Editor’s note: The “Draft class rank” for each player is their rank on our overall pro career list amongst players in their draft class (i.e., Marcus Camby is the 10th best NBA player drafted in 1996).

21) Mike Bibby, 1998 (#1 pick: Michael Olowokandi). Draft class rank: #6

Buoyed by his remarkable run to the 1997 NCAA Tournament title with Arizona, Bibby leaped in the draft rankings in 1998 amidst a talented but murky class. Front offices at the time were still catching up with the recent influx of prep, underclassmen, and international talent, which led to Dirk Nowitzki falling to the Mavericks at #9 and Rashard Lewis to the Sonics at #32. It also set the stage for the Clippers to make one of the most disastrous selections in NBA Draft history, using their top pick on Olowakandi, a Nigerian-born, British-raised college senior who had been playing basketball competitively for just four years and wound up averaging just 8.3 points and 6.8 rebounds per game in his NBA career. Bibby then went second to the Grizzlies and though he didn’t have quite the output of Nowitzki or #10 pick Paul Pierce, he had a solid 14-year career and was arguably the best pick the Grizzlies made during their time in Vancouver.

20) Rik Smits, 1988 (#1 pick: Danny Manning). Draft class rank: #4

Manning was a sure thing at the top for the Clippers in 1988 but the Pacers had no obvious option at #2. They held the pick thanks to some major lottery luck, moving up from eighth, and surprised many by taking Smits, a 7’4″ Dutchman who had played college ball at tiny Marist College. There was certainly some logic to the pick positionally, as the Pacers were looking to replace oft-injured big man Steve Stipanovich at center but concerns that another gigantic stiff wasn’t the answer. Smits did struggle to adapt early in his career but eventually rounded into a franchise legend over 12 seasons. Though there were a few solid players taken right behind Smits, in Charles Smith at #3, Mitch Richmond at #5, and Hersey Hawkins at #6, it’s hard to imagine the Pacers regretted this one.

19) Otis Birdsong, 1977 (#1 pick: Kent Benson). Draft class rank: #7

In a rare shrewd move, the Kansas City Kings traded former scoring champion Tiny Archibald in 1976, selling high to the Nets for a first round pick right after the latter joined the league via ABA merger. While Archibald was never the same for the remainder of his career, that pick became #2 overall when the Nets struggled in ’76-’77 and the Kings used it on Birdsong, an All-American and prolific scorer at Houston. He was quickly a three-time All-Star and led the team to a surprise Conference Finals appearance in 1981 but then the Kings did their typical Kings thing, trading him for no good reason, coincidentally to the Nets. The top pick in this class, Benson, was a disappointment for the Bucks, but they hit much better on their third overall pick (acquired via trade with the Braves), Marques Johnson.

18) Rudy Tomjanovich, 1970 (#1 pick: Bob Lanier). Draft class rank: #8

Mildly athletic but savvy and versatile, Tomjanovich was a throwback to forebears at the power forward position like Tommy Heinsohn and Dave DeBusschere, and came into the league at a time when a player of that caliber was still in high demand. He broke the career rebounding record at Michigan, then became one of just three players in school history to be drafted first or second (joining top overall picks Cazzie Russell and Chris Webber). It was a bit of a controversial pick of the Rockets, who were then based in San Diego, over LSU star Pete Maravich, and Florida State center Dave Cowens. But Tomjanovich eventually became a franchise legend with the Rockets, first as a player being named to five All-Star teams, then as a coach, leading Houston to back-to-back titles. A fellow Rockets superstar, Calvin Murphy, was selected by the team in the second round of the same draft. In addition to Murphy, there were six other Hall of Famers selected: Lanier (#1), Maravich (#3), Cowens (#4), Tiny Archibald (#19), Charlie Scott (#106), and Dan Issel (#122).

17) Maurice Stokes, 1955 (#1 pick: Dick Ricketts). Draft class rank: #2

Playing for Saint Francis College in central Pennsylvania, Stokes averaged 25.2 points and 26.3 rebounds per game in his NCAA career, and there was no doubt he was the most talented player eligible for the 1955 Draft. But this was the mid ’50s, and drafting high-profile Black talent was a risky proposition for any team, let alone one in St. Louis, so the Hawks passed on Stokes to instead draft Dick Ricketts, a power forward from Duquesne who lasted just one season with the team before becoming Stokes’ backup on the Royals. Stokes played just three seasons in the NBA until an unfortunate on-court accident left him paralyzed for the rest of his life, but he was an All-Star and 2nd-Team All-NBA all three of those seasons, and won Rookie of the Year for ’55-’56. The only player in his draft class who had a better career was his teammate, best friend, and eventual caretaker, Jack Twyman.

