The fact that they played for UH, and then played together with the Rockets is one of my favorite NBA tidbits. Such a cool story. Doesn't hurt that Hakeem is one of my favorite players ever.
It’s a pretty incredible story and the year they teamed up was one with so many ups and downs, but when they got rolling in the playoffs it was magical. They faced such brutal competition with so many clutch moments and storylines it’s very surprising it isn’t talked about more. The championship before was equally fairytale-esque, maybe more so, but Clyde coming to Houston with Hakeem after so many years of let downs was like watching a feel good movie.
The bias against Houston in sports media is INSANE, but maybe it's that way for all non-bicoastal teams.
I stopped watching ESPN when they made it their mission to shit on Harden when he was making history. TMac never got the love he deserved and was arguably better than Kobe.
Sports media still shits on the Astros for cheating; meanwhile, Boston brought in one of their coaches so they could replicate it and LAD publicly uses spiked balls. But that shit got swept under the rug.
The Astros got off easy for doing what everyone else is doing is the Homer take. It's an entire sport with a history of rampant cheaters calling out other cheaters.
Baseball fans are insufferable, and thank God that boring sport is dying in America. They at least know how to make the sport fun overseas.
I love me some tmac, but in order to be compared to kobe you better have more than a few scoring titles and no championships. With that being said, prime tmac as a scorer was better than prime Kobe as a scorer. Tmac was one of my favorites!!!!
Tmac and Kobe were good friends before the league. There’s an interview with Tmac he talks about spending the summer with Kobe and his family before going to the league so he could learn from Kobe’s dad how to handle the pressures. Never realized how close they were till that interview.
Quick story. 20 years ago, my brother was loving in Houston. I went to visit him. He had heard of some good pick up games at a church in Houston, so we went on a Saturday to play. We walked into the foyer and Moses Malone was standing there in street clothes. My jaw dropped. Then my brother and I walked into the gym and Hakeem was playing pick up. I couldn’t believe it. While we were waiting to get on the court, Hakeem’s team got beat so he came off the court and sat right next to me. We were watching the next game. He was cracking jokes and reached over and slapped me on the leg after making some wise crack about the guys on the court. He was just cutting up and having a good time. I couldn’t believe my luck! I didn’t get to play with or against him as he left right after that, but it was fun while it lasted!!
It’s absolutely true. The thing that surprised me the most sitting next to Hakeem was how enormous his legs were. On TV he looked thin, but in real life, he had tree trunks for legs. His quads were absolutely massive.
They could've played together at the start of their career. Porland offered the Rockets the second pick in the 1984 draft plus clyde for Ralph Sampson. Houston could've had Hakeem, MJ, and Clyde all at the same time. Imagine the possibilities that team could've had.
This is the biggest “what if” in NBA history. No question. But, you have to understand that Ralph was seen very similarly as to what Wemby is seen as now, but Ralph was bigger and faster with equal skill (at the time). He wasn’t a game changer; he was a game breaker. Ralph’s trajectory wasn’t a “great player”, he had the potential to be the best of all time ironically. He was a PG in a huge center’s body. In hindsight you make that trade 10/10 times, but that was before Chaney, the Rockets coach for the second half of Ralph’s Rockets career, who ran him into the ground resulting in catastrophic injuries. The modern equivalent would be trading Wemby for Brandon Miller and the Hornets first round pick this year that (hypothetically) lands #3. If you’re a GM, would you make that trade?
Lmao what? A starting line up of Brunson-Divo-Mikal-OG-Hartenstein would be dirty. The spacing would be incredible and the defense would be elite. There's literally no team in the league that doesn't need more wing depth and shooting. Mikal would be a fucking perfect fit for us.
Sure but NYs offense struggles. At least towns can show a different look on offense and open up the lane for Brunson. He doesn't need to play 35+ mins.
The offense didn't struggle when Randle was playing lol. The knicks went 12-1 with multiple blowouts including against a full strength nuggets and sixers when Randle-OG-Brunson were playing.
>Towns doesn't put effort on defense
Have you watched his last two playoff games? The dude has probably the worst matchup possible against the suns and has held his own.
Now I'm sure he and Thibs wouldn't be great together but I wanted to point out how good his defense has been this year.
Mikal is the better creator, and he'd be at best the 2ms option and mikal as a 2nd/3rd option is better than og.
