50 Greatest Teammates in NBA History

In the NBA, there is a rare phenomenon that doesn't really happen in any other sport other than maybe soccer.  A great teammate can make the rest of his team better just through osmosis.

Sure, a quarterback can make his receivers or running backs better, but that's about the best you can get in football, and baseball can see a catcher make a pitcher a bit better, but any position on the floor in the NBA can make any other position better.

There is a constant ebb and flow of players leading teams to championships, and it seems random each season, but more often than not, teams with great teammates make it the farthest in the playoffs.

So, in a time where NBA news is light, I have decided to go throughout league history and pick out the best teammates in league history.

Sure, there are no real stats to back this up, although there are some you could use if you decide to go incredibly deep, so this list is more subjective to anything, and as always, your input is encouraged.

50. Kevin Durant

Part of the reason the Oklahoma City Thunder have become such a good team is because Kevin Durant is so good at incorporating everyone on the floor.

He is a floor general at an unlikely position and is the leader of a very good up and coming team that is looking to do damage in the near future.

Durant has a bit of work ahead of him to work his way up the list, but he is a great teammate in his young career, so I had to put him on here.

49. LeBron James

LeBron is on here solely because of his ability to get the most out of his teammates.

He took a mediocre Cavaliers squad to the NBA Finals back in 2007 and has been making those around him better ever since.

James seemed like such a happy-go-lucky guy before this season, but that view kind of dissipated because of The Decision and the falling out he had with Cleveland, but he still makes those around him better.

48. Alonzo Mourning

Alonzo Mourning was one of those interesting players who could be a nice guy when it matters and a thumper when it was necessary.

He was one of the nicest guys in the league and one of the best teammates in his time, and when it came time to back up one of his guys, he wouldn't hesitate to step in and throw fists.

47. Willis Reed

Willis Reed was Alonzo Mourning before there was an Alonzo Mourning.

He was the nicest fellow off the floor, and he was able to get along with everyone in his locker room, but if his teammates were threatened, he would start throwing punches.

Plus, he was known to play through the pain, something that gains you endless amounts of respect from your teammates.

46. Dennis Johnson

One of the best backcourt defenders of the 1980s and a guy that Larry Bird called, "The best player I ever played with," Dennis Johnson gained respect from his teammates and opponents alike.

Johnson is almost forgotten as one of the greats of the 80s, mostly because he was unselfish enough to check his ego at the door and do what was necessary for his team to win.

45. Mike Bibby

Before he was starring in a remake of Weekend at Bernie's with the Atlanta Hawks and Miami Heat respectively, Mike Bibby was the guy that kept the Sacramento Kings level.

He didn't care about his own stats, always hit the open man and looked for the open man twice as often as he looked for his own shots.

44. Mo Cheeks

Mo Cheeks never called attention to himself, and it wasn't because he was afraid that he was going to expose his flaws; he just wanted to win.

He always tried hard on defense, and he was always trying to be a good teammate, not afraid to throw knuckles with someone messing with his buddies. Mo was one of the great teammates of the 1980s.

43. Brian Scalabrine

Everyone always laughs about my love for Brian Scalabrine, but in reality, he is an amazing teammate.

Scalabrine is a guy that can sit on the end of a bench and calm down a locker room when things are getting heated.

He is jokingly called the White Mamba, a play on Kobe Bryant's nickname Black Mamba, but what he realy is is Alka Seltzer, calming a churning stomach that is a clubhouse in turmoil.

42. Robert Horry

Robert Horry is the name that everyone always brings up when arguing that rings don't matter when talking about the merits of a good player. “LeBron has no rings,” “So, Robert Horry has seven rings; does that make him better than LeBron?” Obviously not, but that kind of is a knock on Horry.

Horry is one of those great clubhouse guys who at the same time is a great clutch shooter. He is able to keep a cool head in the clutch, and is able to keep those around him cool as well.

41. Kobe Bryant

For awhile, including Kobe Bryant on this list would have seemed like borderline insanity. However, he has seemingly changed his ways.