16) Earl Monroe, 1967 (#1 pick: Jimmy Walker). Draft class rank: #2

Respected so highly for his playground innovation that peers labelled him first “Thomas Edison” and later “Jesus,” Monroe was still a mysterious prospect heading into the 1967 Draft. Having played for Winston-Salem State, a Division II HBCU, it was widely believed that his flamboyant style and lack of big college polish left him better suited for the looser ABA. But the Bullets recognized Monroe’s pure talent and picked him second overall in a relatively weak class. Monroe gelled with his new team immediately, averaging 24.6 points per game while winning Rookie of the Year, and eventually was named to four All-Star teams and played in two NBA Finals, a losing effort with Baltimore in 1971 and then a championship with the Knicks in 1973. The top pick of the Pistons, Jimmy Walker from Providence, was considered the safe selection, but despite a couple All-Star appearances his career pales in comparison to Monroe. The other eventual superstar from this class was another Division II prospect (Southern Illinois), Monroe’s future Knicks back court running mate Walt Frazier.

15) Terry Cummings, 1982 (#1 pick: James Worthy). Draft class rank: #3

Though their reputation for poor draft decisions is well earned, the Clippers have nonetheless produced two Rookie of the Year winners. One was Blake Griffin in ’10-’11, and the other was Cummings in ’82-’83. The Clippers were still based in San Diego then, having recently moved from Buffalo where they were the Braves and drafted three Rookie of the Year winners in a five-season stretch (Bob McAdoo, Ernie DiGregorio, and Adrian Dantley) yet could never advance past the second round of the playoffs. Though Cummings won ROY, it was the players drafted right before and after him who dominated headlines from the beginning. James Worthy was the top pick of the Lakers, the spoils of a lopsided trade with miserly Cavs owner Ted Stepien. Though the Clippers won just 17 games in ’81-’82, Cleveland outdid them with just 15 victories. Thus the Lakers inherited Worthy, and the Clippers had a choice between Cummings and SEC Player of the Year Dominique Wilkins. It was well known that Wilkins would refuse to play for Utah, who selected him #3, and it’s an intriguing hypothetical whether the Georgia native would have been willing to relocate to San Diego. Cummings wound up spending just two years with the Clippers, but was eventually a two-time All-Star with the Bucks, then a solid role player for many years with the Spurs.

14) LaMarcus Aldridge, 2006 (#1 pick: Andrea Bargnani). Draft class rank: #2

Draft day of 2006 was an eventful one for the Trail Blazers. Struggling in the wake of the “Jail Blazers” roster imploding, they had the NBA’s worst record in ’05-’06, but fell to fourth in the draft lottery, with the Raptors, Bulls, and Bobcats moving up to the top three spots. But Portland made a series of shrewd deals from there, first sending a package built around Sebastian Telfair to the Celtics for the seventh pick, then trading the rights to that pick, Randy Foye, to the Timberwolves for their sixth pick, Brandon Roy. They also moved up two spots from fourth to second, by sending Viktor Khryapa to the Bulls. After all that, the Blazers ended up with the only two players from that year’s lottery who would be named to one or more All-Star Games in their career, in Aldridge and Roy. A standout at Texas, Aldridge was 1st-Team All-Rookie and eventually a six-time All-Star, and named 2nd-Team All-NBA twice. The top pick was the Italian Bargnani, who lasted 10 seasons in the NBA and put up respectable numbers, but never lived up to expectations and later peaked playing in the EuroLeague.

13) Bailey Howell, 1959 (#1 pick: Bob Boozer). Draft class rank: #2

Though he’s listed as the #2 pick in 1959, Howell was technically the fourth player selected in that draft. The Philadelphia Warriors and St. Louis Hawks opted to use their territorial picks on Wilt Chamberlain and Bob Ferry, respectively. Howell broke essentially every record there is to break at Mississippi State, and went to Detroit with the second pick. Though he was an instant star for the Pistons, the team struggled to contend as did the Bullets team to which Howell was traded in 1964. But he found some playoff success later on with the Celtics, winning titles in 1968 and 1969 before retiring and heading home to Mississippi, where he went to work for the Converse shoe company. Ferry lasted just one season in St. Louis before he was traded to Detroit and became a longtime teammate of Howell, playing alongside him in the Pistons and Bullets front courts as a decent but unspectacular role player. His son, Danny, would also disappoint fans 30 years later as a second overall pick for the Cavs. The top pick that year, Boozer, was a late bloomer, struggling early on for the Royals team that drafted him, but finding success late in his career as an All-Star for the Bulls.

