The fortunes and future success (or failures) of NBA teams are often tied to the choices they make during the NBA Draft. Teams holding one of the first fourteen lottery picks will enter into the annual draft in a bid to claim a college (or international) prospect that has the highest potential to help turn things around for their team and online casino websites like CasinoScout.ca have previously shed light on this matter.
The annual guessing game has proven to be the best way to draft foundational pieces for several NBA franchises that ended up with multiple championships — when and if they’re lucky enough to made that informed pick. There’s been several examples throughout the history of the league.
Think of the Bulls choosing Michael Jordan, the Lakers taking Magic Johnson, Boston choosing Larry Bird a year early, Isiah Thomas and the Pistons, the Spurs with Tim Duncan, the Heat taking Dwyane Wade, Dallas taking Dirk Nowitzki, Steph Curry and the Warriors, and the list goes on.
And drafts aren’t just about one pick, some drafts are a lot more fruitful than others. While some draft class offer up a collection of all-stars, Hall of Famers, memorable contributors and a GOAT or two, not every draft class is created equal.
The greatest NBA Draft class candidates
With that in mind, we are putting a detailed analysis, data driven look at which NBA Draft classes were the best in the history of the league. In a preview of our research, we’re going to look at some of the more memorable NBA Drafts in this post. Ahead of our list coming out later this week, let’s take a look at ten of these candidates, chronologically.
1960 NBA Draft Oscar Robertson went #1 and Jerry West went #2. Those two are often ranked in the league’s 15-20 best players of all time. Enough said.
1976 NBA Draft This draft might not overwhelm us but 1976 was solid giving us #1 pick John Lucas who had a solid career, but the real gems were underrated perennial all-star center Robert Parish, scoring legends Adrian Dantley and Alex English, and defensive player, all-star and NBA champion Dennis Johnson.
1981 NBA Draft This class isn’t often given enough love in the best NBA Draft class discussions. Multiple all-star Mark Aguirre was chosen #1 and his childhood friend, Hall of Famer and top-five point guard Isiah Thomas was selected #2. Not only that, but this draft was impactful providing us memorable players and all stars Tom Chambers, Eddie Johnson, Danny Ainge, Buck Williams, Rolando Blackman Larry Nance as well as Orlando Woolridge and Kelly Tripucka.
1984 NBA Draft Hakeem Olajuwon was drafted first in this legend-packed draft. Olajuwon would go on to win two NBA championships and became a two-time Finals MVP. He was also named two-time Defensive Player of the Year as well as 1994 MVP. This draft is considered one of the best simply because of the huge shadow that Michael Jordan casts. It helps when you have the greatest basketball player of all time. A generational player that not only inspired generations after, but was a winner of six times, a 5x MVP, 10x All NBA first team, 10x champion, 6x Finals MVP and more. That’s not to mention John Stockton and Charles Barkley.
1985 NBA Draft The 1985 draft class is another famous class filled with NBA legends that’s headlined by the #1 pick Patrick Ewing and the league’s #2 all-time scorer Karl Malone. It also included Hall of Famer Chris Mullin. Other recognizable names include Charles Oakley, Manute Bol, Anthony Webb, Joe Dumars, Terry Porter and Detlef Schrempf.
1987 NBA Draft The 1987 class is an underrated draft that doesn’t have any GOATs in it, but leans on the strength of #1 pick David Robinson as well as superstars Reggie Miller and Scottie Pippen. The draft also yielded Kevin Johnson, Mark Jackson, Horace Grant, Kenny Smith and Muggsy Bogues.
1992 NBA Draft Led by #1 pick Shaquille O’Neal, the 1992 draft also gave us future all-stars Alonzo Mourning, Latrell Sprewell, Tom Gugliotta, Christian Laettner, and Jim Jackson. Just as importantly as any other player but maybe Shaq, 7x NBA Champion and big-shot maker Robert Horry was also selected in this draft.
1996 NBA Draft The 1996 NBA Draft class was stacked; filled with legends, All-Stars. MVPs, and record breakers. Allen Iverson was the first pick who went on to become one of the greatest small men but culturally significant. Speaking of significant, Kobe Bryant was chosen with the 13th pick. Steve Nash started out slow, but became a two-time MVP and that’s not to forget that 1996 also gave us Ray Allen, Peja Stojakovic, Jermaine O’Neal, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Shareef Abdur Rahim, Stephon Marbury, Antoine Walker, who is frequent in one of the most popular iDebit casinos, and Kerry Kittles all made this NBA Draft Class one of, if not, the greatest. We’ll see.
2003 NBA Draft As we mentioned, when you have one of the GOAT in your draft, it weighs heavily, but simply drafting LeBron James with the overall #1 choice wouldn’t make the 2003 draft itself. This draft is worthy because of the presence of the players chosen after him. Specifically Dwayne Wade, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Bosh. Though King James is what makes this draft, it’s also the Flash, Melo, CB4, Josh Howard, Boris Diaw, Kirk Hinrich and David West.
2009 NBA Draft As with the NBA Draft that started this preview list, the 2009 Draft is one of our candidates because of two players that will go down as all-time greats in Stephen Curry and James Harden. When those two retire will truly inform where this draft ends up among the best. It also helps that 2009 gave us the likes of #1 pick Blake Griffin, DeMar DeRozan, Jrue Holiday and Danny Green.
That ends our preview of the best NBA Draft class candidates. Did any of the above surprise you? How would you rank the above ten classes? In any case, keep an eye out of for our audit and ranking of the 20 greatest NBA Draft classes of all time coming out later this week.