30 NBA players that got better after leaving their first team

Some NBA players just need a change of scenery to blossom. Whether that be going from a reserve to a star or a starter to one of the best players in the league. Every year there are examples of players moving to a new team, getting an opportunity and blowing away expectations. The most recent example would be Jerami Grant going from a fringe starter with the Denver Nuggets to a borderline All-Star with the Detroit Pistons.

This list will look at 30 of the best cases of a player moving on from his first (or in some cases, first few) team to explode into the kind of player their previous team regrets moving on from. There is plenty of room for debate on other players who could make this list, which is part of the fun. These are the stories the league is built on. This is not about LeBron James or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who were the best in the game no matter where they landed.

These are the top 30 players to move from their first team and turned into a much better version of their previous selves.

And now, to our first selection: