Top 5 Shortest Player Tenures
In an ideal world all NBA trades and signings would work out perfectly, but as we know this not an ideal world. Sometimes injuries can derail a player’s tenure with a team, but other times a guy can just get re-packaged in another trade, and others still are just cases of players not being a particularly good fit with a certain team.
We could expect mediocre and less talented players to be jostled around the league, and as a matter of fact it happens all the time. What happens considerably less often are the very short tenures of star players on various teams. Today’s Top 5 looks at the shortest tenures of top players over the course of their NBA careers:
#5 – Bob McAdoo, New Jersey Nets (10 games in 1980-1981) – The thing about McAdoo is that playing only ten games for the Nets doesn’t stand out as particularly crazy because the man played for a grand total seven NBA teams before his taking his talents overseas late in his career. The 1980-1981 campaign was one in which McAdoo dealt with a lot of injuries, so his midseason trade from Detroit to Jersey didn’t exactly end with much fanfare. When looking back at McAdoo’s career, you definitely remember his time with the Buffalo Braves and L.A. Lakers, but the Nets were barely a blip.
#4 – Mark Price, Washington Bullets (7 games in 1995-1996) – Because of injury issues, Price was moved to Washington before the 1995-1996 season, and those injury issues only allowed him to play 7 games for the Bullets, in which he averaged only 8ppg. He played single seasons in Golden State and Orlando the two years after that, but his tenure in our nation’s capital was the only one short enough to be notable.
#3 – Bob Cousy, Cincinnati Royals (7 games in 1969-1970) – Cousy actually played these seven games as a coach of the Royals six full seasons after retiring with the Boston Celtics. His comeback came late in the season with the goal of boosting ticket sales, which admittedly did jump 77 percent, but he only scored an average of 5 points in 34 minutes and quickly called it quits, for good this time. He always said it was a mistake and that he only did it for the money, but graciously his tenure was very, very short. If only Michael Jordan would’ve figured it out that quickly.
#2 – Allen Iverson, Memphis Grizzlies (3 games in 2009-2010) – After the 2008-2009 season, {AUTHOR_BOX}Iverson had a hard time finding a suitor for himself, eventually settling on the Memphis Grizzlies, who apparently hoped to cash in on Iverson’s fame to help deplete ticket sales. Memphis, however, felt that starting Mike Conley and O.J. Mayo in the backcourt was better for the long-term health of the franchise, so Iverson was asked to the come off the bench—something he didn’t take well at all. After having played only three games for the Grizz, he took a leave of absence for "personal reasons," and never stepped back into the home locker room in Memphis.
#1 – Rasheed Wallace, Atlanta Hawks (1 game in 2003-2004) – Wallace started this season with the Portland Trail Blazers, the team with which he made himself an All-Star, and he finished it with the Detroit Pistons, the team that made him a champion. But how Wallace got to Detroit wasn’t as straightforward as most of the other trades in the league that year. He was first moved to Atlanta along with Wes Person in exchange for Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Theo Ratliff, and Dan Dickau, and he played a single game for Atlanta in 2004 in which he scored 20 points, hauled in six rebounds, and swatted away five shots. Shortly thereafter he was re-packaged in a three-team deal with Boston and Detroit, but not before playing the shortest tenure of any marquee player in league history.
Honorable Mention:
Dennis Rodman, Dallas Mavericks (12 games in 1999-2000)
Penny Hardaway, Miami HEAT (16 games in 2007-2008)
Moses Malone, San Antonio Spurs (17 games in 1994-1995)
Bernard King, Utah Jazz (19 games, 1979-1980)
Dominique Wilkins, L.A. Clippers (25 games in 1993-1994)
Pete Maravich, Boston Celtics (26 games in 1979-1980)
Gary Payton, Milwaukee Bucks (28 games in 2002-2003)
There are also several other great players that stuck with a single team for just one season, but that’s not enough to get them even on the honorable mention list because all the guys above couldn’t even last that long. It doesn’t always work out, as Allen Iverson proved, and there will be times when it doesn’t always work out again in the future.
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