7 Basketball Players Claim to Fame in the NBA

Making the NBA is almost impossible, 1 out of 10,000 players will achieve their dream, and those who do make the league still doesn’t guarantee that you will be successful once drafted.

Some players make a name for themselves by honing on one skill that they are extremely good at when compared to the rest of the competition.

That one skill could be they are an excellent rebounder, they shoot a high percentage of threes, or are an excellent lockdown defender. But other times a player will be known for a skill or something they regret doing which is their claim to fame in the league.

Here are 7 players with their claims to fame, some had one skill, some had a moment that defined them and some just love fighting.

 

Jeremy Lin – Linsanity

Jeremy Lin’s claim to fame was coming into the league as an absolute nobody, signing 7 and 10-day contracts praying for just seconds of floor time to prove himself. 

In 2012, Lin didn’t even have a place to stay when the Knicks signed him for short time. He roomed with a teammate that he met at practice and slept on the couch.

Then luck would have it, he had his opportunity to start for the Knicks and he didn’t disappoint, taking the basketball world by storm completely dominating every game he started with the New York Knicks. It was utter insanity or Linsanity.

Lin helped the injured Knicks to a 9-3 record while securing a spot in the playoffs averaging 22 points a game and almost 9 assists that season. His confidence grew with every game he played hitting big shots and even game-winners.

You would think that Lin was going to be the next big superstar in the league after this performance as it didn’t appear he was slowing down.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. After the 2012 season, Lin signed and received a healthy contract with the Houston Rockets the following year but never could replicate the Linsanity era again.

He showed flashes of greatness but slowly his career started to dwindle down back to where he first began. Eventually, he was out of the league.

It was sad to see his NBA dream come to an end, he wasn’t able to get signed in the 2019/20 season.

He even showed his frustration in an interview in tears when asked about his future in the NBA. He ended up playing a year of basketball in the Chinese Basketball Association and is now returning back to the G-League.

Hopefully, he is able to impress some NBA teams once again to re-sign him as he still appears to have some game left at the tail end of his career.

Spud Webb Dunk Contest

Spud Webb did not become famous because of his basketball skills, it was his ability to dunk the basketball at the height of 5 feet 6 inches tall is what his claim to fame was.

In 1986 Spud would enter the dunk competition and nobody thought Spud had a chance.

He was up against his teammate and reigning champion Dominque Wilkins. Spud would face off against Wilkins in the final and win.

Spud shouldn’t have even made the NBA, he was invited to try out to the Atlanta Hawks and became injured during the first practice he realized his dream almost came to an end.

At the time Wilkins liked the way Spud played and put in a good word for Webb for the Hawks to sign him.

It paid off because in his first game with the Hawks he scored 18 points.

Wilkins was a big reason why Spud was in the league, standing at only 5 feet 6 inches tall playing in the NBA, where the average height was 6 feet 7 many teams wouldn’t even look at Spud.

I am sure after Spud won the dunk contest Wilkins might have regretted putting in a good word for him.

 

His ability to do difficult dunks at the height he stood at made him a David amongst Goliath’s. I bet Wilkins wished he never had told the Hawks to sign him.

 

Shawn Bradley Being Dunked On

Shawn Bradley’s claim to fame was that he stood 7 feet 6 inches tall. Bradley’s other claim to fame was that for some reason had a knack for getting dunked on over and over again.

Drafted by the Philadelphia 76ers in 1993, it seemed link no one feared him underneath the rim so it seemed.

Many players have dunked on Bradley, while also getting into fights and altercations with him. Being 7’6 center, it’s your job to protect the rim, and sometimes when you go up to block a shot you get dunked on.

Shawn’s stats in the block category were actually quite good for his career, as he averaged 2.5 blocks in the 12 seasons he played. It would have been just over 3 blocks a game, but his last few years in Dallas, he played poorly.

 

Bill Laimbeer – Injures People

Laimbeer was apart of the BAD BOY Pistons in the 1980s that won 4 champions ships during a tough physical era.

Laimbeer is known to hurt a lot of feelings and even still he is one of the dirtiest players to play in the NBA, putting Zaza Pachulia to shame. This is his claim to fame.

During the 1980s they would face prime Michael Jordan and the Bulls, during the playoffs several times.

The Pistons came up with Jordan rules, anytime Jordan came into the paint Laimbeer was there to give him a hard foul. Many players in the NBA complained about Laimbeer’s reputation to injure players.

Isaiah Thomas a teammate of Laimbeer can thank himself and his team for being left out of the 1992 Olympic Dream Team.

Most of the members of the greatest team ever assembled did not want Thomas on that team due to the intent to injure players when they would play the Bad Boy Pistons.

This is what the whole team was known for not just Laimbeer, although he was the worse of them all.

Laimbeer wasn’t a bad player statistically either averaging almost 10 points and 10 rebounds a game for his career, but he will always be known as the dirtiest player to play the game of basketball.

 

Latrell Sprewell – Choking Incident

Sprewell’s claim to fame came when he was playing for the Golden State Warriors.

The 3-time all-star had a promising career entering the league. Until one-day P.J. Carlesimo, the coach of the Warriors had it out with Sprewell during practice, telling Sprewell to put some mustard on his passes.

Well for whatever reason Sprewell snapped and decided to choke Carlesimo who was twice his age.

The team broke up the chokehold and Latrell Sprewell left for 20 minutes, to return and continue the assault. Sprewell was suspended for 10 days without pay before being traded to the New York Knicks.

With a new start, Sprewell would lead the Knicks during the 1999 lockout season all the way to the finals against the San Antonio Spurs.

Although they choked, losing 4 games to 1, it was an impressive run for a number 8 seed team in the Eastern Conference to make it all the way to the finals.

Sprewell would later play for the Minnesota Timberwolves at the tail end of his career. But in his last year with the team, he denied a contract worth 9 million dollars from Minnesota for one year, citing that it wasn’t enough to feed his family.

The result was no team signed him that year and he never played in the league since. Sprewell is not in the Hall of Fame as of yet, and will probably never be due to the incident that he is well known for, choking his coach.

Charles Oakley – Fighting

Charles Oakley’s claim to fame is that he loved to fight, everyone and anyone including his teammates.

Oakley was an enforcer on the basketball court, much like the way hockey has an enforcer. He was always there to smarten up the players who took cheap shots at his teammates.

If there was a stat on a number of fights, Oakley would lead the NBA without question and it wouldn’t be close.

After Oakley would retire he would be involved in yet another fight, during a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden. Oakley got into a physical altercation with Knicks security and would be arrested and charged with three counts of assault.

 

Dominque Wilkins – Human Highlight Film

Wilkins is known as one of the best in-game dunkers next to Vince Carter.  He has won multiple dunk competitions in the 80s and has dunked on every player in the league so it seems.

Wilkins was a human highlight film, no really that was his nickname, he would dunk the basketball with such authority no one ever tried to block him at the rim.

Wilkins will always be more known for his dunking than any other part of his game.

 

But what might be more impressive than his dunking is that Dominque Wilkins had a very good career when it comes to individual stats.  Although he never won a championship look at those stats. WOW!