When I was a kid, I would play a ton of NBA 2K MyLeague. You can make whatever kind of NBA you want, with custom players, draft your dream squad or rebuild your favorite team. But I would always play with injuries turned off, because injuries are the worst part of sports.
Too many NBA careers to count have been destroyed by injuries, but an unfortunate few have gone down in infamy as particularly tragic because of how good the player was or could have been. When I was making this list, I thought I would have a lot of difficulty choosing between what-ifs, but the list wound up being big enough to get the most-often-referenced guys on there.
One quick note before we get into it: the single biggest “What If?” in NBA history is Len Bias, the number two pick in the 1986 NBA Draft who passed away from a drug overdose two days after being drafted by the defending champion Boston Celtics, one of the greatest teams in NBA history. Had Bias been added to that team, it is impossible not to wonder what could have been with Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish and sixth man Bill Walton. I didn’t put Bias on the list, but I wanted to give it a special mention at the top and recommend the excellent narrative podcast “What If? The Len Bias Story” by Jordan Ritter Conn if you’re interested in learning more about what happened.
Now, in no particular order other than narrative vibe because how on earth would I rank the greatest players by how great they could have been (?), on with the rest of the list!
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1. Derrick Rose: Bulls, Knicks, Cavs, Timberwolves, Pistons, Grizzlies
For my generation of NBA fans, no single player represents career-altering injury like Derrick Rose, who tore his ACL in Game 1 of the 2012 NBA Playoffs after being the previous year’s MVP. Nothing about Rose’s career was ever the same after the injury, as he missed the entire next season and the league was robbed of a Chicago Bulls/Miami Heat rivalry that never was.
Because of his injury, Rose is perhaps one of the most beloved and well-remembered superstars of his generation without anything resembling all-time-great credentials. He made one All-NBA team, only three All-Star teams and won the single MVP. But we all somehow remember Derrick Rose as one of the best players of his generation, even if it was only really for one year. It’s sad, but he is appreciated.
2. Maurice Stokes: Royals
Maurice Stokes is the greatest NBA player you’ve never heard of. A Hall of Famer, he averaged 16.4 points, 17.4 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game in three NBA seasons from 1955 to 1958 for the Rochester Royals. He was a transcendent player and looked poised for an all-time-great career before suffering a tragic head injury, eventually diagnosed as post-traumatic encephalopathy. Stokes was permanently paralyzed, and died in 1970 at the age of 36.
It’s would be an almost unbearably tragic story had it not been for the work of his teammate and friend Jack Twyman, who became Stokes’ legal guardian after his injury and cared for him for the rest of his life, helping him to regain limited speaking ability in his later life. The NBA’s Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award is named in their collective honor.
3. Greg Oden: Trail Blazers, Heat
With how much discussion there has been around Oden’s knee injuries, it is still easy to forget how disastrous his career actually was. Basketball Reference lists a career spanning seven seasons in which he played 105 total games and missed four full years due to knee injuries. It is an almost impossibly horrific result for the number one pick in the 2007 draft over Kevin Durant, which will always be his legacy and that of the Portland Trail Blazers’ decision.
Oden is a case of a player with talent whose health simply did not allow him to play professional basketball. There is not much more analysis to be had beyond that; no objective judgement of Oden’s basketball career can even be levied, since it never got going in the first place.
4. Bill Walton: Trail Blazers, Clippers, Celtics
The ultimate, and I mean ultimate, NBA what-if of the 20th century. Bill Walton was legitimately on GOAT trajectory before foot injuries forced him to miss his entire physical prime. Between the ages of 26 and 30, four full seasons, Walton played 14 total games. 14. It is a miracle that Walton won the 1977 MVP and the NBA Championship, one of the most impressive runs for any ring ever — had he not, his career would have been all the more tragic.
Walton was a basketball genius, and had a nice second act as the Sixth Man of the Year on the 1986 Boston Celtics. Rested and healthy, Walton would come off the bench and freelance with Larry Bird as the two destroyed everyone in one glorious run to the championship. He is remembered fondly by all who knew him, having lived one of the great basketball lives.
5. Shaun Livingston: Clippers, Heat, Thunder, Wizards, Hornets, Bucks, Cavs, Nets, Warriors
You could look at Shaun Livingston’s career as a tragedy, but that’s a misreading. There was indeed this dynamic, free-running slashing-point-guard-with-size version of Livingston that existed for three years on the Los Angeles Clippers, but then he suffered one of the most catastrophic knee injuries in the history of sports. He was told his leg may have to be amputated, and it took him years to return to play.
