Draft of former #1 picks as prospects with no knowledge of their actual careers
Okay this might be hard to explain and sound dumb.
If the NBA did a draft of all the #1 picks over the years, but we have no idea how their careers actually went, it's based on players as the prospects they were when they entered the draft, what is the draft results of that?
I've been intrigued by this with the history of "sure things" and "generational prospects" The NBA has had. This would be really cool if an actual Veteran NBA Scout did this.
I tried out the top 10 but you can argue about any ranking on here being wrong and I won't disagree. I'm only 25 and try to learn my NBA history but obviously wasn't around to actually know how much hype some of these players had but here we go:
Lebron
Wemby (wasn't a "sure thing" but the second highest ceiling behind Lebron?)
Kareem (one of the best college careers ever?)
Hakeem (Someone said in the Last Dance doc during the Hakeem/MJ draft "look if the Bulls had #1 they would have taken Hakeem)
AD (Bro had more blocks individually than entire teams at Kentucky)
Magic (No clue what his hype was but had crazy stats at Michigan St for a 6'7 PG)
Shaq
Ralph Sampson (Crazy what if scenario if he leaves freshman year when Celtics had the #1 pick)
David Robinson (I know he had a crazy floor as a prospect and all the tools but he was 24 which makes me think he slides in this)
Cant decide between Ewing or Timmy D, I was too young
honorable mentions: Yao, Zion, Bill Walton, Cweb
Would love to hear peoples thoughts on something like this if it makes sense. Basically just trying to see the pecking order of these guys as prospects but also taking into consideration dudes like AD who are 19 entering the league compered to David Robinson who was 24