When LeBron James entered the NBA as the top pick in the 2003 draft, he did so in the face of seemingly impossible expectations.
James already had graced a Sports Illustrated cover with the headline “The Chosen One.” His high school games had been broadcast on national television for more than a year. He was one of the most anticipated rookies in the history of the sport.
More than 20 years later, James has not only met those expectations; he has exceeded them.
Today, the 39-year-old superstar — in the middle of trying to lead Team USA to a fifth straight Olympic gold medal at the Paris Games — is still among the best players on the planet.
James is the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. He reached eight consecutive NBA Finals and 10 in total. He has hoisted four Larry O’Brien Trophies, including leading the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016 to Northeast Ohio’s first pro sports championship in a half-century and the Los Angeles Lakers to the 2020 title inside the Orlando bubble. He has four NBA Most Valuable Player Awards and a like number of Finals MVPs.
Add it all up and it makes James an extremely easy choice as the top men’s basketball player of the 2000s.
After King James, though?
Things get a lot more complicated.
Should Kobe Bryant rank ahead of Tim Duncan? Dwyane Wade ahead of Kevin Garnett? Kawhi Leonard ahead of Chris Paul? Do Draymond Green and Klay Thompson both make the list? What about Ray Allen and Paul Pierce?
None of these rankings — other than James at the top — is unassailable. They are, however, fun.
And after a panel of ESPN experts voted on the subject, here’s the list of 25 players who ultimately made the cut.
— Tim Bontemps
1. LeBron James
Key accomplishments: NBA 75th Anniversary team, NBA’s all-time scoring leader, 20-time All-Star, 19-time All-NBA selection, six-time All-Defense, four-time MVP, four-time Finals MVP, four-time NBA champion, three-time All-Star Game MVP
The “48 special” game happened 17 years ago this spring. That’s when James scored 29 of the last 30 points for the Cleveland Cavaliers in a double-overtime upset Game 5 road win against the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals. The 48-point game was a mesmerizing performance that stands as one of the classic games of this century … and it probably doesn’t even rank in the top 10 of James’ playoff performances. It might not be one of his top three conference finals games. This is what James’ greatness rests on: No one has ever been this good for this long. That long-ago night in the Palace of Auburn Hills is merely one of 29 40-point games James has in the playoffs alone.
That win paved the way to his first Finals, starting a run of 10 appearances in 14 years. During that stretch he won four NBA titles, four MVPs and four Finals MVPs with three different teams, as well as two Olympic gold medals. He also won at least one road game in 29 consecutive playoff series. He has scored in double figures in 1,222 consecutive regular-season games — the last time he didn’t, his son Bronny, now his Laker teammate, was 2 years old. Volume isn’t a vogue way to measure achievement in the NBA anymore, and it lends credence to those who want to push James down all-time lists. It’s the only side of the argument to take against James, who has essentially renamed the NBA’s record book for himself. — Brian Windhorst
LeBron’s path to 40,000 points

2. Kobe Bryant
Key accomplishments: NBA 75th Anniversary team, Basketball Hall of Famer, five-time champion, two-time Finals MVP, 2007-08 MVP, 18-time All-Star, 15-time All-NBA selection, 12-time All-Defense, four-time All-Star Game MVP
For all of the accomplishments Bryant amassed, the five championships chief among them, and all of the otherworldly scoring feats — nine straight 40-point games in 2003, four straight 50-point games in 2007, the 81-point night against Toronto, the 60-point send-off against Utah — his lasting achievement was inspiration. The Lakers legend’s self-described “Mamba mentality” has transcended basketball, and sports for that matter, a branded way of life that fans and admirers of Bryant aspire to reach. It promises that with enough drive, enough work, enough will and enough focus, you too can shape your existence the way Bryant did.
After a horrific helicopter crash in 2020 killed Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others, Bryant’s impact continues to be felt posthumously. His name is as relevant as ever in the NBA, with countless players paying homage to the shooting guard by wearing Nos. 8 and 24 and the league renaming the All-Star MVP trophy in his honor. “He’s like our generation’s Jordan,” Brooklyn Nets guard Cam Thomas told ESPN last season. “How the other guys liked Jordan, that’s how we are with Kobe.” — Dave McMenamin
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ESPN’s Top 100 Athletes: Kobe Bryant’s top plays
Check out the top 10 career plays from NBA superstar Kobe Bryant as he lands at No. 10 in ESPN’s Top 100 athletes of the 21st century.

Key accomplishments: NBA 75th Anniversary team, four-time NBA champion, 2022 Finals MVP, 10-time All-Star, nine-time All-NBA, 2022 All-Star Game MVP, two-time scoring leader, career leader in 3-pointers made
Curry had been reluctant to call himself the greatest shooter of all time until he broke the career 3-point scoring record. Once he achieved that milestone in December 2021, he wasn’t so shy about it anymore. Curry has changed the way basketball is played — at every level of the sport. Nowadays you’ll find kids in high school gyms going through the same pregame shooting routine Curry does. And in the NBA, offenses are built around 3-point shooting like never before.
If the way he revolutionized the game isn’t enough to solidify his standing in the NBA — and among great athletes around the world — his résuméis. After winning his first Finals MVP in 2022, to go along with his four titles, 10 All-Star appearances, nine All-NBA teams and two MVPs, Curry asked: “What are they going to say now?” — Kendra Andrews
Inside Curry’s quest for 3-point supremacy

