1) Bill Russell, born 1934

Perhaps only Michael Jordan had a career that towers over NBA history more so than Russell’s. From his championship collection to his domination of his legendary rivals to his legacy as the first Black NBA coach to his commitment to civil rights, Russell was the ideal NBA star. In 13 seasons, he led the Celtics to 11 titles, only missing out in 1958 due to injury and in 1967 due to Wilt Chamberlain being unstoppable. Russell also earned championships at San Francisco and as a member of the 1956 U.S. Olympic team before getting drafted #2 overall by the Celtics in 1956. He’s been inducted into the Naismith, NCAA, and FIBA Halls of Fame, and was a cornerstone of the NBA’s 25th Anniversary Team, 50 Greatest Players, and 75 Greatest Players lists. In 2009, the NBA also renamed its Finals MVP award after Russell (though he never earned his titular trophy, as it didn’t exist before 1969) and upon his passing, retired the jersey #6 league wide.

2) Lusia Harris, born 1955

Born in the heart of the Jim Crow South to a sharecropper father, Harris became a pioneer for her contributions as both a Black athlete and a woman. She matriculated at Delta State in 1973, right after the implementation of Title IX, and essentially became the George Mikan of women’s basketball, a force so unstoppable they had to change the rules just to slow her down. In four years with the Lady Statesmen, Harris was an All-American three times, earned the inaugural Honda Cup as the nation’s best female basketball player, and led the team to three consecutive AIAW championships. Upon her 1977 graduation, Harris became the first – and still only – woman drafted by an NBA team, but had to decline a training camp invitation from the Jazz due to pregnancy. She did go pro briefly, in the short-lived WBL, and teamed up with Ann Meyers and Nancy Lieberman on the first U.S. Olympic women’s team in 1976. The “Queen of Basketball” was eventually the first Black woman inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame, receiving the honor in 1992.

3) Joe B. Hall, born 1928

After a lengthy, legendary career that included four national titles, Adolph Rupp was forced to step down as coach of Kentucky in 1972. His replacement was Hall, a former Wildcat player (part of the ’48-’49 championship team), who had spent the prior seven years serving as Rupp’s top assistant. It was one of the more thankless coaching jobs in NCAA history, as not only did Hall follow in the footsteps of a living legend, but one who was reluctantly stepping down, due to an archaic Kentucky state law mandating public officials retiring at age 70. Despite the pressure, Hall led the Wildcats to the program’s fifth title in 1978, thanks in large part to his willingness (counter to Rupp) to recruit Black players like Jack Givens, the hero of that ’77-’78 team. Though he also coached Kentucky to Final Four appearances in 1975 and 1984, Hall struggled to escape his predecessor’s shadow and was pressured to step down in 1985. He remained a staple at Kentucky games, becoming a mentor and friend of John Calipari, who is one of just two coaches, along with Rupp, with more career wins at Kentucky than Hall’s 297.

4) John Drew, born 1954

His brief, brilliant pro career was one of numerous groundbreaking distinctions, unfortunately not all of them positive. After two seasons starring at Gardner-Webb, Drew entered the NBA Draft early in 1974, one of the first to take advantage of the newly instituted “hardship clause” regarding eligibility. His debut for the Hawks was a revelation, pouring in 32 points and 12 rebounds (only Wilt Chamberlain has scored more points in an NBA debut), and a year later, Drew became the youngest All-Star in NBA history at that point, at age 21. He was an All-Star again for Atlanta in 1980, averaged 21.6 points and 7.7 rebounds per game in his first seven seasons, and helped lead the Hawks to Conference Semifinals appearances in 1979 and 1980. But Drew also developed a cocaine addiction during that era, one which would eventually lead to him becoming the first player banned for life under the NBA’s substance abuse policy. He spent his post playing career out of the public eye aside from a handful of drug-related arrests, but did come forward at one point to declare he had recovered from drug addiction and was working as a taxi driver in Houston.

