Top 15 2nd Round NBA Draft Picks of the Last 20 Years

This is a totally random list inspired by nothing, but hopefully just a tiny bit interesting to just a few people.  Why 15?  No reason.  Why the last 20 years?  Mainly just because that’s about as far back as my first-hand NBA knowledge goes.  As most people know, the NBA draft has just two rounds, and 2nd Round picks aren’t guaranteed any sort of contract, and are often cut before ever appearing in a game.  It’s really the rare player that ends up having a long, productive career.  Guys that clearly should’ve been 1st Rounders fall through the cracks for a bunch of reasons: they played at a mid-major college, they skipped college altogether, they had an injury history, or they didn’t have an “NBA body.”  Some guys fall for almost no reason at all.  But what they all have in common is that they weren’t expected to make it in the NBA, but all of these guys listed below did anyway, for whatever that’s worth.   

Two quick fun facts about 2nd Rounders in the NBA this year:  there is a current rookie having a surprisingly excellent season, and the team with the best record in the league has started two of them in every game this season, with one of them leading the team in scoring.  All three appear on the list below.  As a final note, it was a little difficult comparing guys who have played 13 years in the league to ones that have played just one or two, but I gave it my best shot.

15. Landry Fields (39th Overall Pick, Knicks, 2010):  So we start things right off with the above-mentioned rookie.  Impossible to say where he fits just 47 games into his career, but he really looks the part of a solid small forward.  He’s started every game and averaged 10 points for the resurgent Knicks, while shooting 52% from the field and 38% on 3’s.  He’s also been a suprisingly good rebounder for a guy that’s a slender 6-7, averaging 7 boards.  It goes to show how down the Pac-10 (and Stanford) has been, because I had NEVER heard of this guy that averaged 22 points for the Cardinal last year.

13 (TIE). DeJuan Blair (37th Pick, Spurs, 2009) and Paul Millsap (47th Pick, Jazz, 2006):  This is the first of three pairs of players that are ranked together, not just because they are similar in quality, but also because they’re similar players.  Blair fell because he was an undersized PF witha history of knee injuries, but he’s a high character guy with a natural talent for pulling down rebounds.  So, it’s no huge surprise that he’s started every game for the 40-7 Spurs in just his second season.  He’s playing just 21 minutes a game though, but averaing 8 points/7 boards.  Millsap played at a small school (Louisiana Tech), where he was a rebounding machine, averaging just under 13 for his career.  Most teams didn’t see that translating to the pros, but he’s developed nicely and is averaging 17 points/8 rebounds this year for Utah.  Those are numbers that Blair might be matching in a few seasons.

11 (TIE). Mo Williams (47th Pick, Jazz, 2003) and Nick Van Exel (37th Pick, Lakers, 1993):  Two solid NBA point guards who each made one All-Star appearance.  It’s actually a little surprising that they weren’t 1st Rounders.  They both were good in college at major conference schools, both pretty athletic and quick, good distributors, and underrated long-range shooters.  Though Williams probably never would’ve made an All-Star team if he hadn’t been lucky enough to play with LeBron.

10. P.J. Brown (29th Pick, Nets, 1992[there were only 27 teams at that point]):  Unlike the above two, he never came close to making an All-Star team, but there’s a lot to be said for being a winner and doing it over a long period of time.  He played 15 years and was a key part of some very good Heat teams in the late-90’s, some solid Hornets teams in the middle-00’s, and he made some clutch plays in the playoffs for the Celtics in their ’08 title run.  He averaged 8 points/7 rebounds for his career and was named to the 2nd Team All-Defensive Team three times.

8 (TIE). Mehmet Okur (37th Pick, Pistons, 2001) and Marc Gasol(48th Pick, Lakers, 2007):  Two Europeans that turned out to be legitimate NBA centers.  Okur played a key supporting role for the ’04 Pistons championship team, averaging 10 points/6 boards, before moving on and making an All-Star team with the Jazz in ’07, when he averaged 19/8.  Not many 6-11 guys can shoot if from deep like Okur.  Since being traded to Memphis for his brother, Gasol has been solid, especially last year when he averaged 15 points/9 boards.  He’s taken a step back this year, but the future still looks bright.

