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A common topic that comes up during NBA drafts is whether a lottery team should pick for fit or pick the best player available (BPA). I’m a believer in choosing the BPA, and that is also the majority opinion. This will for sure come up in the Brandon Miller/Scoot Henderson debate, especially if Charlotte chooses Miller.
However, I’ve seen many people misuse examples of fit/BPA after the fact when they use hindsight bias to know the later pick turned out to be better. One common misused example is the Wiseman/Ball example. Ball turned out to be better, so people then retroactively say the Warriors drafted for fit. In reality, it was no where near a consensus that Ball was the BPA at the time of the draft. Besides, the fit narrative doesn’t even make that much sense given Klay was injured, and Poole had a terrible rookie year and did not look like he was part of the Warriors’ future.
Here, I went back and tried to compile a list of top 5 examples that were clearly (or at least close to being super clear) choices of fit over BPA. It still supports the majority opinion to choose the BPA, but it is not as lopsided as if you used all the random examples like Wiseman/Ball.
1984: Portland selects Sam Bowie (#2) over Michael Jordan
This is the obvious fit over BPA example that is historically true. Jordan was called a “certainty to become a superstar” by the NY Times before the draft. No one ever said that about Bowie. MJ was the NCAA Player of the Year and dominated all the other top college players at the 1984 Olympic Trials, which occurred before the draft. There was no doubt he was the BPA after Hakeem.
Bowie was a fifth year redshirt junior, who had missed two full seasons due to a devastating leg injury. When he came back, he was nowhere as good. In fact, many believed his college teammate, fellow C Melvin Turpin (picked 6th in this draft) was just as good. However, Portland needed a C. They already had Jim Paxson (All-NBA) at SG, young Clyde Drexler at the wing, and would trade for scorer Kiki Vandeweghe that summer. Cs won championships then, and Bowie had a good touch, was a solid passer for a C, and could block shots. So they skipped MJ.
You know the rest of the story.
1986: Cleveland selects Brad Daugherty (#1) over Len Bias
1989: San Antonio selects Sean Elliott (#3) and Miami selects Glen Rice (#4) over Stacey King
This is one where fit worked out. King, who was a dominant two-way C for his last two years in college, was the projected #1 pick going into draft night of the 1989 NBA Draft. However, Pervis Ellison and Danny Ferry got taken ahead of him. Then came his incredible free fall. San Antonio had the 3rd pick but they had young superstar C David Robinson. So they chose Elliot for fit. Miami chose C Rony Seikaly with the 9th pick the year before (first pick in franchise history), so they also bypassed the BPA King and chose Rice. Both Elliot and Rice turned out to be better and were chosen for fit at the time of the draft. Elliot is especially important. With him and his great fit next to Robinson and eventually Duncan, the Spurs dynasty might look a bit different.
1995: Denver (in a trade with the LA Clippers) select Antonio McDyess (#2) over Jerry Stackhouse
2005: Portland traded back to #6 from #3 to select Martell Webster and passes on Deron Williams (#3), Chris Paul (#4), and Raymond Felton (#5)
Portland had young Sebastian Telfair, a lottery PG from the year before. So they passed up on the BPAs (all PGs) and traded back to draft Webster. This was obviously a mistake.
2009: OKC selects James Harden (#3) over Ricky Rubio
This one might seem controversial (since Harden is clearly better now), so I found some sources. [This is from OKC’s newspaper right after the draft] (https://www.oklahoman.com/story/sports/2009/06/26/thunder-selects-james-harden-with-the-third-overall-pick-in-the-nba-draft/61393914007/$)
The Thunder passed on Spanish point guard Ricky Rubio, who is widely considered the second best prospect behind former Oklahoma forward Blake Griffin. In doing so, Oklahoma City avoided a potential predicament in which the 18-year-old Spanish sensation likely would have moved Westbrook to shooting guard.
Most big boards I checked out (Chad Ford is an exception) also had Rubio > Harden. Harden was chosen for fit since he could play next to Westbrook. He happened to also be the better long-run player (and is now ironically a PG like Rubio).
2017: Boston trades back from #1 to #3 and selects Jayson Tatum over Markelle Fultz (#1) and Lonzo Ball (#2)
Boston had Isaiah Thomas (traded for Kyrie Irving later that summer), Marcus Smart, and Terry Rozier. Fultz was the clear BPA, but Tatum was the better fit. Technically, it may be the case that Boston (as the only ones in the world) thought Tatum was literally straight up the BPA over Fultz, in which case this shouldn’t technically count.
2018: Sacramento selects Marvin Bagley (#2) over Luka Doncic
2022: Sacramento selects Keegan Murray (#4) over Jaden Ivey
As you can see, you should still draft for BPA. However, there are clear examples of teams drafting for fit that actually worked out because the fit pick also became the long-term best player.
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