Kobe was blamed for the Shaq breakup, but I would call the breakup a 50-50 split of blame between the two, although he is the reason Phil Jackson left Los Angeles the first time around.

Now, however, Kobe has become a guy who makes those around him better, something that he has really been for most of his career.

40. Charles Oakley

Charles Oakley is the best enforcer of the 1990s. For awhile there in the 90s, he was basically like one of those guys on a hockey team that is around just to get onto the ice and knock a guy on his butt.

Oakley was a good basketball player, but his best quality was the fact that he wouldn't hesitate to throw some fists around to protect a teammate if need be.

He's the ultimate, "God, I'm glad he's on my team" guy.

39. Dirk Nowitzki

He may not be one of those guys that get his teammates to be much better, but he is a guy who knows how to deal with his teammates in different ways.

He has played with all types of people in his career, and they have rarely had a problem coming out of Dallas, unless of course it involves Mark Cuban.

38. Kevin Garnett

For the longest time, Kevin Garnett had complete faith in his team and in an organization that may not have had the best leadership in the front office.

He was able to get the best out of some mediocre supporting casts and stuck with them for as long as he could before they decided to go ahed and let him go to a good team.

Then, on Boston, he turned into an enforcer who was the edge for a team that was previously light on toughness.

37. Rajon Rondo

Rajon Rondo is a great teammate because of his own shortcomings.

He is a terrible shooter, so he is forced to be a great slash and dasher to be able to even step foot on the court.  He is terrific at not only finding the open man, but getting the open man to the best spot on the floor to take a shot.

Rondo has an inane ability to get the best option for his team every trip down the floor, and if he continues to improve, then he will be one of the best point guards in the history of the game.

36. Kevin Johnson

Kevin Johnson was such a great teammate that to unlock him in the newest NBA Jam game, you have to beat the computer in a two-on-two game by having your teammate score every point.

I don't think I really have to add anything to this; it pretty much speaks for itself.

35. Robert Parish

Robert Parish is kind of like Charles Oakley, but he was a better passer, so I had to put him up higher.

He wouldn't let any of his buddies get tossed around without stepping in and throwing some elbows himself, and he was also pretty good at involving more of his teammates, which is invaluable coming from a center.

34. Dwyane Wade

Pat Riley was given much of the credit for landing Chris Bosh and LeBron James, but Dwyane Wade had to have a lot to do with bringing those two to Miami.

Wade was a great teammate back when he was with Shaq taking the Heat to the Finals in 2006, and he is an even better one now, trying to please all of the egos filling their locker room.

33. Reggie Miller

Reggie Miller was one of the many star players left scorned by the Michael Jordan-Hakeem Olajuwon domination era that was the 1990s.

Miller was a great leader for the Pacers. Even though he probably wasn't fit to be a superstar for a single team in retrospect, he was still a good leader for those teams.

32. Kareem Abdul-Jabar

Reliability is one of the greatest things that you can give to your teammates, and because of this, you have to include Kareem Abul-Jabar as one of the best teammates in league history.

Kareem had the most automatic shot of all-time with his sky hook, and that, combined with his nice demeanor, makes him a great teammate.

31. Moses Malone

Moses Malone got all the respect that he now has from his former teammates, and even his opponents, by doing the dirty work.

He had no problems shaking his butt into the lane and grabbing every rebound in sight.

Malone was also always very good-natured and had a joking way about him when the time called for it, but he got serious when he needed to as well.

30. Dave Cowens

Dave Cowens was a guy that always gave 257 percent, and for that, his teammates were either completely intimidated by him or fell in love with him like the fans did in Boston.

He was such an intense player that it started to rub off onto his teammates, who were forced to try to care about the game at least half as much as he did to feel like they weren't slacking.

29. Chris Paul

The guy next in line to become the next great passer, Chris Paul is one of those guys who knows the best shot for his teammates, even when they don't.

He always seems to find the best shot possible every time down the floor, something that is an inborn skill, not just something you can learn.

28. Shaquille O'Neal

There is a lot of debate nowadays about who was to blame for the breakup of the Shaqobe Lakers, and the blame is now getting closer to 50-50.

However, later in his career, he sacrificed touches to go to teams to try and help them get into the playoffs.

