NBA: Ranking every team based off draft success over the last 20 years

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NBA LA Clippers Kawhi Leonard (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) /

T-5. San Antonio Spurs: 48.5 points

2001: Tony Parker: 25.5 (6x all-star, 3x 2nd team, 1x 3rd team, 1.5x multiplier for pick outside of lottery)
2008: George Hill: 0.5
2011: Kawhi Leonard: 22.5 (4x all-star, 2x 1st team, 1x 2nd team, 1.5x multiplier for pick outside of lottery)

If there’s a downside to making the playoffs for 22 straight seasons, it’s that you never have good draft picks. In fact, if you go back even further into the Spurs’ draft history, they only had three picks inside the top 23 from 1990-2017. Those three picks? Tim Duncan, James Anderson, and Kawhi Leonard. And if you want to get picky, they’ve really only had two picks in the top 23 because Kawhi’s rights acquired via draft-night trade. Two hall of famers and a 12th man isn’t too shabby, though.

It’s looking more and more likely though that the Spurs will have to hit the reset button on the team and start over within the next couple of years. Most teams don’t get the benefit of the doubt heading into that process, but given the fact that they’ve only missed the playoffs four times since they joined the NBA in the 1973 merger, I think they’ll be fine.

For context, there are three teams (Kings, Suns, Knicks) that have an active playoff drought longer than four years. They’ve all missed the playoffs more times since 2015 than the Spurs have in their entire franchise history. Moral of the story: don’t doubt the Spurs.