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USA Today Sports Media Group

Sport

Sam Yip

NBA players who never came off the bench

NBA Eddie Jones Kobe Bryant Lakers LeBron James

It is fairly uncommon to see players come into the league and start right away – let alone play their entire careers without coming off the bench. Kobe Bryant spent most of his rookie year for the Lakers as a reserve for Eddie Jones. Even LeBron James came off the bench for the Cavaliers once. During the 2007-08 season, James returned after missing five games with a sprained index finger in what would be his only game not starting.

HoopsHype used statistics and data from Basketball-Reference dating back to the 1981-82 season to put together a list of the Top 10 players who we knew for sure have not come off the bench at any point of their NBA careers.

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