27. Sam Cassell

Sam Cassell may very well be one of the ugliest guys to play in the league (Popeye Jones is the winner of that category, without a doubt), but he was a great player nonetheless.

Cassell was the epitome of an unselfish teammate, especially with the Timberwolves, when it was expected that Kevin Garnett and Latrell Sprewell would get their touches every game.

26. Andre Miller

Andre Miller is probably one of the most unappreciated players of the past decade, most likely because he was in Cleveland (sans-LeBron), Denver and Portland for most his career.

Miller isn't the best point guard, but he is one of the best at realizing what his teammates can do, and getting them the ball when they are best positioned to do whatever it is that they do best.

25. Chauncey Billups

When the Good Boy Pistons were making their run to the 2004 NBA Championship, they were a glob of very good players with no centralized superstar.

The reason they were able to win with that system was because Chauncey Billups was stuck in the middle as the unselfish facilitator and the guy that made sure everyone else was happy and was playing as good as they could.

24. Hakeem Olajuwon

Hakeem Olajuwon was such a great teammate that when asked who his favorite teammate was over his long career, Robert Horry picked Hakeem, even over Tim Duncan.

He was a natural basketball player, having not started playing the game until he turned 15 and just dazzled his teammates with his natural knack for the game.

23. Derek Fisher

In all, Derek Fisher is a very down to earth guy.  The thing he seems to care about most in life is his family, so it makes sense that the thing that he cares most about in basketball is winning the game.

Fisher was a good shooter in his hayday, so he could have demanded more possessions, but he was almost always in the triangle offense, which asks point guards to sacrifice a lot, something he has done to play for a winning team.

22. Clyde Drexler

Clyde Drexler is a guy that was always working hard and trying to keep his teammates all involved in offense and defense.

Drexler's teammates had constantly gushed about how nice a guy he was and how good a guy he was; hell, he once even bailed Charles Barkley out of jail.

21. Isiah Thomas

Isiah Thomas would have probably been a terrible teammate on any other team. He was overaggressive, overeager and just unwilling to except anyone slacking, but on his Bad Boy Pistons, he was perfectly cast.

He was able to look sane next to the likes of Joe Dumars, Adrian Dantley, Dennis Rodman and Bill Laimbeer.

20. Pistol Pete

Pete may have never won an NBA championship, but it surely wasn't from his inability to include his teammates.

He is one of the flashiest and most effective passers in the history of the game and was the master of the jaw-dropping play, but always had his teammates involved.

19. Karl Malone

Karl Malone was a nice guy, and he was a good passer and a part of one of the best duos of teammates since the inception of the league.

Malone just seemed like a guy that everyone would enjoy playing with. He was calm and collected when he needed to be, and if he was going to have to throw down, he wouldn't hesitate to have your back.

18. Horace Grant

A four-time NBA Champion, Horace Grant did everything necessary to be a player on some of the best teams in the league.

He was a good rebounder and a very good passer for a big man, and even though he was a good player, he never got upset over the amount of playing time or offensive touches he got.

17. Mark Price

Mark Price was so white that he made Larry Bird look like Shaft, and when you are in a league where being white is almost funny, Price made it look cool.

He was a slick passer and a guy who got every teammate involved, which is a huge reason why the early 90s Cavaliers were actually good (yes, the Cavs were good at some point without LeBron James; shocking, I know).

16. Elgin Baylor

It could be said that Elgin Baylor is the greatest forward up until Patrick Ewing and Karl Malone came into the league, but if he was nothing else, he was a great teammate.

Baylor always had a happy demeanor and had to deal with being lost in the fray of playing in between Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West, even though he may have been the best of the three at one point or another in his career.

15. Jason Kidd

Sandwiched between John Stockton and Steve Nash as the best passers in the NBA, Jason Kidd led the New Jersey Nets to the NBA Finals twice just on his ability to be an unselfish player.

I'm convinced that he could have come close to average a triple-double at his peak, but he had an incalculable number of games where he would get 13 assists, 14 rebounds and four points.

