Top 5 Active NBA players to have never come off the bench
It's not very often we get to see players who never came off the bench for an NBA team and play all their games as a starter. Even some NBA greats like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Shaquille O'Neil has come off the bench at least once in their career.
Stepping into NBA as a rookie, it's not easy to get the starting job straight away and they have to come off from the bench until they prove their game. Some players might possess some good skills even as a rookie and those are the players who will get a chance to play as a starter from the start of their career but even these players have to play consistently to hold their starting job.
Let's find the top 5 active players to have never come off the bench:
#5 Damian Lillard (457 games)
Damian Lillard was drafted as the 6th overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft by the Portland Trail Blazers. He required no time to prove his worth as he recorded 23 points and 11 assists in his debut match against the star-studded Los Angeles Lakers.
With the stellar performance in his debut game, Lillard went on to play all the 82 games in that season that too as a starter. Lillard had a great season as a rookie, where he averaged 19.0 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 6.5 APG, and went on to win the 'Rookie of the Year Award' and also he became only the 4th player, then, to win the award unanimously.
Lillard became better and better every season which made him play as a starter throughout his career. He is now leading the Portland Trail Blazers and already having a good start to this season.