12) Dave Bing, 1966 (#1 pick: Cazzie Russell). Draft class rank: #1

For a stretch in the late ’60s, right as the NBA was abolishing the territorial pick, the #2 selection in the draft won Rookie of the Year four straight times. Bing was the second player in that run to do so, beating out top pick Cazzie Russell as well as future star Lou Hudson. It was a weak class overall, with the top players besides Bing and Hudson being marginal All-Stars like Dick Barnett, Clyde Lee and Jack Marin. The Pistons were a mess when they drafted Bing, struggling to keep up in the modern NBA, having recently wasted top picks on Bill Buntin and Eddie Miles and featuring no serviceable pieces beyond player-coach Dave DeBusschere. Though Bing was certainly an instant injection of star power and legitimacy, Detroit continued to struggle in the standings, reaching the playoffs just once in the next seven seasons.

11) Alonzo Mourning, 1992 (#1 pick: Shaquille O’Neal). Draft class rank: #2

The 1992 Draft class was stacked with can’t miss prospects at the top. The presumed top three picks – Mourning, O’Neal, and Christian Laettner – had it all: size, strength, refinement, and court IQ. But their ultimate NBA career paths couldn’t be more divergent. O’Neal, the top pick of the Magic, was a prefab superstar, winning Rookie of the Year and eventually becoming one of the ten greatest players of all-time, plus a hero in three different cities, Orlando, L.A. and Miami. Laettner, fresh off a tour of duty with the Dream Team, became a cautionary tale of how NCAA success isn’t necessarily a stanchion of a future NBA star career (though he did settle into a solid role player). Mourning was somewhere in between, a seven-time All-Star and two-time Defensive Player of the Year who was the best player on a couple Heat title contenders. Though the Hornets team that drafted him didn’t keep him long, one could only wonder what would have happened to Mourning’s career if he had fallen to the lowly Timberwolves at pick #3.

“There was also [Bill] Russell’s signing bonus demand of $25,000, a number he considered fair to pry him away from the highly interested Harlem Globetrotters, and that caused the Royals, who owned the top pick in 1956, to balk.”

10) Wes Unseld, 1968 (#1 pick: Elvin Hayes). Draft class rank: #2

A decade later they would be teammates winning a championship together but in 1968 Unseld and Hayes were rivals, inasmuch that they were both considered a possible top pick in the draft. The two players’ respective schools, Louisville and Houston, had met in that season’s NCAA Tournament, with Hayes’ Cougars winning the match-up en route to a Final Four appearance. Hayes was the winner again in the Draft, going #1 to the Rockets while Unseld was selected second by the Bullets. Both were instant stars, but while Hayes was the scoring champ, Unseld was named both Rookie of the Year and MVP as he led the Bullets to 57 wins, which is still a franchise record, and the East’s top seed (they were swept in the first round of the playoffs by the Knicks). The two joined forces on the Bullets in 1972 and led the team to a title in 1978, plus additional NBA Finals appearances in 1975 and 1979.

9) Bob McAdoo, 1972 (#1 pick: LaRue Martin). Draft class rank: #2

1972 was the first time that the NBA allowed college underclassmen into the Draft, under their newly instated hardship rule. Four non-seniors were selected, and three of them – UMass’ Julius Erving, Michigan State’s Ralph Simpson, and Princeton’s Brian Taylor – spurned the NBA for the ABA anyway. The other was McAdoo, an All-American under Dean Smith at North Carolina who was drafted by the struggling Buffalo Braves. He brought instant legitimacy to the young franchise, winning Rookie of the Year in ’72-’73, MVP in ’74-’75, and leading them to three consecutive playoff appearances, starting in 1974. Martin, a senior center from Loyola, was picked ahead of McAdoo by the Blazers and lasted just four seasons in the NBA.