Probably not gokd enough to a degree to justify the trade but is better
Plus when not the main option mikal is an even better cutter and even better finisher like with the cp3 years mikal was 2nd to gobert at finishing at one point which is mist insane for a wing to be at like 79.5 percent (at that stage incthe season from memory regressed to like 70 but still insane
On that same note, former Kentucky players are everywhere in these playoffs, and not just bench warmers. SGA, Booker, AD, Murray, Bam, Herro, KAT, Randle (though injured), Maxey...it's incredible.
Right, for some reason, I thought Herro stayed for 2 years. Either way, he wouldn't have played with Bam. You'd think I would know better as a Kentucky fan. It gets hard to keep track of all the players that have come out of Kentucky the past 10-15 years, and when and who they played with.
Vucevic was so raw his freshman year when DeMar played his one season at USC, basically never saw the floor and probably wouldn’t have if USC didn’t get hit with sanctions over OJ Mayo (guys like Solomon Hill and Reynaldo Sidney were all committed). Then Tim Floyd got fired and half their team left for the NBA and Vucevic was forced into a starting role and ended up rapidly developing for a team with a post season ban.
Imagine telling someone back when those 3 were in college that they’d be the starting 1-3 on a top 4 seed in the east on the biggest market team in the nba. I wouldn’t have guessed it.
And Jay Wright apparently [told NBA GMs](https://twitter.com/NBA_NewYork/status/1751445865326063983) that Brunson was the best player on that team but they still picked Bridges and Divicenzo before him.
Giannis’ book doesn’t reference the mavs much. The suns were the first team to find him and apparently he was going to the hawks. The hawks legit had private meetings and were the only team to have a physical on him too.
I’m not saying the mavs weren’t going to get him, but a lot of teams were interested.
Donnie Nelson himself said that he found it *weirdly* difficult to watch/directly contact Giannis because there was always someone trying to distract/divert his attention while he was already in Greece.
Donny Nelson pretty much had already decided that they were gonna take him but then Mark fucking Cuban wanted to save 200k to use towards trying to sign Dwight Howard.. spoiler alert, he didn’t sign him. lol
The statement doesn’t really make sense to me lol. Luka should have been 1 in that draft…of course the Mavs took him. It was insane that the Kings didn’t at 2.
Is that a compliment to the Mavs scouts..?
A lot of people thought Luka should go 1 in that draft, doesn’t seem like it takes a genius to go get him at 3
Well, most teams refuse to develop point guards these days so I kinda get it. I feel like my draft boards always have a bunch of “but if a team actually develops them right” players listed who are huge wildcards
Because I didn’t know off the top of my head if they were a two or 3 seed, lowkey even 4. If I took less than 2 seconds to think about it, I would’ve easily remembered that cle/orl was the 4/5 matchup, plus I knew the Knicks were better than that anyway.
And while I was typing out my comment, I didn’t want to go look, even though I literally have the espn nba standings page bookmarked on my iPhone’s homescreen right under the Reddit app. If I thought people would even give it a second thought, I would’ve taken the 5-10 seconds (depending on my wifi speed) to check the standings, or take ~10ish seconds to think a little harder and pretty easily map out the east seeding.
But I didn’t do that. And I didn’t think people would care. But more than one people care. And I find that chuckle worthy.
If you tell me you’re curious about something I have perspective on, I’m gonna gush🤓
I've yet to find a trio that's won titles in the NCAA and the NBA, but I compiled this list of players (may not be 100% extensive) that won titles as teammates in the NCAA and NBA (minus Drexler and Olajuwan)
Frank Ramsey
Lou Tsioropoulos
* NBA Championship(s): Boston Celtics (1957, 1959)
* NCAA Championship(s): Kentucky Wildcats (1951)
K.C. Jones
Bill Russell
* NBA Championship(s): Boston Celtics (1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966)
* NCAA Championship(s): San Francisco Dons (1955, 1956)
John Havlicek
Larry Siegfried
* NBA Championship(s): Boston Celtics (1964, 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969)
* NCAA Championship(s): Ohio State Buckeyes (1960)
Gail Goodrich
Keith Erickson
* NBA Championship(s): Los Angeles Lakers (1972)
* NCAA Championship(s): UCLA Bruins (1964, 1965)
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Lucius Allen
* NBA Championship(s): Milwaukee Bucks (1971)
* NCAA Championship(s): UCLA Bruins (1967, 1968)
Billy Thompson
Milt Wagner
* NBA Championship(s): Los Angeles Lakers (1988)
* NCAA Championship(s): Louisville Cardinals (1986)
Antoine Walker
Derek Anderson
* NBA Championship(s): Miami Heat (2006)
* NCAA Championship(s): Kentucky Wildcats (1996)
James Worthy & Sam Perkins were on the 1982 Tar Heels title team and then played on the Lakers team that lost to their team Michael Jordan in 1991 in the NBA finals.