5) Hugh Evans, born 1940

We don’t typically highlight referees in our lists but an exception can certainly be made for Evans, one of the all-time greats in NBA history. Over an officiating career that spanned almost three decades, Evans refereed over 2,000 NBA games, including 35 NBA Finals match-ups and four All-Star Games. Amazingly, before his first NBA game in 1972, he had no prior experience refereeing at the high school or college level. Evans was instead officiating rec league games at Rucker Park when he was spotted by NBA officials, who offered him a job. From those humble beginnings, he was eventually recognized as one of the greatest referees in league history, even becoming the sixth official to be inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame. That enshrinement was unfortunately a posthumous one, coming in September of 2022, just a couple months after his death from heart failure.

6) Caleb Swanigan, born 1997

A successful sports agent and former NFL player with three grown kids, Roosevelt Barnes took on the biggest challenge of his life when he adopted Swanigan. Growing up in poverty, Swanigan had a lifetime of poor health choices up to that point. He had ballooned to 360 pounds at age 13 when Barnes brought him into his Fort Wayne home and placed him on a regimented diet and exercise plan. Just a few years later, Swanigan was one of the best college basketball players in the country, getting named 1st-Team All-American and Big 10 Player of the Year in ’16-’17 while suiting up for Barnes’ alma mater, Purdue. He was subsequently drafted by the Trail Blazers in the first round and spent three seasons in the NBA before his career was effectively ended by the COVID-19 pandemic (he opted out of the ’19-’20 bubble re-start and never returned). It was rumored that during the league’s downtime, Swanigan had turned to drug and food addiction and gained a significant amount of weight. He passed away in July of what was declared “natural causes.”

7) Lee Rose, born 1936

The list of coaches to guide two separate teams to the Final Four is a short one. It includes legends like John Calipari, Roy Williams, Eddie Sutton, and Lou Henson, and also Rose, who led Charlotte to the pinnacle in 1977 and Purdue in 1980. His coaching career started at his alma mater, Division III Transylvania University (which is in Kentucky, for the record, not Romania) before moving on to Charlotte, where he also served as athletic director. Led on the court by future NBA star Cedric Maxwell, the 49ers debuted in the NCAA Tournament appearance in 1977 with Rose at the helm, and made the most of it. Charlotte upset Michigan to reach the National Semifinals, where they were eliminated by Marquette on an improbable buzzer beater. Rose leveraged his success at Charlotte into a higher profile position with Purdue and once again found instant success, leading the Boilermakers to the Final Four in just his second season. He closed out his career as head coach of South Florida for seven seasons, then in various coaching and front office positions with the Spurs, Nets, Bucks, Hornets, and Bobcats. In an interesting coincidence, Rose’s ’79-’80 Purdue Final Four team included Roosevelt Barnes, the eventual mentor and adoptive father of Caleb Swanigan.

8) Wayne Cooper, born 1956

Doug Moe’s up-tempo Nuggets broke numerous offensive records in the ’80s but someone had to play defense on that team and that somebody was Cooper. A 6’10” center with incredible leaping skills, Cooper was a quintessential rim protector. After somewhat successful early stints with the Warriors, Jazz, Mavericks, and Trail Blazers, he found his true calling in Denver. While Alex English, Fat Lever, and Calvin Natt were running up the score on the other end, Cooper was racking up blocks and rebounds, setting the franchise records for blocks in a season (227 in ’85-’86) and total blocks (830 over five years). Though both those marks have since been broken, Cooper is still third in Nuggets franchise history in blocks, trailing only Dikembe Mutombo and Marcus Camby. He later returned to Portland, coming off the bench for the Blazers teams that reached the NBA Finals in 1990 and 1992. When his playing days ended, Cooper became a long-time vice president of basketball operations for the Kings, serving in that capacity for nearly two decades.

9) Dick Versace, born 1940

Born to an Army colonel father and an author mother (Tere Rios, who penned the novel The Fifteenth Pelican, which was adapted into the TV series The Flying Nun), Versace was a renaissance man who just happened to fall into basketball. In fact, it wasn’t even his first choice of sport, as he started his coaching career in football, at a Chicago-area high school in the late ’60s. Versace eventually moved up the ranks from high school basketball to college to the pros, including two seasons as head coach of the Pacers. Though he had some success as a head coach, especially during his tenure at Bradley, whom he led to the NIT title in 1982, Versace’s greatest contributions came as an assistant. As part of Jud Heathcoate’s staff at Michigan State, Versace was essential in the recruitment of Magic Johnson. Later, he was an assistant under Chuck Daly on the Pistons, as the team reached the 1988 NBA Finals. In addition to coaching, Versace later became a play-by-play announcer for TNT and a front office executive for the Grizzlies.

