
Julius Erving, Philadelphia 76ers
Julius Erving’s top five production seasons (and 3 of his MVP awards) have increased, “Defense?We don’t defend “ABA. Fortunately, he was also smart enough in his 11 SEASONS in the NBA, all with the Philadelphia 76ers, to sneak in here.
Erving was the Most Valuable Player of 1980-81 and led Philadelphia to the 1982–83 title. He has been a member of the All-Star team every year of his career, redefined the game for a generation of enthusiasts with his age grace and still possesses one of the greatest iconic old-school strengths: a dive (Dr. J stung frequently) with the right backhand of the panel.
David Robinson, San Antonio Spurs
David Robinson’s legacy takes an unfair hit because the franchise he played for marked the beginning of an even more dominant wonderful guy as the admiral approached the door. But Robinson formidable in the 1990s in terms of awards and arrangement for my money, one of the five most sensitive. defensive players the league has ever seen.
Rookie of the Year in 1989-90, defensive player of the year in 1991-92, won the name scorer in 1993-94 and named MVP in 1994-95. It’s a total journey.
Robinson “only” has played 14 seasons with the San Antonio Spurs, a figure that is lower than that of almost all of them in the five most sensible, and has never been the player of a champion team. He’s the player from the moment he’s joined. Spurs, even if we eliminate a team’s requirement.
John Stockton’s 207. 7 winning shares are the maximum produced through a player that is only suitable for one team. The toughest workhorse in NBA history, Stockton played all 82 games in 16 of his 19 years with the Utah Jazz, a franchise record we have will never be overdue.
Stockton is also the league’s all-time leader in assists and thefts, and no existing active player has a realistic vision of catching him in those categories.
An effective scorer who shot 51. 5% of the area in his career, Stockton also taught 38. 4% of his three, led the league in game-consistent assists each year from 1987-88 to 1995-96 and, despite the formation of five All-Defensives teams, never deserved to be one of the hardest (and truly dirty) tops in the game.
From the endless reel of pick-and-roll setups to a bold momentum in the box in the final, from decisive serial shots to greetings, Stockton was there, at the center of his franchise’s highest and significant moments. The history e-book belongs to you.
Stockton has never won a name or an MVP, and it’s hard to argue that the star player 10 times has been the most productive player on a team that also had Karl Malone. Therefore, it is the best we can classify into intelligent consciousness.
Dirk Nowitzki did not have the most productive career on a single team in NBA history, but had the longest career.
For 21 seasons, the greatest shooter of all time has been for the Dallas Mavericks, winning an MVP award in 2007, achieving the final twice (2006 and 2011), winning a ring and accumulating 3 seasons with at least 60 wins. . . During Nowitzki’s highly decorated term from 1998-99 to 2018-19, Dallas had a 987-687 record, for an Array590 win percentage that stood at nba time.
With 14 All-Star games, 12 All-NBA nominations (four first teams) and nine top 10 in the MVP vote, Nowitzki’s presence has secured a highly competitive product on the field.
The lows were low: Steve Nash’s exit, the name that got away in 2006 against the Miami Heat, the first-round exit delivered through the We Believe Warriors that led to a clumsy MVP acceptance. But those heartbreakers just made the 2011 championship smoother. Nowitzki’s defeated retirement in the showers after Dallas reached the NBA’s wildest level demonstrated how desperately the Hall of Famer needed the redemption this championship offered.
We may read too much in things, but Nowitzki’s example of constant brilliance and loyalty can pay long-term dividends. Dallas’ first season without Dirk was also the first with Luka Doncic betting at MVP level. The franchise is fostered through their predecessor’s commitment to a single franchise, the Mavs will be in a position for another two-decade era of excellence.
Nowitzki is the ultimate iconic player in mavs history, and he’s not around.
This is how you get Governor Mark Cuban to drown your retirement rite, while promising you a lifetime assignment, a retirement T-shirt and the “biggest and meanest statue of all time. . . right in front of the stadium. “
These two characters who replaced the league have spent their entire career connected as competitors, and a long list of parallels makes them look good.
Let’s go with a tie.
Magic Johnson and Larry Bird played thirteen seasons, turning the All-Star Game into a game 12 times. His 10 All-NBA awards also line up, up to nine finalists in the first team. Each has won 3 MVP awards.
