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As we await the return of NBA basketball, we’re taking a trip through the record books to find every team’s all-time Win Shares leader.
If you have ever spent any time perusing the one and only Basketball-Reference, you have surely noticed that every team’s landing page includes a list of the All-Time Top 12 Players for every franchise based on Win Shares.
Win Shares is an advanced stat calculated to quantify exactly how much a player contributes to winning. It’s not a perfect metric but it’s a good shorthand for overall productivity and it has the benefit of being available historically so it can be used for comparisons across eras.
Below is a comprehensive list of all the players that lead every franchise in all-time Win Shares, in descending order beginning with the team with the lowest Win Shares leader total.
30. Charlotte Hornets: Kemba Walker, 48.5 Win Shares
The amount of time that a franchise has been around certainly plays a factor in this list. With only 33 seasons under their belt, the Charlotte Hornets have played the fourth-fewest seasons among all 30 NBA teams, ahead of only the Grizzlies, Raptors, and Pelicans, all featured in the bottom five of this list.
Kemba Walker played the first eight years of his career in Charlotte (the infamous Bobcats for his first three years), running the show as a pick-and-roll master with a strong love for the in-and-out dribble, leaving defenders in the dust while gliding into the trees for layups off the glass. Cardiac Kemba has a narrow Hornets Win Shares lead over Gerald “Crash” Wallace (45.9) and 5-foot-3 Muggsy Bogues (44.8).