8) Isiah Thomas, 1981 (#1 pick: Mark Aguirre). Draft class rank: #1

Long before they were the first two picks of the 1981 Draft, Thomas and Aguirre were childhood friends in Chicago. They were all set to play together at DePaul, until Bob Knight swooped in and convinced Thomas to attend Indiana instead. After winning a national championship in 1981, Thomas figured he had nothing left to prove past his sophomore season and declared early for the NBA Draft. This was still a controversial decision in the early ’80s. Magic Johnson had recently become the first underclassmen to be taken #1 overall, but most stars of the era, including Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Sidney Moncrief, and Andrew Toney, were still staying in school through their senior years. Even taking a college junior was somewhat taboo, but that seemed like the conservative choice to Dallas, who drafted Aguirre first overall. The two would eventually become pro teammates when the Pistons traded for Aguirre in 1989, and subsequently won back-to-back championships.

7) Gary Payton, 1990 (#1 pick: Derrick Coleman). Draft class rank: #1

The 1990 draft class was already unsettled even before Hank Gathers’ tragic death from a heart attack. Consensus top pick Derrick Coleman had his share of red flags, and behind him was a glut of talented but unspectacular prospects that included Georgia Tech’s Dennis Scott, Illinois’ Kendall Gill, and Gathers’ teammate, Bo Kimble. Seattle was coming off a disappointing 41-41 season, where they shifted the starting job between three non-traditional point guards in Nate McMillan, Sedale Threatt, and Dana Barros. After making a leap from 10th to second thanks to a surprise draft lottery drawing, the Sonics narrowed down their selection to one of two point guards: Payton, a senior out of Oregon State, or Chris Jackson, a sophomore from LSU. They went with the safer pick in Payton, and this is the rare case where the conservative draft choice was the correct one. While Jackson, who later became Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, turned into a decent player for the Nuggets, he didn’t have near the career success of the future Hall of Famer Payton. Coleman lasted 14 seasons in the NBA, but made just one All-Star team and never fully lived up to his potential.

6) Jason Kidd, 1994 (#1 pick: Glenn Robinson). Draft class rank: #1

He was a point guard who was considered a step slow, couldn’t run a half court offense and, worst of all, couldn’t hit water from a boat with his jumper. How did Kidd go second overall to the Mavericks? Because even in his college days at Cal he was displaying a court sense and passing ability unseen since the heyday of Magic Johnson. Robinson was an easy top pick for the Bucks in 1994 and though Dallas may have considered Grant Hill or Donyell Marshall a better prospect than Kidd, they already had an established small forward of the future in Jamal Mashburn. While Kidd obviously went on to have a Hall of Fame career, most of it came outside of Dallas, as he feuded with Mashburn and Jim Jackson early in his career and was traded to the Suns in 1996. Kidd did return to the Mavericks via trade in 2008, and helped the franchise win its first and only title in 2011. 

5) Rick Barry, 1965 (#1 pick: Fred Hetzel). Draft class rank: #1

There were a record three territorial picks in the 1965 Draft. Two of them were a major success, as the Lakers and Knicks nabbed championship cornerstones in Gail Goodrich and Bill Bradley, respectively. The third was a bust, with the sad sack ’60s Pistons getting little to nothing out of Michigan star Bill Buntin (it’s especially disappointing considering if they had just stuck with the #3 overall pick, they could have had Billy Cunningham). With those three off the board, the Warriors wound up with the first two picks of the draft. The NBA tried an experiment in 1965 (and it lasted just that one year) where the last place team from each conference got two picks each in the draft’s top four. The Knicks were slated to receive the #1 and #4 picks, but used their top pick territorially anyway on Bradley. The #2 and #3 picks belonged to San Francisco, and they first selected Fred Hetzel, a power forward from Davidson who never quite lived up to expectations, but was a key contributor on San Francisco’s 1967 NBA Finals run. The real pick of note, however, was the second one, Barry.  Though prickly and egocentric, Barry engineered a complete turnaround for a Warriors team trying to pick up the pieces after trading away Wilt Chamberlain. Barry led them to the 1967 NBA Finals, then left abruptly for the ABA. In the wake of Barry’s defection, Hetzel shifted to small forward and had his best statistical season taking over for him in the starting lineup in ’67-’68, as the Warriors made it as far as the Conference Finals.