He was incredibly unselfish and able to involve his teammates enough to make them better, and that's why he was as good as he was.

14. Mark Jackson

Mark Jackson kind of gets lost in the fray of the 1990s because John Stockton was so good a point guard, because Michael Jordan basically oversadowed everyone and because he played for so many teams, but he was one of the best teammates of the decade.

Jackson was one of the best point guards at getting everyone involved and put nearly every team over the top when he joined them.

13. Jerry West

The first real superstar that caught the attention of everyone in Los Angeles, Jerry West was an amzing basketball player who was quite good at getting players to play at their peak.

Sure, there was George Mikan before him, but West was such an all-American boy that it was hard to look at him and not gravitate toward him.

12. John Havlicek

John Havlicek's teammates were enamored with him from the time he stepped onto the floor until the day he retired.

Dave Cowens once said, “You tell me how many class guys there are like him anywhere.  They ought to retire his number from the whole NBA.  Just take 27 and stash it up there in lights.”

11. Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan was either the best teammate in the league or an overbearing teammate who was too angry to be a great teammate.

However, in the end, his teams won championships, and he usually knew when to be tough on a teammate and when to back off, especially later on his career.

10. Tim Duncan

Tim Duncan became the best power forward in the history of the NBA in the past decade, and he did it by playing the game the right way.

Duncan knows how to work well with just about any player that he coes in contact with, and when he plays with a new teammate, the new guy always plays better.

I think that's part of the reason why every move San Antonio has made in the past 15 years seems like such a good one, because Duncan just makes guys play the best they possibly can.

9. Scottie Pippen

It took Scottie Pippen to put Michael Jordan's Bulls over the top, and when he put them over the top they were there for the whole decade.

Pippen was an unselfish player, and when he and Michael were playing at such a high level, they were able to elevate the rest of the team to unimaginable heights.

8. Steve Nash

There isn't a player in the NBA right now that is better at making his teammates better because of the way he plays.

He is one of the best passers in NBA history, and if it weren't for him, the Phoenix Suns would be competing for the worst record in the league, rather than the final few playoff spots.

7. John Stockton

Honestly, the first person I thought about when it comes to the best teammates in league history was John Stockot.

Throughout the 90s, he was the epitome of an ideal teammate. He was fine playing second fiddle (even though he was more like fiddle number 1.5) and he was an amazing passer, a great baromoter for determining a good teammate.

6. Bob Cousy

A six-time NBA Champion, Bob Cousy paired with Bill Russell made for some amazing years of basketball and pretty much dominated the rest of the league.

Cousy was the ringleader of the offense at a time where centers were the middle of an offense.

5. Oscar Robertson

Way back in the day, nobody was better at getting the most out of his teammates than Oscar Robertson.

Big O was able to get his own points while getting his teammates theirs as well, and when he needed to step up and be the man, he did.

Robertson was able to deal with all of the discrimination and racism in his time period and still stay level-headed enough to keep basketball separated from life.

4. Bill Walton

Bill Walton may not have been the best player in the history of the game, but he is probably the smartest player in the history of the game.

He knew how to play the game, and he knew how to get the rest of his team to play the game; that's why he lasted so long in the league even after his body fell apart.

3. Bill Russell

Bill Russell is the ultimate teammate. He has the most rings out of any player in the history of the NBA and has the respect of every person to ever come in contact with him.

Playing in a world that judged him based on the color of his skin, Russell always focused on winning the game, regardless of his own legacy, and because of that, he has one of the best legacies in the history of sports.

2. Larry Bird

Bird was one of the best at getting the best out of his teammates, being arguably the best passing forward of all-time.

Bird paired with Bill Walton and Dennis Johnson was basically the best combination of players that know exactly how to play the game of basketball without stepping on anyone's toes in the history of the game.

1. Magic Johnson

The most versatile player since the creation of the game, Magic Johnson was able to incorporate every player on his team.

He was one of the best at throwing his all into games when it really mattered, and was probably the best leader possible for the Showtime Lakers.

Magic Johnson was so good that it seemed like he could tell where the best shot was going to be while he was taking the offense up the floor. He knew the best possession for his team before it even happened.

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