The 15 NBA Players Who Were Traded The Most Times

One of the downsides of being a professional athlete is knowing there’s usually not much you can do if the team you play for decides to trade you. A good chunk of NBA players have befallen that fate at some point during their careers, but some have been forced to endure a pretty wild roller coaster ride due to how frequently they ended up involved in a transaction.

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P.J. Tucker started the 2024-25 NBA season as a member of the Clippers but didn’t appear in a single game before he was traded to the Jazz in a deal involving Mo Bamba on February 1st.

He was dealt yet again in the four-team trade that sent Jimmy Butler to the Warriors, and while he ended up as a member of the Heat, he was shipped off to the Raptors a little over 12 hours later.

That means Tucker has now been traded six times, but he still has some work to do if he wants to join the list of the players who were moved the most during their time in the NBA.

Trevor Ariza: 11 Times

No player has been traded more than Trevor Ariza, and no one really comes close to matching the close to 11 moves he was at the center of.

Ariza was selected by the Knicks with the 43rd overall pick in the 2004 NBA Draft and spent less than two years in New York before began this tumultuous journey:

February 2006: Traded to Magic
November 2007: Traded to Lakers
August 2010: Traded to Hornets
June 2012: Traded to Wizards
July 2014: Traded to Rockets
December 2018: Traded to Wizards (again)
January 2020: Traded to Trail Blazers
November 22, 2020: Traded to Rockets (again)
November 24, 2020: Traded to Pistons
November 27, 2020: Traded to Thunder
March 2021: Traded to Heat

Ariza was able to choose his final destination, as he signed with the Lakers in 2021 before his career came to an end after 18 seasons when he was waived in 2022.

Dan Dickau: 8 Times

Dan Dickau is probably best known for what he achieved while playing at Gonzaga, and he was no stranger to the many trades he was involved in after getting treated to his first one shortly after the Kings selected him with the 28th pick in the 2002 NBA Draft:

Draft Night 2002: Traded to Hawks
February 2004: Traded to Trail Blazers
July 2004: Traded to Warriors
August 2004: Traded to Mavericks
December 2004: Traded to Hornets
October 2005: Traded to Celtics
June 2006: Traded to Trail Blazers (again)
June 2007: Traded to Knicks

Dickau’s pro career came to an end in 2010. He eventually pivoted to broadcasting and has remained in that lane ever since.

Dale Ellis: 8 Times

Dale Ellis was a prolific three-point shooter who held the NBA record for the most baskets from behind the arc until Reggie Miller surpassed him (he’s now 34th on the all-time list with 1,719), and the man who started his career with the Mavericks had the chance to make them with plenty of teams thanks to how often he was traded:

July 1986: Traded to SuperSonics
February 1991: Traded to Bucks
July 1992: Traded to Spurs
October 1997: Traded to SuperSonics (again)
June 1999: Traded to Magic
August 1999: Traded to Bucks (again)
January 2000: Traded to Hornets
August 2000: Traded to Heat

Ellis never actually played for the Heat, as he was waived before the season started to bring his career to an end after 1,209 regular season games.

Chris Gatling: 8 Times

Chris Gatling spent four seasons with the Warriors after being drafted out of Old Dominion in the first round of the 1991 NBA Draft, and that was easily the most stable stretch of a career where he ended up bouncing around the league plenty of times:

February 1996: Traded to Heat
February 1997: Traded to Nets
March 1999: Traded to Bucks (by request)
August 1999: Traded to Magic
February 2000: Traded to Nuggets
June 2000: Traded to Heat (again)
August 2000: Trade to Cavaliers
October 2001: Trade to Heat (yet again)

Gatling retired from the NBA in 2002 but played one more year in Russia while thankfully avoiding yet another trade.

Don MacLean: 8 Times

Don MacLean (not to be confused with the “American Pie” guy) also got a very quick introduction to the fate that awaited him when he was nabbed by the Pistons with the 19th overall pick in the 1992 NBA Draft, as he wasn’t with Detroit for very long:

Draft Night 1992: Traded to Clippers
October 1992: Traded to Washington
October 1995: Traded to Nuggets
June 1997: Traded to Nets
January 1999: Traded to SuperSonics
June 1999: Traded to Magic
August 1999: Traded to Rockets
October 2001: Traded to Raptors

MacLean retired shortly after being sent to Toronto; he also pivoted to broadcasting and currently works for the Big Ten Network.

Billy Owens: 7 Times

The Kings selected Billy Owens out of Syracuse with the third overall pick in the 1991 NBA Draft, but he refused to sign with the team and was subsequently subjected to the first of the many trades he ended up getting accustomed to:

November 1991: Traded to Warriors
November 1994: Traded to Heat
February 1996: Traded to Kings
June 1999: Traded to Magic
August 1999: Traded to 76ers
February 2000: Traded to Warriors (again)
June 2000: Traded to Bucks
August 2000: Traded to Pistons

Owens retired in 2010 and ended up coaching at the college level.

Keith Bogans: 7 Times

There are currently nine players who’ve been moved exactly seven times, and we’re kicking things off with Keith Bogans.

We’ve got yet another guy who was traded as soon as they technically entered the NBA, as Bogans was scooped up out of Kentucky by the Bucks with the 43rd overall pick in 2003 before the wheels began to turn:

Draft Night 2003: Traded to Magic
November 2004: Traded to Hornets
February 2006: Traded to Rockets
February 2009: Traded to Bucks
July 2013: Traded to Celtics
September 25, 2014: Traded to Cavaliers
September 27, 2014: Traded to 76ers

That brief stint with the Celtics was the last time he actually played in a game in the NBA, but he’s served as an assistant coach on a number of teams since retiring.