10) Petar Skansi, born 1943

Growing up in what was then Yugoslavia, Skansi wasn’t exposed much to basketball as a youth. His favorite sport was water polo but when his pro career in the pool didn’t work out, he turned his athletic skills instead to the hardwood. Playing for his hometown team of Split (then known as Jugoplastika for sponsorship reasons), Skansi quickly developed into one of Europe’s top players, including leading the club to its first ever EuroLeague Final in 1971 (he was the leading scorer in the tournament). He was also one of the stars of the Yugoslavian national team, earning a silver medal at the 1968 Olympics and gold at the 1970 FIBA World Cup. Upon retiring as a player in 1976, Skansi then became a longtime successful head coach, a tenure that included leading his native Croatia in its first ever Olympic appearance in 1992, where they earned a silver medal. Though he never came close to reaching the NBA, Skansi inspired a generation of future Croatian stars to reach those heights, including Toni Kukoc and Peja Stojakovic. For his own efforts, Skansi was named to the FIBA 50 Greatest Players list in 1991.

“Having turned 97 years old a few months before his passing, Ferrin was the oldest living NBA champion, and the last living person that was part of the first Lakers title team.”

11) Lucious Jackson, born 1941

A 6’9″ power forward who could rebound, score, defend multiple positions, and was adaptable to changing game plans, Jackson was a perfect complement to Wilt Chamberlain on the 76ers. This was never more evident than in ’66-’67, when Jackson was sixth in scoring and second in rebounding on the Philly team that is considered one of the greatest champions in NBA history. This wasn’t Jackson’s only experience as a crucial cog in a title machine. In 1964, he was part of the starting lineup for the U.S. Olympic team that earned gold in Tokyo, and the leading scorer in their gold medal game victory over the Soviet Union. Prior to that, Jackson had played in relative obscurity, with his high school ball in northern Louisiana (where his family relocated after he was rejected from the all-white basketball team at his previous school in Texas) and college days at Pan American College (now called University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, where his #54 jersey is retired). He nonetheless made a national name for himself, getting drafted fourth overall by the Sixers in 1964. Jackson was an All-Star in his rookie season but shifted into more of a role player for the remainder of his career when the team drafted Billy Cunningham. Legendary indie rock band Luscious Jackson took their name from a mispronunciation of Jackson’s moniker that they heard one night on SportsCenter.

12) Paul Silas, born 1943

A basketball lifer, Silas spent six decades associated with the NBA in some form or another. It started as a player for the Hawks, who drafted him in the second round in 1964. Over 16 seasons, Silas also spent time with the Suns, Celtics, Nuggets, and SuperSonics, compiling 12,357 rebounds (which placed him ninth all-time when he retired in 1980, and is still 21st as of today), earning All-Defensive honors five times, and playing in two All-Star Games. Silas also won three NBA championships, two with the Celtics in 1974 and 1976, and one with the SuperSonics in 1979. After retiring as a player, he immediately transitioned into coaching, in a lengthy yet offbeat second career. This included stints on the Clippers in the early Donald Sterling years (when the owner reportedly forced him to double as the team’s trainer to save money), on the Hornets in the era that included Bobby Phills’ death and the move to New Orleans, on the Cavaliers when LeBron James started his pro career, and on the Bobcats when they had arguably the worst season in league history, finishing 7-59 in ’11-’12.

13) Pete Carril, born 1930

Upon completing his 29th year as Princeton’s head coach, Carril announced on the eve of the 1996 NCAA Tournament that he was retiring, citing the waning dedication and interest of his players in his seemingly archaic offensive and defensive schemes. In an ironic twist, those players then immediately proved him wrong, executing the “Princeton offense” and zone defense to near perfection in a stunning first round upset of defending champions UCLA. It was a perfect culmination of an unassuming but prolific Hall of Fame career, that included 13 Ivy League titles, 11 NCAA Tournament appearances, and the 1975 NIT title. Though that upset of UCLA was his most glorious result, it was a 1989 tournament loss that truly cemented Carril as a legend. In what’s still one of the most famous games in college basketball history, Carril’s #16 seeded Tigers nearly upended #1 seed Georgetown in a first round match-up. While Carril left the namesake university, his “Princeton offense” lived on for years in the NBA, where he implemented an altered form for the Kings in the late ’90s as an assistant under Rick Adelman.

