Who might be the last NBA player to ever wear No. 6?
The league announced last week that Bill Russell’s iconic No. 6 will become the first jersey number retired leaguewide. Russell died last month at the age of 88, and was the NBA’s winningest superstar, a pioneering Black coach and a powerful advocate for civil rights.
Current players wearing no. 6 will be allowed to continue, which raises this week’s primary mailbag question: Which of the 14 players listed as No. 6 on their current rosters might eventually be the last player with the number?
Throughout the upcoming NBA season, I will answer your questions about the latest, most interesting topics in basketball. You can tweet me directly at @kpeltontweet your questions using the hashtag #peltonmailbag or email them to [email protected].
This week’s mailbag also tackles the value of having the No. 1 pick on a rookie contract and the impact of the NBA hypothetically changing the so-called “Stepien rule” requiring teams to have a draft pick in alternating future years.
“Who will be the last player to wear No. 6 after his retirement?”
— John
To keep the parameters realistic, I’m not going to consider the possibility that players change jersey numbers when they’re traded, meaning this question essentially becomes, “Which player currently wearing No. 6 will play the longest in the future?” This kind of substitution can be useful, provided everyone involved understands what’s being done.
Current NBA rosters show 14 players listed as having uniform no. 6, including Oklahoma City Thunder rookie Jaylin Williams. Of them, I’m at least certain about Moses Brown, who wore no. 6 for the Cleveland Cavaliers last year before signing with the LA Clippers as a free agent. Bryn Forbes is also listed as a duplicate no. 6 after signing with the Minnesota Timberwolves, but I’d default to Jordan McLaughlin keeping his uniform.
For the veterans, we can use the career longevity estimates from the DARKO projection system as a starting point for who might be in the league the longest. DARKO’s projections go out 12 years from last season, through the 2033-34 season. Here are the current No. 6s ranked by their odds of playing that long.
Although it’s possible a veteran player like Alex Caruso or Kristaps Porzingis could end up outlasting their younger No. 6 peers, these projections give us three realistic contenders for the honor.
Keon Johnson was one of the league’s youngest players last season, turning 20 in March — a month after he was traded by the LA Clippers to the Portland Trail Blazers. The Clippers moving on from a first-round pick so quickly was surprising, and Johnson struggled on the court, shooting just 35% from the field. But he played well, as the Blazers won the NBA summer league championship, and youth is on his side.
Kenyon Martin Jr. has two years of experience at age 21, during which he established himself as a quality energizer off the bench for the Houston Rockets. Martin shot 53% from the field last year, has hit a decent number of 3s and can defend multiple positions. The big question with Martin is how much his skills can compensate when his athleticism declines.
The safest choice is surely New York Knicks guard Quentin Grimes, who’s a couple of years older than fellow 2021 first-round pick Johnson (he turned 22 in May) but was more productive as a rookie and almost too good for summer league. Grimes’ 3-and-D skill set lends itself to a long career. He’s my pick to be the last current No. 6 playing.
“Let’s say an NBA team was offered an unusual arrangement: they would receive the No. 1 overall pick in each draft, but with a few specific constraints. That player would hit unrestricted free agency after four years and the team could not re-sign them.
“The team is also prohibited from trading that player or that pick at any point, and they would also not receive any other picks normally, but could acquire them via trade. Would a team be wise to take this deal?
“How big of an advantage would it potentially provide?”
— Zach Geballe
This is an interesting thought experiment that also helps us understand the value of draft picks. Based on the smooth track record of player performance by pick number and year, I estimate that an average No. 1 overall pick would be expected to produce about $15 million worth of value above and beyond a current four-year rookie contract for that pick.
Intriguingly, that figure is a bit less than my estimate for the value of a No. 1 pick provides above and beyond the salary on his second contract (about $17 million). The top pick is so important in large part because a true superstar will likely be underpaid on a rookie extension or new contract signed in restricted free agency.
We’ve seen several recent No. 1 picks (Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving and Andrew Wiggins) won titles during those extensions.
Still, getting $15 million in excess value out of a draft pick would be better than the typical pick provided across both their rookie and second contracts. I estimate that value somewhere between the ninth and 10th pick on average and better than the overall expected value for a randomly selected first-rounder (around $12 million). So this arrangement is undoubtedly worth taking, especially when you consider a team getting extra draft value would probably be picking in the bottom half of the round more often than the lottery.
“If the NBA got rid of the Stepien Rule, how would that change the value of draft picks now? Does the league still need it, in your opinion?”
As far as more realistic possible changes to the draft rules, let’s consider this one. As a refresher, the Stepien Rule (named after former Cleveland Cavaliers owner Ted Stepien, who oversaw several deals sending high draft picks out for middling veterans) requires teams to have at least one first-round pick every other year going forward. That’s the reason so many trades involving multiple picks have them in alternate years, sometimes with swap rights in between.
I don’t think removing the rule would affect the value of draft picks overall because these picks can eventually be traded. As soon as the pick is made, a team can trade the rights to that player without regard to future first-rounders. We saw that this year with the Dallas Mavericks, who traded their pick for Christian Wood in a deal struck before the draft but announced after it because the Mavericks owed a top-10 protected pick to the New York Knicks in 2023.
Removing the Stepien restrictions would allow teams to muster slightly more pick value in trade. That would likely accelerate the trend toward teams giving up increasing numbers of first-round picks in return for stars. It also would make it easier for teams that are good now to make use of their draft picks because they could send out multiple consecutive years’ worth of picks down the line. (The Lakers, for example, would have picks from 2026-29 available instead of just 2027 and 2029.)
As for whether the league still needs it, I think that previous discussion illustrates why the answer is yes. Although franchise values have escalated to the point where the NBA wouldn’t have the same kind of difficulty finding a new owner for a team out of multiple picks — the league eventually granted the Cavaliers an extra first-round pick from 1983 through 1986 as part of a condition of their purchase by the Gund brothers — I still don’t think it’s good to let teams get themselves in that kind of hole.
If anything, I think we’re likely to see additional restrictions. ESPN’s Zach Lowe reported recently that the league did consider banning pick swaps in between traded picks back in 2017, though “it never got far off the ground.”
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