17) Khalid El-Amin, ’00-’01
His heroics in the 1999 NCAA Tournament led Connecticut to the title but El-Amin had some red flags heading into the 2000 NBA Draft. Most notable was his height, or lack thereof, at 5’10” and his weight, listed at 200 pounds but likely higher. He fell to the Bulls in the second round and became an unlikely starting point guard on opening night, winning the spot over fellow rookie Jamal Crawford. El-Amin’s numbers weren’t terribly impressive (6.3 points and 2.9 assists per game) but his hustle and play making won over fans and he participated in the All-Star Rookie Challenge. He was losing minutes in Tim Floyd’s fickle rotations at that point regardless and reportedly responded by showing up late or altogether skipping practices. El-Amin was waived with 15 games remaining in the ’00-’01 season and never played in the NBA again, instead spending the rest of his career in Europe.
16) Sylvester Gray, ’88-’89
Knowing they had little chance to contend, the expansion Heat really just needed some warm bodies in ’88-’89. Gray was one of six players that Miami selected in the 1988 NBA Draft, and one of 10 rookies to appear in at least one game in the ’88-’89 season. In fact, despite being a second round pick, he started in 15 games at small forward, with his best performance coming in a March loss to the Knicks, in which Gray put up 25 points and 14 rebounds. He averaged a respectable 8.0 points and 5.2 rebounds per game but also struggled at times with his weight and a thumb injury, and reportedly clashed with coach Ron Rothstein. After drafting Glen Rice that summer, the Heat waived Gray on the eve of the ’89-’90 season. Though he never appeared in the NBA again, he did spend 17 years playing overseas, with a couple stops in between with various teams in the CBA.
15) Eddie Phillips, ’82-’83
Nets coach Larry Brown was reportedly stunned when Phillips was still available with the 21st pick in the 1982 NBA Draft. The smooth shooting power forward had been a dominant force at Alabama, finishing as the program’s second all-time leading scorer. But Phillips’ “tweener” status did him in. He was too big to keep up with small forwards and too small to battle in the paint against power forwards. It also didn’t help that the team traded for a veteran power forward on the eve of the season, bringing in Mickey Johnson from the Bucks. Most of Phillips’ playing time came late in blowouts but he did make the most of his limited opportunities, finishing the season with 3.2 points and 1.6 rebounds in just 8.7 minutes per game. With Brown having resigned late in the ’82-’83 season, Phillips had no backers left in New Jersey and moved on to a career in Europe.
14) Ed Sherod, ’82-’83
Part of a rare cohort of players who made their NBA debut in the playoffs, Sherod was drafted by the Nets in the seventh round in 1981, cut, spent a season in the CBL, then signed with New Jersey on the eve of the 1982 postseason. He appeared only briefly as the Nets were swept in the first round by the Bullets and was traded that summer across the river to the Knicks. When Micheal Ray Richardson was subsequently dealt away to the Warriors, Sherod became an unlikely starting point guard at the outset of the season. He started the first 33 games of ’82-’83, averaging 7.8 points and 6.2 assists per game, until the struggling Knicks shifted Paul Westphal from shooting guard to the point. Sherod mostly sat on the bench for the rest of the season, then was cut in the offseason. He never played professionally again, instead transitioning into coaching at his alma mater VCU.
13) Dennis Nutt, ’86-’87
It was a long, hard road to the NBA for Nutt, and his place in the sun lasted just 25 games. A member of the All-Southwestern Conference team during his time at TCU, Nutt went un-drafted in 1985 and signed with the La Crosse Catbirds of the CBA. He was signed and waived by the Mavericks twice before taking the court, but the third time was the charm, with Nutt joining the roster early in the ’86-’87 season as essentially a third-string point guard. He played only limited minutes in his 25 regular season appearances, performing best in a late February win over the Warriors, with a career high 11 points in garbage time. Nutt also made a brief playoff appearance in one game and that would be that for his NBA career. After brief stints back in the CBA and in Spain, Nutt became a coach, eventually taking over at Texas State for six seasons.
12) Phil Sellers, ’76-’77
After starring at Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn, earning All-American honors, Sellers had his pick of any major college program in the country. He made a shocking decision to attend nearby Rutgers and led the school to its first and only Final Four appearance in 1976. After graduating as the school’s all-time leading scorer (a record he still holds), Sellers fell to the third round of the NBA Draft, perhaps due to his matriculation decision. A strong power forward in high school and college despite standing just 6’4″, he was converted to a shooting guard by the Pistons and struggled in the new role. Sellers averaged just 4.5 points per game in limited minutes in his rookie season and was subsequently waived. He played a brief gig in the Netherlands and tried out for the Pistons again in 1979 (at the urging of his former college coach, Dick Vitale) but never re-appeared in the NBA.
