Dennis Hopson is the first person from the first Bulls championship to appear on this list. The Bulls had 12 players on that team, and they all lasted the entire season. There is no shame in this, as though he didn't excel with the Bulls, Hopson was once considered a legitimate stud. He scored 29 points while also pulling down over eight rebounds per game. Hopson was the Big Ten Player of the Year in 1987 (although he missed out on First Team All-American status to Indiana's Steve Alford) which was enough for him to be drafted third overall by the New Jersey Nets later that year, two spots behind David Robinson, and two spots ahead of future teammate, Scottie Pippen.
Even though Hopson was not a Hall of Famer, it's not like he was a bust by any means. In his third year, he led the Nets in scoring with 15.8 points per game. Despite that, the Nets looked to move him in the offseason and traded him to the Chicago Bulls for a first and two second round picks (one of the second round picks would be PJ Brown) before the 1990-91 season.
It was a dream come true for Hopson. He would gladly give up some minutes in order to play with a winner, and going from the Nets to the Bulls definitely achieved that. Hopson was brought in to provide a scoring spark for the Bulls bench, but things just didn't seem to work out for Hopson. He averaged less than 12 minutes per game and only played in 61 games, and he just never really found a rhythm with the Bulls due to that limited playing time. He still showed flashes of the player he was in New Jersey, but he was never given the consistent minutes to get back to that point.
In the playoffs, he played in just five games for a total of 18 minutes. In those games, the Bulls won by an average of 22 points, so it's not like he exactly got meaningful minutes as he had gone from one team's leading scorer to another team's last man off the bench. When the Bulls went up 3-1 on the Lakers, Hopson was found crying by his locker. Even though he was finally on a winning team, he barely felt like he was a part of the team. He had gotten what he wanted, and it was awful. Still, he got his championship ring, even if it was as nothing more than a 12th man.
He lasted two games with the Bulls the following season before he was mercifully sent to Sacramento for Bobby Hansen and a pick that would later become Corey Williams. He got back to more playing time and more scoring as he progressively got better as the season went on.
Oddly, that season with the Kings would be his last one in the NBA. Back then, there was money for superstars, but role players could often find more money playing overseas, so that is where Hopson would spend the rest of his career while dunking on everyone.
Dennis Hopson may have not lived up to lofty expectations, but he still put together a nice career, and that is worth celebrating.
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