14) Freeman Williams, born 1956

In an era laden with prolific scorers, Williams was still a standout. In four years at Portland State, he compiled 3,249 points, which is still second in NCAA history behind only Pete Maravich. In his junior and senior seasons, Williams was especially unstoppable, averaging 38.8 and 35.9 points per game, respectively, winning the NCAA scoring title both times, and even dropping 81 in a single game against Rocky Mountain College (which is the third highest single game total of all time). The Celtics drafted Williams #8 overall in 1978, just two spots after Larry Bird, and it’s an intriguing “what if” to consider Williams hanging around in Boston, on the wing with Bird. Instead, he was traded to the Clippers that same summer and put up big stats for an awful, mismanaged team. A trade to the Hawks in 1982 essentially ended Williams’ NBA career but not his accolades. He starred for several years in the Philippines pro league, notably dropping 82 in a single game there, and later snagged a role as playground legend “Duck” in the classic film White Men Can’t Jump. Interesting side note: former Clippers teammates Williams and John Drew passed away within nine days of each other in 2022, forty years after they were packaged together as a trade to the Jazz in exchange for the draft rights to Dominique Wilkins.

15) Billie Moore, born 1943

When women’s basketball was added to the Olympics program in 1976, the American federation went searching for a hard-nosed, demanding coach who could lead the players against a difficult obstacle. They found one in Moore, who had recently guided Cal State Fullerton to a championship in the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). That organization only existed because the NCAA didn’t yet sanction women’s basketball, which was still considered a novelty, while in other countries like the Soviet Union, the women’s national teams were seasoned and ready for Olympic competition. Moore pushed her roster, which included Lusia Harris, Ann Meyers, and Nancy Lieberman, to the limits and led them to a surprise silver medal performance. Immediately after the Olympics ended, Moore took the head coaching job at UCLA and soon after made history, becoming the first coach in men’s or women’s college basketball to lead two different teams to a national title, when the Bruins were victorious in 1978. Born in rural Kansas to a basketball coach father, Moore couldn’t play at her high school, which didn’t offer women’s sports (she did get to compete on an AAU squad). Decades later, she was a certified basketball legend, inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 1999.

16) Gene Shue, born 1931

Reflecting on the NBA in its early years typically invokes images of stilted, methodical styles of play (in black-and-white, natch) but there were some showmen back then and Shue was one of the premier play makers. In fact, he’s generally credited with inventing the spin move, which he deployed to great effect in 10 NBA seasons which included five All-Star Games, two All-NBA appearances, and finishes in the top 10 in assists per game on three occasions. Raised in poverty in Baltimore, Shue was an obvious talent but went un-recruited by any major school. He walked on at the fledgling Maryland program and essentially built it from the ground up, smashing every school record while leading the team to its first ever AP ranking and its entrance into the ACC. Though he was the third overall pick of the Warriors in 1954, Shue’s NBA career got off to a slow start and he was traded twice in his first two seasons (including when Warriors owner Eddie Gottlieb immediately dealt him after Shue notified management that his first paycheck was short), before finally settling into stardom with the Pistons. When his playing days ended, Shue embarked on a successful coaching career, beginning with his hometown Baltimore Bullets, where he replaced his childhood hero, Buddy Jeannette. He eventually earned Coach of the Year honors in ’68-’69 and in ’82-’83.

