5 youngest players traded in NBA history ft. Maciej Lampe
NBA rookies have become younger and younger when they arrive in the league in recent years, like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and even Maciej Lampe. Thanks to a landmark ruling by the US Supreme Court in 1970 that favored Spencer Haywood, players can now declare for the NBA Draft even if they do not finish their college eligibility.
At one point, they could join the draft straight out of high school. In some cases, players have declared for the NBA Draft at a very young age after playing pro ball elsewhere, like Maciej Lampe, who played for Spanish sports giants Real Madrid.
However, not all teenage sensations become successful in the NBA. Lampe learned that the hard way when he was traded twice before turning 20, likely for tactical reasons.
Here are five players who found themselves quickly joining another team through trades during their teenage years.
Maciej Lampe and other players traded at young age
#5 Javaris Crittenton (20 years, 32 days)
The LA Lakers picked a then 19-year-old guard named Javaris Crittenton with the 19th pick of the 2007 NBA Draft.
During the preseason, it seemed like Crittenton could be the next in line to Kobe Bryant, scoring 18 points and a game-winner in an NBA Summer League and dropping another 18 points in an exhibition in Honolulu.
However, the LA Lakers decided to go all-in on a championship run. Crittenton, barely a month after celebrating his 20th birthday, was shipped to the Memphis Grizzlies as part of a trade package in exchange for Pau Gasol.
Javaris Crittenton showed his impact for the Memphis Grizzlies with 23 points in a win against the New York Knicks two months after the trade.
The following season, though, Crittenton was traded to the Washington Wizards. Ffollowing his infamous locker room spat with then-superstar Gilbert Arenas, which almost became a gunfight, Crittenton was out of the league.
Worse, after his stint with the Dakota Wizards, now known as the Santa Cruz Warriors, in the NBA G-League in 2011, he was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and was only released last year after his punishment was reduced to 10 years.
#4 Keon Johnson (19 years, 331 days)
If Javaris Crittenton was traded a month after he turned 20, Keon Johnson found himself with a new team just one month before he turned 20.
Like Crittenton at Georgia Tech, Johnson, a five-star prospect, was a one-and-done in college for his home state Tennessee. The combo guard declared for the 2021 NBA Draft and found himself suiting up for the LA Clippers after a draft-day trade with the New York Knicks.
Despite his potential, which included a 48-inch vertical leap during the NBA Draft Combine, Johnson only played 15 games for the LA Clippers in his rookie year with some assignments to their G-League affiliates Agua Caliente Clippers within the stint.
On Feb. 4, 2022, in another trade before the trade deadline, Johnson was shipped to the Portland Trail Blazers. He thought he could be a vital piece for the rebuilding Blazers after scoring a career-high 20 points twice.
However, after fracturing his finger in practice, his stay in Portland ended. He was traded to the Phoenix Suns in a move that sent Damian Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks.
The Phoenix Suns, though, waived Keon Johnson, and the Brooklyn Nets took a chance on him by signing him to a two-way contract.
#3 Noah Vonleh (19 points, 305 days)
The Charlotte Hornets have been accused in recent years of blowing up some draft picks, and Noah Vonleh was one alleged example of it.
The Hornets had high hopes for Vonleh, a five-star college prospect who turned pro after a one-and-done stint with the University of Indiana. They selected him with the ninth pick of the 2014 Draft.
However, he began the 2014-2015 season only playing for four games, likely due to the lingering pain of his preseason sports hernia surgery.
While there was hope that he could turn the Charlotte Hornets around, following a 16-point, 12-rebound game against the Detroit Pistons, Vonleh, just two months before his 20th birthday, was traded to the Portland Trail Blazers along with Gerald Henderson for veteran Nic Batum.
That began a journeyman NBA career for Vonleh. This season, he's playing in the CBA for the Shanghai Sharks.
To give you an idea of how Vonleh instantly became a draft bust, the Charlotte Hornets selected him ahead of these serviceable players: Doug McDermott, Dario Saric, Zach LaVine, Jusuf Nurkic, Clint Capela, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Joe Harris, Spencer Dinwiddie, Jerami Grant, Jordan Clarkson and someone who goes by the name Nikola Jokic.
#2 Derrick Favors (19 years, 223 days)
Derrick Favors is not really a draft bust. After all, the third overall pick of the 2010 NBA Draft found a home with the Utah Jazz after the Brooklyn Nets, then New Jersey, going there at 19 years and 223 days in a deal for Deron Williams.
Favors was a beast inside for the Jazz. Despite only averaging 16.4 points and 8.1 rebounds per game in his best season in 2015-16, he zoomed to fourth place in the team's all-time rebounding list and 10th in the scoring list before Rudy Gobert overtook him before moving to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
However, despite his achievements, Favors found himself joining the NBA G-League and now suits up for the Windy City Bulls.
#1 Maciej Lampe (18 years, 334 days)
Maciej Lampe is the youngest player to be involved in an NBA trade. On Jan. 5, 2004, just three weeks before his 19th birthday, Lampe, the New York Knicks' second-round pick the previous year, was traded to the Phoenix Suns as part of a blockbuster deal that sent Penny Hardaway and Stephon Marbury to Manhattan.
However, a year later, the Phoenix Suns traded Maciej Lampe to the New Orleans Pelicans, then known as the Hornets. Lampe was 19 years and 350 days old, the fifth youngest age of a player getting traded in the NBA.
Maciej Lampe left the NBA by 2006, embarking on a journeyman career in Europe and Asia. He last signed with the Taiwan Beer HeroBears in the T1 League in 2021, but on Christmas Eve that year, he flew back to Spain to undergo surgery on a calf muscle tear.