11) Tom Payne, ’71-’72
The first Black player ever recruited to Kentucky by Adolph Rupp, Payne made his debut as a sophomore in 1970. It was one-and-done for him at the collegiate level as well, as Payne was named 1st-Team All-SEC while dealing with racial taunts from opposing fans, but dropped out of school after accepting a car as a gift from the Pittsburgh Condors of the ABA. Taking advantage of the new “hardship clause,” Payne entered the 1971 NBA supplemental draft and was selected by the Hawks. He averaged 4.1 points and 2.4 rebounds for Atlanta in ’71-’72 until a new, much more troubling concern surfaced. Turns out Payne was a serial rapist starting on campus at Kentucky and carrying over into his playing days in Atlanta. He was arrested and spent most of the next 46 years in jail. Payne did get parole in 1983 and attempted a comeback in the CBA before getting arrested again and returning to prison.
10) Ricky Berry, ’88-’89
The Sacramento Kings and Berry seemed like a perfect match. A local kid who was only lightly recruited out of high school in 1983, he became an unlikely star playing for his father at San Jose State. His hometown Kings were collecting young talent in a rebuilding effort when they drafted Berry in the first round in 1988. With a consistent jumper and smooth ball handling skills for his size (6’8″), Berry managed to overpower smaller guards and circumvent bigger forwards even as a rookie. He averaged 20.0 points and 6.6 rebounds per game over a 10-game stretch at the end of the season. He was obviously going to factor in heavily in the Kings’ plans for ’89-’90 but instead he was dead that August, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. It was a shock to his friends, family, teammates, and fans, as Berry had displayed little-to-no signs of depression.
Singles: 25 more notable players who lasted just one season in the NBA
| Ossie Schectman: The man who scored the first basket in NBA history in 1946 was already 27 years old and a five-year pro veteran at the time; he returned to the NBL after one season and then retired from basketball to focus on his salesman career | |
| Dan Swartz: Drafted by the Celtics in 1956 but didn’t join the team until six years later, winning a championship in his one and only season before returning to his native Kentucky to become county sheriff | |
| Alfredrick Hughes: Set the Horizon League career scoring record while at Loyola-Chicago and was drafted #14 overall by the Spurs in 1985 but was cut after one disappointing season and spent the rest of his career in the CBA and WBL | |
| Vassilis Spanoulis: One of the greatest players in FIBA and EuroLeague history and actually took a pay cut to chase his NBA dream but found playing time scarce under Jeff Van Gundy on the ’06-’07 Rockets and subsequently returned to his native Greece | |
| Lorenzo Charles: The hero of the 1983 NCAA Tournament National Final with his unlikely buzzer beater but couldn’t cut in the NBA, averaging just 3.4 points per game in one season with the Hawks before spending the rest of his career in the CBA and abroad | |
| Korleone Young: A poster child for the pratfalls of the prep-to-pro era, he played just three games for the Pistons in ’98-’99 at age 19 and couldn’t make another NBA roster due to concerns over his injury history, immaturity, and connection to an AAU scandal | |
| Cleo Hill: First ever player to be drafted in the first round out of an HBCU (Winston-Salem State) and had serious star potential but was frozen out of the St. Louis Hawks rotation and then blackballed by the other owners due to the ongoing Black player quota | |
| Fennis Dembo: Struggled to make the transition from NCAA scoring champ to NBA bench warmer but did win a title with the Pistons in his one-and-only season, even making a brief appearance in game one of the 1989 NBA Finals | |
| Wayne Yates: An All-American at Memphis and #5 overall pick of the Lakers in 1961 but absconded for the nascent ABL after just one NBA season spent mostly sitting on the bench behind Rudy LaRusso and Jim Krebs | |
| Miles Simon: His 1997 NCAA Tournament performance for Arizona was the stuff of legends but concerns over his size (6’3″) bumped him to a second round pick and after playing in just five games for the Magic in ’98-’99, he moved on to a career in Israel | |
| Mirsad Turkcan: Made history as the first Turkish NBA player but his brief career was marked by bad luck (the 1998 lockout greatly delayed his debut) and instability (traded from the Rockets to the 76ers to the Knicks in less than a year) | |
| Billy Donovan: The two-time NCAA champion coach was once a star player at Providence under Rick Pitino, who brought Donovan into the fold on the Knicks, albeit for just parts of the ’87-’88 season | |
| Tom Stith: How does a two-time All-American and #2 overall pick in the NBA Draft last just one season? First he missed an entire year due to tuberculosis, then he played just 25 games for the Knicks before suffering career-ending injuries in a car accident | |
| Yuta Tabuse: He made history in 2004 as the first Japanese-born NBA player but played just four games that season for the Suns; after several failed attempts to return via the D-League, he become a league MVP and champion in his home country | |
