Ahead of the NBA Board of Governors vote scheduled for May 28 on lottery reform, a new analysis of roster construction reveals that teams rarely turn their own top-five draft picks into championship cornerstones.
Key findings from 2000-2019 drafts
• Out of 100 players selected in the top five between 2000 and 2019, only 44 won a single playoff series for the team that drafted them while averaging at least 20 minutes per game.
• Fifty-six never reached that benchmark, and the group’s average tenure with its original club was 5.1 seasons.
• Only 6 percent played 10 or more seasons with the franchise that chose them; five remain with their drafting teams today: Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Joel Embiid, Zion Williamson and Ja Morant.
Championship pedigree
Since 2000, just five top-five draftees have been rotation players on title teams for the clubs that selected them: Tim Duncan and David Robinson with San Antonio, Dwyane Wade with Miami, Tristan Thompson with Cleveland and Chet Holmgren with Oklahoma City. Only three Finals MVP awards in that span went to players acquired through their team’s own top-five pick (Duncan twice, Wade once).
By contrast, 11 Finals MVP trophies were claimed by stars added through free agency or sign-and-trade, including LeBron James, Shaquille O’Neal and Kevin Durant. Four more came from draft-night pick swaps, such as Kobe Bryant and Kawhi Leonard, while two were won by players obtained in standard trades.
How champions really build rosters
The study shows that more than half of a typical championship rotation is assembled via trades and free agency rather than the draft. Recent examples include Boston acquiring Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porziņģis, Denver landing Aaron Gordon and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Oklahoma City adding Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein.
The rare Spurs exception
San Antonio’s current rise defies the trend. Consecutive lotteries delivered Victor Wembanyama (No. 1, 2023), Stephon Castle (No. 4, 2024) and Dylan Harper (No. 2, 2025), giving the Spurs three top-five starters who each recorded double-doubles in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals against Oklahoma City. Historical precedent is slim: among 23 franchises that drafted in the top five three years running, only the Thunder (Durant, Westbrook, Harden) and Cavaliers (Irving, Thompson, Bennett/Wiggins) later reached the Finals.
New lottery rules would prevent any club from selecting in the top five three straight years, making the Spurs’ blueprint difficult to duplicate. The broader data indicate that prolonged losing, or “tanking,” has rarely been a reliable path to NBA titles—an insight that frames the league’s pending vote on curbing draft incentives.
Source: ESPN.com
