<\/p>\n
San Antonio Spurs forward Carter Bryant (11) shoots in the first quarter against the Oklahoma City Thunder during game one of the western conference finals for the 2026 NBA playoffs at Paycom Center.<\/p>\n
Alonzo Adams \/ Imagn Images<\/p>\n
Miles Simon, who led the Wildcats to the 1997 national championship, and Quinton Crawford were assistant coaches for the Lakers during their run to the \u201cbubble\u201d championship in 2020.<\/p>\n
Between players, coaches and broadcasters, the Wildcats have been well-represented in the NBA Finals over the years. Here’s a look at every ex-Wildcat who has won an NBA championship:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jud Buechler<\/p>\n
Number of championships: 3<\/p>\n
Team: Chicago Bulls (1996-98)<\/p>\n
What he did: Buechler was a reserve forward during the second three-peat of the Michael Jordan era in Chicago.<\/p>\n
Steve Kerr<\/p>\n
Number of championships: 5<\/p>\n
Teams: Chicago Bulls (1996-98), San Antonio Spurs (1999, 2003)<\/p>\n
What he did: Kerr etched his name in NBA Finals lore in the 1997 Finals, knocking down a midrange shot at the top of the key to beat the Utah Jazz and seal the second title of Chicago\u2019s second three-peat in the 1990s.<\/p>\n
Joked Kerr, to thousands of fans in Chicago during the Bulls\u2019 championship celebration: \u201cWhen we called timeout with 25 seconds to go, we went into the huddle and Phil (Jackson) told Michael, \u2018Michael, I want you to take the last shot.\u2019 Michael told Phil, \u2018You know, Phil, I don\u2019t really feel comfortable in these situations, so maybe we ought to go in another direction. Why don\u2019t we go to Steve?\u2019 So I thought to myself, \u2018Well, I guess I gotta bail Michael out again.\u2019 The shot went in, that\u2019s my story and I\u2019m sticking to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
After his time with the Bulls, Kerr was a reserve guard for the Spurs under legendary head coach Gregg Popovich. Kerr has nine total NBA championships \u2014 four as head coach of the Warriors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Antonio Spurs forward Carter Bryant (11) shoots in the first quarter against the Oklahoma City Thunder during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":748563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[5500,7,217,164,736,189,1407,1220,1615,231,772,1544,1542,1912,474],"class_list":["post-748562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-andre-iguodala","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-men","tag-miami-heat","tag-national-basketball-association","tag-nba-finals","tag-nba-seasons","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaab","tag-relocated-nba-teams","tag-richard-jefferson","tag-san-antonio-spurs"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116667714314283875","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/748563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}