Who turned out to be the best-ever top ten draft picks?
ESPN.com has a fascinating column this week about the best players to be picked No. 1 to No. 10 in the NBA draft. As it shows, the most productive players have not always been the top picks in the draft and often further down the list of first-round selections.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks in 1969, is the best-ever first pick. He has some stiff competition from Oscar Robertson in 1960, Shaquille O’Neal in 1992, Tim Duncan in 1997 and LeBron James in 2003, but the former Lew Alcindor at UCLA turned out to be the best of them all to date by various metrics used.
Bill Russell, who led and coached the Boston Celtics to 11 NBA titles, was rated the best-ever No. 2 pick in 1956, beating out Bob Pettit, Jerry West, Gary Payton and Jason Kidd. Michael Jordan is far and away the best player drafted No. 3 in the first round in 1984, far out-polling Buck Williams, Dominique Wilkins, Chauncey Billups and Pau Gasol.
Best player taken as the fourth pick in the draft is Chris Paul from Wake Forest in 2005, with Sam Perkins from 1984 rated in the top five; best fifth pick ever is Kevin Garnett out of high school in 1995 with Vince Carter in 1998 also rated among the best at No. 5.
Larry Bird, who was drafted by the Celtics as the sixth pick after his red-shirt junior season at Indiana State in 1978, gets the nod over other No. 6 picks Lennie Wilkins, Adrian Dantley, Hersey Hawkins and Duke’s Shane Battier in 2001.
Top seventh first-round pick was John Havlicek in 1962 with Stephen Curry in 2009 in that discussion.
The best-ever eighth pick in the NBA draft is Robert Parish in 1976, the best No. 9 pick is Dirk Nowitzki in 1998; and the top tenth pick was rated by ESPN.com to be Paul Pierce off Roy Williams’ 1998 Kansas Jayhawks team.
If you’re still interested, the poll goes all the way to the best last pick in the second round of the draft, No. 60 in modern times, with Carolina’s Jeff McInnis from 1996 rated among the best 37th selections ever and Danny Green from 2009 showing up among the elite 46th picks in what, by then, amounts to great trivia material for the rest of the names.
(Photo: Espn.com)
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