1) Anthony Davis

When Davis won a championship with the Lakers in 2020, he joined a list even more exclusive than the one we’re detailing here. In addition to his NCAA title with Kentucky in 2012, his Olympic gold medal that same year, and his NBA championship, Davis was also part of the U.S. team that emerged victorious from the 2014 FIBA World Cup. Thus, he is the only player in basketball history with NCAA, NBA, FIBA, and Olympic titles. It’s an incredible achievement for an all-time great player, who has persevered through numerous injuries during his career. Fresh off earning NCAA Final Four Most Outstanding Player and SEC Player of the Year, Davis was by far the youngest member of the 2012 Olympic roster at age 19 and played light minutes off the bench as the U.S. mostly dominated competition. He took on a much larger role two years later at the FIBA World Cup, starting all nine games at center and finishing second on the team in rebounds and third in scoring. Though Davis has been victorious at every level since college, he never won a state high school championship as he opted to play for Perspectives Charter School in Chicago, an academy that emphasized academics and historically does not contend in athletics.

2) Bill Russell
3) K.C. Jones

They didn’t meet until teaming up together in college, but Jones and Russell were already inexorably connected by then. Both had been born into poverty in the gulf states (Russell in Louisiana and Jones in Texas) but relocated in childhood to the Bay Area (Russell to Oakland and Jones to San Francisco), where their love of basketball flourished despite subpar access and conditions. Their connection only continued from there, first teaming up to lead the University of San Francisco to back-to-back NCAA Tournament titles in 1955 and 1956, then the U.S. to gold at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne. They were both drafted by the Celtics in 1956 but their paths diverged from there, with Russell joining the team immediately after the Olympics ended while Jones did a stint in the U.S. Army and briefly pursued an NFL career. They eventually did team up in Boston, winning eight championships together before Jones retired in 1967. But the comparisons don’t even end there, as Russell and Jones also made successful coaching endeavors for the Celtics, becoming the first two Black head coaches to win multiple titles (Russell in 1968 and 1969, Jones in 1984 and 1986). Both were also eventually inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame, a fitting denouement for the lifelong friends.

4) Quinn Buckner

No one has ever come closer than Buckner to the incredible superfecta of winning a basketball championship at the high school, college, NBA, Olympic, and FIBA World Cup levels. It all came down to one game at the 1974 FIBA World Cup, where Buckner and the U.S. had to settle for bronze after a medal round loss to the Soviet Union, their only defeat of the tournament. Buckner was the youngest player on that team, having just finished his sophomore campaign at Indiana. Two years later, he helped lead the Hoosiers to an undefeated season and the 1976 NCAA Tournament title, then just a few months after that was an Olympic gold medalist in Montreal. Even more incredibly, Buckner did all this while also starring on the football team in both high school and college, even getting drafted by the Washington Redskins in 1976, the same year the Bucks selected him sixth overall. Buckner opted for the NBA and settled into a complementary role as a defensive specialist, first with Milwaukee and later for the Celtics, with whom he was an NBA champion in 1984. Now a longtime successful television broadcaster, the only area of basketball where Buckner ever really failed was as a coach, lasting just one disastrous season with the Mavericks in ’93-’94.

5) Clyde Lovellette

Few amateur basketball players in history have enjoyed a better calendar year than Lovellette in 1952. He led the NCAA in scoring and won every individual award available at the time, including NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player while leading Kansas to its first title under the legendary Phog Allen. Lovellette was also the centerpiece of the 1952 U.S. Olympic team, leading the squad in scoring as it cruised to a gold medal in Helsinki. To top it all off, Lovellette was also champion of the National Industrial Basketball League in ’51-’52, while moonlighting for the AAU squad Phillips 66ers. It didn’t take long for Lovellette to add NBA champion to his resume, as the Lakers drafted him and then won the title in his rookie season. But things didn’t come so easy after that, as Lovellette developed into one of the league’s premier players but couldn’t lift the post-George Mikan Lakers to glory, nor the St. Louis Hawks. He did add some more NBA titles at the end of his career though, getting traded to the Celtics and winning championships in 1963 and 1964 alongside fellow NCAA/Olympic champs Bill Russell and K.C. Jones. 

6) Jerry Lucas

The 1960 U.S. Olympic team is still considered one of the greatest squads ever assembled and it’s no coincidence how many players on the roster almost made this list. Jerry West and Oscar Robertson were both eventually NBA champions (both were also state high school champions, for the record) but came up just short in the NCAA Tournament, losing in the Final Four at their respective schools, West Virginia and Cincinnati, in respective seasons, 1959 and 1960 (Lucas and Ohio State emerged victorious in the latter). The opposite situation happened for Adrian Smith, NCAA champ with Kentucky in 1958, and Darrall Imhoff, NCAA champ with California in 1959, who both fell just short of winning NBA titles. Like Robertson and West, Lucas had to wait a long while for his NBA glory, finally seizing it a decade into his career, in 1973 with the Knicks. He was also notably a two-time Ohio state champion with Middletown High School in 1956 and 1957, and a champion of the short-lived American Basketball League (ABL), earning it with George Steinbrenner’s Cleveland Pipers in 1962.

7) Magic Johnson
8) Michael Jordan

On the greatest team ever assembled, with an incredible collection of legends, Johnson and Jordan stood out above all as the ultimate winners. They also often stood in the way of titles for their Dream Team teammates. Johnson prevented Bird from making this list by leading Michigan State to victory over his Indiana State team in the 1979 NCAA Tournament National Final. Jordan directly denied NBA championship glory for John Stockton, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, and Patrick Ewing, eventually defeating all of them in head-to-head Conference Finals or NBA Finals match-ups. Jordan was already a member of this list before the Dream Team dominated the 1992 Olympics, as he had previously competed as an amateur on the 1984 squad. But Johnson also has some added distinctions that set him apart from Jordan here. First, he was a high school champion, leading Everett High School to the Michigan state title in 1976. Second, he is one of just seven players ever to be awarded NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player and NBA Finals MVP (the rest: Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Isiah Thomas, James Worthy, and Hakeem Olajuwon).