New York’s “Nova Knicks” are on the verge of joining some elite company.
All but certainly the NBA’s most famous current set of college teammates, the Knicks’ trio of Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges won an NCAA championship together at Villanova in 2016, with Brunson and Bridges winning an additional title in 2018 after Hart graduated.
Their path to becoming teammates in the league was a little more serendipitous. The process started in the summer of 2022, when Brunson signed with New York. Hart joined Brunson in the Big Apple in a February 2023 deal with the Portland Trail Blazers (prompting a memorable reaction from Brunson), and Bridges joined the duo over a year later as part of a blockbuster trade following the 2024 season. That trio was actually briefly united with a fourth Villanova teammate, Donte DiVincenzo, but DiVincenzo was dealt to the Minnesota Timberwolves that fall as part of the deal that brought Karl-Anthony Towns to Madison Square Garden.
With the Knicks in this year’s NBA Finals, currently leading the San Antonio Spurs 1-0 in the series, the Villanova alumni group has already joined at least one historic short list — per ESPN Research, New York is the second team in NBA history to have started three players from the same school in an NBA Finals game, joining the 1948-49 Minneapolis Lakers’ trio of DePaul grads in George Mikan, Johnny Jorgensen and Whitey Kachan.
But a different short list could be in play for the Knicks’ former Wildcats as well. Just four sets of teammates have won both NCAA and NBA championships together (at least among players who played in at least one NCAA tournament game and at least one NBA playoff game).
The Knicks’ Mikal Bridges, Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart could become the fifth set of teammates to win NCAA (Villanova) and NBA championships together.
🏆 Derek Anderson & Antoine Walker (Kentucky, Heat)
🏆 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar & Lucius Allen (UCLA, Bucks)
🏆 John Havlicek & Larry… pic.twitter.com/kYXuJKvgGc— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) May 29, 2026
Here’s the exclusive list of teammates to have won it all in both college and the NBA.
Derek Anderson, Antoine Walker
For a pair of dual-champion teammates, Anderson’s and Walker’s careers don’t actually overlap as much as one might think, but the timing on their shared seasons is surgically efficient from a title-winning perspective.
Anderson and Walker shared the court together for just one season at Kentucky, on the 1995-96 Wildcats. Anderson had sat out Walker’s freshman campaign the year before as a transfer from Ohio State, and Walker was the sixth pick in the 1996 draft. But their one season on the court together was quite successful — the Wildcats went 34-2 and won the national championship.
The duo trod a similar path in the NBA. Anderson and Walker combined to play for 11 different franchises across their respective careers but overlapped for only one season as teammates. Both were members of the 2006 Miami Heat, who hoisted the Larry O’Brien Trophy that year.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Lucius Allen
Abdul-Jabbar and Allen enrolled at UCLA together in the fall of 1965, made their varsity debuts together a year later and became part of the legendary Bruins dynasty. The duo won national championships all three of their varsity seasons with UCLA, the first three titles in what would become a stretch of seven consecutive national championships for the Bruins (UCLA captured a stunning 10 titles in 12 years from 1964 to 1975).
The pair made the jump to the NBA in the 1969 draft — Abdul-Jabbar was selected No. 1; Allen went No. 3 — and their paths would cross again soon enough. Allen was traded to Abdul-Jabbar’s Milwaukee Bucks after his rookie season, and the Bucks promptly won the 1971 NBA Finals. Abdul-Jabbar and Allen overlapped for two more seasons a few years later on the Los Angeles Lakers, but Allen departed before Los Angeles’ run of titles in the 1980s.
John Havlicek, Larry Siegfried
Havlicek and Siegfried were members of an Ohio State basketball squad absolutely stacked with notable names at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s. Jerry Lucas also starred for the Buckeyes, and Bob Knight came off the bench as a reserve. With a lineup that went five deep with future pros, Ohio State took home the 1960 national championship.
The two former Buckeyes also enjoyed a long tenure as teammates in the NBA. Havlicek was drafted in 1962 by the Boston Celtics, and Siegfried joined him ahead of the 1963-64 season. The duo would spend seven seasons together in Boston, winning five championships along the way.
Bill Russell, K.C. Jones
The consummate definition of success as teammates at both the college and professional levels, Russell and Jones racked up titles aplenty and spent the majority of their playing careers on the same roster.
The pair shared the court for three seasons at the University of San Francisco, capping off their college tenures by winning back-to-back national championships in 1955 and 1956.
Russell was the No. 2 pick in the 1956 draft, selected by the Celtics. Jones was selected in the second round with the No. 13 pick, scooped up by … Boston. Jones didn’t hit the hardwood with the Celtics until the 1958-59 season, but the winning ensued in torrential fashion afterward. Boston won eight consecutive titles in the first eight years that Russell and Jones were on the roster (the Russell-Jones duo also overlapped with the Havlicek-Siegfried duo in the mid-to-late 1960s), with the former Dons spending nine years as NBA teammates in total.
