The Most NBA Championships Player: Top Ring Holders
It’s the goal of any player that’s ever picked up a basketball: Winning a title. And for the fortunate few that have been NBA players, an NBA ring is the ultimate goal. Only a select few teams have won NBA titles in the league’s history, and a smaller number of teams have won multiple titles.
The list of players that have won multiple championships in the NBA isn’t long. The players with the most rings in NBA history were part of some of the league’s greatest dynasties. When discussing the greatest players of all time, one of the factors that people use to determine who wins an argument is often how many rings they win.
So it’s important for fans in many ways, yet many don’t know who tops the most NBA championship player list. Let’s look at the players that top that list, and you might be surprised by some of the names.
Which NBA Player Has the Most Championships?
Unsurprisingly, the team with the most consecutive NBA titles — the Boston Celtics of the 1960s — has many players with the most NBA rings.
The player who has the most rings is Hall of Fame center Bill Russell. The biggest winner in team sports, Russell was a member of 11 championship teams in 13 seasons as an NBA player and the head coach of two of those Celtics championships as a player/coach.
Russell joined the Celtics in 1956 and was around for the team’s 11 championships from 1957 to 1969. Guard Sam Jones didn’t join the team until after that first title run, so he has only ten rings from his time with Boston.
Between the 1956-57 season and the 1975-76 season, Boston won 13 titles, so the top of the list of players with the most NBA championships has plenty of Celtics players from that era. Four are tied with eight rings: Tom Heinsohn, John Havlicek, Satch Sanders, and KC Jones. There are also Jim Loscutoff and Frank Ramsey with seven rings.
Of the players we’ve mentioned so far, all won their titles with just one franchise, and Loscutoff is the only one not in the Naismith Hall of Fame. But who has the most rings while playing for multiple franchises that have won the title?
Most Titles With Multiple Teams
Although he was never among the best NBA players in top 20 lists, Robert Horry came up clutch with multiple franchises in the NBA Finals. In his 16-year NBA career, Horry played for four franchises, three of which made multiple NBA Finals appearances when he was with them.
He was drafted by the Houston Rockets in 1992 and was a starter on the team when they won the 1993-94 and 1994-95 NBA titles. After a brief stint with the Phoenix Suns, Horry was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, where he had a couple of famous teammates named Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. Horry played a big part in the Lakers’ three-peat from 1999-00 to 2001-02, helping earn himself the nickname “Big Shot Rob.”
Horry then joined the San Antonio Spurs in 2003 and was part of the franchise’s championship runs in 2004-05 and 2006-07, making him the top of the list of players with most NBA championships with multiple teams.
Others on the most NBA championships player list that won with multiple franchises include Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (one title with the Milwaukee Bucks, five with the Los Angeles Lakers), Slater Martin (four titles with the Minneapolis Lakers, one with the St. Louis Hawks), Dennis Rodman (two titles with the Detroit Pistons, three with the Chicago Bulls), Ron Harper (three titles with Chicago, two with the Lakers) and Steve Kerr (three titles with Chicago, two with San Antonio).
Players Who Won Multiple Titles In Dynasties
You can’t mention players with the most rings in NBA history without mentioning some of the other great dynasties in league history. The Celtics’ run in the 1950s and 1960s was the greatest in NBA history, with guard Bob Cousy earning six rings in the early part of that run and Don Nelson earning five at the end. However, others were great as well.
The Los Angeles Lakers have a pair of those, contributing to many of the franchise’s 17 all-time titles. The first began in 1979 when No. 1 overall pick Magic Johnson joined the team as a rookie. Johnson and backcourt mate Michael Cooper were both members of the team’s five titles in the 1980s, and both are members of the Hall of Fame after Cooper’s 2024 induction.
The second Lakers dynasty featured players selected in the first round of the 1996 draft: Bryant and Derek Fisher. Those two are on the NBA rings list with five championships as teammates on the team’s three-peat at the beginning of the 2000s and back-to-back titles in 2008-09 and 2009-10.
Tim Duncan was the No. 1 pick of the 1997 NBA Draft by the San Antonio Spurs and the centerpiece of the franchise’s first and only titles. Duncan earned five rings from 1999 to 2014, putting him on the list of the players with the most NBA championships.
Last but certainly not least, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were the only players on both of the Chicago Bulls’ three-peats in the 1990s. Jordan was the Finals MVP in each championship, and Pippen played a major role as the team’s second-best player.
The Bulls were dominant in the 1990s. Can you imagine having Jordan on your side when you bet on NBA games? The only thing that derailed them was Jordan’s first retirement in the 1993 offseason and the breakup of the team’s roster in the 1998 offseason.
Who will be the next to join the list? There are currently four active players with four championships: LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green. One more championship will put any of those players in some elite company, but only time will tell if they can move closer to the top of the NBA rings list.