4. Tim Duncan, basketball
Key accomplishments: NBA 75th Anniversary team, Basketball Hall of Famer, four-time NBA champion, 13-time All-NBA selection, 13-time All-Defense, 14-time All-Star, two-time MVP, two-time Finals MVP
The first 2½ seasons of Duncan’s stellar career came before the turn of the century, but that didn’t stop him from cementing his spot near the top of this list. Even without a Rookie of the Year and his first NBA title, Duncan’s run in the early 2000s banked him both of his MVP awards. He earned the first in 2001-02 with a career-best average of 25.5 points, along with 12.7 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 2.5 blocks per game. The Big Fundamental was also one of the best defenders the league has seen, earning his final All-Defensive team nod in 2015 at 38 years old. — Andrew Lopez
Duncan and Popovich, the NBA’s power couple

5. Shaquille O’Neal, basketball
Key accomplishments: NBA 75th Anniversary team, Basketball Hall of Famer, four-time champion, three-time Finals MVP, 1999-2000 MVP, nine-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA, two-time All-Defense
When Phil Jackson took a then 27-year-old O’Neal out to dinner during training camp ahead of the 1999-2000 Lakers season, the Zen Master challenged the center with a lofty objective. “I told him that he should make it his goal to be the MVP,” Jackson wrote in 2016. “In fact, I suggested to him that, by the time he retired, they should rename the trophy the Shaq Award!”
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O’Neal went on to win three MVPs during the ensuing campaign: He was named co-MVP of the All-Star Game along with Tim Duncan for posting 22 points, 9 rebounds and 3 blocks in a win for the West; he was regular-season MVP after averaging 29.7 points, 13.8 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 3.0 blocks; and he was NBA Finals MVP after averaging 38 points on 61.1% shooting, 16.7 rebounds and 2.7 blocks in a six-game series win over the Indiana Pacers to capture the first of his three titles with the Lakers and four overall. The league never named the trophy after O’Neal, but he did pick up the moniker “Most Dominant Ever,” which isn’t a bad consolation prize. — Dave McMenamin
How Shaq helped alter the NBA landscape

Key accomplishments: NBA 75th Anniversary team, Basketball Hall of Famer, 2008 NBA champion, 2003-04 MVP, 2007-08 Defensive Player of the Year, 13-time All-Star, 12-time All-Defense team, eight-time All-NBA selection, 2003 All-Star Game MVP
Garnett was famously loyal to Minnesota, leading the Timberwolves to their first playoff series victories when he piloted them to the 2004 Western Conference finals. But despite winning his lone MVP award that season, it was in Boston where he would cement himself in history. He and Ray Allen teamed up with Paul Pierce to usher in a new big three era in the NBA and lead the Celtics to the 2008 title, plus another NBA Finals appearance two seasons later. Garnett bellowing “Anything is possible!” in the aftermath of the Celtics’ Game 6 victory over their archrivals, the Los Angeles Lakers, has become an indelible championship moment. — Tim Bontemps
The cruel tutelage of Kevin Garnett

7. Nikola Jokic
Key accomplishments: 2023 NBA champion, 2023 Finals MVP, three-time MVP, six-time All-Star, five-time All-NBA selection, 2023 Western Conference finals MVP.
Before the Clippers would blow a 3-1 lead in the second round against Denver inside the bubble in 2020, Doc Rivers was asked who Jokic reminded him most of. Rivers couldn’t pick just one legendary big man. “He has all the footwork and the moves of an [Hakeem] Olajuwon,” Rivers said. “The lanky and goofy intelligence of Kevin McHale. … He’s the best passing big that I’ve seen, I think, ever. [And] I know [Bill] Walton was one of [the best ever].” Rivers might have actually undersold Jokic. This was before the Nuggets superstar won three MVP awards, a championship and a Finals MVP. At 29, Jokic continues to annually put up numbers the league hasn’t seen from a big man since Wilt Chamberlain, and he’s far from done. — Ohm Youngmisuk
Tales of Jokic’s journey to a title

8. Dwyane Wade
Key accomplishments: NBA 75th Anniversary team, Basketball Hall of Famer, three-time NBA champion, 2006 Finals MVP, 13-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA selection, three-time All-Defense, 2010 All-Star Game MVP.
Who could forget that four-game Finals run Wade had? He averaged 30 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists on 60% shooting … in the 2011 NBA Finals the Miami Heat lost to the Dallas Mavericks. The brilliance of Wade’s career was perhaps dimmed a tad because he teamed up with LeBron James and Chris Bosh at the peak of his powers. And the 2011 Finals will always be remembered for James’ stumbles and not Wade’s singular brilliance that was essentially wasted. But his career was spectacular and his 2006 Finals four-game run — 39.3 points and 8.3 rebounds on 50% shooting (and 73 free throws) — to lead the Heat to the first of three titles is legendary.
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In the two seasons before James arrived in Miami, Wade won the scoring title and twice finished in the top five of the MVP voting. He willingly took a step back for James, an act that undoubtedly helped the Heat jell and win back-to-back titles even if it meant the end of his time at the top of those lists. It was a team-first act he paired with a willingness to come off the bench in the 2008 Olympics for the Redeem Team. He still stands as one of the greatest shooting guards of all time, the best shot-blocking guard in NBA history and a flag-carrying member of the iconic 2003 draft class. — Brian Windhorst
The Heat found their icon in Dwyane Wade