17) Adreian Payne, born 1991

Despite suffering from a rare lung condition that affected his stamina, Payne developed into of the top players in the country by his senior year at Michigan State. A strong all-around center who could score, rebound, pass out of double teams, and block shots with reckless abandon, he was named to the All-Big 10 team in ’13-’14 while leading the Spartans to the conference title and an Elite Eight appearance in the NCAA Tournament. He was drafted #15 overall by the Hawks in 2014 but never found his footing in the NBA, where his fatigue issues and “tweener” size left him at a disadvantage. Payne ultimately averaged 4.0 points and 2.9 rebounds per game over four seasons with the Hawks, Timberwolves, and Magic before taking his career overseas (he was waived by the Magic in 2018 after sexual assault allegations surfaced from his college days; the charges were later dropped). In May, while responding to a friend’s call for help in a domestic dispute in Florida, Payne was shot and killed by the alleged abuser, who is now facing murder charges. Payne will hopefully be best remembered for his friendship with Lacey Holsworth, an 8-year-old cancer patient who became a mainstay of the Spartans in Payne’s senior year and passed away soon after she got a chance to cut down the nets with Payne following the 2014 Big 10 Tournament Final.

18) Arnie Ferrin, born 1925

Having turned 97 years old a few months before his passing, Ferrin was the oldest living NBA champion, and the last living person who was part of the first Lakers title team. But before that he was arguably the biggest legend in Utah basketball history, earning NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player honors as a freshmen while leading the Utes to their only national title in school history, in 1944. Ferrin was additionally the only Utah player to be named an All-American four times and led the team to an NIT title in 1947. Drafted by the Minneapolis Lakers in 1948, just as they were joining the NBA (then called the BAA), Ferrin slotted in immediately as a starting forward and won championships in his first two seasons. He was the fourth-leading scorer on both the ’48-’49 and ’49-’50 title teams, the latter of which is considered one of the all-time greats. When the Lakers were eliminated in the 1951 playoffs, the homesick Ferrin returned to Utah (he was born and raised in the Salt Lake City area) and took various basketball-related jobs over the years, including as a TV color commentator, as the general manager of the ABA’s Utah Stars, and as athletic director for 10 years at his alma mater. With Ferrin having passed, 95-year-old Bob Harrison now takes the title of oldest living NBA champ, having played on the ’51-’52 Lakers title team.

19) Bill Fitch, born 1932

For 40 nearly continuous years, Fitch was roaming the sidelines building his legend, which eventually led to his Naismith Hall of Fame induction in 2019. It started in 1956 at his alma mater, the Iowa-based Division III liberal arts college Coe, and from there Fitch ended up at the helm of four different colleges  and five different NBA teams, finishing his career with the Clippers in 1998. He coached a wide range of legends along the way, two of whom, Lenny Wilkens (on the Cavaliers) and Phil Jackson (at North Dakota), eventually joined him on the 50th anniversary Greatest Coaches list in 1997. Fitch was at the helm when the Cavaliers pulled off the “Miracle of Richfield,” when Larry Bird first took the floor and first raised the championship trophy, and when Hakeem Olajuwon and the Rockets shocked the Lakers in the 1986 Western Conference Finals. He was honored as the NBA Coach of the Year twice and his 944 coaching wins are still 11th all-time in NBA history.

20) Bob Lanier, born 1948

Few players in NBA history toiled away in obscurity, logging incredible minutes on lousy teams, more than Lanier. Drafted #1 overall in 1970 after a star turn at St. Bonaventure (whom he led to a stunning Final Four appearance in 1970 but missed the National Semifinal game due to a knee injury), Lanier joined a floundering Pistons franchise. In his first nine seasons, comprising the entirety of the ’70s, he averaged 22.8 points and 11.9 rebounds per game, made seven All-Star appearances, finished in the top five in MVP voting twice, and finished in the top 10 in both scoring and rebounding four times. But Detroit had just three winning seasons during that span, won just one playoff series, and cycled through seven head coaches, including the notably abysmal Dick Vitale. After getting traded to the Bucks in 1980, Lanier finally got some extended postseason exposure, playing in the Conference Finals in 1983 and 1984 but never reaching the NBA Finals. Other Lanier career highlights of note: He won the final installment of the NBA one-on-one tournament in 1972, he played a bit role in the 1979 Julius Erving film “The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh,” and he was president of the Players Association for the final stretch of his career, in an era that included the 1982 lockout and the infamous substance abuse policy introduction. Later an assistant coach for the Warriors and a longtime global ambassador for the league, Lanier was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 1992 and had his jersey retired by the Pistons, Bucks, and St. Bonaventure.