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At a time when NBA is increasingly becoming a business with players being treated more like commodities, to look at players who have served with one team for the entire duration of their careers makes for an eye-opening experience. LeBron James, widely regarded as the best contemporary NBA player, moved from Cleveland Cavaliers to Miami Heat, which offered him a far more lucrative deal. But, he returned to the Cavaliers following a four-year stint with Heat. Let us now take a look at ten NBA players, who have resisted more promising offers from other teams and have spent their entire careers with one franchise. Note: * indicates that the player mentioned is currently playing.
#1 Kobe Bryant Los Angeles Lakers (19*)
In 2012, Kobe Bryant, aged 34 years and 104 days, became the youngest player in NBA history to reach 30,000 points. Bryant has been the bedrock of the Los Angeles Lakers team for over a decade.
Following Shaquille ONeals exit from the team, following a dispute between him and Bryant in 2004, the latter has been the guiding force of the Lakers. Following the loss in the 2008 NBA finals to the Boston Celtics, Bryant inspired the Lakers to two successive NBA finals win in 2009 and 10.
Bryant has won the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award twice and was also awarded the NBA Finals MVP award in both 09 and 10, for his exemplary performances in the two games.
Before ONeals departure from Los Angeles Lakers, the Bryant-ONeal duo had played a vital role in taking the Lakers to two NBA Championships in 2001 and 02.
Bryant, who is the son of former NBA player Joe, was earmarked for great feats at the Lower Merion High School in Pennsylvania, where he garnered the recognition as the best High School player in the country.
Having joined the Los Angeles Lakers at the age of 18 in 1996, Bryant has spent his entire NBA career with the franchise.
#2 Tim Duncan San Antonio Spurs (18* years)
A basketball legend in his own right, the game was never Tim Duncan’s first love. As a kid, Duncan had aspired to be a swimmer and but for nature’s cruelty, he would have all but succeeded in engraving his name in the history of that sport.
Hurricane Hugo, a natural disaster that left the Southeastern part of the USA devastated, also destroyed the solitary Olympic-sized swimming pool in Duncan’s neighbourhood of St.Croix in US Virgin Islands. Nature having deprived him of glory in swimming, Duncan turned towards basketball, a game to which he seemed to take only too naturally. Following illustrious careers at his High School and with the Demon Deacons at the Wake Forest University, he entered the NBA Draft in 1997.
Following a highly rewarding maiden season with the San Antonio Spurs, he was honoured with the NBA Rookie of the Year Award. He has been a dominant presence with the Spurs for the last eighteen years.
His skills as a Power Forward/ Center have been at the forefront of Spurs’ five NBA Championship wins, the last of which came in 2014. Duncan’s accomplishments have been identified with two Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards. He has also been awarded the NBA Finals MVP honour.
For eighteen years now, Duncan has been with the San Antonio Spurs and while rumours of his retirement have been doing the rounds, the Spurs have dismissed them.
#3 Dirk Nowitzki Dallas Mavericks (17* years)
The seven-foot tall Dirk Nowitzki is the highest scoring foreign-born player in the history of the NBA. The German, who was chosen by the Milwaukee Bucks at ninth in the NBA Draft in 1998, was immediately traded to the Dallas Mavericks, where he has stayed ever since.
Counted amongst the greatest Power Forwards in NBA History, Nowitzki was the first member of the Dallas Mavericks to be voted onto the All-Star NBA team. With over 28,000 regular-scoring points, the German is seventh on the all-time scoring list.
In 2011, Nowitzki turned up a stellar performance in the NBA finals against Miami Heat to guide the Mavericks to a historic maiden NBA Championship title. In recognition of his superlative performance, Nowitzki was honoured with the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) award.
Nowitzki is a 13-time All-Star NBA team member and won the MVP award for the year 2007. He also guided the German Basketball team to a Bronze Medal in the 2002 FIBA World Championships.
#4 Tony Parker Jr. San Antonio Spurs (14* years)
San Antonio Spurs’ leading Point Guard, Tony Parker Jr. is an invaluable player to his team. His performances are central to the team’s and he has been at the vanguard of Spurs’ four Championship titles in the last 12 years.
Parker Jr. played with the French Basketball League for two years before foraying into NBA in 2001, when he was the 28th overall pick for the Spurs. His brilliant performance in his first year saw him being named into the All-Rookie team in 2002.
Parker Jr. has since been named into the NBA All-Star team on six occasions. However, his most glittering achievement till date arrived in the 2007 NBA finals, when he won the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) award.
The 2007 NBA finals was a one-sided affair with the Spurs beating the Cleveland Cavaliers 4-0. Parker Jr. was at the forefront of Spurs’ dominant display, scoring 98 points. Parker has been a member of all four Championship wins (2003, ’05, ’07, and ’14).
#5 Jerry West Los Angeles Lakers (14 years)
Counted amongst the legends of American Basketball, Jerry West, following highly fruitful stints at the East Bank High School and West Virginia University, joined the Los Angeles Lakers in 1960, where he spent his entire professional career, which ended in 1974.
Among the many glorious accomplishments of West’s, his inclusion in the NBA All-Star team for all fourteen years that he played is one which stands out.
