by Henry Liao
I am not sure that there has been an instance in local basketball history wherein one player won a championship either in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) or the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) in one season and a title ring in the first conference (All-Filipino) of the professional league, the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), in the next.
In contrast, this scenario has been accomplished on five occasions in U.S. cage annals – an athlete snaring an NCAA Division I championship in one season and then romping away with National Basketball Association (NBA) hardware the following campaign.
The five Americans to accomplish the feat are Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame members William Felton (Bill) Russell and Earvin (Magic) Johnson Jr., and marginal players Charles Henry Bibby and William Stansbury (Billy) Thompson, and the young Christian Nicholas Braun.
Russell, as if you don’t know, was a dominant force for the University of San Francisco during the Dons’ consecutive NCAA title finishes in 1954–55 and 1955–56. The defensive-minded 6-foot-10 center capped his sterling three-year collegiate career (freshmen were not allowed to suit up for the varsity until the 1972–73 season) with a national College Player of the Year award and a 55-game winning streak by the Jesuit-run program.
Russell powered the United States to the gold medal during the 1956 Melbourne Olympics (where our very own GOAT Carlos Loyzaga was matched up against him in a 121–53 preliminary-round loss by the Philippines). He then latched on with the Boston Celtics midway through the 1956–57 NBA season.
Along with NBA Rookie of the Year awardee Tom Heinsohn, Russell helped guide the Celtics to the first of their league-record 17 championships in the spring of 1957.
Johnson was only a collegiate sophomore when he propelled Michigan State University’s Spartans to their first-ever NCAA crown in 1979 following a highly charged 75–64 triumph over Larry Bird and the erstwhile unblemished Indiana State Sycamores in the finals.
The multi-faceted 6-foot-9 playmaker out of Lansing, Michigan, was voted the tournament’s Final Four Most Outstanding Player, while Bird, then a fifth-year senior, earned College Player of the Year honors.
Magic subsequently renounced the final two years of his varsity eligibility and was selected by the Los Angeles Lakers with the first pick overall in the 1979 NBA Draft.
With his 7-foot-2 star teammate Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sidelined by an injury, Johnson started at center in the series-deciding Game Six of the 1980 NBA Finals against the Philadelphia 76ers and racked up 42 points (the most by a rookie in NBA Finals history), grabbed 15 rebounds, and dished out seven assists in pacing the Lakers to a 123–107 road win over the Julius Erving-led Sixers. To date, Magic remains the only first-year player ever to capture the NBA Finals MVP hardware.
Johnson would go on to secure four more NBA titles with the Lakers during the 1980s (1982, 1985, 1987, and 1988).
Bibby was a 6-foot-1 point guard who starred for the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Bruins from 1969–70 through 1971–72. He won an NCAA championship in each of his three eligible seasons at Westwood.
Bibby broke into the NBA as the New York Knicks’ fourth-round draft choice in 1972. The third option at the point guard position behind Walt (Clyde) Frazier and Dean Meminger, he was a seldom-utilized reserve on the Knicks’ 1973 NBA title unit.
Thompson was one of the stars (along with Final Four MOP Pervis Ellison) for the University of Louisville during the Cardinals’ 1986 NCAA title run. The 6-foot-7 forward was a first-round draft choice of the Atlanta Hawks that year, although his NBA rights were immediately peddled to the Lakers in a trade.
As a rookie pro, Thompson rode on the backs of his more illustrious Laker teammates, such as Magic, Abdul-Jabbar, and James Worthy, to gain an NBA title ring during the 1986–87 campaign.
Due to his gimpy knees, Thompson lasted only six NBA seasons. He later toiled in the old Continental Basketball Association (CBA) minor pro league and had overseas stints in Italy, Israel, and even the Philippines, where he donned the colors of San Miguel Beer for a pair of Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) contests in 1994.
Braun, a 6-foot-6 shooting guard, earned an NCAA title ring with the University of Kansas Jayhawks in 2022 and won an NBA championship with the Denver Nuggets in 2023. That year, the Nuggets beat the Miami Heat to secure their first (and only) NBA crown.
Officially, I became a professional sportswriter on June 6, 1981, when my first materials on basketball, particularly about the NBA, Read more
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