A fact from Tony Parker (basketball, born 1993) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 3 May 2015 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that Tony Parker was the first basketball player in Georgia in nearly two decades to start for four straight state champions?
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@Yoninah:Tony Parker, the French pro player, is presumably the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, thus there is no disambiguator needed. As for the Tony Parker in this article, I was just following what I thought was the convention in basketball, though I see it is not formally documented at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (sportspeople). I'd imagine most of the time "college basketball" is not used since most American pro players would have also been college players as well, but the main Tony Parker is not American and never played in college. Therefore, it technically is not a problem. I'll notify a few of the basketball WikiProjects to see if we have an existing guideline. Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 22:46, 30 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
why move it from the birth year, which is the standard naming convention? This won't change. A person is only a college player for a few years. In 20 years there might be 10 guys named Tony Parker known for basketball and using birth year will keep them straight long-term. The Spurs Tony Parker is a probable Hall of Famer. It makes sense why he is the primary topic. Rikster2 (talk) 23:03, 30 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I would discourage using Tony Parker (basketball), as it is ambiguous which basketball player is being referred to. I would hate to be searching for the NBA's "Tony Parker", see "Tony Parker (basketball)" with the autocomplete feature in the search box, and pick that one, only to end up at the college player's page. For an existing example, there is Isiah Thomas, the retired Hall of Fame basketball player, and Isaiah Thomas (basketball, born 1989), the current basketball player. —Bagumba (talk) 00:48, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree with Bagumba that if I saw "Tony Parker (basketball)" I would expect to see the Spur. That's why he is the primary topic. If the need is there to make "Tony Parker" a DAB page, then the Spur should become "Tony Parker (basketball, born 1982)." But IMO, it is wholly appropriate that TP is the primary topic. Rikster2 (talk) 01:09, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I never brought up Thomas. But the redirect solution Bagumba suggested fixes any issue in this case. The Spurs' Tony Parker is a HOFers and this one is a relatively minor figure in basketball. If another Patrick Ewing came along it wouldn't move the current one out of being the primary topic. Rikster2 (talk) 12:53, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Tony, if both the Thomases were spelled the same, would you agree with the use of "(basketball, born XXXX)"? Or what else would you propose?—Bagumba (talk) 18:40, 1 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not seeing any consensus to have moved this to Tony Parker (college basketball). The original move rationale was "no other Tony Parker pages contain birthdates",[1] but there is precedent to use birthdates in other basketball articles. No prejudice if consensus forms to rename to something else. In the meantime, falling back to prior status quo of Tony Parker (basketball, born 1993).—Bagumba (talk) 07:02, 2 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Bagumba, you missed my reply above. Here are what I think the four articles should be named now with a hatnote for each:
