30 best NBA players to never win a championship

22. David Thompson

David Thompson’s start to his professional basketball career is most certainly one of the more interesting in league history. After a dominant career with the North Carolina State Wolfpack in college, the Atlanta Hawks selected him with the top-overall pick in the 1975 NBA Draft. Rather than heading to the ATL, though, Thompson instead elected to take his talents to the ABA, where he joined the Denver Nuggets.

After Thompson’s rookie season and the ABA-NBAmerger, he remained a member of the Nuggets and continued to take the league by storm. In his first five NBA seasons (excluding the one year in the ABA where he put up 26 points and 6.3 rebounds per game), Thompson was one of the most prolific scorers in the league.

The 6-foot-4 guard put up 25.2 points per game while shooting a remarkable 50.8 percent from the floor, an impressive clip from a guard. This also included a 73-point performance in the final game of the 1977-78 season to conclude the scoring race between himself and George Gervin, a battle he lost by the narrowest of margins as Gervin posted 63 points on the same day.

Skywalker, as Thompson was colloquially known, was one of the most versatile and dominant scorers of his generation. However, injuries and other factors limited to him only playing until 1984 where he retired at just 29 years old. The lack of longevity of his career ultimately pushes him further down this list. However, what he did while he was playing was far too loud and impressive to go unnoticed.