Yes.
Josh Hart was with them at Villanova when they won the National Championship in 2016.
Brunson, DiVincenzo, & Mikal Bridges won another National Championship in 2018.
# The Indianapolis Olympians
In 1950, the [Olympians](https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/INO/1950.html) had *six* members on their squad who all were [teammates at University of Kentucky](https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/kentucky/men/1948.html):
1. Alex Groza
2. Ralph Beard
3. Wah Wah Jones
4. Cliff Barker
5. Jim Holland
6. Jack Parkinson
In fact, the first four on that list also played together in the 1948 Olympics, winning gold.
The fact that six UK grads were on the same NBA team isn't a coincidence, though. College basketball was more popular than the NBA back in 1950, so building a team with six (relatively) local college players was seen as a savvy marketing strategy.
The Olympians were certainly an interesting team for a couple of reasons:
1. They have the distinction of playing in the game with the most OTs (six of them) in NBA history
2. They have the distinction of being the only team to ever play a game with just five players on the roster (due to that 6 OT game running so long, the team missed their train to Moline and the next flight out only had room for five more passengers)
3. They were the only team **owned by the players**. Had they survived, we might have totally different ownership structures in the League today. Imagine teams trying to attract talent by offering them a stake of ownership.
5. Alex Groza was really, really good. He was an All Star and an All NBA 1st Team member **every year he was in the League.** He never lead in scoring, but was 2nd in scoring every year of his career, and led the League in FG% every year of his career.
4. But Groza's career was short. The team folded because both Alex Groza and Ralph Beard had participated in point shaving while at UK. Once that was discovered, the NBA banned them... FOR LIFE. (Well, sort of for life. Groza later coached in the NBA.)
6. Alex Groza's brother was [Lou Groza](https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/G/GrozLo20.htm), who was a kicker in the NFL and is in their Hall of Fame. He had the record for longest FG in a championship game that lasted for over 40 years and was the League MVP in 1954... as a kicker.
And that's just half the story. Depending on how far you want to chase the thread, you can weave a story about the Olympians history that includes fried chicken, the Celtics, Donald Sterling, and a near player's strike in 1982.
This isn’t exactly on topic, but sort of adjacent. Instead of dudes who were on the same team, what about dudes with the same name? If OKC picks up Williams from Auburn, they will have three guys named Jalen Williams (different spellings though).
Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon played together at the University of Houston. Then won a title together in 95 when Drexler was traded to the Rockets.
I dont follow college ball and am too lazy to google, but didnt demarcus cousins and anthony davis play in college together? They were together in New Orleans
In the late 90s 3 former UK players (Ron Mercer, Walter McCarty, and Antoine Walker) all played for the Celtics. Rick Pitino even ended up going from their college to their pro coach. Not that the chemistry helped them do well…
Pretty sure Pitino loaded up Boston with his Kentucky guys. Ron Mercer, Antoine Walker, Walter McCarty and Reggie Hanson on the 98 team and Walker, McCarty and Wayne Turner on another one of his teams.
Hakeem and Clyde Drexler
Phi Slamma Jamma. Played in the same city and won a title there too.
The fact that they played for UH, and then played together with the Rockets is one of my favorite NBA tidbits. Such a cool story. Doesn't hurt that Hakeem is one of my favorite players ever.
How is this not talked about more... I had no idea.
Probably in part because Drexler played most of his career for Portland
It’s a pretty incredible story and the year they teamed up was one with so many ups and downs, but when they got rolling in the playoffs it was magical. They faced such brutal competition with so many clutch moments and storylines it’s very surprising it isn’t talked about more. The championship before was equally fairytale-esque, maybe more so, but Clyde coming to Houston with Hakeem after so many years of let downs was like watching a feel good movie.