In the 1969 NBA Championship finals against the Boston Celtics, West turned in an incredible performance, scoring 265 points as Los Angeles Lakers lost to Celtics 3-4. However, in acknowledgement of his mind-boggling feat, he was honoured with the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) award.
Three years later, West finally realised his dream of becoming an NBA Champion, when Lakers beat New York Knicks 4-1. Although the MVP award in this final went to teammate Whit Chamberlain, West played a pivotal role in Lakers’ win.
In 2010, Jerry Smith was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
#6 David Robinson San Antonio Spurs (14 years)
Even as Tim Duncan emerged as the new star on the horizon for the San Antonio Spurs, another legend of the same team was in the twilight of his career and was looking to end his career with a befitting swansong.
David Robinson, who had been with the Spurs for 14 years, was looking forward to bringing down the curtains on his career with an NBA Championship and the team did not disappoint him. In the 2003 NBA Championship final, the Spurs beat New Jersey Nets 4-2 to give Robinson the farewell he deserved. Incidentally, it was Tim Duncan who took home the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) award in that memorable match.
In a glittering career as a ‘Center’, Robinson won the MVP award once, in 1995 and was an NBA All-Star 10 times.
Robinson is a two-time Naismith Basketball Hall of fame inductee, for his achievement with the US Basketball team that won the Gold medal in Olympics in 1992 and ’96 and for his individual accomplishments.
#7 Larry Bird Boston Celtics (13 years)
Among the most significant reasons for Boston Celtics’ domination in the 1980s, a decade when they won three NBA Championship titles was their near perfect frontcourt combination. Robert Parish, Kevin McHale and Larry Bird formed a potent combination that was largely responsible for Celtics’ three Championship wins.
While Parish left the Boston Celtics in 1994 to join the Charlotte Hornets, Bird was with the Celtics for his entire thirteen year period as a player in professional basketball. In his 13-year career, Bird was an NBA All-Star for 12 and was voted the Most Valuable Player (MVP) for three years in succession (1984-86).
Of course, such individual feats pale into insignificance when compared to the role that he essayed in guiding the Celtics to three Championship victories. In two of these wins (1984 and ’86), Bird was the NBA Finals MVP. In the ’84 finals against the Los Angeles Lakers, Bird scored 95 points and in ’86, against Houston Rockets, he scored 144 points.
Since his retirement, Bird has been coach of the Indiana Pacers and took over as the team’s President of Basketball Operations in 2003, before he relinquished it in 2012.
In 1996, Bird was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
#8 Magic Johnson Los Angeles Lakers (13 years)
Magic Johnson is likely to go down as one of the greatest Point Guards in the history of basketball. Johnson was quite clearly born to play basketball. In his first season with the Los Angeles Lakers, 1979-80, not only did he win the Rookie of the Year Award, he was also voted the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP), after his feats helped Lakers win the NBA Championships in 1980.
Johnson was a key component of the Los Angeles Lakers side of the 1980s, which won three more Championship crowns in addition to the one they had earned in ’80.
An All-Star for 12 years, he appeared in as many as 12 All-Star games, winning the MVP award in two of them. Johnson was also awarded the MVP award for three NBA seasons (1987, ’89, ’90).
In 1991, Johnson unexpectedly hung up his boots after announcing that he had contracted HIV. He returned, much to the disgruntlement of his fellow players, to play the All-Star Game in ’92, for which he won the MVP award.
In 1996, he returned to the Lakers for the third and final time, playing 32 games for the team, but his return proved insufficient to take the Lakers to the playoffs.
#9 Dwayne Wade Miami Heat (12* years)
LeBron James may have departed Miami Heat, but the franchise can still call upon the services of one of the most exciting players in the NBA, one who has been with the team ever since he joined it as a rookie in 2003: Dwayne Wade.
Wade made his entry into the NBA as the fifth pick in 2003. His remarkable performance in his maiden season saw him being named in the NBA All-Rookie team. This was subsequently followed by Wade being named in the All-Star team in the following eleven seasons.
In the 2006 NBA Finals against the Dallas Mavericks, Wade scored a jaw-dropping 208 points across the six games to be named the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP). Much like Nowitzki, Wade too essayed a vital role in helping Miami Heat script its first ever Championship win.
#10 Kevin Durant Oklahoma City Thunder/ Seattle SuperSonics (8* years)
Kevin Durant was among the most coveted High School basketball players in the country. At the University of Texas, which he attended for one year, he won many an award and was voted the Naismith College Player of the Year, the highest honour for a college player.
Following his remarkable feats at high-school and college levels, Durant was selected by Seattle SuperSonics (which is now Oklahoma City Thunder), as the second overall pick in the NBA draft in 2007. Durant has been with the SuperSonics (which became Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008) ever since. He was named the Rookie of the Year in 2008, following a highly successful 2007-08 season with the SuperSonics.
Durant, who is just 26 years old, has made it to the NBA All-Star team five years on a trot from 2010-15. In 2014, he was named the Most Valuable Player (MVP).
Durant, who plays at Small Forward and Power Forward position for Oklahoma City Thunder, is arguably his franchise’s best player.
Guess the Lakers players!
