NBA Father-Son Duos in League History

NBA father-son duos are one of basketball's rarest achievements — proof that a game this hard to reach can be reached twice by the same bloodline. On October 22, 2024, LeBron and Bronny James checked into the same NBA game and did something no father and son had ever done in 78 seasons: share an NBA floor as teammates. That moment sat at the top of a long, thin lineage — the Currys, the Barrys, the Waltons, the Thompsons, the Paytons, and a handful of others who managed to send both a father and a son into the world's best basketball league. Some of these families produced two champions. One produced four sons who played professionally. Another produced the first coach ever to coach his own son. The list below moves through the most notable father-son duos in NBA history, the records they hold, and why the club stays so exclusive.

Making the NBA Twice in One Family

There are roughly 450 NBA jobs in any given season, and the number of humans good enough to hold one is a rounding error against the global population that plays the sport. For one family to clear that bar twice — a father and then a son, decades apart, against completely different competition — is genuinely improbable. Genetics help, but they don't hand out roster spots; every son on this list still had to be drafted or signed on his own merit.

The rarest tier is the father-son duo where both won championships as players. Only five families have ever done it: the Guokases, the Barrys, the Waltons, the Thompsons, and the Paytons. Matt Guokas Sr. and Matt Guokas Jr. were the first — Sr. won with the 1946–47 Philadelphia Warriors of the BAA, and Jr. won as a rookie on the 1967 Philadelphia 76ers, the Wilt Chamberlain team that finally ended the Boston Celtics' dynasty. Every duo that followed was chasing a bar the Guokases set before most fans alive today were born.

LeBron James and Bronny James — The First Father-Son Teammates

LeBron James is the NBA's all-time leading scorer, the first player to cross 40,000 career points, a four-time MVP, and a four-time champion with three different franchises. His son Bronny was drafted 55th overall in the second round of the 2024 NBA Draft by the Los Angeles Lakers — the same team his father was playing for.

What happened next had never happened before. On October 22, 2024, in the Lakers' season opener against the Minnesota Timberwolves, LeBron started and Bronny, 20 years old and making his NBA debut, checked in with about four minutes left in the second quarter. For roughly two and a half minutes, a father and son shared an NBA court as teammates for the first time in league history. LeBron was playing in his record-tying 22nd season; Bronny was playing in his first. The Lakers won 110–103, LeBron scored 16, and the box score — a rebound and a pair of missed shots for Bronny — mattered far less than the fact that the game existed at all. No family had ever pulled it off before.

Dell Curry and the Curry Sons

Dell Curry spent 16 seasons in the NBA from 1986 to 2002 and won Sixth Man of the Year in 1993–94 as one of the league's deadliest bench shooters. When he retired, he was the Charlotte Hornets' all-time leader in both points and three-pointers made — franchise records that stood until Kemba Walker eventually passed his scoring mark years later.

Then Dell did something almost no NBA father has managed: he sent two sons to the league. Stephen Curry became the greatest shooter in basketball history — a four-time champion (2015, 2017, 2018, 2022), a two-time MVP whose 2016 award was the only unanimous MVP ever handed out, and the 2022 Finals MVP. His younger brother Seth went undrafted in 2013 and clawed his way up through the developmental ranks into a long career as one of the most efficient shooters in the NBA. A Sixth Man of the Year father, the best shooter ever, and an undrafted sharpshooter who beat the odds — all from one household. The Currys are the strongest three-man family shooting case the sport has ever produced.

Rick Barry and His Basketball Sons

Rick Barry is a Hall of Famer who was named 1975 NBA Finals MVP after dragging an underdog Golden State Warriors team to a stunning sweep of the Washington Bullets. He is also remembered for shooting free throws underhand — the famous "granny shot" — and it worked: he shot 89.3% from the line over his career, a mark that was the best in NBA history at the time he retired in 1980.

Barry then set a father record that still stands: he is the only NBA player to have three sons also play in the NBA. Jon, Brent, and Drew Barry all reached the league; for three seasons, three Barry sons were active NBA players at the same time. A fourth son, Scooter, went undrafted in 1989 and built his career in the CBA and overseas without ever cracking an NBA roster. The most accomplished of the sons was Brent, who won two championships with the San Antonio Spurs (2005 and 2007) and won the 1996 Slam Dunk Contest with a takeoff from the free-throw line. Rick and Brent became the second father-son duo — after the Guokases — to both win NBA titles as players.

Mychal Thompson and Klay Thompson

Mychal Thompson was the No. 1 overall pick in the 1978 NBA Draft and went on to win back-to-back championships as a key big man for the Showtime Lakers in 1987 and 1988. His son Klay became a five-time All-Star and a four-time champion with the Golden State Warriors, winning in 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2022.

That makes the Thompsons one of only five father-son duos to each win an NBA title — but they hold a distinction inside that group. Along with the Waltons, they are one of just two father-son tandems where both men won at least two championships. And they are the only tandem where each generation won titles in back-to-back years: Mychal in 1987 and 1988, Klay across the Warriors' dynasty runs. A No. 1 pick who won twice and a splash-brother son who won four times is about as decorated as a two-generation résumé gets.

