Greatest NBA Players of All Time

Eleven championships in thirteen seasons with Boston, eight of them consecutive from 1959 through 1966, anchor the case for Russell. He collected five MVP awards and 21,620 rebounds in an era before blocks were tracked, and the Finals MVP trophy now bears his name.

Six MVP awards, more than any player has won, came across twenty seasons that produced 38,387 points, a title with Milwaukee in 1971, and five more with the Lakers. The skyhook stayed unguardable deep into his career, and he took Finals MVP in 1985 at age 38.

Jordan went 6-0 in the Finals and won Finals MVP every time, with Chicago never pushed to a seventh game. His 30.1 career scoring average and ten scoring titles are both records, and in 1988 he took the scoring crown, Defensive Player of the Year, and MVP in one season.

A career average of 11.2 assists per game is the highest anyone has posted, and Johnson paired it with five Lakers titles, three MVPs, and three Finals MVP awards. As a rookie he started at center for the injured Abdul-Jabbar in the 1980 clincher and put up 42 points and 15 rebounds.

Nineteen seasons in San Antonio yielded five championships between 1999 and 2014 along with three Finals MVP awards. Duncan made fifteen All-NBA teams and fifteen All-Defensive teams, a two-way record that no other big man on this list comes close to matching.

Bryant won five titles with the Lakers, three alongside Shaquille O'Neal and two he led himself in 2009 and 2010, finishing with 33,643 points. His 81 against Toronto in January 2006 is the second-highest single-game total in NBA history, and he scored 60 in his 2016 finale.

The NBA's career scoring leader since February 2023 and the first player past 40,000 points, James won titles in 2012, 2013, 2016, and 2020. No other player has earned Finals MVP with three franchises, and the 2016 Cleveland run erased a 3-1 deficit against a 73-win Golden State team.

Three straight Finals MVP awards from 2000 through 2002 included a 2000 Finals in which O'Neal averaged 38.0 points and 16.7 rebounds. A fourth ring followed with Miami in 2006, and his 58.2 percent career shooting sits among the highest marks any high-volume scorer has posted.

Curry holds the career record for three-pointers made, having passed Ray Allen in December 2021. His 2015-16 season produced the first unanimous MVP vote in league history and 402 threes, more than a hundred beyond his own previous mark, with Golden State titles in 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2022.

Boston won titles in 1981, 1984, and 1986 while Bird took three consecutive MVP awards from 1984 through 1986, a run only Russell and Chamberlain had managed. The first three Three-Point Contests all went his way, and he shot 50-40-90 in both 1986-87 and 1987-88.

In 1994 Olajuwon became the only player to win MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, and Finals MVP in a single season. He retired as the career blocks leader with 3,830, having beaten Ewing's Knicks in seven games that June and swept Orlando the following year.

Back-to-back Finals MVP awards in 2017 and 2018 followed Durant's move to Golden State, and his 2014 MVP season in Oklahoma City averaged 32.0 points. Four scoring titles and a 50-40-90 line in 2012-13 mark him as the rare volume scorer who gave up nothing in efficiency.

The 100-point game against New York in March 1962 came inside a season in which Chamberlain averaged 50.4 points and 48.5 minutes. Four MVPs, championships in 1967 and 1972, and the career rebounding record at 23,924 followed, along with a 1968 assists title won as a center.

Detroit's back-to-back championships in 1989 and 1990 ran through Thomas, who took Finals MVP for the second one. His 25 points in the third quarter of Game 6 of the 1988 Finals, played on an ankle he sprained during that quarter, is the signature moment of the Bad Boys era.

Robertson averaged a triple-double across the entire 1961-62 season at 30.8 points, 12.5 rebounds, and 11.4 assists, and nobody matched it until 2017. He won MVP in 1964, took a title with Milwaukee in 1971, and his antitrust suit against the league helped bring in free agency.

Erving won three ABA MVP awards and two ABA titles with the New York Nets before the 1976 merger, then added the 1981 NBA MVP and a championship with Philadelphia in 1983. Counting both leagues, he finished with 30,026 points, among the largest totals in professional basketball.

West remains the only player to win Finals MVP from the losing side, taking the inaugural award in 1969 after Boston won a seventh game. He averaged 27.0 points over fourteen seasons, finally got his ring in 1972, and his silhouette is widely credited as the basis for the NBA logo.

Twenty-one seasons with Dallas is the longest run any player has spent with one franchise, and it produced 31,560 points plus the 2007 MVP, the first won by a European. Nowitzki's 2011 title came at Miami's expense in six games, and his one-legged fadeaway reshaped how tall shooters score.

Barkley won MVP in 1993 and dragged Phoenix to the Finals that June, where Jordan's Bulls closed it out in six. Listed at 6'6", he led the NBA in rebounding in 1986-87 and finished with 23,757 points, 12,546 rebounds, and 4,215 assists, a spread almost no forward matches.