9. Kevin Durant
Key accomplishments: NBA 75th Anniversary team, two-time champion, two-time Finals MVP, 14-time All-Star, two-time All-Star Game MVP, 2013-14 MVP, 10-time All-NBA, four-time scoring leader, 2007-08 Rookie of the Year.
“I’m Kevin Durant. You know who I am. Y’all know who I am.” That was Durant’s conclusion to a lengthy answer about pesky Patrick Beverley‘s defense against him (with a whole lot of help, as Durant noted) early in a 2019 playoff series. Durant’s point: He had proved himself as one of the best scorers to ever play the game, a four-time scoring champion who had won the previous two NBA Finals MVPs, a blend of size and skill that had never been seen before. Then he averaged 41.5 points the rest of that series as the Warriors finished off the Clippers. As he has bounced from team to team, there has been one constant about KD’s identity: When he’s healthy, he has always been impossible to guard. — Tim MacMahon
What fueled Kevin Durant’s return

10. Dirk Nowitzki
Key accomplishments: NBA 75th anniversary team, Basketball Hall of Famer, 2011 NBA champion, 2011 Finals MVP, 2006-07 MVP, 14-time All-Star, 12-time All-NBA selection.
Nowitzki revolutionized the way the NBA game is played, a pioneer as a sweet-shooting 7-footer who thrived as a perimeter threat. But the big German is best remembered for an iconic post move he developed midway through his career. It was his most lethal weapon when Nowitzki shattered “soft Euro” stereotypes by leading the Dallas Mavericks to their lone title. His one-legged fadeaway is captured on the statue that stands outside the American Airlines Center and has the inscription “Loyalty never fades away” — a nod to Nowitzki’s record-setting 21-year run with one franchise. “The Dirk fade,” as it’s commonly called, is recreated by stars throughout the league on a regular basis. — Tim MacMahon
The moment Dirk announced himself to the world

Key accomplishments: NBA 75th anniversary team, 2021 NBA champion, 2021 Finals MVP, two-time MVP, 2019-20 Defensive Player of the Year, eight-time All-Star, 2021 All-Star Game MVP, seven-time All-NBA selection, five-time All-Defense, 2016-17 Most Improved Player.
When the Milwaukee Bucks selected a skinny kid from Greece who had been playing basketball for only two years with the 15th pick in the 2013 draft, it was impossible to predict how his arrival would alter the franchise’s trajectory for the next decade. Antetokounmpo transformed himself from an unknown but promising prospect into one of the most dominant power forwards in history at both ends of the floor — culminating in a 50-point game in the 2021 NBA Finals to clinch the franchise’s first championship in 50 years. The fact that he ordered 50 chicken nuggets the next day to celebrate only endeared him to Milwaukee fans even more. — Jamal Collier
The evolution of Giannis, from little known prospect to an NBA champion

12. Steve Nash
Key accomplishments: NBA 75th Anniversary team, Basketball Hall of Famer, two-time MVP, eight-time All-Star, seven-time All-NBA, five-time assists leader.
Before words like “efficiency” and “pace” became as common part of the NBA parlance as “slam dunk” and “pick-and-roll,” there was a diminutive guard from Canada who, as a contemporary of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal in the late 1990s through early 2000s, ended up with as many regular-season MVPs as the two of them combined. Under the revolutionary tutelage of coach Mike D’Antoni with the Phoenix Suns, Nash won the award in 2005 and 2006 as the point guard on the heralded “7 Seconds or Less” teams that made it to three Western Conference finals in six years. While Nash never won a ring, he maximized his talents as a 6-foot-3 point guard, shooting 50% overall, 40% from 3 and 90% from the free throw line in four seasons and leading the league in assists five times. — Dave McMenamin
What if Steve Nash had turned up the volume?

13. James Harden
Key accomplishments: NBA 75th Anniversary team, 2017-18 MVP, 10-time All-Star, seven-time All-NBA selection, three-time scoring leader, two-time assists leader, 2011-12 Sixth Man of the Year.
Harden will go down as one of the most prolific scorers in NBA history, but The Beard and his step-back were nearly unstoppable from 2017 to 2020. He started his scoring spree with an MVP season in 2017-18, averaging 30.4 points, 8.8 assists and 5.4 rebounds. And he was even better the following season, averaging 36.1 points in 2018-19 — the eighth-highest average in NBA history. Only Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor and Michael Jordan have averaged more points in a single season. He then averaged 34.3 points in 2019-20 to win his third consecutive scoring title. His scoring overshadows his other elite skill as a passer. Harden is the only player in NBA history to win three scoring titles and two assist titles. — Ohm Youngmisuk
The ‘final straw’ of the Harden-Morey era