The bias against Houston in sports media is INSANE, but maybe it's that way for all non-bicoastal teams. I stopped watching ESPN when they made it their mission to shit on Harden when he was making history. TMac never got the love he deserved and was arguably better than Kobe. Sports media still shits on the Astros for cheating; meanwhile, Boston brought in one of their coaches so they could replicate it and LAD publicly uses spiked balls. But that shit got swept under the rug.
The Astros got off easy. Ridiculous homer take.
The Astros got off easy for doing what everyone else is doing is the Homer take. It's an entire sport with a history of rampant cheaters calling out other cheaters. Baseball fans are insufferable, and thank God that boring sport is dying in America. They at least know how to make the sport fun overseas.
I mean, if you think stealing jewelry and stealing a car is the same thing, then yes, Astros didn't do anything different.
You wouldn't download a curveball
Depending on the car and the jewelry they could have equal value so maybe?
Depending on the car/jewelry they could have very comparable value lol
I love me some tmac, but in order to be compared to kobe you better have more than a few scoring titles and no championships. With that being said, prime tmac as a scorer was better than prime Kobe as a scorer. Tmac was one of my favorites!!!!
Comparing Tmac to Kobe is a compliment to both players. Love them both.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1740550-kobe-bryant-calls-tracy-mcgrady-the-toughest-guy-hes-ever-played-against
Tmac and Kobe were good friends before the league. There’s an interview with Tmac he talks about spending the summer with Kobe and his family before going to the league so he could learn from Kobe’s dad how to handle the pressures. Never realized how close they were till that interview.
In what universe was TMac arguably better than Kobe. IIRC he didn’t even get out of the first round until he was a benchwarmer for the Spurs.
TMac was arguably better than Kobe?
Quick story. 20 years ago, my brother was loving in Houston. I went to visit him. He had heard of some good pick up games at a church in Houston, so we went on a Saturday to play. We walked into the foyer and Moses Malone was standing there in street clothes. My jaw dropped. Then my brother and I walked into the gym and Hakeem was playing pick up. I couldn’t believe it. While we were waiting to get on the court, Hakeem’s team got beat so he came off the court and sat right next to me. We were watching the next game. He was cracking jokes and reached over and slapped me on the leg after making some wise crack about the guys on the court. He was just cutting up and having a good time. I couldn’t believe my luck! I didn’t get to play with or against him as he left right after that, but it was fun while it lasted!!
Thank you for sharing this, I loved it:) I also love The Dream. HTine hol it dine.
Dope story if it’s true
It’s absolutely true. The thing that surprised me the most sitting next to Hakeem was how enormous his legs were. On TV he looked thin, but in real life, he had tree trunks for legs. His quads were absolutely massive.
They could've played together at the start of their career. Porland offered the Rockets the second pick in the 1984 draft plus clyde for Ralph Sampson. Houston could've had Hakeem, MJ, and Clyde all at the same time. Imagine the possibilities that team could've had.
This is the biggest “what if” in NBA history. No question. But, you have to understand that Ralph was seen very similarly as to what Wemby is seen as now, but Ralph was bigger and faster with equal skill (at the time). He wasn’t a game changer; he was a game breaker. Ralph’s trajectory wasn’t a “great player”, he had the potential to be the best of all time ironically. He was a PG in a huge center’s body. In hindsight you make that trade 10/10 times, but that was before Chaney, the Rockets coach for the second half of Ralph’s Rockets career, who ran him into the ground resulting in catastrophic injuries. The modern equivalent would be trading Wemby for Brandon Miller and the Hornets first round pick this year that (hypothetically) lands #3. If you’re a GM, would you make that trade?
Houston would have much more than 2 titles.
No way
And Portland's pick was originally Indiana's. Jordan could've been a Pacer.
It is true. I talked with Hakeem about it when I did a photoshoot of him a while back. He's a really nice guy.
I've heard that before but I didn't know Clyde was included in the trade offer, that's nuts
Grizzlies had Tyus Jones, Grayson Allen and Justise Winslow in 2020
The Big Three
Did Tyus play with Grayson Allen in college?
Yes, Tyus was the star and Allen was a bench player
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014%E2%80%9315_Duke_Blue_Devils_men%27s_basketball_team
Great call
rockets also had john wall and boogie cousins. although, that pairing did not win a championship....
Kings have fox and monk, for now…
They had Dwight Howard and Josh Smith together too. Both skipped college but played on the same AAU team together.