But when he did, he carved out an essential role on three championship-winning Golden State Warriors teams, and I remember that Shaun Livingston very well. In the moment Stephen Curry needed a breather, Livingston would come in and things wouldn’t fall apart. That was his job, and he did it well. Because of how bad it could have been, I consider Livingston’s career a tremendous achievement.
6. Brandon Roy: Trail Blazers, Timberwolves
I never watched Brandon Roy play, I was too young, but he’s a player I grew up hearing about. This kind of limitless scoring guard who could do anything offensively … and then he was just gone. He played five years in the NBA, didn’t even miss that many games during those five years, and then announced his retirement due to a degenerative knee condition. Not even 27 years old, it was just over.
Even crazier was how Roy was the sixth pick in the 2006 NBA Draft … to the Portland Trail Blazers, who would the very next year spend the first overall pick on Greg Oden. Many fans thought they had the future of their franchise locked down. Instead, it was successive tragedies.
7. Penny Hardaway: Magic, Suns, Knicks, Heat
Penny Hardaway had four transcendent seasons in the mid-90s before a 1997-98 season knee injury effectively ended his superstar tenure. He played almost 10 more years in the league, but never came close to the All-NBA First Team, MVP-level freak he was before the injury, and it’s one of the starker statistical drop offs for any injury in NBA history.
Hardaway is another iconic NBA memory, and friends and family of mine who watched the NBA in that era still talk about Penny like some kind of space wizard from another planet — in the 1997 playoffs, he averaged 31 points per game without Shaquille O’Neal around to help. What Hardaway could have been as a solo star is anyone’s guess.
8. Sam Bowie: Trail Blazers, Nets, Lakers
The thing about Sam Bowie I always like to point out is that … he wasn’t actually a bad player. He missed a great deal of games with lower-body injuries but, when he played, he was an effective shot blocker and rebounder, decent interior scorer (if a touch inefficient) and even attempted a few threes in his day. He just … was the guy drafted one pick before Michael Jordan. I’m not really sure how you get over that.
It’s always funny to me that Jordan was the third pick, not the second, meaning that two people were drafted ahead of the GOAT, yet everyone points to Bowie as the ultimate bust drafted by (guess who) the Portland Trail Blazers. The Houston Rockets selected a guy named Hakeem Olajuwon over Jordan, which no one seems to blame them for. But looking back, there was objectively a better player available. Just saying.
9. Grant Hill: Pistons, Magic, Suns, Clippers
I’m not saying Grant Hill would have been LeBron James had he not injured his ankle in 2000, but I am going to say that Grant Hill before he injured his ankle in 2000 was pretty freaking sick.
Hill’s career is definitely not a failure, and he’s still one of the greatest college basketball players ever. I still think of him primarily as a Duke Blue Devil even though he’s a five-time All-NBA player and a seven-time All-Star. His ankle injury eventually derailed his career in another one of the most obvious injury fall-offs ever, but in terms of points, rebounds and assists after a player’s first six seasons? Only Oscar Robertson, LeBron James, Luka Doncic and Larry Bird match Grant Hill’s numbers. So like … he could have been LeBron. Maybe.
10. Yao Ming: Rockets
One of most singularly ginormous people ever to play NBA basketball, Yao Ming was immediately impactful for the Houston Rockets after being selected number one overall, and there are alternative histories where he and fellow-list-member Tracy McGrady could have achieved something more. But Yao’s feet proved unable to handle his size on an NBA court forever, and a stress fracture eventually ended his career in 2010.
Yao is also one of the NBA’s most effective cultural ambassadors as the game continues to gain popularity in China, and he also apparently makes great wine. Like, professional well-reviewed wine. Good for Yao.
11. Larry Johnson: Hornets, Knicks
Larry Johnson played in an era that didn’t believe in load management. In fact, it so didn’t believe in load management that Johnson averaged 36.3 minutes per game in his career and twice averaged over 40 minutes in a single season. That’s … how you say … completely bananas, and represents one of the main shifts in NBA philosophy these days. You can’t just run your star players into the ground.
Johnson played a ton of games in his 10 year career but was often in tremendous pain from chronic back problems, which caused an early retirement. When the next great debate about load management comes, I’d like to see some acknowledgement about how it relates to players experiencing pain rather than just whether or not they can play. Injuries are often incredibly psychological.
12. Tracy McGrady: Raptors, Magic, Rockets, Knicks, Pistons, Hawks
At this point on the list we’re going to start seeing fewer and fewer obvious injury derailments and more judgement calls about what could have been. Tracy McGrady had an incredible career; Hall of Famer, seven-time All-NBA, scoring champ, this is a guy. But there was also definitely more, and T-Mac had really no career after he turned 30 and missed playoff runs due to back and knee problems.