4) Kevin Durant, 2007 (#1 pick: Greg Oden). Draft class rank: #1

There’s a real gamut of emotions surrounding the top two picks of the 2007 Draft, and all three cities involved come out depressed. This was the draft where Portland became possibly the final team in NBA history to make the mistake of drafting for size over pure talent. They selected Oden, a seven foot star from Ohio State who was already showing signs of injury concerns, and ultimately played just 105 games in his NBA career. This left Seattle with an easy choice at #2, going with the lanky and unpolished small forward from Texas with seemingly endless potential, Durant. One year later the Sonics left town for Oklahoma City, and though Durant won MVP as a member of the Thunder, and led them the 2012 NBA Finals, he still left a bad taste in fans’ mouths when he departed for the Warriors as a free agent in 2016. Other notables in the 2007 lottery include Florida teammates Al Horford and Joakim Noah going to the Hawks and Bulls, respectively, Oden’s Ohio State running mate Mike Conley going to the Grizzlies, and the Bucks reaching for all-time bust Yi Jianlian at #6.

3) Bob Pettit, 1954 (#1 pick: Frank Selvy). Draft class rank: #1

A two-time All-American who once scored 100 points in a single game (granted, it happened while playing against Newbury College), Selvy seemed like an obvious first overall pick for the Baltimore Bullets in 1954. The franchise, which has no relation to the modern Washington Wizards, had won the NBA title in 1948 but was struggling mightily in the mid ’50s, both on and off the court. Though Selvy was solid early in his rookie campaign for Baltimore, the franchise was still forced to fold just a few weeks into the ’54-’55 season, and the high-scoring guard was shipped off the Hawks in the ensuing dispersal draft. There he became teammates with the player drafted directly after him in 1954, LSU’s Bob Pettit. After dominating at center at the NCAA level, leading LSU to its first ever Final Four in 1953, Pettit blossomed even further into the prototypical commanding power forward in the NBA. He won two league MVPs, was 1st-Team All-NBA for 10 straight seasons, and carried the Hawks to their only title in franchise history in 1958. As for Selvy, his prime was disrupted by a tour of duty with the U.S. Army but he did become a solid complementary player on the Lakers of the early ’60s, playing in two NBA Finals. 

2) Jerry West, 1960 (#1 pick: Oscar Robertson). Draft class rank: #1

How good was the 1960 U.S. Olympic basketball team? Universally regarded as the greatest amateur team ever assembled, it included the #1 (Oscar Robertson), #2 (Jerry West), #3 (Darrall Imhoff), and #9 (Jay Arnette) picks in the 1960 NBA Draft, the #1 pick in 1961 (Walt Bellamy), plus future NBA stars Adrian Smith and Terry Dischinger. Robertson and West were unquestionably the two biggest stars on that team, which was just the first of several ways in which their careers are inexorably linked forever. The overarching motif of their relationship is their contention over who was the best guard of the ’60s. They almost met each other in the 1959 NCAA championship game, but California upset Robertson’s Cincinnati team in the semifinals and then West’s West Virginia team in the finals. They were then the top two picks in the 1960 Draft, but their respective pro teams never met in a playoff series until 1971, when Roberton’s Bucks defeated West’s Lakers in the Conference Finals. Even on our list of the 500 greatest players the two are in lockstep, with West at #12 and Robertson at #13.

1) Bill Russell, 1956 (#1 pick: Si Green). Draft class rank: #1

Even though Russell had led San Francisco to consecutive NCAA championships and John Wooden called him the greatest defensive player he’d ever seen, there were some hang-ups with his professional expectations, even beyond the racial aspects. There was still a stigma in the league that no center, no matter how athletic, could dominate the way a ball-handling guard could. There was also Russell’s signing bonus demand of $25,000, a number he considered fair to pry him away from the highly interested Harlem Globetrotters, and that caused the Royals, who owned the top pick in 1956, to balk. And finally, there was Russell’s desire to play in the 1956 Olympics, which were taking place in November in Australia and therefore would cause him to miss the first month of the NBA season. Red Auerbach decided to take advantage of this situation, trading Cliff Hagan and Ed Macauley to the Hawks for their #2 pick, so he could select the star center. Auerbach had already used the Celtics’ territorial pick on Tom Heinsohn out of Holy Cross, and later drafted K.C. Jones, securing three future Hall of Famers and the groundwork for the Celtics ’60s dynasty. Things turned out a little differently for Green, who had been a star point guard at Duquesne but missed significant playing time in the NBA due to injuries and a U.S. Army tour of duty. He eventually squared off against Russell and the Celtics in the 1960 and 1961 NBA Finals as a member of the Hawks, and later earned a championship ring with Boston in ’65-’66, even though he was left off the playoff roster.