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.
Before we get into our greatest 8th overall draft pick we pause to look back. To find our pick for greatest 9th overall draft pick ever we had to go back to 1998 to find a draft day trade that brought the Milwaukee Bucks 8th overall pick to the Dallas Mavericks. That draft choice was of course Dirk Nowitzki who has thus far earned himself eleven All-Star nods, one NBA Championship, a NBA Finals MVP Award and a regular season NBA MVP Award.
Nowitzki certainly has left his mark on the league and it is only a matter of time before the familiar #41 jersey is hanging in the rafters of the American Airlines Center. In addition to going down as a Maverick hoops legend, Nowitzki will also undoubtedly get his call to the Hall as no regular season MVP Award recipient has not been nominated for enshrinement.
The competition for the title of eDraft’s greatest 8th overall draft pick was pretty solid as the list was full of All-Stars and recognizable names throughout decades of NBA ball; however, the field offered little in the way of superstars. I was expecting the top-ten draft slots to be packed with MVP’s and Hall of Famers, turns out I was wrong.
Before we get to our eventual champion here, we will break down the other successful picks by decade. From 2000 till now there have only really been three players that bear mentioning here. The Milwaukee Bucks new point guard and former first-rounder of the Detroit Pistons Brandon Knight was taken 8th overall in 2011. The Toronto Raptors swingman and All-Star Rudy Gay was taken by Houston back in 2006 and rounding out the decade we saw that Jamal Crawford was picked by the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2000.
The 1990’s faired a bit better as five players could be considered successful picks. Andre Miller went in 1999 to Cleveland, Larry Hughes to Philadelphia in 1998, Kerry Kittles to New Jersey in 1998, Briand Grant went to Sacramento in 1994 and in 1993 the Milwaukee Bucks took the future four time All-Star Vin Baker.
The 1980’s draftees are defined by the their ‘glue-guy’ labels as each was a significant contributor in their own right; however, they always shared the spotlight. In 1988 the Charlotte Hornets made Rex Chapman the franchises first ever pick and while Chapman was a successful player he played for perennially poor teams. Ron Harper was taken in 1986 by Cleveland; however, he played significant roles for the Chicago Bulls during their title runs.
Detlef Schrempf was drafted in 1985 and went on to be a three time All-Star and is probably best remembered for his playing days with the defunct Seattle Sonics. Antoine Carr was drafted in 1983 by the Detroit Pistons and despite a fairly mundane career it still spanned nearly 20 years in the Association. The class of the decade was however, Tom Chambers who went on to four All-Star appearances, was named All-Star MVP in 1987 and who had his jersey retired by the Phoenix Suns.
The 1970’s proved to be the best decade of the bunch as Jack Sikma was drafted in 1977 by the Seattle Sonics. Sikma would win an NBA Championship with the club in 1978 and he would go on to make seven All-Star appearances. Sikma also had his jersey retired by the Sonics in honour of his nine years of service to the franchise.
As we continued to go deeper and deeper into the draft almanacs I was starting to get concerned that we wouldn’t be finding a true NBA legend. Well it took us all the way back to 1976, but we found a good one after all. Robert Parish was originally drafted by the Golden State Warriors; however, was included in a draft deal a couple of seasons later that saw him head to Boston.
It was with the Celtics that Parish made his career mark as he teamed with Larry Bird and Kevin McHale to form the original ‘big three’ in Beantown. Parish went on to win four NBA Championships and was named to nine NBA All-Star teams. He was honoured by the NBA as a member of the 50th Anniversary All-Time Team and in 2003 he was enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
‘The Chief’ Robert Parish was a dominating center for the Celtics and he certainly dominated the competition here enroute to being named eDraft’s greatest 8th overall draft pick ever.