How many players have won NBA and NCAA titles in back to back years?

The Denver Nuggets are on the verge of making history, just a win away from their first NBA Title in 47 years. If the Nuggets can win one of the next three games, their rookie shooting guard Chrisitian Braun will join elite list of champions at the highest levels of the game, and he will have wasted little time doing it.

Braun looking for another title

Last year Braun walked off the court of the Ceasars Super Dome in New Orleans as a champion in his final year as a Kansas Jayhawk. Braun had 10 points and three rebounds in a wire-to-wire win over the Villanova Wildcats as the Jayhawks lifted their fourth Final Four title trophy.

Shortly after cutting down the nets in the Big Easy, the junior declared for the NBA Draft, forgoing his last year in Lawrence Kansas. He was taken by the Denver Nuggets with the 21st pick of the NBA Draft last summer and now has a chance to make history in his first year in the league.

There have been 33 players who have won rings at the collegiate and the professional level. Arnie Ferrin was the first to do it all the way back in 1949 when his Minneapolis Lakers won the NBA Championship just five years after he won the NCAA title with Holy Cross. Since then, some of the most legendary players to hit the hardwood have completed the double at both levels, but only four have done it in consecutive years.

Kareem-Abdul Jabbar won three titles in the NCAA, and six NBA titles making him the most successful player at both before and after the jump to the pros. As impressive as that is, he is not be on the list that Christian Braun would join if the Nuggets win the title this year. There have only been four players in history to have won the NCAA Tournament and the NBA Championship in back-to-back years.

Russell blazed the trail

Bill Russell was the first on the list when he won the 1957 NBA title with the Boston Celtics after winning back to back college titles in 1955 and 1956 at San Francisco. That was just the start of a legendary career in which he won more titles (11) than anyone in NBA history.

Magic Johnson led his Michigan State Spartans to the 1979 NCAA title, and then splashed onto the scene with a title run in his rookie year after getting drafted by the Lakers. We all remember the heroic Game 6 he had, filling in at center for the injured Kareem Abdul Jabbar and going on to score 42, grab 15 rebounds and dish 7 assists to wrap up the NBA title for the Lakers.

Henry Bibby had an all time run to start the 70′s as the UCLA Bruin won the collegiate title in three straight years, 1970, 1971 and 1972 and then went on to win it with the New York Knicks in the year he was drafted into the league. Bibby didn’t have quite the impact that Magic or Russell did in their rookie runs to the championship, but winning four titles in four years is a feat that no one else has ever accomplished.

NCAA/NBA back-to-back list full of Lakers

Billy Thompson was the last player to do the college-pro double when he won the NCAA Tournament with Louisville in 1986 and was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers in 1987. He joined a team with two players that had already won back-to-backs in college and the NBA in Kareem and Magic, and they helped him join the list later that year. He, Magic and Kareem would go on to win it the next year as well, but that would mark the end of the Lakers dynasty, and the last player to win the NCAA title and NBA Championship in consecutive years.

Braun is averaged 4.7 points and 2.4 rebounds during the regular season and is posting just 3 points and 2 rebounds in the playoffs but he had a massive Game 4, scoring 15 points, dishing three assists and nabbing three steals in the 109-94 win. Now the Nuggets are just a win away from their first title, and Braun is on the verge of joining an elite list of champions.