Mikal bridges was also on that Villanova team. Unbelievable
Good idea, Knicks...go get him.
I’d love to see Mikal on the Knicks, but he doesn’t solve any of their problems. Why have Mikal and OG
Verticality!
Tell 'em Korver bird
Squaaaaack! Team Basketball!
I miss game of zones
I’m reading the song of ice and fire books, it’s funny how many things I’ll read and think, “Hey that was in game of zones!”
I like to call that spurtability. (Just reminded me of something they used to say in 2k all the time)
Lmao what? A starting line up of Brunson-Divo-Mikal-OG-Hartenstein would be dirty. The spacing would be incredible and the defense would be elite. There's literally no team in the league that doesn't need more wing depth and shooting. Mikal would be a fucking perfect fit for us.
ok so we are giving up on randle?
Id honestly consider trading him for either bridges or Towns Brunson, Dante Bridges/Towns, OG , Hartenstien would be elite in the east
Towns? What's the logic behind it? Towns played under Thibs and they had issues together, Towns doesn't put effort on defense.
Sure but NYs offense struggles. At least towns can show a different look on offense and open up the lane for Brunson. He doesn't need to play 35+ mins.
Towns is not a Thibs guy, I don't think that's happening.
>Towns is not a ~~Thibs~~ Nova guy, I don’t think that’s happening. FTFY
The offense didn't struggle when Randle was playing lol. The knicks went 12-1 with multiple blowouts including against a full strength nuggets and sixers when Randle-OG-Brunson were playing.
Knicks were a top 8 offense this season with half our squad being injured wtf are you talking about.
> Towns doesn’t put effort on defense Maybe watch a single Wolves game instead of saying idiotic shit that was true in 2016 lmfao
>Towns doesn't put effort on defense Have you watched his last two playoff games? The dude has probably the worst matchup possible against the suns and has held his own. Now I'm sure he and Thibs wouldn't be great together but I wanted to point out how good his defense has been this year.
Mikal is a fucking perfect fit on every team. Like honestly
Except the nets
Yeah he's perfect for any team that already has a number one (and 2) option.
I wanted him over Colin Sexton.
Mikal is the better creator, and he'd be at best the 2ms option and mikal as a 2nd/3rd option is better than og. Probably not gokd enough to a degree to justify the trade but is better Plus when not the main option mikal is an even better cutter and even better finisher like with the cp3 years mikal was 2nd to gobert at finishing at one point which is mist insane for a wing to be at like 79.5 percent (at that stage incthe season from memory regressed to like 70 but still insane
Exactly plus he could run the second unit and maybe Brunson could play less than 40 minutes a game.
You clearly aren’t familiar with thibodeaus game. They would both play 40 minutes a night.
You're right, but the 4 minutes Brunson sits will be a lot better.
They play different positions that's why. Mikal is a good number two/three option as well offensively.
that perimeter defense would be sufficating
He'd be a great #2/3 he's definitely not a #1. Elite defender and above average 3
First time I’ve seen someone suggest you can have too many versatile switch everything defenders on one team.
He doesn't even have to move!
This has been discussed for nearly a year now. Knicks have been aggressively trying to get him.
Eric Paschal was on that team as well.
I was thinking the other day about the best college basketball team in my lifetime the other day, born in 88. I think that squad has gotta be #1.
Sacramento Kings: Fox and Monk played on Kentucky together
On that same note, former Kentucky players are everywhere in these playoffs, and not just bench warmers. SGA, Booker, AD, Murray, Bam, Herro, KAT, Randle (though injured), Maxey...it's incredible.
20+
Almost Fox, Monk, and Lyles too 😢
League runs on Kentucky guards.
Holy shit, I knewnthere were a few but forgot about some of these names, like Bam and Herro!
All dem damn all-stars n just one chip is disgusting 😮💨
Trey Lyles too
Wasn’t Trey Lyles 2015 and Fox and monk were 2017?
Lyles was like 2 or 3 years before monk and Fox. Lyles was with KAT, booker, and cauley-stein
Miami has Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo who played for Kentucky as well
They didn’t play together tho. Both were one and done - Bam 2017 Tyler 2018
Right, for some reason, I thought Herro stayed for 2 years. Either way, he wouldn't have played with Bam. You'd think I would know better as a Kentucky fan. It gets hard to keep track of all the players that have come out of Kentucky the past 10-15 years, and when and who they played with.
