Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five players and their short-lived stints that nevertheless became iconic.

Even when a player has had stints with multiple teams, there’s usually one that stands out as their most famous or memorable. Interestingly, it isn’t always the team that they spent the bulk of their career with. Sometimes, it’s the short-lived stints that produce the most success or notoriety, so they’re the ones that are best remembered and often talked about. Personal nostalgia also comes into play here. I’d suggest that we tend to associate players with the teams they played for when we first started watching and taking a keen interest in basketball, or at least very early on in our fandom.

To that point, our perception of time also changes as we age. A player having a three or four-year stint seemed like a long tenure back when I was a teenage hoop head, but now that I’m older, it’s over in a blink! Looking back, I’ve realised that there are quite a few Hall of Fame players whose most iconic stints were actually rather short-lived. Despite that brevity however, those are the jerseys that we tend to picture them in. As such, it’s interesting to reflect on how long those stints actually lasted, and why they became so iconic to the point of eclipsing longer tenures. With that in mind, here are five all-time greats, and their iconic short-lived stints that I tend to remember best.

1. Clyde Drexler on the Rockets

Let’s begin with what might be a controversial example. Obviously, Clyde Drexler is well-remembered for his time with the Portland Trail Blazers. It’s where he began his NBA career, and played close to 80% of his games. While Damian Lillard definitely has a claim to being Mr. Trail Blazer due to holding various team records, The Glide did actually tally more games in a Blazers uniform, and of course led them to two NBA Finals appearances. Therefore, I wouldn’t say that Drexler’s comparatively short-lived stint in Houston necessarily overshadows his time in Portland. Indeed, many fans are just as likely to picture him playing for the Blazers as the Rockets.

Mind you, the mere fact that there’s still a high chance that you’ll think of The Glide sporting a Rockets jersey – whether it’s their classic red and gold, or their infamous pinstriped pyjama uniform – speaks volumes. Sure, winning a championship helps, as does ending his career as a Rocket. His reunion with University of Houston teammate Hakeem Olajuwon produced a pairing that was more memorable than any duo that he was a part of in Portland, and the league also exploded in global popularity in the mid 90s. All the same, he only spent three and a half years in Houston compared to eleven and a half in Portland, so it’s noteworthy that they feel equally memorable and iconic.

2. Bernard King on the Knicks

As someone who really got into basketball in the mid 90s after Bernard King had retired, he’s slightly before my time. Furthermore, some of his best years during his most iconic stint not only predate my NBA fandom, but they occurred before I was even born (or at least, too young to appreciate them at the time)! Although King made All-Star teams while playing for Golden State and Washington, and his first two years with the Nets were strong as well, he’s usually considered a Knicks Legend, and for good reason. It’s where he posted his best numbers across the board, scored a lot of points, and had a legendary performance against the Pistons in the 1984 Playoffs.

That story was my earliest exposure to Bernard King while learning about the history of the NBA, along with Spike Lee reminiscing about him in an interview with SLAM magazine. As such, it’s funny to think that King’s Knicks tenure lasted just four years – he was under contract for five, but missed the entire 1986 season with a knee injury – and that he was only healthy and dominating for two and a half of them. To put it in perspective, his 206 career games for the Knicks rank behind Herb Williams‘ 278! Still, despite it being only the second-longest of his NBA stints and relatively short-lived at that, it only makes sense to remember Bernard as the King of New York.

3. Charles Barkley on the Suns

My mid 90s nostalgia is definitely responsible for viewing Charles Barkley’s four seasons with the Phoenix Suns as his most iconic stint, but I doubt that I’m alone in that regard. Chuck of course began his career with the Philadelphia 76ers, and it was with them that he earned the first six of his eleven consecutive All-Star selections. Not surprisingly, by playing his first eight years in Philadelphia and then splitting the next eight seasons between Phoenix and Houston, his 610 games with the 76ers are more than double what he played for the Suns (280) and Rockets (183). I expect that fans who’ve been watching basketball longer than me do fondly recall his 76ers years.

However, Chuck’s numbers with the Suns are about on par with his performance in Philadelphia. More importantly, whereas he was behind Julius Erving and Moses Malone on the 76ers, and Philly didn’t enjoy as much success without them, Barkley was The Man on some great Phoenix Suns squads. That of course includes leading them to the NBA Finals, and coming as close as anyone did to defeating Michael Jordan and the Bulls. Once again, the NBA rose to new heights in popularity during the mid 90s, so even though Chuck’s Suns tenure was short-lived compared to other Hall of Famers and their stints, or even his time with the 76ers, it’s his most famous.

4. Moses Malone on the 76ers

Now, even if you exclude his return to the 76ers in 1994, Moses Malone’s tenure in the City of Brotherly Love would still be the second-longest of his NBA stints. The man known as “The Chairman of the Boards” and “Big Mo” was famously nomadic, so if you know your history, it’s not a surprise that his career is made up of unusually short-lived stints for a player of his calibre. With that being said, his 76ers stint is so iconic that it seems as if he played there a lot longer. After all, he was there to lead them to a title alongside Julius Erving, and also played with a young Charles Barkley! Granted, only a season separates those events, but they feel like two different eras.

Of course, in addition to the warped sense of time that comes from him playing with a star of the 70s and a star of the 90s while he was still in his prime, the aforementioned championship is what seals Moses Malone’s Philadelphia tenure as iconic. He was an All-Star, Most Valuable Player, and rebound king elsewhere, but he reached the top of the mountain with the 76ers. It doesn’t matter that he spent most of his career with the Rockets, was an All-Star in Atlanta and Washington, debuted in the ABA, or retired as a member of the Spurs in 1995. When you think of the late, great Moses Malone, chances are that you’re picturing him in the 76ers jersey that he wore in the mid 80s.

5. Bill Walton on the Trail Blazers (& Celtics)

Speaking of legendary big men that we lost too soon, let’s wrap up this list with Bill Walton. Injuries led to “Big Red” having an all-too-brief career in general, and he did spend a majority of it with the Portland Trail Blazers; the team that drafted him first overall in 1974. However, like Moses Malone’s time in Philadelphia, the significance of Bill Walton’s four seasons in Portland makes it easy to forget just how short-lived it was. The brilliance he showed when he was healthy, including leading the team to the 1977 championship in a showdown with Dr. J and the 76ers, makes his Blazers career feel as though it spanned a decade, much as Clyde Drexler’s and Damian Lillard’s did.

Walton’s brief tenure with the Boston Celtics is also worth mentioning here, even if it does technically make this a list of six short-lived stints (by now, it should be clear that I’m not above cheating in The Friday Five!). He was only healthy for one full year in Boston, playing in just 90 regular season games. Of course, his 28 Playoff games for the Celtics actually made up a majority of his postseason appearances! More importantly, he was a key contributor to the 1986 championship as the Sixth Man of the Year. At the end of the day, Walton is undoubtedly best remembered as a Blazers Legend, but his career nevertheless produced two iconic yet short-lived stints.

What are your thoughts on these iconic short-lived stints of some of the best players in NBA history? Who are some other stars whose most famous tenures were actually surprisingly brief? Have your say in the comments, and as always, feel free to take the discussion to the NLSC Forum! That’s all for this week, so thanks for checking in, have a great weekend, and please join me again next Friday for another Five.

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