Sometimes, looking back on a career statistically can lose how it must have felt in the moment. Because if you miss one big playoff game with an injury, it doesn’t really matter if you played 82 leading up to it. Does that mean an injury “derailed your career” or you just got unlucky? I don’t know, but T-Mac never had a signature playoff run, and I don’t feel like it was his fault.
13. Arvydas Sabonis: Trail Blazers
One of the all-time great European players, Sabonis was already 31 when he came over to the NBA, and his feet and knees were already shot. His entire physical peak was spent in Europe, but the hypothetical prime Sabonis is almost a mythological creature that would have been regarded by all as a Jokic-esque alien in the 1980s NBA.
He was a legit 7’3” beast who could shoot threes and pass. He was so limited by the time he made it to the NBA that it almost didn’t matter, but he’s still a Hall of Famer for his European achievements, and an all-time what-if for (guess who) the Portland Trail Blazers.
14. Kawhi Leonard: Raptors, Spurs, Clippers
I debated including Kawhi Leonard on this list. On one hand, he’s had an incredible career with both the Spurs and Raptors. On another hand, his lack of availability annihilated an entire franchise: the Clippers. On a third hand (we have three hands, apparently), his health has been his defining characteristic for the last half-decade, and had Kawhi Leonard simply been healthy the Clippers probably would not have been one of the NBA’s great tragic disasters. But they are.
On a fourth hand (we have too many hands, going to have to scale back), Leonard has literally always been good when he’s been healthy. Never have his injuries permanently limited his impact, a trend of modern players with modern surgeries and recovery methods. You’ll notice this list is super 1990s/2000s coded, and that’s the reason.
15. Ralph Sampson: Rockets, Warriors, Kings, Bullets
Oh man, I could go on and on about the hypothetical Ralph Sampson, but all I have to say is that he was Victor Wembanyama before Wemby. 7’4”, a real handle, heralded by all as potentially the greatest prospect since the dawn of time, it was just out of control. But his body couldn’t hold up, as is so often the case for physical outliers with 1-of-1 bodies.
I hope Wemby doesn’t go the way of Sampson, who essentially had 2.5 good seasons before breaking down. The track record of these unicorns — Sampson, Walton, Kristaps Porzingis — is terrible, but Wembanyama is a different generation. Here’s hoping.
16. Gordon Hayward: Jazz, Celtics, Hornets, Thunder
I’ll never be able to properly explain to people how tragic the Gordon Hayward broken leg was six minutes into the 2017 NBA season. That was the most excited I’d been for a Boston sports season ever; it was the first time in my life a true big-name free agent had chosen the Celtics, we had Kyrie Irving, rookie Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Al Horford and now Hayward. And then it was just over, immediately. There was no time to even be excited.
Ironically, Hayward’s injury thrust Tatum into a major role the Celtics probably hadn’t envisioned for him and showed them that he was way more polished than they had anticipated. I doubt Boston reroutes their team through Tatum and Brown without the Hayward injury, but I also think they could have won the 2017 NBA Finals had Hayward not gotten injured. I really do.
17. Larry Bird: Celtics
You may be thinking “oh, LARRY BIRD’s career was derailed by injuries? Isn’t he like the third or fourth best player ever bro what are you talking about?” Hear me out: growing up in Boston, you cannot imagine how much older people talk to me about how Bird’s back problems later in his career and how he would have easily been the GOAT had he been healthy. There’s a kind of sadness when they talk about it, because Bird really was all that. If you’re too young (like me) go watch every Larry Bird highlight reel on the internet. It holds up; it’s still better than anything you see today.
Bird really only played 10 great seasons, and what he achieved in them makes his historical stature even more dumbfounding. Had he been healthier and played 15 good years instead of 10, he might just be … the GOAT. We’ll never know.
18. Jonathan Bender: Pacers, Knicks
A very odd inclusion after Larry freaking Bird, but personally lobbied for by my editor Ian Levy after I asked if anyone had someone they wanted on the list. Bender was a shifty, agile seven-footer who could shoot and was unbelievably hyped out of high school, going straight to the NBA with the fifth pick in the 1999 NBA Draft. It just never happened, and a sore knee made whatever his career could have developed into impossible, but man did it look like something special could have happened.
19. Joel Embiid: 76ers
Unless he pulls off a spectacular final flourish, the first thing I will think of when I think “Joel Embiid” after he retires is his injuries. In his brief peak, when he was healthy for, like, 1.5 years, Embiid was essentially Shaquille O’Neal who could shoot free throws. He is massive, destructive and the ultimate evolutionary big man that just hasn’t ever been healthy.
