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The NBA features some of the greatest athletes to have walked the planet. It's the toughest basketball league in the world, and only a handful of players get to lace up on the NBA hardwood.
Luka Doncic, an up-and-coming star in Dallas, reckons it's tougher to score in the European leagues but would still choose the NBA every time because of its unrivaled competition.
It's a league that has seen the greatness of Michael Jordan, passing wizardry of Magic Johnson, marksmanship of Steph Curry, unguardable shots of Kevin Durant, dominance of Shaquille O'Neal, and much more. Only demigods play in the league. It's no secret that even the worst NBA player is arguably leaps and bounds better than the average player in another league.
Which NBA player has collected the most individual awards?
Naturally, winning any award in the toughest basketball league in the world is not easy. Out of the 4500+ players who have played in the NBA, only a handful have walked away with any hardware. In this article, we will take a look at players who have won the most individual awards in the league.
Superstar players haven't won the Sixth Man of the Year award and Conference Finals MVP award, which was introduced last year. Moreover, only one league MVP has won the Most Improved Player - Giannis Antetokounmpo - and he's a few individual awards short of entering this list.
Additionally, players like Magic Johnson, Tim Duncan, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and Allen Iverson have fallen short by a few awards.
So without further ado, let's have a look at the five players with the most NBA awards:
Note 1: Any individual honor with hardware is considered for this list, including Regular-season MVP, All-Star Game MVP, Finals MVP, Western Conference Finals MVP, Eastern Conference Finals MVP, Scoring title, Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, 3-Point contest champion, Slam Dunk contest champion, Skills Challenge contest champion, Sixth Man of the Year, Most Improved Player, Teammate of the Year, Sportsmanship Award and Lifetime Achievement Award.
Note 2: Some awards obviously hold more value than others, but we aren't considering the worth of each honor. We are simply counting the total individual awards a player has taken home.
#5 Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant - 10
Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal have all won ten individual awards in the NBA. The late great Bryant played from 1996 to 2016, whereas O'Neal laced up between 1992 and 2011. Durant's career is still ongoing, and he could add to his list of hardware.
Bryant holds the record for most All-Star Game MVPs with four, and the awards has now been named after him to honor his legacy. He has one league MVP, two Finals MVPs, two scoring titles and one Slam Dunk contest trophy.
O'Neal has one league MVP, three All-Star Game MVPs, three (consecutive) Finals MVPs, two scoring titles, and one Rookie of the Year trophy. He shares one of the All-Star Game MVP honors with Bryant, as they were named co-MVP in 2009.
Meanwhile, Durant also boasts ten awards. He has four scoring titles, two Finals MVPs, two All-Star Game MVPs, one league MVP and a Rookie of the Year trophy. He's the youngest scoring champion in league history and won the award in three consecutive seasons.
#4 Stephen Curry, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Bird - 11
Three all-time greats Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Stephen Curry, have 11 individual awards to their name. Bird and Jabbar played together in the league in the 1980s, whereas Curry's career is ongoing, so he's expected to pick up more awards in the coming years.
Abdul-Jabbar has a record six regular-season MVP awards, two Finals MVP awards (won record 14 years apart), two scoring titles and one Rookie of the Year trophy. Astonishingly, he played in 19 All-Star games but never won an All-Star Game MVP.
Bird also broke records while winning awards. He's the last player to win the league MVP in three consecutive seasons and is also the only player to win the NBA 3-Point contest three times. Additionally, he has two All-Star Game MVPs, two Finals MVPs and one Rookie of the Year honor. He's the only player on this list with an NBA Lifetime Achievement Award.
Like the two Hall of Famers, Curry has brokem records while collecting accolades. He won back-to-back league MVP but is the only player to win the award unanimously.
Moreover, he has two scoring titles but is the only player to achieve it while shooting at an absurd 50-40-90 split. He's the inaugural winner of the NBA Western Conference Finals MVP award and the only player on this list with a NBA Skills Challenge contest trophy and the NBA Sportsmanship Award.
Curry also has one Finals MVP, one All-Star Game MVP, and two NBA 3-Point contest titles.
#3 LeBron James - 13
LeBron James is arguably the greatest player of his generation, and his list of accomplishments is longer than any other player in the NBA.
He has broken several records in the NBA in terms of scoring, passing, rebounding, all-time wins, franchise records and many more playoff records. If we list all his accolades, this article would run into several pages. He's on the cusp of breaking the NBA All-time scoring record but is considered a "pass-first" player.
In terms of individual awards, "King" James has 13 trophies to his name. He has the second-most Finals MVPs (four) and All-Star Game MVPs (three).
He has four MVP awards, one scoring title and one Rookie of the Year award. James was robbed of the 2012 and 2013 NBA Defensive Player of the Year awards despite having the most first-place votes both years.
Additionally, he was on pace to win the scoring title last year but sat out near the end of the season, so he missed out. Moreover, James also has the most MVP shares in league history and was certainly robbed of a league MVP or two.
#2 Wilt Chamberlain - 14
Wilt Chamberlain played in an era when most NBA awards didn't exist and yet he's sitting on 14 trophies. If they did exist, he would have had many more.
Chamberlain has records most players will likely never touch and can only dream of coming close to. His 100-point game is by far the most any player has scored in the NBA. His 1962 season, where he averaged over 50 points per game, is also leaps and bounds ahead of anyone else. Just like James, one cannot list Chamberlain's records without needing a few pages.
Wilt Chamberlain has four league MVPs, one All-Star Game MVP, one Finals MVP, one Rookie of the Year honor and a whopping seven scoring titles.
#1 Michael Jordan - 28
Who else did you expect on top of this list if not Michael Jeffrey Jordan? "His Airness" has twice the accolades as second-placed Wilt Chamberlain, and it's no surprise he's considered the greatest of all time.
Jordan's resume is even more impressive when you consider he retired twice, and if he had continued playing, he would have had more awards.
Jordan has the most Finals MVP awards (six), and he won them three times in a row twice. He also has the most scoring titles (ten) in league history, three more than Chamberlain and six more than any other player.
He also has five league MVPs, three All-Star Game MVPs, one Defensive Player of the Year award, one Rookie of the Year honor and two Slam Dunk contest awards.