Marcus Camby: 7 Times

Marcus Camby is one of the more notable names on this list when you consider he won Defensive Player of the Year honors in 2007, but his career was defined by a lack of stability that began when some internal drama led to the Raptors trading the big man they drafted with the second overall pick in 1996:

June 1998: Traded to Knicks
June 2002: Traded to Nuggets
July 2008: Traded to Clippers
February 2010: Traded to Trail Blazers
March 2012: Traded to Rockets
July 2013: Traded to Raptors to bring things full circle

Camby never actually played a game for Toronto after that last trade and has taken it pretty easy in retirement.

Sam Cassell: 7 Times

Sam Cassell’s NBA career started about as well as anyone could hope, as he was drafted by the Rockets in 1993 before Houston won back-to-back titles during his first two seasons.

However, a slew of trades started happening after his third one:

August 1996: Traded to Suns
December 1996: Traded to Mavericks
February 1997: Traded to Nets
March 1999: Traded to Bucks
June 2003: Traded to Timberwolves
August 2005: Traded to Clippers
February 2009: Traded to Kings

Cassell ultimately spent 15 years in the NBA as a player and has since served as an assistant coach for the Wizards, Clippers, 76ers, and Celtics (he’s currently working under Joe Mazzulla in Boston).

Jim Jackson: 7 Times

Jim Jackson is one of the five players who’ve played for exactly 12 different NBA teams, which was a record until another man we’ll get to in a minute joined his 13th.

The Ohio State product started his career with the Mavericks as the fourth overall pick in the 1992 NBA Draft and spent more than four seasons there before becoming one of the league’s ultimate journeymen:

February 1997: Traded to Nets
June 1997: Traded to 76ers
February 1998: Traded to Warriors
August 1999: Traded to Hawks
January 2001: Traded to Cavaliers
December 2004: Traded to Pelicans
January 2005: Traded to Suns

Jackson got one last shot with the Lakers after his time with the Suns and hung up his sneakers in 2006.

Shabazz Napier: 7 Times

Shabazz Napier only spent six seasons in the NBA after being scooped up by the Hornets in the first round of the draft in 2014, which makes his appearance on this list especially impressive:

The Day After He Was Drafted In 2014: Traded to Heat
July 2015: Traded to Magic
July 2016: Traded to Trail Blazers
July 7, 2019: Traded to Warriors
July 8, 2019: Traded to Timberwolves
February 5, 2020: Traded to Nuggets
February 6, 2020: Traded to Wizards

Napier played 20 games for the Wizards before pursuing an international career and currently plays for a EuroLeague team in Germany.

Luke Ridnour: 7 Times

Luke Ridnour made the fairly short trek up north from the University of Oregon to Seattle after the SuperSonics grabbed him with the 14th overall pick in the 2003 NBA Draft, and he earned a spot on his list when his career came to an objectively hilarious end when he was traded four times in the span of six days:

August 2008: Traded to Bucks
July 2013: Traded to Bucks (again, he was with the Timberwolves at the time)
February 2014: Traded to Hornets
June 24, 2015: Traded to Grizzlies
June 25, 2015: Traded to Hornets (again)
June 30, 2015: Traded to Thunder
June 31, 2015: Traded to Raptors

Ridnour later said he couldn’t help but laugh as he watched the situation unfold at his home in Seattle during the offseason, but he never played for any of those teams and officially retired in 2016.

Ish Smith: 7 Times

Ish Smith is the aforementioned (and undrafted) guy who managed to play for a record-high 13 NBA teams during his 14 seasons in the league, and that feat was made possible with the help of plenty of trades.

February 2011: Traded to Grizzlies
February 2013: Traded to Bucks
August 2013: Traded to Suns
February 2015: Traded to Pelicans
December 2015: Traded to 76ers
February 2022: Traded to Wizards
July 2022: Traded to Nuggets

Smith won a championship with Denver in 2023 and had one last ride with the Hornets the following season before taking a job as a scout with the Wizards.

Joe Smith: 7 Times

Joe Smith is among the quartet of NBA players who played for exactly 12 teams, and that feat was also mediated by the trades he was involved in after he became the top overall pick in the 1995 NBA Draft courtesy of the Warriors:

February 1998: Traded to 76ers
June 2003: Traded to Bucks
December 2006: Traded to 76ers (again)
February 2008: Traded to Cavaliers
August 2008: Traded to Thunder
February 2009: Traded to Pelicans
December 2010: Traded to Lakers

Smith played his final NBA game in 2011 and now offers private coaching lessons.

Otis Thorpe: 7 Times

Otis Thorpe was selected by the Kings with the ninth overall pick in the 1985 NBA Draft, and he was a real trailblazer (figuratively, but he was also traded to Portland) who got shipped off to a bunch of different teams before it was cool:

October 1988: Traded to Rockets
February 1995: Traded to Trail Blazers
September 1995: Traded to Pistons
August 1997: Traded to Grizzlies
February 1998: Traded to Kings
May 1998: Traded to Wizards
August 2000: Traded to Hornets

Thorpe capped off his career in Charlotte and retired with 17,600 points and 10,370 rebounds.

The 15 NBA Players Who Were Traded The Most Times During Their Career