7. Rashard Lewis  (32nd Pick, SuperSonics, 1998):  As one of just three players on this list to make multiple All-Star teams, you might think Lewis would be higher than #7, but I put him here partly just because I don’t like him and think he’s overrated.  He’s 6-10 with a ton of talent, but he’s too often content to just jack up 3 after 3, rarely setting foot inside the arc for a drive or even to rebound.  Still, he had a 3-year run with Seattle of averaging over 20 points a game before making his second All-Star appearance as a Magic in ’09.  He’s averaged 16.5 points for his career, while shooting 39% from 3.  He came straight from his Texas high school to the pros.

6. Michael Redd (43rd Pick, Bucks, 2000):  Redd was one of the premier long-distance shooters of the past decade, with a 20 point per game career average, an All-Star appearance in ’04, and a 27 point per game average in ’06-’07, but he gets knocked down a peg or two because the teams he’s led have never been good and he’s missed a lot of time with injuries. 

5. Stephen Jackson (42nd Pick, Suns, 1997):  Anyone who’s followed Jackson’s tumultuos NBA career is probably not surprised to learn that, even though he was a McDonald’s All-American at powerhouse Oak Hill Academy, he was unable to get eligible for D-I basketball, and ended up at a junior college for a year before entering the draft.  That partly explains why a 6-8 wing player with his skill ended up in the 2nd Round, but the Suns actually cut him, and he didn’t make it to the league until three years later.  Two years after that, he was starting and averaging 12 points for the ’03 Spurs championship team.  In the 8 seasons since then, he’s averaged 18.5 points, posting his best season in ’08-’09 with Golden State, when he averaged 21 points/6.5 assists/5 rebounds.

4. Gilbert Arenas (30th Pick, Warriors, 2001):  For two years (’05-’06, ’06-’07), Arenas was one of the top scorers in the league, averaging close to 29 points a game those two seasons combined.  He added 6 assists, over 4 rebounds, and 2 steals a game as well.  But since then, his career has been derailed by injuries and off-the-court mishaps.  Not sure why NBA scouts missed on him.  Watching him at Arizona, I thought he looked like an NBA player with his combination of quickness, strength, and shooting touch.  I’m usually wrong about those things though, so I guess that doesn’t mean much.

3. Monta Ellis(40th Pick, Warriors, 2005):  Ellis snuck into the draft in the last year that high schoolers were allowed to go pro, and just a few years later he was averaging 20 points a game.  Over the past two seasons, the lightning-quick guard is averaging 25.3 points/5.5 assists/2.3 steals.  Granted, he’s doing it for a not-very-good team that plays an uptempo style, but he’s also still only 25 years old.  He gets the nod ahead of Arenas because he hasn’t self-destructed like Gilbert has. 

2. Carlos Boozer (34th Pick, Cavs, 2002):  This name appearing as a 2nd Rounder was the biggest surprise to me.  Boozer is a 6-9 behemoth of a man who played at the premier college basketball program of the last 20 years (Duke), won a title there as a starting sophomore, then averaged 18 points/9 boards as a junior.  Just a few of the players chosen ahead of him were Vincent Yarbrough, Robert Archibald, and Ryan Humphrey.  Seems like the scouts out-smarted themselves just a little bit.  Boozer was averaging a double/double (15.5/11) by his second season, and he’s been nearly a 20/10 guy over the past 5 seasons combined, while making the playoffs every one of those years.

1. Manu Ginobili (57th Pick, Spurs, 1999):  Looking at the stats and the number of All-Star games alone, it would seem like Ginobili doesn’t belong at #1 on this list.  He’s actually only started about half the games of his career.  But if I could take the whole career of any guy on this list, I’ll take Manu’s.  He’s the epitome of a “do-it-all” guard, with career averages of 15 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds, and 1.5 steals.  He’s also great on the defensive end and one of the most sneaky, unorthodox offensive players, but can also knock down a long-range shot.  He’s no Tim Duncan, but he’s a HUGE reason why the Spurs have won 3 titles in his time there, and he could possibly make it #4 this year, and this time as their leading scorer, at 18.8 per game right now.  The Spurs laid the foundation for those titles when they took Duncan with the 1st overall pick in ’97, but they may have sealed the deal when they took this Argentinean with the second-to-last-pick of the draft two years later.

Honorable Mentions: Trevor Ariza, Anderson Varejao, Ryan Gomes, Carl Landry, Kyle Korver, Lou Williams, Rasual Butler, Chris Duhon