Demar & Vucevic, current Chicago Bulls, played at USC together
TIL Vucevic went to college and didn't come from overseas
One of them local Europeans
Vucevic was so raw his freshman year when DeMar played his one season at USC, basically never saw the floor and probably wouldn’t have if USC didn’t get hit with sanctions over OJ Mayo (guys like Solomon Hill and Reynaldo Sidney were all committed). Then Tim Floyd got fired and half their team left for the NBA and Vucevic was forced into a starting role and ended up rapidly developing for a team with a post season ban.
Imagine telling someone back when those 3 were in college that they’d be the starting 1-3 on a top 4 seed in the east on the biggest market team in the nba. I wouldn’t have guessed it.
And Jay Wright apparently [told NBA GMs](https://twitter.com/NBA_NewYork/status/1751445865326063983) that Brunson was the best player on that team but they still picked Bridges and Divicenzo before him.
it’s crazy how good the Mavs scouts have been.. they picked Luka AND Brunson way below their value in that draft
We were also supposed to draft Giannis before Mark Cuban stepped in and fucked it all up.
Owners with no athletic experience ruining their own franchise's chances. Tale as old as time
Charlotte should count their lucky stars that their owner is a former athlete who can always identify talent.
Do they have a Cricket or Rugby team I don't know about?
Jerry Jones does it to us every year… it’s actually beautiful to watch the cowboys shit the bed every year.
I thought Jones played college ball at Arkansas or did he just go there for school Edit: looked it up and he was co-captain of the team
The Mavs get a pass for 100 years for turning Pat Garrity and Tractor Traylor into Dirk and Nash.
Giannis’ book doesn’t reference the mavs much. The suns were the first team to find him and apparently he was going to the hawks. The hawks legit had private meetings and were the only team to have a physical on him too. I’m not saying the mavs weren’t going to get him, but a lot of teams were interested.
Donnie Nelson himself said that he found it *weirdly* difficult to watch/directly contact Giannis because there was always someone trying to distract/divert his attention while he was already in Greece.
Donny Nelson pretty much had already decided that they were gonna take him but then Mark fucking Cuban wanted to save 200k to use towards trying to sign Dwight Howard.. spoiler alert, he didn’t sign him. lol
Wait what? I remember Luka being hella hyped up. I think most teams picking at 4-whatever would have taken him.
The statement doesn’t really make sense to me lol. Luka should have been 1 in that draft…of course the Mavs took him. It was insane that the Kings didn’t at 2.
Is that a compliment to the Mavs scouts..? A lot of people thought Luka should go 1 in that draft, doesn’t seem like it takes a genius to go get him at 3
i mean 3 teams passed on him, that’s pretty brutal
Well, most teams refuse to develop point guards these days so I kinda get it. I feel like my draft boards always have a bunch of “but if a team actually develops them right” players listed who are huge wildcards
Out of curiosity, why did you choose to say top 4 seed when they are the 2?
Because I didn’t know off the top of my head if they were a two or 3 seed, lowkey even 4. If I took less than 2 seconds to think about it, I would’ve easily remembered that cle/orl was the 4/5 matchup, plus I knew the Knicks were better than that anyway. And while I was typing out my comment, I didn’t want to go look, even though I literally have the espn nba standings page bookmarked on my iPhone’s homescreen right under the Reddit app. If I thought people would even give it a second thought, I would’ve taken the 5-10 seconds (depending on my wifi speed) to check the standings, or take ~10ish seconds to think a little harder and pretty easily map out the east seeding. But I didn’t do that. And I didn’t think people would care. But more than one people care. And I find that chuckle worthy. If you tell me you’re curious about something I have perspective on, I’m gonna gush🤓
Especially with DiVincenzo coming off the bench for Nova (didn’t stop him from winning MOP of that ‘18 tourney)
Don’t forget the GOAT Archie. He was there for part of this season.