Johnson has five rings opposed to Bird’s 3 and has reached nine finals against Bird’s five, however, Bird has formed three All-Defensives teams, ending his career with primary rebounds (8974 to 6559) and blocks (755 to 374). He has never made an All-Defensive. Bird team, he is also the top scorer, scoring more than 4,000 more career problems than Johnson.
We are all comfortable calling this comparison a wash.
As you would expect for such an unwavering couple, the former prestige of both players suffers from a shared affliction. The lakers and Celtics’ past is so fraught with iconic abilities that, for many fans, neither Magic nor Bird has unanimous approval as the most important players in the history of their respective franchises.
Johnson preceded Jerry West, Elgin Baylor and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, then followed Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal. Bird’s predecessors were Bill Russell and John Havlicek. Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce brought the franchise back to fame in the 2000s, and now there’s an entirely new core in the race led by Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
Most of these players do not meet the preconditions of a single team to earn a position in those rankings. But if a component of the criteria of this training is to be a symbol for an entire franchise, Magic and Bird have more festival than anything else because of the good luck their groups have experienced before and after their careers.
Although they didn’t last as long with their groups as John Stockton or Dirk Nowitzki, Magic and Bird shone brighter than either of them in their bonuses. Add to that your most sensible championship and YOUR MVP weight, and there’s no way not to be in the most sensible. Three.
In a comparison that doesn’t contrast anything yet with the great ones of all time, you want to look for all the separators you can find. Kobe Bryant stands out for claiming the indispensable prestige of two absolutely other multitipal cores.
He and Shaquille O’Neal won three consecutive championships from 1999-00 to 2001-02, then Bryant teamed up with Pau Gasol (Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum also helped) assemble consecutive rings in 2009 and 2010 Derek Fisher with Kobe for each of those five rings, however, he is a low-level beginner role-playing player. Bryant the most consistent of two championship dynastes a decade apart.
Karl Malone outperforms Bryant in the overall issues scored for a franchise, his 36374 problems with the Utah Jazz surpassing Bryant’s 33643 with the Lakers, but Malone spent his final year with Bryant and that Frankenstein monster from a 2003–04 Lakers team. In search of the player who scored the most points for one franchise without even betting on another, Kobe is in the maximum sense of that stack.
Bryant has won two titles, one MVP and five championships, he has 18 All-Star seasons, two Finals MVPs and an All-NBA variety 15 times. despite having fewer career victories than either.
The Kobe-Shaq dispute will likely charge Los Angeles for another pair of rings, and Bryant’s farewell tour with the franchise would likely delay its reconstruction for several years. The Cleveland Cavaliers, he’s also almost become a member of the Detroit Pistons during the same off-season, and we can’t forget the two events when Kobe was about to sign up for the Chicago Bulls.
Although Kobe came dangerously close to leaving more than once, he never did, so he is widely regarded as the greatest player in franchise history, which is no small thing given the litany of icons in the Lakers tradition.
Whether it’s individual rewards, team success, complex stats or any other set of criteria, Tim Duncan has the first position locked.
In 19 seasons with the San Antonio Spurs, Duncan won rookie of the year, two MVPs, three Finals MVPs and went 15 times All-NBA, adding 10 first-team nominations. He holds the all-time record with 15 defensive All-Honours (but has never been an inexplicably DPOY), and his 206. 4 career victories join John Stockton among single-team players.
He is the only player in a team in league history to have achieved an express cycle of good fortune in his career: he was selected first overall, won rookie of the year, won an MVP and won a Finals MVP. It’s an excellence from fin. de the sensible thing to do at the lowest, no one else can match.
No one in the fashion age has produced more victories than Duncan, whose Spurs groups have amassed five titles and have reached the playoffs every year of their career. He and head coach Gregg Popovich were the only constants during this remarkable streak.
Timmy has one type or merit on everyone on the list: more rings and MVPs than Dirk Nowitzki and Stockton, more seasons than Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, more complex stats, more Finals MVPs, and a more consistent and hassle-free fortune than Kobe Bryant.
I’m sorry if this turns out to be a boring conclusion. But that’s how Duncan, the strongest and most modest superstar ever seen, loves him.
Statistics through NBA. com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass.