NBA: Ranking the 10 best scouting departments over the past 20 years

Since 2000, which NBA organizations have had the most success when it comes to scouting in the NCAA, internationally, and the undrafted player pool?

Drafting is an essential part of an NBA team’s success. In every year’s draft, there is often optimism surrounding the draft class’s top picks. A chance at one of the players, if not more, becoming an elite level talent.

Yet when it comes to young draft prospects, there is never a guarantee on whether their game will translate to the NBA level: the player might have been great in high school and in college but will his talent remain on par with NBA players/the best players in the world?

And since not every team is bad enough to have a shot at a high-level prospect that is in the top 5 to 10 range, winning organizations needs their attention to detail to become amplified even further for later rounds; there is a higher risk of those players not panning out.

That being said, even though through the years various NBA teams have experienced significant team structural changes in terms of their coaching, management, and scouting staff, there has remained a handful of teams that still were able to find valuable players in the draft.

So regardless of whether draft night trades occurred (the team still scouts the player and has the opposing team make the pick for them), the player scouted went undrafted, or the prospect went on to become a high-quality rotational player — only years later on an opposing team — here are 10 NBA teams with the best scouting in the past 20 years.