14. Jason Kidd
Key accomplishments: NBA 75th Anniversary Team, Basketball Hall of Famer, 2011 NBA champion, eight-time All-Star, eight-time All-Defense, five-time All-NBA selection, four-time assists leader.
If not for Shaquille O’Neal and Tim Duncan and the Lakers and Spurs dynasties of the early 2000s, Kidd might’ve had another championship and an MVP on his illustrious résumé. During his first two seasons in New Jersey, Kidd was at the peak of a career that saw him finish as one of the game’s most elite passers and versatile triple-double threats. Kidd made teammates better everywhere he went, which was never more evident than during his first season in New Jersey in 2001-02, when he turned the Nets around from 26 wins the season before to 52 wins, leading to the franchise’s first Finals appearance.
Kidd, though, finished second in MVP voting to Duncan before being swept in the Finals by O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. The following season, Kidd got the Nets back to the Finals only to lose in six games to Duncan and the Spurs. He would finally get a championship ring playing alongside Dirk Nowitzki in Dallas in 2011. — Ohm Youngmisuk
Before LeBron, there was Jason Kidd

Key accomplishments: NBA 75th Anniversary team, 12-time All-Star, 11-time All-NBA selection, nine-time All-Defense, 2013 All-Star Game MVP, 2005-06 Rookie of the Year, six-time steals leader, five-time assists leader.
Paul has run thousands of pick-and-rolls to perfection and dished the ball out for nearly 12,000 assists, but his greatest accomplishment might have been transforming the LA Clippers from annual punching bags to perennial playoff contenders while orchestrating the unforgettable Lob City teams. Before Paul’s arrival in Los Angeles, the franchise had made the postseason just seven times in its history.
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Paul’s Clippers made the playoffs six consecutive times as he delivered some of the most scintillating alley-oops in NBA history to Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan. Clippers fans won’t forget Paul’s Game 7-winning running bank shot that capped off a 27-point performance against the defending champion San Antonio Spurs in the first round in 2015. — Ohm Youngmisuk
Chris Paul won’t be played by the NBA

16. Kawhi Leonard
Key accomplishments: Two-time Finals MVP, two-time NBA champion, six-time All-Star, five-time All-NBA selection, two-time Defensive Player of the Year.
Not even an LA Clippers tenure marred by injuries can diminish a legacy that only a handful of players in history can match or top. Leonard is one of 12 players to ever win two NBA Finals MVP trophies. None of them, however, led a Canadian team to the country’s first NBA championship. In leading Toronto to the title in 2019, Leonard cemented himself as one of the game’s most clutch players when healthy in the playoffs. He delivered one of the most legendary buzzer-beaters in playoff history when his twisting corner jumper softly bounced on the rim four times and in to eliminate Philadelphia in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals that season.
Even during his five-year Clippers tenure, Leonard has shown signs of dominance when healthy. He just has to finish a postseason healthy again, something he hasn’t done since the 2020 bubble. — Ohm Youngmisuk

17. Manu Ginobili
Key accomplishments: Basketball Hall of Famer, NBA 75th Anniversary team, four-time NBA champion, two-time All-Star, two-time All-NBA, 2007-08 Sixth Man of the Year
A starter early in his career for San Antonio, Ginobili later embraced a sixth man role for the Spurs and thrived. He finished in the top eight in Sixth Man of the Year voting nine times in his career. “He didn’t love it in the beginning and probably to this day he’ll tell you he didn’t love it totally because he’s a competitor,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said in December about Ginobili. “He wants to start. It’s just a typical human reaction. But he did the right thing because of his character.” Ginobili also gets a nod for his international accolades: He was the EuroLeague Finals MVP in 2001 and led Argentina to a gold medal — along with MVP honors — during the 2004 Olympic Games. — Andrew Lopez
The five legacies of Manu Ginobili

18. Allen Iverson
Key accomplishments: Basketball Hall of Famer, NBA 75th Anniversary Team, 2000-01 MVP, 11-time All-Star, three-time scoring champ, six-time All-NBA, two-time All-Star MVP
In a sport dominated by giants, Iverson’s ability to consistently be one of the league’s elite scorers – while playing through injuries virtually every night – made him an iconic figure for a generation of players to follow. LeBron James, among others, has cited his importance to them as a basketball role model. And while he and the Philadelphia 76ers lost the NBA Finals in five games in 2001, Iverson stepping over Tyronn Lue in Philadelphia’s Game 1 victory became the signature moment of the four-time scoring champion’s career – and was the only time that legendary Lakers team lost en route to that year’s championship. — Tim Bontemps
For Iverson, it was never just about practice

19. Anthony Davis
Key accomplishments: NBA 75th Anniversary team, one-time NBA champion, nine-time All-Star, 2017 All-Star MVP, four-time All-NBA, four-time All-Defense, three-time blocks leader
Once known for his unibrow more than for his unicorn skill set, Davis blossomed from a defensive lynchpin in his early days in New Orleans to one of the most polished two-way threats in the league after five seasons spent in L.A. So far, nothing he’s done has topped his first season with the Lakers when he teamed with James to deliver the purple and gold their first title in 10 years under the most trying of circumstances as the franchise was reeling from Bryant’s death and the league was put on hiatus because of a global pandemic. His signature shot from L.A.’s bubble run — a buzzer-beating, game-winning 3 to go up 2-0 in the Western Conference finals — has cemented him in Laker lore. The fact that he yelled, “Kobe!” right after making it while wearing the Lakers’ special “Black Mamba” uniform in the game only made it more epic. — Dave McMenamin
Anthony Davis is building his legacy

