Sir Charles in Charge
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NBA: Ranking every team based off draft success over the last 20 years

By Ryan Mitchell

NBA New Orleans Pelicans Zion Williamson (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
NBA New Orleans Pelicans Zion Williamson (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images) /
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NBA Brooklyn Nets Kyrie Irving (Photo by Paul Bereswill/Getty Images) /

2. Cleveland Cavaliers: 109.5 points 

  • 2002: Carlos Boozer: 8 (2x all-star, 1x 3rd team, double points for 2nd round pick)
  • 2003: LeBron James: 92 (4x MVP, 16x all star, 12x 1st team, 2x 2nd team, 1x 3rd team)
  • 2004: Anderson Varejao: 0.5
  • 2009: Danny Green: 0.5
  • 2011: Tristan Thompson: 0.5
  • 2011: Kyrie Irving: 11 (6x all-star, 1x 2nd team, 1x 3rd team)
  • 2013: Anthony Bennett: -3 (bust with first overall pick)

The Cavaliers are rightfully considered a dumpster fire in a lot of aspects, but drafting surprisingly can’t be considered one of those aspects. I am aware that LeBron’s 92 points skew them up pretty high on the list, but even if you take him out they’ve had a solid 20 years of drafting.

Subtract the 92 points and the Cavs are still top 20 on this list, and you’d have to imagine they would have some pretty good opportunities to pick up more points if they weren’t drafting late in the first round every year of the two LeBron eras in Cleveland. But you could also argue they’d just have more opportunities to  draft players like Anthony Bennett and I don’t have a great counter for that so I guess we’ll never know for sure.

LeBron’s formula-breaking 92 points got me thinking about where that would rank in NBA history, so here are the breakdowns for all of the greatest players in NBA history, sorted by era:

  • 1957-1969: Bill Russell: 70 (12x all-star, 5x MVP, 3x 1st team, 8x 2nd team)
  • 1960-1973: Wilt Chamberlain: 70 (13x all-star, 4x MVP, 7x 1st team, 3x 2nd team)
  • 1970-1989: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 104 (19x all-star, 6x MVP, 10x 1st team, 5x 2nd team)
  • 1980-1992: Larry Bird: 66 (12x all-star, 3x MVP, 9x 1st team, 1x 2nd team)
  • 1980-1996: Magic Johnson: 66 (12x all-star, 3x MVP, 9x 1st team, 1x 2nd team, DNP: 1992-1995)
  • 1985-2003: Michael Jordan: 82 (14x all-star, 5x MVP, 10x 1st team, 1x 2nd team, DNP: 1994, 1999-2001)
  • 1993-2011: Shaquille O’Neal: 66 (15x all-star, 1x MVP, 8x 1st team, 2x 2nd team, 4x 3rd team)
  • 1997-2016: Kobe Bryant: 77 (18x all-star, 1x MVP, 11x 1st team, 2x 2nd team, 2x 3rd team)
  • 1998-2016: Tim Duncan: 78 (15x all-star, 2x MVP, 10x 1st team, 3x 2nd team, 2x 3rd team)
  • 2004-2020: LeBron James: 92 (16x all-star, 4x MVP, 12x 1st team, 2x 2nd team, 1x 3rd team)

A couple of takeaways – 1) The formula is a big fan of Kareem’s insane longevity and 2) I found it fascinating that Russell/Chamberlain, Magic/Bird, and Kobe/Duncan were all either tied or separated by one point. Even in a randomly created formula those three duos are still rivals.