Where are you more likely to find the best player?

[Ryoga Hibiki]

This is in relation to the value of tanking vs building from the middle. In the last few decades, where was the best player of each draft found (talking about prime play)?
top5 or mid/late lottery or out of the lottery
Leaving 2024 out...
2003 LeBron James Top5
2004 Dwight Howard Top5
2005 Chris Paul Top5
2006 LaMarcus Aldridge Top5
2007 Kevin Durant Top5
2008 Derrick Rose Top5
2009 Steph Curry mid/late lottery
2010 Paul George mid/late lottery
2011 Kawhi Leonard out of the lottery
2012 Anthony Davis Top5
2013 Giannis Antetokounpo out of the lottery
2014 Nikola Jokic out of the lottery
2015 Davin Booker mid/late lottery
2016 Pascal Siakam out of the lottery (by ws it should be Domas)
2017 Jason Tatum Top5
2018 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander mid/late lottery (even if I still think it should be Luka)
2019 Ja Morant Top5 (whatever, this can be heavily disputed)
2020 Tyrese Haliburton mid/late lottery (or Edwards)

stopping here because it would be too early for other guys.

What is interesting is that, as went deep to the 2000s, you were much more likely to find the best player out of the top5 (5 mid/later lottery, 4 out of it) than in the top5 (3).
If you go further back in time, it was not that common:
1999 Manu
1998 Dirk
1996 Kobe
1989 Kemp or Hardaway
it was linked to the League underrating internationals or high schoolers.
It seems that now it al became much more unpredictable, and this happened after the forced highschoolers to declare one year later.
Why to do you think this is happening?

My take, from a team building perspective, is that the relative value of a top5 over a pick is not that much higher. It might be better to have multiple first rounders rather than one top5.

[ORLMagicGirl15]

So pretty much the lottery and a sprinkle of mid 1st and 2nd round sprinkled in.

[UcanUwill]

So pretty much the lottery and a sprinkle of mid 1st and 2nd round sprinkled in.

But its rare for best player being number one pick. Of course it is 1 vs 59 (plus Undrafted), so it is understandable, but what I am saying, we get too focused on that one guy hype and forget that the odds say, it wont be Cooper Flagg who wlll be best player from this class, we don't know who will it be, but it is possible that a team that was very sad after lottery actually won this draft, we just do not know it yet.

[ORLMagicGirl15]

So pretty much the lottery and a sprinkle of mid 1st and 2nd round sprinkled in.

But its rare for best player being number one pick. Of course it is 1 vs 59 (plus Undrafted), so it is understandable, but what I am saying, we get too focused on that one guy hype and forget that the odds say, it wont be Cooper Flagg who wlll be best player from this class, we don't know who will it be, but it is possible that a team that was very sad after lottery actually won this draft, we just do not know it yet.

Google AI says that the first pick historically have the highest concentration of MVPs and HOFers.

[UcanUwill]

So pretty much the lottery and a sprinkle of mid 1st and 2nd round sprinkled in.

But its rare for best player being number one pick. Of course it is 1 vs 59 (plus Undrafted), so it is understandable, but what I am saying, we get too focused on that one guy hype and forget that the odds say, it wont be Cooper Flagg who wlll be best player from this class, we don't know who will it be, but it is possible that a team that was very sad after lottery actually won this draft, we just do not know it yet.

Google AI says that the first pick historically have the highest concentration of MVPs and HOFers.

Well, as it should, but what I am saying, actual outcome of those things is not as high as we project these guys to be when draft comes. Like, as of today, we see this draft as just Cooper sweepstakes, but will it be that, honestly probably not.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

So pretty much the lottery and a sprinkle of mid 1st and 2nd round sprinkled in.

But its rare for best player being number one pick. Of course it is 1 vs 59 (plus Undrafted), so it is understandable, but what I am saying, we get too focused on that one guy hype and forget that the odds say, it wont be Cooper Flagg who wlll be best player from this class, we don't know who will it be, but it is possible that a team that was very sad after lottery actually won this draft, we just do not know it yet.

Google AI says that the first pick historically have the highest concentration of MVPs and HOFers.

the thing is is, all generational prospects go #1. #2 if there's more than 1 in the draft.
Whenever a mvp level guy doesn't go #1 it means he exceeded the expectations people had on him.

[Kawaii Leonard]

During a Taco Bell ad

[Sofia]

This goes back prob about 15 years now, but when it was clear that Oden was cooked, there was an article I read about the success of each pick number based on accolades of each player.

I don’t remember the exact order, but it was something like #1, #4, #3, #5, #2 barely ahead of #6 with #9 also frequently not panning out compared to #10 or #11

Someone should do that again as a summer project

[AleksandarN]

Sombor