20. Ray Allen
Key accomplishments: Basketball Hall of Famer, NBA 75th Anniversary team, two-time NBA champion, 10-time All-Star, two-time All-NBA
Before the modern NBA’s 3-point revolution saw teams launching from deep more than ever before in league history, Allen held the mantle as the game’s greatest outside shooter. Hear it from Stephen Curry, who in 2021 broke Allen’s record for most 3-pointers made in a career, when Curry was asked during an appearance on The Today Show to name the best shooters in NBA history not including himself. “I’d say Ray Allen. His form. His dedication to his craft. He hit big shots in his career.” — Jamal Collier

21. Tony Parker
Key accomplishments: Basketball Hall of Famer, four-time NBA champion, 2007 Finals MVP, six-time All-Star, four-time All-NBA
A 19-year-old Parker, the No. 28 overall pick in the 2001 NBA Draft, was inserted into the starting lineup in his fifth career game with San Antonio and never looked back. By the time he was 25, Parker had three rings and a Finals MVP – becoming the first European to do so – to his name as the floor general for the Spurs. At his jersey retirement ceremony with the Spurs in 2019, fellow Frenchman Boris Diaw said, “You can’t talk about French basketball without Tony coming up.” — Andrew Lopez
Inside Tony Parker’s departure from the Spurs

22. Draymond Green
Key accomplishments: Four-time NBA Champion, four-time All-Star, two-time All-NBA, 2016-17 Defensive Player of the Year, eight-time All-Defense.
For a moment — an extended moment — Green’s future both with the Warriors and in the NBA were in question. And for good reason. But everything he has done off of the court doesn’t negate the impact he’s made on the Warriors and the league. For as long as Curry has been the engine in Golden State, Green has been his second-in-command. The defensive anchor, his impact on the game is almost more noticeable when Green is off of the court and has propelled him to be a future hall-of-famer. — Kendra Andrews
Can Draymond learn to control the fire?

Key accomplishments: NBA 75th Anniversary team, 2016-17 MVP, nine-time All-Star, nine-time All-NBA, three-time assists leader, two-time points leader, all-time leader in triple-doubles.
Even as he came off the bench in limited minutes this past season for the Clippers, Russell Westbrook expressed supreme confidence in his ability, telling ESPN this past season: “Ain’t nobody better than me coming off the bench… Just because I know what I’m able to bring to the game. Nobody’s able to do what I can do since I’ve been in this league.” Westbrook may be a polarizing figure for his aggressive style of play which is beloved by his fans but also criticized by others. But there’s no denying that no one has accomplished what the fiery point guard did during the span of 2016 to 2021.
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He became the first player since Oscar Robertson to average a triple-double in a season when he averaged 31.6 points, 10.7 rebounds and 10.4 assists during his MVP season in 2016-17. He then would go on to accomplish that feat four times in five seasons. With 199 triple-doubles, Westbrook remains the triple-double king, leading the next active player on the all-time list, fourth-place Nikola Jokic, by 69 triple-doubles. — Ohm Youngmisuk
The moment that transformed Russell Westbrook

24. Pau Gasol
Key accomplishments: Basketball Hall of Famer, two-time NBA champion, six-time All-Star, four-time All-NBA, 2001-02 Rookie of the Year.
The year was 2008, Gasol was a runner up — twice — and Bryant wouldn’t let him forget about it. As if the Lakers losing the deciding Game 6 of the Finals to the Boston Celtics by 39 points in June wasn’t enough, Gasol and Spain lost to Bryant and the U.S. two months later in the gold medal game in the Beijing Olympics. When L.A. opened up training camp not long after, Gasol reported to his locker at the practice facility to find Bryant’s gold medal hanging inside of it, almost mocking the big man for coming up short. He made sure to change the course of his career from there, teaming with Bryant to win two straight titles and turning in a performance for the ages in Game 7 of the 2010 Finals against those same Celtics. Gasol put up 19 points, 18 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 blocks to outduel Kevin Garnett with the title on the line. — Dave McMenamin
The role Kobe played in Pau’s transformation

25. Luka Doncic
Key accomplishments: Five-time All-Star, one-time scoring champ, four-time All-NBA, 2018-19 Rookie of the Year.
After Doncic danced and drilled the go-ahead 3 with seconds remaining in Game 2 of the 2024 Western Conference finals, he roared at Rudy Gobert: “You can’t f—ing guard me!” Gobert, a four-time Defensive Player of the Year, has plenty of company in that misery. The 25-year-old Doncic just had one of the most prolific statistical seasons in NBA history, averaging a league-high 33.9 points, 9.8 assists and 9.2 rebounds per game, a combination never before accomplished. And only Michael Jordan has a higher career playoff scoring average than Doncic’s 30.9. — Tim MacMahon

