There are more avenues for players to reach the NBA than ever before. A huge percentage of the league's superstars come from abroad, playing as pros overseas before coming to the NBA. Even for American-born athletes, the G-League, Australia's NBL and other leagues provide players alternate pathways to reach the NBA. Even so, there's nothing quite like a player becoming a March Madness legend.
The popularity of college basketball ebbs and flows, but the NCAA tournament remains one of the world's great sporting events, and helps turn even small school standouts into national basketball stars.
While the NBA has existed since 1946 (beginning as the Basketball Association of America before becoming the NBA with the 1949 merger with the National Basketball League), the list of players to capture both an NCAA championship and NBA title is quite short. Sports Illustrated has evaluated the rosters of every NBA Finals champion dating back to 1947, the first title recognized by the NBA, and in total, 57 players have won rings as both a Division I college basketball and NBA player.
The list includes some of the NBA's all-time greats, like Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas and, of course, Michael Jordan. We've also seen a few players join the list in just the last few years. The 2023 Denver Nuggets featured a pair of recent national champions—Kansas's Christian Braun and Villanova's Connor Gillespie—while Al Horford, a two-time winner at University of Florida, broke through for his first NBA championship with the Boston Celtics last season.
Here is the full list:
All Players Who Have Won the NCAA Tournament & NBA Finals
More College Basketball on Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as How Many Players Have Won the NCAA Tournament and NBA Finals?.