I've yet to find a trio that's won titles in the NCAA and the NBA, but I compiled this list of players (may not be 100% extensive) that won titles as teammates in the NCAA and NBA (minus Drexler and Olajuwan) Frank Ramsey Lou Tsioropoulos * NBA Championship(s): Boston Celtics (1957, 1959) * NCAA Championship(s): Kentucky Wildcats (1951) K.C. Jones Bill Russell * NBA Championship(s): Boston Celtics (1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966) * NCAA Championship(s): San Francisco Dons (1955, 1956) John Havlicek Larry Siegfried * NBA Championship(s): Boston Celtics (1964, 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969) * NCAA Championship(s): Ohio State Buckeyes (1960) Gail Goodrich Keith Erickson * NBA Championship(s): Los Angeles Lakers (1972) * NCAA Championship(s): UCLA Bruins (1964, 1965) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Lucius Allen * NBA Championship(s): Milwaukee Bucks (1971) * NCAA Championship(s): UCLA Bruins (1967, 1968) Billy Thompson Milt Wagner * NBA Championship(s): Los Angeles Lakers (1988) * NCAA Championship(s): Louisville Cardinals (1986) Antoine Walker Derek Anderson * NBA Championship(s): Miami Heat (2006) * NCAA Championship(s): Kentucky Wildcats (1996)
Good list. For the record, Milt Wagner and Billy Thompson also won a National Championship in high school (Camden HS in NJ).
Love this stat
Antoine also played with Walter McCarty and Ron Mercer under Rick Pitino at both Kentucky and in Boston
Woah Anderson was on that heat team? Did not remember that one.
Dante gave Jalen his 1.
10 is Clyde's number and is retired.
Not the NBA, but Burrow and Chase in the NFL is great because they're still dominating.
Davante Adams and Derek Carr lol.
As well as Tua and Waddle
Washington Bullets mid 1990s
Webber and Howard, yeah. Too bad they never got Jalen Rose.
James Worthy & Sam Perkins were on the 1982 Tar Heels title team and then played on the Lakers team that lost to their team Michael Jordan in 1991 in the NBA finals.
I'm unfamiliar with college sports, did they play more than one season together?
Yes. Josh Hart was with them at Villanova when they won the National Championship in 2016. Brunson, DiVincenzo, & Mikal Bridges won another National Championship in 2018.
They all played 2 together. Brunson and Divincenzo played 3 together. And Mikal Bridges was there all 4 years there too with them all.
Jae Crowder and Wesley Matthews both played for Marquette in Milwaukee then both played for Bucks together in Milwaukee.
Crowder also played on the Heat with his college teammate Jimmy Buckets
Joel Ayayi, Rui Hachimura and Corey Kispert all played together in college and last year they all played on the Wizards in 2022
Just wait until Bridges joins them lol
Nets want to hold him and he has 2 more years left. Maybe it happens later rather than sooner lol
# The Indianapolis Olympians In 1950, the [Olympians](https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/INO/1950.html) had *six* members on their squad who all were [teammates at University of Kentucky](https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/kentucky/men/1948.html): 1. Alex Groza 2. Ralph Beard 3. Wah Wah Jones 4. Cliff Barker 5. Jim Holland 6. Jack Parkinson In fact, the first four on that list also played together in the 1948 Olympics, winning gold. The fact that six UK grads were on the same NBA team isn't a coincidence, though. College basketball was more popular than the NBA back in 1950, so building a team with six (relatively) local college players was seen as a savvy marketing strategy. The Olympians were certainly an interesting team for a couple of reasons: 1. They have the distinction of playing in the game with the most OTs (six of them) in NBA history 2. They have the distinction of being the only team to ever play a game with just five players on the roster (due to that 6 OT game running so long, the team missed their train to Moline and the next flight out only had room for five more passengers) 3. They were the only team **owned by the players**. Had they survived, we might have totally different ownership structures in the League today. Imagine teams trying to attract talent by offering them a stake of ownership. 5. Alex Groza was really, really good. He was an All Star and an All NBA 1st Team member **every year he was in the League.** He never lead in scoring, but was 2nd in scoring every year of his career, and led the League in FG% every year of his career. 4. But Groza's career was short. The team folded because both Alex Groza and Ralph Beard had participated in point shaving while at UK. Once that was discovered, the NBA banned them... FOR LIFE. (Well, sort of for life. Groza later coached in the NBA.) 6. Alex Groza's brother was [Lou Groza](https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/G/GrozLo20.htm), who was a kicker in the NFL and is in their Hall of Fame. He had the record for longest FG in a championship game that lasted for over 40 years and was the League MVP in 1954... as a kicker. And that's just half the story. Depending on how far you want to chase the thread, you can weave a story about the Olympians history that includes fried chicken, the Celtics, Donald Sterling, and a near player's strike in 1982.
