The complete history of NBA four-teamers and beyond

Last time, I looked at the most successful three-teamer seasons in NBA history, a thrilling journey that ranged from the fifties to prime Rasheed Wallace to present-day Ersan Ilyasova. Today it is time to write the authoritative chapter on a piece of basketball history that has been ignored for too long: the four-teamers. And beyond.

Big shout-out to APBR for this fantastic page on frequently moved players that is no-frills and all-fun facts. Thanks to this page I have been led to the first-ever three-teamer season: it occurred in 1937-38, or the very first season of the National Basketball League, grandaddy to the NBA. World War II had not happened yet. There were Civil War veterans still wandering around. The game was segregated. And still we had the three-teamer.

Poor Norman Wagner’s entire basketball career consisted of a single three-teamer campaign, going from the Dayton Metropolitans to the Columbus Athletic Supply to the Cincinnati Comellos. (That’s not a typo, and I don’t know what that is.) What’s even more impressive than the fact that Wagner got around to three teams in just eight games is the fact that teams in the NBL played an average of 14 games on the season. (Some played 20, some played 9 — no big deal, whatever.)

Enough about that. This is about four-teamer seasons, which can be counted on one hand. Here we go:

A Quick ABA Aside

The ABA only lasted for about a dozen years and only had about a dozen teams. But things were so positively groovy and funky around there that they got in as many four-teamer seasons — four — as the NBA has had in its whole history. I don’t know why an ABA four-teamer feels like it doesn’t count as much — the lonely just-been-traded plane ride is still the same no matter which team you’re traveling to — but it just does. Plus, much like today’s hotel-dwelling NBDL prospects, these players could rack up the teams by bouncing back and forth between the ABA and NBA. Still, I have the utmost sympathy for the long journeys of Rich Johnson (Boston Celtics, The Floridians [seriously], Carolina Cougars, and Pittsburgh Condors), and Ken Wilburn (Chicago Bulls, New York Nets, Denver Rockets, and Minnesota Pipers).

Still, neither man can hold a candle to poor Steve Chubin, who played three years in the ABA. As I said, the ABA was responsible for four different four-teamer seasons. Two of them fell on Chubin, and in consecutive seasons. In 1967-68, the dawn of the ABA, Chubin peacefully stayed with the Anaheim Amigos all year, leading the team in points and assists. From there on out it was almost all transactions: in 1968-69 he went Los Angeles Stars, Minnesota Pipers, Indiana Pacers, and New York Nets. And then in 1969-70 he went Nets, Pittsburgh Pipers, back to the Pacers, and then to the Kentucky Colonels. Within like 18 months, the majority of the ABA employed Steve Chubin.

The Four-Teamers

Now to the “real” four-teamer seasons, that happened exclusively in the NBA. For reasons I can’t really figure out, most of these happened in a certain era — and not even today’s era of hyper-trading. In chronological order, starting with the oldest four-teamer season:

Rod Higgins
1985-86
Seattle SuperSonics / San Antonio Spurs / New Jersey Nets / Chicago Bulls

The NBA’s first-ever four-teamer came up out of nowhere: Higgins was a stable rotation player both before (with the Bulls) and after (with the Golden State Warriors) this season. For one year, though, Higgins could be easily had — nobody even traded for him, he was just picked up and waived repeatedly. After getting released by the Bulls at the end of the preseason, Higgins was brought in for a quick five-game cameo at the end of the year, and was waived again. Still, the moves did not affect Higgins’ decades-long friendship with Michael Jordan, a relationship that remains even more mysterious after hearing Higgins describe it:

Tony Massenburg
1991-92
San Antonio Spurs / Charlotte Hornets / Boston Celtics / Golden State Warriors

All my trivia-meisters out there know that Massenburg is tied with Chucky Brown, Jim Jackson, and Joe Smith by playing for 12 different franchises. Even among that elite, frequent-flying crew, though, it’s Massenburg who reigns supreme. Not only did Massenburg take a mid-career sojourn to an Italian team and two Spanish teams, but he also had two different tenures with the Spurs and two different tenures with the Grizzlies. What’s more, during one of the only times in Massenburg’s career where he did stay with the same team for consecutive years, he still had to move, with the Grizzlies leaving Vancouver for Memphis.