Editorial illustration: NBA Father-Son Duos in League History

Bill Walton and Luke Walton

Bill Walton is one of the most talented big men the sport ever produced. He was the 1978 MVP, and he led the Portland Trail Blazers to the 1977 championship while winning Finals MVP. Years later, after his feet had betrayed him repeatedly, he reinvented himself as a bench weapon, winning the 1985–86 Sixth Man of the Year Award and a second ring with the Boston Celtics in 1986.

His son Luke played 10 NBA seasons and won two championships of his own as a rotation forward with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2009 and 2010. When Luke picked up his second ring, the Waltons became the first father-son pair in NBA history to each win multiple championships — a record the Thompsons would later join, but never erase. Two Waltons, four combined titles, and one of the deepest championship pedigrees any single family has carried into the league.

Gary Payton and Gary Payton II

Gary Payton — "The Glove" — is a Hall of Famer, a nine-time All-Star, and the first point guard ever to win Defensive Player of the Year, which he did in 1996. He reached three NBA Finals with three different teams and finally won it all with the 2006 Miami Heat late in his career.

His son Gary Payton II, nicknamed "Young Glove" for the defensive tenacity he inherited, won a championship with the Golden State Warriors in 2022 as a springy, disruptive role player. When GP2 got his ring, he and his father became the fifth father-son duo in NBA history to each win a title as a player — completing the exclusive list alongside the Guokases, Barrys, Waltons, and Thompsons. Two generations of elite perimeter defense, two rings, one nickname passed down on purpose.

Doc Rivers and Austin Rivers

Doc Rivers had a 13-year NBA playing career, mostly at point guard for the Atlanta Hawks, and made the All-Star Game in 1988. His son Austin was a first-round pick who bounced through a few teams early in his career. Their family footnote in NBA history isn't about championships — it's about the bench.

On January 16, 2015, after a set of trades landed Austin with the Los Angeles Clippers, Doc Rivers became the first person in NBA history to coach his own son in a game, and Austin became the first son to play for his father. Doc coached Austin on the Clippers until June 26, 2018, when Austin was traded to the Washington Wizards for Marcin Gortat. It's a distinction no other family in the league can claim: a father and son who reached the NBA in different roles — one as a player-turned-coach, one as a player — and then shared a bench as coach and athlete.

Tim Hardaway and Tim Hardaway Jr.

Tim Hardaway spent his career weaponizing one of the most famous moves in basketball — the killer crossover that froze defenders and earned him a place in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022. He was a five-time All-Star and an Olympic gold medalist, a lead guard defenders simply could not stay in front of.

His son Tim Hardaway Jr. carried the name into the modern NBA after the New York Knicks drafted him 24th overall in 2013. Where the father was a slippery playmaker, the son built his game around perimeter shooting and scoring in volume, carving out a long career as a rotation wing for multiple franchises. Same name, same league, different signature skill — a Hall of Fame crossover artist and a knockdown shooter, one generation apart.

Joe "Jellybean" Bryant and Kobe Bryant

Joe "Jellybean" Bryant played eight NBA seasons from 1975 to 1982 for the 76ers, the San Diego Clippers, and the Houston Rockets after being taken 14th overall in the 1975 draft. He averaged 8.7 points across 606 games, then took his family to Italy to keep playing professionally — and it was there, watching his father, that a young Kobe Bryant fell in love with the game and grew up fluent in Italian.

Kobe became one of the greatest players in NBA history: a five-time champion with the Los Angeles Lakers (2000, 2001, 2002, 2009, and 2010), an 18-time All-Star, and a two-time Finals MVP. The father was a solid pro who spent most of his prime overseas; the son became an all-time top-tier legend. Few father-son gaps in league history are as wide — or as directly connected, since Kobe's obsession with the game was born in the gyms where his dad was still lacing up.

Dolph Schayes and Danny Schayes

Dolph Schayes is one of the pillars of the pre-modern NBA — a 12-time All-Star and 12-time All-NBA selection who won a championship with the Syracuse Nationals in 1955. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1973 and was later named to both the NBA's 50 Greatest Players list and its 75th Anniversary Team, cementing him as one of the defining stars of the league's first two decades.

His son Danny Schayes kept the name in the league for another generation — and then some. Drafted 13th overall by the Utah Jazz in 1981 out of Syracuse, Danny played 18 NBA seasons through 1999, appearing in 1,138 games as a durable center and power forward for a long list of teams. From a founding-era All-Star to an 18-year journeyman big man, the Schayeses span nearly the entire history of the NBA in a single family tree.

What the Bloodlines Have in Common

Look across these families and a pattern emerges: the son almost never plays the same way the father did. Rick Barry's underhand-shooting theatrics gave way to Brent's dunk-contest athleticism. Tim Hardaway's crossover became Tim Jr.'s catch-and-shoot game. Gary Payton's on-ball defense passed to a son who defends differently in a spacing-driven era. The NBA changes too much across a generation for the game to simply repeat — what gets inherited is the pathway to the league, not the style once you're there.

The other constant is how few of them there are. In nearly eight decades, only five father-son pairs have both won titles, only one father has ever put three sons in the league, and only one father and son ever shared the floor as teammates — and that last one didn't happen until 2024. Every entry here is a small statistical miracle. The families that manage it don't just produce one NBA player against impossible odds. They do it twice.

Closing illustration for NBA Father-Son Duos in League History