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These would have been the MVP winners if you could only receive the award once

There are many NBA players with multiple MVP awards, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who won six such accolades in his career, the most of any player ever. His lead there should be pretty safe, too, especially as LeBron James’ career continues to …

There are many NBA players with multiple MVP awards, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who won six such accolades in his career, the most of any player ever. His lead there should be pretty safe, too, especially as LeBron James’ career continues to wind down. James has four in his own right.

But what if NBA players could only win the award once in their careers, as is the case with, for example, writers and the Literature Nobel prize.

We went back in time and looked up the MVP vote through the years to find out.

Check out the results below.

The first NBA players to reach each salary milestone

HoopsHype presents the first NBA players to reach every single-season major salary milestone, from $100,000 to to $55 million.

Let’s take a journey through NBA history to find out the first players who reached major salary milestones.

Starting in the 1965-66 season, we’ll explore the first NBA player to earn $100,000, $250,000, $500,000, $1 million, and so on, up to the most recent milestone of $55 million in 2024-25.

You’re about to see a lot of legends on this list, though there are a couple of very fun blast-from-the-past surprises.

Jarrett Allen Q&A: Cavs 15-0 start, Donovan Mitchell, Kenny Atkinson, Conference Finals expectations

Cleveland Cavaliers center Jarrett Allen spoke with HoopsHype Senior NBA Insider Michael Scotto about Cleveland’s historic start to the season, what Donovan Mitchell’s extension meant for the city and the team’s future, how Kenny Atkinson has changed, reuniting with several former Nets teammates and coaches in Cleveland, his goals, and his Thanksgiving event.

After helping the Cavaliers achieve the second-best start to an NBA regular season ever with a 15-0 record, Jarrett Allen helped the Cleveland community begin the holiday season with a terrific start.

Allen hosted his eighth annual Meals + Math Thanksgiving event and provided 25 children from Urban Community School and their families with groceries while teaching kids about math and budgeting.

Following the event, Allen spoke with HoopsHype about Cleveland’s historic start to the season, what Donovan Mitchell’s extension meant for the city and the team’s future, how Kenny Atkinson has changed, reuniting with several former Nets teammates and coaches in Cleveland, his goals, and more on his Thanksgiving event.

Ranking: Which NBA players were surrounded by the most star power?

A longstanding NBA tradition (especially this time of the year) is to throw stars under the bus for not leading their teams to the title. If Michael Jordan (before the 90s) and LeBron James had to endure that, you know nobody is safe. This approach …

A longstanding NBA tradition (especially this time of the year) is to throw stars under the bus for not leading their teams to the title. If Michael Jordan (before the 90s) and LeBron James had to endure that, you know nobody is safe. This approach puts a lot of emphasis on the star’s perceived shortcomings and not enough on the context in which the failure occurred. It could be due to injuries, but very often, it’s simply not having enough star power around them to go all the way.

The truth is, few things predict success better than the quality of your teammates, which is kind of duh considering no player is going to play more than 20 percent of the minutes on any given team. But we wanted to put that to the test with a fun exercise where we awarded points to each player in NBA history based on the star power of their teammates. We gave 10 points for playing with the MVP, nine points for the second-place finisher, and so on down to one point for playing with a 10th-place finisher. This is admittedly an arbitrary way to measure the star company of a player, but pretty telling all the same.

Below, you’ll see a ranking of the 75 players who played with the most star power, a list that includes both big-name players and rank-and-file ones. On average, they won 3.03 championship rings. For context, the players selected to the NBA75 list, the finest the league has ever seen, won 2.12 rings on average. It’s almost like playing with stars gets you closer to a title than playing like a star.

At the top of the list is Derek Fisher, who played with five players who finished in the Top 10 of the MVP voting with him on the team. Also worth noting: Seven of the nine winningest players in NBA history (rings-wise) crack the Top 9 of this ranking.

