A throughout the history of the NBA, 154 players have dressed the number '0'. It is a number that has recently become fashionable after In the last campaign 27 of the 30 franchises they had one of their representatives carrying that number, What a bad fortune he has had during the last play-offs.
Damian Lillard, el ‘0’ de Milwaukee Buckswas the first to have the bad luck of a breakage in the Achilles tendonthat will keep you out of the clues more than a year. This is the most serious injury that can occur today in an NBA player and, at 34, it is likely that he will mark a before and after in the base race nine times All-Star.
This injury, without going any further, It was the one that made the career of Kobe Bryant He stopped dry in five champion rings And he would never be the player who was or aspire to any more trophy. 'La Mamba' produced it with that same age, starting a decline that would only allow him to play 100 more professional games in the NBA -very far from his best numbers.
The '0' is the protagonist
Hopefully this does not happen with the other two great victims of the play-offs and that carried the number '0', because the NBA has put in their hands the future of the competition. Jayson Tatum fractured the Achilles tendon in the conference semifinals that played with the Boston Celtics against the New York Knicks and that supposed the non -renewal of the title of the Greens this season.
The last to suffer it, and perhaps more cruel, was a Tyrese Haliburton That he was on his way to winning his first ring with the Indiana Pacers when he had the problem. The 25-year-old had signed one of the most memorable play-offs in history before saying goodbye in the middle of the seventh game against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
In both cases, The coincidence that the three greatest stars of the competition with the number '0' have fallen almost simultaneously has generated some controversy And even some players have considered giving up this dorsal, which was first used in 1981 by Orlando Woolridge, former partner of Michael Jordan in the Chicago Bulls.
Gilbert's legacy
The number in question became fashionable in 2000 in the NBA with Gilbert Arenas, known with the nickname of Agent Zero, and his impressive numbers in that decade. The base chose that dorsal because that was the number of minutes he was going to play at the university, according to his coach at the institute. As you can see, it was completely wrong.
Arenas was three times there of the NBA, but could not avoid the curse of '0' and on top in the play-offs. Gilbert was injured in the knee in a series against LeBron James and his Cavaliers in 2006, also starting a ordeal that led him to be the most famous NBA player to be one of the most controversial and one of the great 'What If'.
Many of the boys that today They use '0' do so in tribute to Arenas. One of the most successful provided to this Dorsak was a Russell Westbrook that raised it to the MVP category. Subsequently, Tatum made him MVP of the finals in 2024 and in this 2025 he is again in the headlines, although because of the injuries and a curse in treasury.
