It’s becoming increasingly rare for players to remain with one team for their entire career. Kobe did it, Stockton did it, Tim Duncan did it. But how many guys today are really going to stick it out for 10+ years with a single franchise?
Dirk Nowitzki currently holds the All-Time record for most seasons with one team at 21.
On the flip side, we also know how taboo it is for players to hop around to more than a few different teams in their careers. Shaq played for six and Isaiah Thomas has played for seven.
But the king of nomads, the All-Time great at team-hopping has to be Bobby Jones — who played for six different NBA teams in two years, five of which he played for in just a single season.
All of these moves obviously came via trade, and it seems he was often used as a trade piece in swaps involving more notable players. Jones started the 2007 season Denver then went to Memphis, Houston, Miami, and San Antonio. He only played two seasons and walked away in 2008 having posted career averages of 3.2 points, 1.6 rebounds, and .5 assists per game on 44% shooting.
No other player in history has matched this standard of moving teams and it’s unlikely anyone will again. Over the course of an 82 game season, with a trade deadline in February, there just doesn’t seem to be enough time for deals to be made that quickly.
So while Bobby Jones may not have gotten the chance to do all that much in the NBA, he made history in his own special even — even if it was unintentional.
