Do you ever ponder how certain NBA players start their careers and end up as overnight success stories? The NBA draft is less of a level playing field and more a field of lottery and late-round prospects who can come into the NBA and revolutionise it as a whole.
Although the majority of the first-round draft picks end up being below-average players, some of them rise above their status to be among the best basketball players in the world. These kinds of players can hardly be called popular, and yet they are considered game changers, such as Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokic.
NBA Draft: Where underdogs become superstars
The cases of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokic are not simply amazing narratives of an undrafted player making it big; they are the stories of the wild west of talent development in professional basketball. Including Antetokounmpo, the current Milwaukee Buck who was drafted in the 2013 first-round 15th pick has now become twice the MVPs as recorded by NBA.com. In the same manner, Jokic drafted 41st overall in 2014 emerged as the first Serbian and the NBA MVP award’s lowest-drafted player, at least according to Basketball Reference.
Their journeys highlight several critical draft surprises that have dramatically impacted NBA history:
- Giannis Antetokounmpo: Going from an anonymous intercontinental contender to a game-changer, Antetokounmpo had a startling draft number. With All-Star recognitions and, of course, a championship under his belt, he set standards for what a power forward should be.
- Nikola Jokic: Selected in the second round quite late, Jokic’s ability to create for others and his basketball intelligence has shifted the idea of what is possible from a center in today’s basketball.
- Kawhi Leonard: Draughted 15th in the 2011 NBA Draft, Leonard has been the definition of a defensive stopper and player who steps up in the big moments and has won two Finals MVP awards for three different franchises.
- Jimmy Butler: A second-rounder in 2011, Butler has worked hard to go from a microwave to a valued role player for Thibodeau into an All-Star and team captain.
- Draymond Green: Chosen 35th in the 2012 draft Green turned into a vital member of the Golden State Warriors proving that the basketball mind can overcome physicality.
You can’t say you would have placed your money on these players to become superstars once they were drafted. But what does their success tell about talent evaluation in professional sports?
What they show us is that being a potential isn’t always written somewhere in a draft report, or within the combination of certain measurements. This simply means that excellence can even result from unsuspecting sources.