| God Shammgod: A breakout star of the 1997 NCAA Tournament with his patented cross-over dribble, he was a second round pick of the Wizards but found his playground style difficult to translate to NBA courts and played in just 20 games | |
| Mychel Thompson: While his younger brother Klay developed into one of the biggest NBA stars of the ’10s, Mychal had a more difficult time, playing just five games for the Cavaliers in ’11-’12 then bouncing around the D-League for six years before retiring | |
| Press Maravich: Already 31 years old by the time the league started, a lengthy NBA career was infeasible for the father of Hall of Fame inductee Pete; he played one season with the Pittsburgh Ironmen then retired to become a coach when the franchise folded | |
| Keith Smart: He likely still never needs to buy a beer in Indiana thanks to his exploits in the 1987 NCAA Tournament but Spurs fans are less enamored with Smart, who appeared in just two games in the ’88-’89 season | |
| Royce White: For all the controversies involving his contract, his mental health, his untapped potential, his clashes with team management, and now his political views, White played in only three NBA games for the Kings during the ’13-’14 season | |
| Georgi Glouchkov: It’s still debatable whether the brevity of his NBA career was the result of poor conditioning, culture shock, steroids, or mismanagement from the Suns, but the Bulgarian was an undeniable trail blazer, as the first NBA player to come from the European Eastern bloc |
9) Jay Williams, ’02-’03
Winner of the Naismith Award and an All-American at Duke, Williams obviously had the requisite skill set to thrive in the NBA, but one fateful motorcycle ride ended things just as they were getting started. Drafted second overall by the Bulls in 2002, he averaged 9.5 points and 4.7 assists per game and was named 2nd-Team All-Rookie. Then, just weeks after his rookie season ended, he crashed his motorcycle into a streetlight, shattering his pelvis, tearing his ACL, and severing a nerve in his leg. Williams was unlicensed, not wearing a helmet, and violating his contract by riding a motorcycle at all. He was lucky that the Bulls paid out part of his contract when they waived, as they could have voided it completely. It was unsure whether Williams would ever walk again, but he did eventually make a full recovery and attempted a comeback with the Nets that ended before he could re-take the court.
8) Bennie Swain, ’58-’59
If your NBA career is only going to last one season, then you might as well win a championship. Such was the case for Swain, who was an NCAA scoring champion and All-American at Texas Southern, a role player on the ’58-’59 Celtics, and then a retiree after a debilitating knee injury. Red Auerbach certainly expected Swain’s pro career to go differently. The Celtics coach and general manager drafted Swain in the first round in 1958 as a long-term front court mate with Bill Russell. There were signs of his potential in his rookie season, as Swain averaged 4.6 points and 4.5 rebounds per game in just 12.2 minutes of average playing time, mostly as Russell’s backup. The knee injury came in the summer of 1959, just after Swain earned his title ring and a couple subsequent comeback attempts fell short. Another superlative: Swain is the only player from Texas Southern to ever win an NBA title.
7) Bert Cook, ’54-’55
Initially drafted in 1952, Cook missed two years due to service in the U.S. Army before joining a Knicks team fresh off three consecutive NBA Finals losses. He managed to carve out a decent role in the rotation in ’54-’55 as a backup shooting guard, including a 16-point performance late in the season against Boston. In his first playoff appearance, Cook scored eight points in game one of a first round series versus the Celtics but also suffered a knee injury which would end his career. Perhaps cursed by Cook, it took the Knicks 15 years to return to the NBA Finals. Though his time in pros was relatively unmemorable, Cook is still a legend in his home state of Utah, where he earned the nickname “Heater” for his scoring prowess at Weber High School and Utah State, and was inducted into the state’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1991.
6) Dick Groat, ’52-’53
It wasn’t injury, organizational chaos, or off-court issues that cost Groat his potentially great NBA career, but rather his abundance of talent in another sport. An All-American at Duke in both basketball and baseball, Groat decided to try his hand at both in the pros, almost four decades before Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders. He signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates to play shortstop and with the Fort Wayne Pistons (who drafted him third overall) to play point guard. After batting .284 for the Pirates and finishing third in Rookie of the Year voting, Groat averaged 11.9 points in 26 games for the Pistons before shutting it down due to exhaustion. Following a two-year stint with the U.S. Army, Groat was eager to return to both sports but Pirates general manager Branch Rickey was insistent that he quit the NBA. He eventually was named to five MLB All-Star teams, and in 1960 won league MVP.