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How an NBA sixth man built a $600M empire
Baxter Holmes, ESPN Senior WriterJul 24, 2024, 08:23 AM ET
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ONE DAY IN 1988, a woman approached the counter of a Wendy’s fast food restaurant in South Milwaukee. “Here’s your food,” a tall man said, pushing a tray toward her. Puzzled, she peered up at the man, whom she recognized as an NBA player, then down at her food, then back at him. Later that week, the woman called into a local radio station.
As the woman spoke, Junior Bridgeman was driving to his downtown Milwaukee office.
“I just think it’s a shame,” Bridgeman recalled her saying.
“What are you talking about?” one of the hosts responded.
“I stopped at a Wendy’s the other day,” she continued, “and these NBA basketball players make all this money and, when their career is over, they still have to work at Wendy’s.”
Bridgeman looked at his car’s speakers. “Oh my god,” he told himself. He was the ex-player who had served her. She was talking about him.
Bridgeman, who played for the Milwaukee Bucks from 1975 to 1984, laughed. What the woman didn’t know was that the recently retired Bridgeman wasn’t merely working at that Wendy’s location. The 6-foot-5 former wing owned it — and others across the city.
But Bridgeman understood her point. Salaries for players then weren’t that high by today’s standards. In Bridgeman’s 12-season career, which included a stint with the LA Clippers, he made about $2.95 million and never more than $350,000 in a season.
After his career, he built a fast-food empire that, at its peak, totaled more than 450 restaurants nationwide. He became a Coca-Cola bottling distributor with territory across three states and into Canada. He bought Ebony and Jet magazines. His estimated net worth soared to nearly $600 million, behind just Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and LeBron James, among NBA players.
But unlike those household names, Bridgeman was never an NBA star; his post-NBA fortune came without rich endorsement deals or the ability to cash in on global fame.
Junior Bridgeman was drafted at No. 8 by the Lakers, who then traded him to the Bucks in a deal that landed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Los Angeles. Dick Raphael/NBAE via Getty Images
He averaged 13.6 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.4 assists in 25 minutes per game over his career, during which he established himself as one of the game’s best sixth men. Bridgeman was an NBA everyman who made out well — very well.
But, over time, Bridgeman’s success became an outlier, an exception to the trend of pro athletes going broke because of money-hungry family and friends, costly post-career medical care, frivolous spending, shady investments, crooked financial managers, or any of the other myriad reasons.
Bridgeman has long tried to help. Since the early 1990s, he has spoken formally and informally to rookies and veterans, to NBA and college teams, sharing the lessons he has learned over 40 years in the business world about financial responsibility. Lessons that helped this NBA role player build a nine-figure, international empire.
And with the NBA on the brink of a new $76.4 billion media rights deal, one that will increase the salary cap 10% per year for the foreseeable future and eventually produce the first $100 million player in the league, Bridgeman believes financial literacy — a subject the league and NBPA have long tried to teach — is at its most paramount.
“What I’m scared and concerned about now,” the 70-year-old said on a recent afternoon from Louisville, Kentucky, where he has lived since the late 1980s, “is you start to get that feeling that I’ve got so much money that I can’t really blow it all.
“That’s the first step,” Bridgeman told ESPN, “in blowing it all.”
GROWING UP IN the blue-collar community of East Chicago, Indiana, Bridgeman envied his peers in elementary school who were boy scouts.
They would wear their uniforms, and he imagined his own. One day after school, there was a sign-up event to join the program, and Bridgeman, his mother and his older brother sat through the presentation. When it was over, the officials said membership cost $1.25. His mother stayed silent, but Bridgeman walked home from school knowing he couldn’t join because his family just didn’t have the money.
Bridgeman’s father spent 40 years working at a local steel mill; before his shift, he would clean the floor of a tavern, and afterward, clean windows at a department store. Sometimes, Bridgeman and his siblings helped.
In high school, Bridgeman spent summers working odd jobs, making about $20 to $40 per week — money he tried to stretch throughout the school year.
He started playing basketball in the fourth grade, eventually starring on the 1971 Washington High School Senators’ 29-0 state championship team, considered one of the greatest in Indiana history. Nearby Louisville offered a scholarship, and he received $15 each month for laundry, which he also tried to stretch. He worked summers at a farm equipment manufacturer, a steel-cutting company and during the midnight-to-7 a.m. shift at a Ford truck plant a couple times a week.
Junior Bridgeman attended the University of Louisville, where he helped lead his team to the Final Four in 1975 and was eventually inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame. Rich Clarkson/NCAA Photos via Getty Images
Bridgeman became an All-American, reached the 1975 Final Four and in 1988 was inducted into the school’s athletics Hall of Fame. The Lakers drafted him eighth overall in 1975, then traded him to Milwaukee as part of a blockbuster deal for Bucks star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Upon joining the league, Bridgeman said he didn’t receive any formal financial advice or guidance from the team, league or the NBPA. In his first season, he received a salary of roughly $140,000 in two payments, the first in September and the other in March. After taxes and agent fees were taken out, that first paycheck amounted to about $55,000, he said.
He spent $7,500 on his first new car, a cinnamon-colored 1975 Ford Thunderbird, then rented an apartment, bought furniture and sent money home to his parents. Then, his attorney called, telling Bridgeman to make sure he set money aside to pay taxes; Bridgeman hadn’t considered the idea. And he wasn’t sure how he was going to stretch his paycheck until the next one arrived five months away. He asked his attorney about setting up a monthly budget.
