We continue our eDraft exclusive look at the top NBA draft choices over the past 40 years. Our continued look back through history will determine who was the best draft selection through each slot in the draft. We don’t stop with the first overalls, we will go pick by pick, year by year to to identify the very best selections of all-time.
Looking back one spot, our greatest 17th overall draft pick was Shawn Kemp who was drafted back in 1989 by the then Seattle Supersonics. Kemp went on to have a 14-year career that saw him earn six All-Star nomination and three All-NBA Second Team placements. The ‘Reign Man’ took the rainy city by storm and as a result he was an easy selection for our list of draft day greatness.
Moving on, we now tackle the 16th overall draft slot and with it the first pick that would fall outside of the lottery. This was an interesting draft spot to analyze as teams continued to miss on almost all of their picks here. Thus far, of all the draft spots this one offered the least amount of worthy players to choose from.
A whopping four players plus our soon to be crowned champion garner mention here. First up we have a 2011 draft pick of the Philadelphia 76ers who went on to be traded in the Dwight Howard sweepstakes; Nikola Vucevic of the Orlando Magic made himself relevant with his play last season. Staying with Orlando, this player was recently released by the Magic and was an original draft pick of the Sacramento Kings back in 2000; Hedo Turkoglu is also worthy of mention here.
Up next are two players with ties to the Chicago Bulls. Ron Artest was originally drafted by the club back in 1999 while Bill Wennington who was drafted in 1985 by the Dallas Mavericks became a part of the Bulls Dynasty as he won multiple championships.
While the above mentioned four players were nice finds as middle-round picks they all pale in comparison to the absolute gem of a player that the Utah Jazz snagged with their 17th overall pick back in 1984. Anytime one can find a Hall of Famer anywhere in the draft consider yourself lucky, finding one in the middle of the first-round is extraordinarily lucky, finding an All-Time NBA great and arguably the best-ever at his position is an absolute fluke.
Maybe the Jazz fluked out, maybe it was just a match that was meant to be, whatever the cause for these two entities coming together the results were magic. When they drafted the slight-figured point-guard out of Gonzaga University they couldn’t have known what was in-store. John Stockton came into the league and started contributing right away, but it wasn’t until his fourth year in the league that he became an everyday starter.
Once in the starting lineup, Stockton reeled off nine consecutive seasons where he led the league in assists. Stockton’s career numbers and accomplishments leave him in the discussion when it comes to ranking the very best at each position. Unfortunately for Stockton the one career goal that eluded him was the Larry O’Brien Trophy as the Jazz failed to win a championship.
Even without the ring, Stockton boasts of two gold Olympic gold medals, ten All-Star appearances, a members of the NBA’s Greatest 50 players of all-time, a ring of honour member for the Utah Jazz and an inductee in the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2009.
John Stockton was an easy selection as the greatest 17th overall draft pick in NBA history. The diminutive guard who came from the West Coast Conference was unheralded at the time; however, he rose to prominence and procured his place among the NBA legends.