5) Lazaro Borrell, ’99-’00
A refugee who defected from Cuba during the 1999 FIBA Tournament of the Americas, Borrell was a hot commodity for NBA teams despite being 27 years old and facing a language barrier. The Sonics signed him and mostly kept him on the bench at first during the ’99-’00 season. Borrell’s late season breakthrough came courtesy of Vin Baker, whose lax attitude got him benched by coach Paul Westphal in favor of Borrell. The Cuban defector responded well, averaging 11.8 points and 6.3 rebounds in five games as a starter. This wasn’t garbage time either, as Seattle was battling for playoff seeding down the stretch. Borrell even started at power forward in game one of the Conference Quarterfinals against the Jazz but when that game ended in a loss, Westphal finally restored Baker as the starter. Borrell was traded that summer to the Knicks but was cut in training camp, ending his time in the NBA.
4) John Richter, ’59-’60
When Bennie Swain tore up his knee in the summer of 1959 (see #8 above), Red Auerbach had to search for a new backup center behind Bill Russell. He settled on Richter as a new potential long-term solution for that role but like Swain, Richter lasted just one season. He was solid in that short career, with 4.7 points and 4.3 rebounds off the bench in the regular season plus some important minutes in the NBA Finals, facing off against the fearsome Hawks front line. Though Richter played relatively well and came away with a title ring, he didn’t quite live up to the expectations Auerbach had for a first round backup and was waived from the team before the ’60-’61 season. Richter returned to his native Pennsylvania and played successfully for the Sunbury and Scranton franchises in the Eastern Basketball League before retiring in 1972.
3) Juan Carlos Navarro, ’07-’08
Navarro’s one NBA season was just a footnote in his career, sandwiched between a pair of decade-plus stints with FC Barcelona in his native Spain. He had declared for the NBA Draft in 2002 but was dealing with injuries at the time and fell to the second round. After a few more seasons in Spain, Navarro opted to make a go of it in the NBA, joining his friend and national teammate Pau Gasol on the Grizzlies. Navarro played in all 82 games, averaging 10.9 points, attempting over 400 three-point field goals, and getting named 2nd-Team All-Rookie. But Memphis’ mid-season trade of Gasol to the Lakers had soured Navarro on the NBA lifestyle, and the Grizzlies’ 2008 pursuit of free agent Allen Iverson sent him packing back to Spain. Navarro’s accolades in his native country are undeniable, with one Spanish League MVP award, one Euroleague MVP award, and three Spanish League Finals MVP awards.
2) Jack Molinas, ’53-’54
Maybe the most notorious figure in NBA player history, Molinas played 32 games for the Pistons in ’53-’54, made the All-Star team, then was banned from the league for life for betting on games (his suspension was handed out before the All-Star Game and he was disallowed from participating). An undeniably great player, Molinas was a star for Columbia in the early ’50s but was also making mob connections and supposedly throwing games and over/under totals to help out his new friends and his own gambling addiction. He was averaging 11.6 points and 7.1 rebounds per game at the time of his banning and immediately shifted into full-time bookmaking and game fixing afterwards. It’s long been speculated that Molinas interfered with the Pistons in the 1955 NBA Finals, and we know he eventually made headlines for his involvement in the 1961 point shaving scandal.
1) Jack Stephens, ’55-’56
It wasn’t injury, suspension, or franchise mismanagement that cut Stephens’ career short, but rather the Air Force. A first round pick of the Hawks in 1955 out of Notre Dame, Stephens immediately slotted in as starting shooting guard and averaged 10.3 points per game as a rookie. By the end of the season, he was the second scoring option after Bob Pettit as St. Louis reached the cusp of the NBA Finals, losing a winner-take-all game five to the Pistons in the Conference Finals. But Stephens choose to step away from a promising career and join the U.S. Air Force, eventually attaining the rank of captain before his honorable discharge 12 years later. Though his pro career wasn’t honorific, he was eventually inducted into the Illinois Basketball Hall of Fame (for his high school exploits) and named part of Notre Dame’s All-Century Team in 2005.
Next up in Retirements and Comebacks
Going out on top: 17 notable NBA players who retired as champions
Moral support: 26 notable NBA champions who were not on the playoff roster
Short and sweet: 16 greatest post-merger players whose NBA career lasted 10 seasons or fewer
Adding insult: 14 NBA players who suffered unusual off-court injuries
Loyal foot soldiers: 10 role players who spent their entire NBA career with one team
Tough act to follow: 23 (mostly) forgotten NBA players who replaced departing legends
Over the hill and on the court: 31 NBA players who stayed active into their 40s
Nothing to show for it: 20 notable players who were teammates with Magic Johnson or Larry Bird but didn’t win a title
All the commissioner’s men: Nine enduring NBA conspiracy theories
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss: 22 NBA coaches who had multiple stints with the same franchise
Line of succession: 20 NCAA coaches who replaced departing legends
