Rudy Gay?

[erudite23]

Here are the top 5 picks from the last 8 drafts (not including this year):

Kwame Brown
Tyson Chandler
Pau Gasol
Eddy Curry
Jason Richardson
Yao Ming
Jay Williams
Mike Dunleavy Jr.
Drew Gooden
Nikoloz Tskitishvili
LeBron James
Darko Milicic
Carmelo Anthony
Chris Bosh
Dwayne Wade
Dwight Howard
Emeka Okafor
Ben Gordon
Shaun Livingston
Devin Harris
Andrew Bogut
Marvin Williams
Deron Williams
Chris Paul
Raymond Felton
Andrea Bargnani
LaMarcus Aldridge
Adam Morrison
Tyrus Thomas
Randy Foye
Greg Oden
Kevin Durant
Al Horford
Mike Conley
Jeff Green
Derrick Rose
Michael Beasley
OJ Mayo
Russell Westbrook
Kevin Love

That's 40 players over 8 drafts. Doing a little quick math and making some snap judgments and/or predictions of the future, the numbers look like this:

Injuried/Incomplete: 2 (Livingston, Jay Williams)
Superstars: 10 (LeBron, Wade, Gasol, Derrick Rose, Deron Williams, Chris Paul, Yao Ming, Dwight Howard, Chris Bosh, Kevin Durant)
Stars: 5 (Carmelo, Devin Harris, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Love, Michael Beasley)
Borderline Stars: 10 (Oden, Mayo, Horford, Aldridge, Bargnani, Bogut, Okafor, Chandler, Richardson, Gordon)
Quality Player/Solid Starter: 7 (Jeff Green, Conley, Felton, Foye, Dunleavy, Thomas, Marvin Williams)
Borderline Rotation Guy, AKA mini-busts: 3 (Kwame Brown, Eddy Curry, Gooden)
Out of the League or will be soon, AKA Major Busts: 3 (Morrison, Tskitishvili, Milicic)

As you can see, the top 5 is loaded with quality talent. According to these numbers, there is a better chance of you getting a franchise changing talent than having the pick go bust. In fact, there is almost TWICE as good a chance. 6 Busts total out of 40 picks. That is 15%. And there is a 25% chance you get a superstar. Remove the #1 overall pick from consideration and you have 5 busts out of 35, or 14.3%, and 6 out of 35 for a superstar, or 17%, so it isn't just a case of having to have the #1. Overall, though, you can see that 25 of the 40 players are of star caliber or pretty damn close. Imagine just getting one of the players from the borderline All Star category, say a Horford, Okafor or Ben Gordon, which would be a bit of a disappointment given the caliber of pick. Even that pittance would be a huge boon for this team. Getting a player like that for 2-4m per season would probably vault us to the top of the conference.

There is obviously a lot of guesswork involved here, and some of the players involved could move up or down the categories. Still, the point remains. You can't risk giving away a pick that could end up in the top 5. The rewards that come with those picks are just way too much.

[darthkiller]

no way should utah part with the ny pick. you get a star with low salaries.

[outerspacefella]

Couldn't have said it better than erudite.

[Tapoona]

erudite-Thanks for doing that research. Looks like there is a lot bigger chance at getting a "star" than not with a top 5 pick. I'm sure the Jazz have done the same research that you did. I also like the point you make with paying proven talent proven money. All this while i've been a proponent of trading the NY pick away, but i've been converted. Now the question is at what point do the jazz trade away the pick if the Knicks end up being better than a top 5 pick? but that's for another topic. Thanks erudite.

[carrottop12]

Rick Majerus said it best...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RXaERVhNuU

Lets see how the Knicks are doing halfway through the season.

[Zemsta]

best trade ever!!:)
in polish Rudy means Redhead