Minimum GOATs: The best players ever on the NBA’s base salary

At any given time, roughly a third of the league is on veteran or rookie minimum contracts. By and large, these are young and unproven or older and nearly washed players, balancing on a knife’s edge for their NBA careers. Most second-round picks, …

At any given time, roughly a third of the league is on veteran or rookie minimum contracts. By and large, these are young and unproven or older and nearly washed players, balancing on a knife’s edge for their NBA careers. Most second-round picks, for example, end up signing minimum deals, and few stick in the league for too long. But every once in a while, a minimum player makes you sit up and take notice of their play.

Here are the Top 20 players to play on minimum deals. (For this exercise, we’re focusing on players on minimum contracts for full seasons).

NBA ranking: The top scoring duos ever (relative to team performance)

HoopsHype ranks highest-scoring duos in league history, including LeBron and Wade, Shaq and Kobe, Durant and Westbrook, Jordan and Pippen.

Damian Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo are combining to put up 44.75 percent of the total points scored by the Milwaukee Bucks thus far in 2024-25, which surely sounds like a lot to you.

Well, according to our research, that mark doesn’t put Lillard and Antetokounmpo even close to the Top 30 scoring duos ever, at least if we’re judging on the percentage of a team’s total points scored by a duo for a single season.

That means, for this exercise, we’re not just adding up Player A and Player B’s points per game to figure out the NBA’s top scoring duos of all time. Instead, we are adding each player’s total points scored in a season and dividing each duo’s mark by their team’s total points scored that year to find the highest percentages of a team’s total points scored by duos.

Below, check out the NBA’s top scoring duos ever.

Don’t look now but Tyler Herro is playing like an All-Star

HoopsHype uses analytics and advanced stats to breaks down the All-Star-level start for Miami Heat shooting guard Tyler Herro in 2024-25.

The summer of 2023 was the closest we’ve come to an actual Tyler Herro trade happening, as the Miami Heat went through intense negotiations with the Portland Trail Blazers for star lead guard Damian Lillard. 

For Miami, trying to pull off such a deal had more to do with wanting Lillard, coming off a spectacular 3rd Team All-NBA, 32.2-point-per-game campaign, rather than just wanting to offload Herro. After all, the Heat have always held the former Kentucky standout in high regard, higher even than portions of the fanbase that had grown frustrated with his lack of defense, streaky scoring and availability – or lack thereof. 

Eventually, as history has it, the trade fell through as Lillard was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks and Herro remained with Miami. Fans in South Florida felt a sense of disappointment with how the whole Lillard saga with Portland went, and if fans were frustrated, Heat brass probably felt even more indignation about how the ordeal eventually culminated.

But thus far in 2024-25, the Heat may feel some sense of relief that the trade didn’t happen, as Herro is making a charge at the first All-Star bid of his career, with the 24-year-old looking to have hit a higher level in his game.

De’Aaron Fox: ‘What’s big about me is I play both sides of the ball’

De’Aaron Fox has started the season strong, leading the Sacramento Kings with improved stats across the board. He’s betting on himself after forgoing an extension to aim for a ‘supermax’ contract, positioning the Kings as a potential playoff threat …

De’Aaron Fox has started the season strong, leading the Sacramento Kings with improved stats across the board. He’s betting on himself after forgoing an extension to aim for a ‘supermax’ contract, positioning the Kings as a potential playoff threat in the Western Conference.

Off the court, Fox is launching his signature shoe, the Fox 1, in collaboration with Curry Brand. Designed for speed and agility, the sneaker reflects Fox’s style with unique elements like “fur” on the tongue and lightning-inspired accents.

Despite last season’s playoff appearance via the Play-In tournament, which some might view as a step back from the prior year, he remains focused on building team chemistry, especially on defense, to compete in a challenging Western Conference.

Last week, before Fox scored 109 points over a two-game span, he sat down with HoopsHype. Fox discussed his start to the 2024-25 NBA season, what it’s been like teaming up with DeMar DeRozan, having Malik Monk re-sign, the Kings’ potential as a competitive force in the West, and more, as we near the release of his Fox 1 with Under Armour’s Curry Brand.