Duke Players by NBA Team
Duke’s footprint across the league since 1974
Which NBA Teams Have the Most Duke Players?
Every NBA franchise a Duke player has suited up for, counted, for every player in the archive since 1974. It records 283 player-franchise relationships across 30 franchises, with relocated teams merged into their modern identities.
Los Angeles Clippers leads with 15 Blue Devils. Milwaukee Bucks follows with 14. Philadelphia 76ers, Charlotte Hornets, Detroit Pistons, Cleveland Cavaliers, Atlanta Hawks and Memphis Grizzlies follow with 13. The distribution is strikingly flat. No single team has become a Duke outpost the way certain franchises have with certain agencies or certain college programs.
Relocations Are Merged
Historical franchises are folded into their current ones so the counts mean something: the Vancouver Grizzlies count as Memphis, the New Jersey Nets as Brooklyn, the Seattle SuperSonics as Oklahoma City, the Washington Bullets as the Wizards, and the Charlotte Bobcats and New Orleans Hornets as the Hornets and Pelicans respectively. Without that merge, a player like Alaa Abdelnaby would scatter across half a dozen names that no longer exist.
The Journeymen Inflate the Map
The count is player-franchise pairs, not players, and that distinction matters: 23 Duke alumni have played for five or more franchises: Alaa Abdelnaby, Christian Laettner, Elton Brand, Corey Maggette, Mike Dunleavy Jr., Nick Horvath, Dahntay Jones, Shavlik Randolph, JJ Redick, Shelden Williams, Luol Deng, Josh McRoberts, Miles Plumlee, Elliot Williams, Mason Plumlee, Austin Rivers, Rodney Hood, Jabari Parker, Grayson Allen, Tyus Jones, Justise Winslow, Luke Kennard and Marvin Bagley III. A long NBA career in the modern league is usually a well-travelled one, and those journeymen are why the totals stay so even across the map — one player can leave his mark on a quarter of the league.
Toggle between the all-time view and the current season to see the difference between accumulated history and present-day representation. The all-time chart rewards franchises that have simply existed a long time and churned rosters; the current view is a much shorter list, and it changes every summer. Click any franchise to see which Blue Devils wore that jersey and in which seasons.