How fitting, then, that Massenburg was the league’s second-ever four-teamer in just his second season in the league. Massenburg got the job done with just 90 total minutes played on the season — which is somehow not the all-time four-teamer record.

During his brief stay in San Antonio, Massenburg must have caught the eye of a certain assistant coach even as the front office shipped him away. More than a decade later, in the summer of 2004, Gregg Popovich reunited with a 37-year-old Massenburg, who was a regular rotation player as the team went on to win the 2005 championship.

Highly recommended reading: Sports Illustrated gets a career travelogue from Massenburg during the 2005 championship run.

The 4.5 Teamer

Alex Stivrins
1992-93
Phoenix Suns / Atlanta Hawks / Los Angeles Clippers / Milwaukee Bucks / Phoenix Suns

Strivrins’ career was such a short, distant blur that it’s difficult to really find out that much about it. The final tally: two seasons (seven years apart), 22 games, and five different franchises. Plus: Stivrins’ 1992-93 season began with a stint on the Phoenix Suns — and, more teams later — ended with a stint on the Phoenix Suns. Instead of just letting Strivrins ride the Suns bench on their way to that year’s NBA Finals — there is the Matt Steigenga story, after all — the Suns released him at the end of the regular season.

Across just 76 minutes of play, Stivrins was teammates with Charles Barkley, Moses Malone, and Dominique Wilkins, and also had R.C. Buford and Quin Snyder as assistant coaches.

The Five-Teamer

Bobby Jones
2007-08
Denver Nuggets / Memphis Grizzlies / Houston Rockets / Miami Heat / San Antonio Spurs / Denver Nuggets

The main reason for this post is that there needs to be much broader public awareness for the 2007-08 season of Bobby Jones. It is easily The Most Difficult NBA Season Of All Time, and there is really no close second. Jones’ season from hell reveals itself to be even more tiring whenever you take a deeper look at it.

First, much like Stivrins, Jones’ season was bookended by separate tenures with the same team — in this case the Nuggets. Also: between his late January release from the Grizzlies and late-February signing by the Rockets, Jones stopped in for a five-game cameo with the NBDL’s Sioux Falls Skyforce. Also: in the September before the season started, Jones was traded from Philadelphia to Denver (as part of a trade for the rights to Ricky Sanchez). Also: in July after the season ended, Jones was traded from the Nuggets to the Knicks. Also: a day later he was waived by the Knicks, and a week later he was picked up by the Heat. Also: ten days later he was waived by the Heat. Also: he joined the Sacramento Kings for the next preseason, but was released before the regular season started.

Count it up: in the span of just 13 months, that’s ten different stops.

What’s even more baffling about Jones’ season is that it really should have just been a regular ol’ two-teamer. After being released by the Nuggets in early January, Jones was quickly picked up by a dreary, 22-win Grizzlies team. In just his fourth game with Memphis, the 24-year-old Jones was bumped into the starting lineup, where he proceeded to dish dimes to and fro with Pau Gasol and Kyle Lowry, very nearly getting a triple-double!:

The only other players that season to post stat lines at least 20/13/7 were: Gasol, Andrew Bogut, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, and LeBron James. Uh, 22-win Grizzlies? I don’t think you just let that dude’s 10-day contract expire.

The good news is that 2007-08 did not break Bobby Jones, who is still playing in Italy, maintaining an active YouTube account (evidence above) and also tweeting out trivia about his ridiculous season:

In 2015, Jones also produced a full-length documentary about Americans who play ball overseas, called Basketball Jones, which is streaming on Vimeo and looks phenomenal. WHAT BETTER AUTHORITY?!

Next: The 10 greatest mustaches in NBA history

Given how many trades and cuts and 10-day deals happen each year, I’m honestly surprised that Jones has been the only four-teamer in the last 25 years. I guess I hope it doesn’t really happen to anybody else. When it does happen, though, I’ll be here to catch it.