Star players are largely judged by how many championships they have won, and accomplishing that feat changes a player's legacy and their standing in the league.
We often use championships to differentiate between the best players in league history, but who has the most? In order to cut out on the repetition of all the 1960's Boston Celtics and role players, here are the Hall of Famers - or future Hall of Famers - that have won the most championships in league history:
Bill Russell - 11
Russell was the best player on the dominant Celtics teams of the late 1950's and 1960's and was the only member to be around for all 11 of those titles. As such, the NBA Finals MVP trophy is named after him.
Sam Jones - 10
Tom Heinsohn - 8
K.C. Jones - 8
John Havlicek - 8
Frank Ramsey - 7
Bob Cousy - 6
These are the rest of the Hall of Famers that played for the Celtics during their dynasty run. Jones is the only player other than Russell that has won double-digit titles.
Michael Jordan - 6
Scottie Pippen - 6
Hard to mention one of these players without the other when it comes to team success. They were the only members of all six of Chicago's championship teams. In Jordan's case, his six titles have set the bar for the number of championships other top stars are measured against (just ask LeBron).
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 6
Kareem won five of his titles with Magic Johnson and the "Showtime" Lakers, but many people forget about when he led the Milwaukee Bucks to the only title in franchise history in 1971 - just his second season in the league.
Magic Johnson - 5
Speaking of Magic Johnson, he was the ringleader of those "Showtime" Lakers. In his 13-year career, he led Los Angeles to the Finals nine times, winning five of them.
Dennis Rodman - 5
Rodman is one of the most feared rebounders and defenders of all-time. He wasn't a star when he won two titles with the "Bad Boy" Detroit Pistons, but became part of Chicago's Big 3 when they won three titles from 1996-98.
Kobe Bryant - 5
We have now reached the future Hall of Famer portion of our list. Kobe engineered five titles in Los Angeles in essentially two different eras. The first three came in his deadly combination with Shaquille O'Neal, and after their public feud, reinvented himself and the Lakers to win two more in 2009 and 2010 with Pau Gasol as his running mate.
Tim Duncan - 5
Duncan was the face of the Spurs for a decade and a half, and is largely responsible for the longstanding success the franchise has had. He's the only player on this list who didn't win back-to-back titles, but he did win three in a five-year span (2003, 2005, 2007).
George Mikan - 5
Jim Pollard - 5
Slater Martin - 5
These three were members of the Minneapolis Lakers (the franchise moved to Los Angeles in 1960) that were dominant in the 1950's before the Celtics took over. Mikan and Pollard guided the Lakers to five championships in a six-year span (1949-50, 1952-54), while Martin joined the group for the last four of those. He also won a championship with the St. Louis Hawks in 1958.
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