Something about basketball was just not designed to be played by humans, but it was definitely not designed for Joel Embiid. He’s among the most talented players I’ve ever seen and was utterly, inconceivably unstoppable when at full strength. But he’s been injured so many times already that his speed is zapped, and I don’t think we’re ever getting MVP Embiid back.
20. Kristaps Porzingis: Knicks, Mavericks, Wizards, Celtics, Hawks, Warriors
Another one of the NBA’s great unicorns, Porzingis has missed a shocking number of games in his NBA career and suffers from from POTS, a chronic autonomic nervous system condition that could impact whatever his basketball future may hold. But I will always love Porzingis for what he did for the 2023-24 Boston Celtics, and especially his performance in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, in which he was every bit the dominant unicorn everyone always imagined he could be.
In that game, Josh Green has a breakaway and Mike Breen goes “one man to beat … but IT’S A SEVEN-FOOTER” before Porzingis swats Green’s attempted dunk to the shadow realm. It’s one of my favorite plays ever, and I’ll remember Breen’s call for the rest of my life.
21. Kevin Johnson: Cavaliers, Suns
Kevin Johnson has become incredibly underrated by NBA history, and a sports hernia and associated issues basically ended Johnson’s excellent career abruptly. But he’s a five-time All-NBA player and one of the better slashers in the history of the game. KJ going downhill was like a religious experience, and he was incredibly explosive in a era where a true interior scoring guard was still a thing.
Kevin Johnson should probably be in the Hall of Fame; Michael Cooper is in the Hall of Fame, and I know he won a bunch of titles but he was half the player Johnson was. He was also the mayor of Sacramento from 2008 to 2016, in case you didn’t, uh, know that.
22. Amar’e Stoudemire: Suns, Knicks, Mavericks, Heat
Amar’e Stoudemire was pretty sick on the Suns, and had he maintained his superstar form on the New York Knicks, there is a chance he and Carmelo Anthony could have achieved more than they did. But injuries took the best of Stoudemire when he was still only in his late-20s, and he never really was the second star the Knicks needed.
Stoudemire is, to me, the Hall of Fame line. I’m not really sure he should be a Hall of Famer, but I’m definitely sure nobody worse than him should be a Hall of Famer. Now, lots of people worse than him are in the Hall of Fame, because the NBA Hall of Fame has decided that everyone in the universe will make it in, which is only marginally better than the Baseball Hall of Fame’s position that no one will make it. If we can all just agree that if you are Amar’e Stoudemire or better, you can be a Hall of Famer, that’d be fine. Thanks.
23. Bernard King: Nets, Jazz, Warriors, Knicks, Bullets
Bernard King is the lost face of the 1980s. He was a dominant scorer and could have rivaled Magic Johnson and Larry Bird as the face of the league had he not torn up his right knee at the peak of his powers, never regaining his explosiveness or impact after he had averaged 32.9 points per game (I mean … what?!) the season before. One of the great Knicks could have been so much greater.
24. Demarcus Cousins: Kings, Pelicans, Warriors, Rockets, Clippers, Bucks, Nuggets
Boogie was on so many terrible teams that it’s easy to forget how excited we all were for the Cousins/Anthony Davis Pelicans before it all fell apart. Cousins suffered one of the last true “career ending” Achilles tears, truly never recovering his old form whatsoever on the Warriors or any of the other teams he played for after.
I remember being irate that the godly Steph-and-Durant Warriors had signed Cousins, who in my mind was one of the best centers in the league, only to discover that he was a shell of himself after his injury. It was sad. But man, there was a five-game playoff series in 2022 in which Boogie was holding it down for the Denver Nuggets when Nikola Jokic was on the bench. They lost the series, but it was hype to see Boogie give it everything he had one last time. Those were his final NBA games.
25. Markelle Fultz: 76ers, Magic, Kings, Raptors
Fultz suffered from one of the most public and poorly handled injury recoveries in recent NBA history. He was heralded as the savior of the Process 76ers, a team that had been intentionally losing season after season, and their fans now expected Fultz, the number one pick, Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons to lead them to glory. But he never got off the tarmac, suffering a shoulder injury, later identified as thoracic outlet syndrome, that permanently destroyed his ability to shoot.
He was so talented ,but had one of his main skills stolen from him by injury. Fultz played 33 total games for the 76ers before ending up in Orlando, but he managed two fun seasons with the Magic in 2019 and in 2022-23 before his career effectively ended. Magic fans still talk about him fondly, though, and with how his career appeared to be heading down the Greg Oden path, that’s a small victory.
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