“Well, just don’t spend too much,” his attorney replied.
Nobody on the team spent much as it was — no fancy watches or jewelry. “You didn’t have that kind of money,” Quinn Buckner, a Bucks teammate, told ESPN. During one of his early seasons, Bridgeman recalled that the collective payroll for all 12 players, as well as three coaches was $1.8 million.
“He was as buttoned up as you could be and still be an athlete,” Buckner said. “You think athletes run around, stay out late and do all that. Junior didn’t do any of that.”
Bridgeman carried no illusions, nor did his teammates, that the NBA would set them up for life. “The numbers just didn’t work,” ex-Bucks guard Sidney Moncrief, one of Bridgeman’s teammates, told ESPN “And I think every player in their mind, although you really think you can play forever, the reality is — you can’t.”
They knew NBA careers were quite short — the average spanning about five years — and one bad injury could cut them even shorter. “There was always a sense of urgency about creating more money,” Moncrief said.
Basketball was their purpose, Buckner said, but they knew they’d need to find another — and before their career ended. They’d sit in the sauna after practice and talk about it. Bridgeman wondered what else there might be. And he knew the clock was ticking.
ONE SATURDAY MORNING in 1978, Bridgeman walked into a McDonald’s in Milwaukee. It was alive with customers, with energy. Bridgeman headed toward the back to say hello to Wayne Embry, then the Bucks’ general manager but also a McDonald’s franchisee, with locations across the city. Seeing Embry there, an epiphany emerged. So many players went to work for someone after their NBA careers ended, but Embry, a former player himself, owned his own business. Instead of working for someone, people were working for him.
Bridgeman had no idea how the fast-food business worked, but Embry’s path intrigued him. The energy in the restaurant intrigued him. He started to wonder if he could do the same, knowing he’d need to set enough money aside to break into the business. He specifically hoped to set aside $1,000,000 in savings during his career — a goal that came about after he became close with Bucks owner Jim Fitzgerald and Bucks minority owner Dan Neviaser.
Opportunity arrived that same year, when Fitzgerald asked players if they wanted to invest in a recently purchased cable television operation in the area. The price: $150,000, to be paid over a few years.
Bridgeman signed on. About five years later, Fitzgerald sold the company, and Bridgeman received a check for $700,000, marking the first financial win of his life.
“What I’m scared and concerned about now is you start to get that feeling that I’ve got so much money that I can’t really blow it all. That’s the first step in blowing it all.”Junior Bridgeman, on rising NBA salaries and financial literacy
Bridgeman remained close with Fitzgerald and Neviaser. One of the main principles they emphasized: Whatever business you’re involved in, learn it from the ground up. Another: Make sure the right people are in the right positions — people you can trust. Bridgeman viewed those lessons through the lens of basketball. To have success in the game, he knew, you had to study it, you needed the right set of teammates. You needed chemistry. You needed a good culture.
Their principles made sense, forming a foundation that Bridgeman carried for decades.
But Bridgeman also knew money could present a problem for players. The issue consistently bubbled up during meetings with the NBPA, where Bridgeman had joined as a player representative during his second season, in 1976-77.
“Guys were losing money,” Bridgeman said.
Maybe they were mismanaging money, or someone was mismanaging it for them. But players kept leaving the league with empty pockets. By 1981, Bridgeman says now, the NBPA leadership collectively agreed to take action: They would contact managers at investment firms to see if they would speak to players about financial literacy.
The response was quick, with nearly two dozen managers agreeing, which Bridgeman and other NBPA officials knew was partly because those managers saw an opportunity to sign players up as clients.
During one meeting in Los Angeles, a manager stood on an amphitheater-like stage and spoke for two hours to players. “I don’t think anybody had any idea what he said,” Bridgeman recalled. He was too specific, too advanced. “It was our fault.” Bridgeman said. “We probably should’ve educated the presenter on their audience. They just came in thinking they are presenting high-net-worth individuals that knew a lot about what they were talking about.”
The effort fizzled out, but it marked the first time in Bridgeman’s career that he tried to help teach players about financial literacy.
In 1984, Bridgeman, 30, was still playing for the Bucks when a banking friend from Chicago gave him a tip: Clients of his were interested in opening a Wendy’s on the city’s South Side. Maybe he could partner up? Bridgeman agreed to become a passive investor. Two years later, Bridgeman made an offer to buy the restaurant in full but was turned down, and he later sold his interest. It was his first foray into the restaurant business.
When he retired from the NBA in 1987, the Bucks offered him an assistant general manager position. He declined, finding himself just as interested in business as he had been in basketball. Instead, he opened a Wendy’s franchise in Brooklyn with ex-NBA forward Paul Silas, a good friend. Together, they initially invested about $100,000. It failed, and they lost about $150,000 altogether, Bridgeman said.
Silas returned to the NBA to resume a coaching career, but Bridgeman was determined. The mistake he had made, Bridgeman came to realize, was that they didn’t know anything about the restaurant business — the same lesson that Fitzgerald and Neviaser had preached years earlier. So he joined a Wendy’s training program, spending months visiting other franchises, learning what worked and what didn’t.
The next year, in 1988, Bridgemen invested what remained from his NBA savings — about $750,000 — to buy five Wendy’s locations in Milwaukee. He would still spend time with his current and former teammates in the Milwaukee area. Then, Bridgeman would say, “Well, I have to go to the restaurant.” And he’d be off.
