They still conduct the NBA Draft Lottery with the fanfare of a modern TV game show. So why does it feel like even the winning contestants go home each year with nothing more than some lovely parting gifts?
It’s not about the fact the Detroit Pistons keep losing games and then fall again in the lottery, or that no team that finished with the league’s worst record in any of the past half-dozen years wound up with the No. 1 overall pick. That’s the system working. The league wanted to discourage teams from tanking, from engaging in the sort of “Suck for Luck” campaigns one might find when there’s an Andrew Luck available for NFL teams to draft.
It does suck, though, that there lately seems to be so little Luck left for teams that find themselves exercising that prime pick.
The NBA equivalent of that sort of singular talent has become increasingly rare.
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When the Hawks were named winners of the lottery Sunday, it felt like they’d cashed one of those tickets that only had the “Mega ball” rather than an across-the-board match conveying a life-changing, nine-figure prize.
The consensus projection for that No. 1 choice is Alexandre Sarr, a 7-1 center from France who played the 2023-24 season with Perth in Australia’s NBL. He averaged 17 minutes and 9.7 points per game. Maybe he’ll be terrific. But it’s a challenge to get excited about a guy who was the fourth-leading scorer on France’s runner-up squad at the FIBA U19 World Cup just last summer.
Last summer’s frenzy about France’s 7-4 Victor Wembanyama was legitimate, and he delivered in his rookie year with 21.4 points, 10.6 rebounds and 3.6 blocks per game. But the previous decade has seen nearly as many top picks in the Anthony Bennett, Andrew Wiggins and Markelle Fultz mold as there’ve been like Wembanyama, Anthony Edwards and Paolo Banchero.
Fans of NBA teams in the previous century could look at a poor finish to a season and count on the dramatic impact of a player such as Elvin Hayes, Bill Walton or Ralph Sampson. Those looking for that level of talent in recent NBA Drafts had to look really hard.
In the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons, not a single player chosen first overall wound up on either of the first two All-NBA teams. In 2020-21, there was just one on the second team. There’s a good chance the 2023-24 season will stretch it to four consecutive years without a No. 1 overall pick on the first team, as the Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards and Lakers’ Anthony Davis are viewed more as contenders for the second team and no one else is in sight.
In the 2020-21 season, the presence of the Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic, the Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard meant the majority of the All-NBA first team had been chosen outside the top 10 – something that hadn’t happened in the previous 25 years.
You need to understand what a massive change all this represents.
In the half-century from 1970-2020, there was only a single season without a No. 1 overall pick on the All-NBA first team: 1982, when Larry Bird had been drafted No. 6 a year before he completed his eligibility and three others had joined the league in the merger with the ABA.
In 2000-01, there were four top picks on the first team: Tim Duncan, Chris Webber, Shaquille O’Neal and Allen Iverson.
It’s not clear whether NBA teams have gotten worse at drafting over the years or if the various development systems upon which the league depends for talent have grown poorer at development. There’s at least some evidence of both. Consider that three-time MVP Jokic lasted until the 41st pick in 2014, two-time MVP Antetokounmpo wasn’t taken until the 15th pick in 2013 and All-NBA regular Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was chosen 11th in 2018. Over the previous 10 seasons, there were 14 instances of players chosen outside the top 10 earning first-team All-NBA honors. There were only 13 instances in the 15 seasons from 1999 through 2014.
So there still are great players entering the league, but they’re often undervalued in the drafting process.
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But if the colleges and European pro leagues were getting it right, wouldn’t there be more obvious, game-changing overall No. 1s in the mold of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Patrick Ewing, Shaquille O’Neal and LeBron James?
It has been more than 20 years since James left St. Vincent-St. Mary High in Akron. The only No. 1 overall picks in the years since who were named to the All-NBA first team at least once were Dwight Howard, Derrick Rose and Anthony Davis. In the 21 years before James was drafted, there were seven players who achieved this distinction: Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson, Chris Webber, O’Neal, David Robinson, Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon. Each is now enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
From 1969 until 1987, six overall No. 1 picks stayed with the team that selected them long enough to win a championship. Since 1988, only Kyrie Irving with the Cavs and Duncan with the Spurs got it done.
Perhaps the promising early seasons of Edwards, Wembanyama and Banchero will ignite a new golden era, with Duke’s gifted Cooper Flagg waiting to be chosen a year from now. Maybe the next NBA Draft lottery will be worth the commotion. This would be great news for the league. In 21st-century drafts, there’s been far too much jeopardy.