Who Had the Longest NBA Career?

We all know that NBA careers can be pretty short, but just how short are they? And who had the longest NBA career of all time?

Robert Parish

Robert Parish played an incredible 21 seasons in the NBA, from 1976 to 1997. That is an amazing feat in and of itself, but what is even more impressive is that Parish was a very effective player throughout his entire career.

Robert Parish’s NBA career

Robert Parish played an astonishing 21 seasons in the NBA, from 1976 to 1997. He spent 14 of those seasons with the Boston Celtics, winning three NBA championships. He also won a fourth championship with the Chicago Bulls in 1996. He was a nine-time All-Star and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003.

Robert Parish’s teams

Parish played for 14 seasons in the NBA, from 1976 to 1997. He was a member of the Boston Celtics from 1980 to 1994, and won three NBA championships with the team. He also played for the Charlotte Hornets, Chicago Bulls, andGolden State Warriors. During his time with the Celtics, Parish became known as “The Chief”, due to his stoic nature and Native American-inspired hairstyle.

Kevin Willis

Kevin Willis had the longest NBA career of any player in history, playing for 21 seasons. He was a journeyman player, never really finding a home with any one team. He started his career with the Atlanta Hawks, but he also played for the Miami Heat, Toronto Raptors, Houston Rockets, and Golden State Warriors. He was a consistent player throughout his career, averaging double figures in points and rebounds for his career.

Kevin Willis’s NBA career

Kevin Willis’s NBA career spanned an impressive 21 seasons. He was drafted by the Atlanta Hawks in 1984 and played for them for 12 years. He then played for the Miami Heat, Houston Rockets, Golden State Warriors, Toronto Raptors, Denver Nuggets and San Antonio Spurs before finally retiring in 2007.

During his time in the NBA, Willis was a reliable and consistent presence on the court. He was never an All-Star but was a solid role player who could be counted on to score points and grab rebounds. In total, he played in 1,624 games (the seventh most in NBA history) and finished with 14,177 points (an average of 8.7 per game) and 8,204 rebounds (an average of 5 per game).

Kevin Willis’s teams

Willis was drafted by the Atlanta Hawks with the 11th pick in the 1984 NBA draft. He played for the Hawks for 12 seasons before being traded to the Miami Heat in 1996. He played for the Heat for two seasons before being traded to the Toronto Raptors in 1998. He played for the Raptors for one season before being traded back to the Hawks in 1999. He played for the Hawks until 2003, when he was traded to the New Jersey Nets. He played for the Nets for two seasons before being traded back to the Hawks in 2005. Willis retired from basketball in 2007.

Dirk Nowitzki

Dirk Nowitzki is a German former professional basketball player. He played his entire 21-year career with the Dallas Mavericks in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is widely regarded as one of the greatest power forwards of all time and is considered by many to be the greatest European player in NBA history.

Dirk Nowitzki’s NBA career

Dirk Nowitzki is a German former professional basketball player. An alumnus of the 1997 NBA draft, he played his entire 21-season career with the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is widely regarded as one of the greatest power forwards of all time. A twelve-time All-Star, Nowitzki was named co-MVP of the 2011 NBA Finals and won the 2007 NBA MVP Award. He retired as the league’s sixth-leading scorer with 31,560 points.

Nowitzki played for the German national basketball team in 1998 and 2002, winning EuroBasket silver each time. Since 2011, he has been teaming up with Bettina Bunge to raise money for charitable organizations through basketball camps and inline skating events. In 2012, Nowitzki was named Sports Illustrated’s European Sportsperson of the Year, an award he had also won in 2005 as a member of Germany’s finals-winning World Cup baseball team—making him one of only four people to have been so honored twice by SI.

Dirk Nowitzki’s teams

Nowitzki was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks with the ninth overall pick in the 1998 NBA draft. He was then traded to the Dallas Mavericks, where he played for his entire 21-season career.

During his second season, Nowitzki was selected to his first All-Star Team and averaged a career-high 26.6 points per game (ppg). He led the Mavericks to the Western Conference Finals that same year. In 2006, he helped lead them to their first NBA Finals appearance, where they lost to the Miami Heat in six games. Nowitzki improved his scoring average during each of his first 10 seasons in the league, peaking at 26.6 ppg in 2002–03 and 2005–06; he subsequently won back-to-back MVP awards in those two seasons as well.[10][11] In 2007, he led Dallas to a 67-win season and again helped them defeat the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Finals en route to an appearance against LeBron James’s Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals; however, Dallas lost this series 4–2 despite Nowitzki’s 27 points per game performance.[12]

In 2010–11, Nowitzki averaged 22.7 points and 6 rebounds per game while leading Dallas through a 50+ win season for the 11th time in 12 seasons.[13] In 2011–12, he again averaged 22.7 points along with 6 rebounds per game as well as 2.4 assists.[14] 2012–13 was another excellent statistical season for Dirk as he averaged 17.3 points and 6 rebounds per game.[15] On April 11, 2014, against Phoenix Suns, Nowitzki surpassed Hakeem Olajuwon as sixth place on the NBAs all-time scoring list with a 27-point performance that gave him 26,947 total points for his career.[16][17][18]