“He’d be working in the restaurant like he was an hourly worker,” Moncrief said. “I witnessed that. I was thinking, what the heck is he doing in there flipping burgers, washing dishes, and he had those work pants on. But he understood the value of learning thoroughly what you’re investing in — very, very hands on.” Moncrief watched how Bridgeman would write out checks, a small task that could have easily been delegated. “He wanted to know where every check was going,” Moncrief said. “When money went out, he wanted to feel that.”
The margins were thin. At times, Bridgeman had to bail someone out of jail or help someone whose apartment caught fire. They turned over the staff at some locations several times before finding the right staffers for the right roles.
When he bought the stores, they were averaging about $600,000 in annual revenue, he said. Two years later, all five returned $2 million each.
BRIDGEMAN EXPANDED AGGRESSIVELY. He bought 16 more Wendy’s in Milwaukee, then added more in Madison, then expanded out of state — in Louisville, Nashville, Tennessee, and across Florida. He began adding Chili’s restaurants to his portfolio. He had moved to Louisville and spent days communicating with district managers who ran different groups of his restaurants.
In the early 1990s, the NBPA, which considers Bridgeman to be one of its most successful former players in the business world, asked him to create a program to introduce interested players to the restaurant business. He designed one that lasted four days. Players would learn finances, the day-to-day operations, with some even working the grill. But few were interested. The program lasted for about five years. Roughly 30 players went through it; just five stayed in the business.
One decade after retiring, Bridgeman realized that he had earned in his post-NBA career what he had made while playing — nearly $3 million. But as he worked to forge his own success beyond the game, Bridgeman too often saw other NBA peers becoming ensnared in financial calamity. He had winced a decade earlier, in 1987, when Abdul-Jabbar sued his former business manager to recover $59 million for allegedly mishandled tax returns and “improper” investments. As the years passed, Bridgeman saw more instances with the same recurring themes.
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Former NBA center Vin Baker lost more than $100 million in career earnings and later became a Starbucks barista. Former NBA guard Kenny Anderson made $63 million and filed for bankruptcy the year he retired. Former NBA MVP Allen Iverson made more than $200 million but said during a 2012 divorce proceeding that he didn’t have enough to afford a cheeseburger. Former All-Star Latrell Sprewell lost more than $97 million.
A financial manager who has worked with NBA players for two decades told ESPN the same problems persist today.
From 2004 through 2019, according to a 2021 report from the global accounting and consulting firm EY, professional athletes alleged almost $600 million in fraud-related loss — and research showed that as endorsement revenue and salaries rose, so, too, did cases of fraud. Just last year, a former Morgan Stanley investment adviser was charged with defrauding players — Jrue Holiday, Chandler Parsons and Courtney Lee — out of $5 million.
“The only difference now is that the money is bigger,” the manager said. “People are still reckless. They just have a longer runway.”
As salaries have grown, Moncrief said he understands that players today might believe they’re impervious to ruin. “We felt we were invincible, too,” Moncrief said.
Then, in the late 1990s, the NBA called with a simple ask: share your story with rookies about money and life after the NBA. Bridgeman quickly said yes.
FOR SEVERAL YEARS, beginning in in the late 1990s, Bridgeman stood before nearly 60 rookies in a hotel conference room as part of the league’s Rookie Transition Program, which the league founded in 1986 as part of its first efforts to help teach basics about financial literacy: budgeting, saving, taxes.
Bridgeman shared what he’d heard from former Bucks head coach Don Nelson: Their job was to play as hard as they can and make as much money as they can. He offered guardrails: Know the business well and put someone in charge who you trust, who is qualified. “More guys have lost money investing in deals with their second cousin on their mother’s side running it than anything else,” Bridgeman said. Doing something like that, he said, was a “blueprint for failure.”
He said that during a player’s career, doors would open, phone calls would be returned. So if a player were on the road in Detroit and wanted to become involved in the automobile industry, they would have the chance to reach out to the head of one of the automotive giants. Opportunities were everywhere. All they had to do was ask.
Since the 1990s, Junior Bridgeman has spoken to NBA rookies and veterans about the financial lessons he’s learned after 40 years, and hundreds of millions earned, in the business world. Paras Griffin/Getty Images
He also shared that players didn’t have to provide for everyone around them. They didn’t have to support a full entourage, even if they saw others doing so. He said the people around players often try to justify their place in a player’s life, but that the players needed to take charge for themselves.
“I wish I had a nickel for every nickel I loaned out when I was playing,” Johnson said. “These are not family. These are just guys I played with, guys I grew up with. As soon as they’re aware of the money you’re making, it’s a field day in terms of them hitting you up. That was one of the hardest things I had to learn: how to say no.”
Bridgeman said they would have to be prepared to lose money.
“I’m not smarter than anybody in this room or better than any of you guys were at anything,” he’d say, “but you’ve got to be willing to work at it and learn it.”
As he stood before the rookies, Bridgeman knew many didn’t listen — and perhaps understandably so. He could try to relate to them, but he was born in 1953, nearly twice their age, and so much had changed.
ON A RECENT morning in Las Vegas during the NBA summer league, with the temperature building toward a blistering 115 degrees, league officials found air-conditioned refuge inside a futuristic event space called StarBase, located just off the Strip. Inside, officials were setting up for the league’s Business Mentorship Program, which pairs players with industry experts for a 10-week mentorship program geared toward that player’s business interests.
Now in its fifth year, that program is one of several from the league and NBPA that prioritize financial literacy. Sitting on a couch, Jamila Wideman, who serves as the NBA’s senior vice president of player development, watched the flurry of activity.