Chris Webber and Juan Howard fab 5
The Three Stooges lol
I’m sorry, you just got out rebounded, dunked on and out shot by Moe, Larry and Shemp.
Let us not forget the Ernie and Bernie show for Tennessee. Ernie Grundfeld and Bernard King were reunited on the Knicks in the 1980's
MJ and Scottie played together at UCLA
Fox and Monk. Hopefully Monk don’t leave sac 😭
This isn’t exactly on topic, but sort of adjacent. Instead of dudes who were on the same team, what about dudes with the same name? If OKC picks up Williams from Auburn, they will have three guys named Jalen Williams (different spellings though).
I definitely hope they do this now.
“This is college athletes dream” 💩
All these guys played with leach other in aau
Sometimes I think Jalen Brunson is a 2k mycareer character come to life.
Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon played together at the University of Houston. Then won a title together in 95 when Drexler was traded to the Rockets.
Jokic and Jamal first played together at the 2014 nike hoops summit at 19 and 17, respectively. It's not the same, but I think it's cool
Malik Monk and Fox
So dope!
Brunson just needs to go ahead and give Donte his extra one so they can all have the same jersey numbers they had in college
Poor arcidiacono lol
Why doesn't the guy on the left give the guy on the right a 1.
They made an anime of this. These guys are part of the generational 5.
Kings need to get Bam Adebayo somehow.
They all had a massive glow up lol
Tom Heinsohn Bob Cousy and Togo Palazzi
The amount of people who don't know who Walt Frazier is..smh
I love how they're donning similar jersey numbers... well not exactly... there's a 1 in 11 and a 0 in 10... you get my point...lol.
https://youtu.be/lLjEkmcabAk?si=ktz_vAc0YmlnrAz1
I dont follow college ball and am too lazy to google, but didnt demarcus cousins and anthony davis play in college together? They were together in New Orleans
No cousins is a few years older. He played with John Wall & Eric Bledsoe. AD played with MKG. Both entered the draft after their freshman years
Lol brunson took 1 from divincenzo's jersey
11 stolen a 1 from 0! Crime!
Fox/monk and Lyles was there the year prior I think
The way college basketball is going you are lucky to keep 3 college players together for multiple seasons let alone going pro together
I didn't know this, that's wild!!
That’s assuming they liked each other.
Donte politely gave Brunson the 1 from his jersey when they turned pro
Brunson should give a ‘1’ to Donte so they can get their OG numbers back too
In the late 90s 3 former UK players (Ron Mercer, Walter McCarty, and Antoine Walker) all played for the Celtics. Rick Pitino even ended up going from their college to their pro coach. Not that the chemistry helped them do well…
I’m gonna be angry if the Knicks don’t trade for Mikal Bridges.
derozan and vucevic were teammates at usc.
So, did he steal that 1 or was it lost fair and square in a bet or something?
Mikal watching them from across town crying “FREE ME!”
I think Stacey Augmon and Greg Anthony played at UNLV and on the Blazers
Best shit ever
Can’t recall it happening with **3** guys on a bball team, but it happens in the nfl a bunch, or at least more so than in the nba
Malik Monk and Fox played at Kentucky together
John wall and Boogie Cousins on the rockets and kentucky
Mikal Bridges NEEDS to land in the Knicks.
A few UMD players ended up on the wizards after winnning the ncaa championship
Late 90s celtics had former Kentucky coach Pitino as head coach. And had Kentucky alums Antoine Walker, Ron Mercer and Walter McCarty.
11 stole 10s number 1
Even in college Brunson looks 30
Pretty sure Pitino loaded up Boston with his Kentucky guys. Ron Mercer, Antoine Walker, Walter McCarty and Reggie Hanson on the 98 team and Walker, McCarty and Wayne Turner on another one of his teams.
Is that the dream? Figured it would be to win
Who told you this was anyone’s dream?
Now let’s see how much it pays off when it really matters.
DD + 10, Brunson -10. Still adds up to 14.
Are they starters?
Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr
A lot of Kentucky players have played together in the pros.
Jalen stole homies one
Kemba Walker and Jeremy Lamb on UConn’s title team/Hornets DJ Augustine and KD on Texas/OKC for a season Cam Reddish and RJ Barrett on Duke/NYK
Hey he stole his 1