A Retrospective of Every Trade for the Number One Pick
Who comes out ahead in the deal?
As you’ll be aware, less than a week before the 2017 NBA Draft, the Boston Celtics traded their number 1 overall pick to the Philadelphia 76ers for their number 3 overall pick. In the process, Boston passed up on the opportunity to select transcendent point guard talent Markelle Fultz.
The move was rained down on with hate by Celtics fans; preemptive Fultz jerseys were burned. Boston’s general manager Danny Ainge was lambasted as a fool, too full of his own ego.
Through it all, Ainge was adamant that the guy he wanted would be there at number 3 — again, Celtics fans wondered why the guy he wanted wasn’t the guard from Washington. Nevertheless, Boston wound up with Jayson Tatum, and Philadelphia accepted the invitation to draft Fultz.
Of course, the theory behind the Celtics’ trade down was to maximize their draft value. They could’ve drafted Tatum at number 1, but why not get him at 3 and force the 76ers to cough up some of their stash of picks so Bryan Colangelo can get his man also?
The move has not necessarily failed yet for Boston or succeeded for Philadelphia, but early on, this one looks like a win for The Process. This got me thinking, how have previous trades involving the number one overall pick in the NBA Draft gone down?
1957 — Cincinnati Royals trade pick to Minneapolis Lakers
The first occasion in which a trade involving the number one pick went down was all the way back in 1957, when the Cincinnati Royals picked Hot Rod Hundley out of West Virginia and immediately traded him to the Minneapolis Lakers. The trade was the first ever between the two rivals, now known respectively as the Sacramento Kings and Los Angeles Lakers.
From Cincinnati’s end, they sent Hundley, Bob Burrow, Ed Fleming, Monk Meineke and Art Spoelstra (no relation to Miami Heat Head Coach Erik). Minneapolis sent Clyde Lovellette and Jim Paxson Sr. back the other way, in a trade we can only assume halted the presses in their tracks on the day.
It’s hard to say anyone really made away like bandits in this trade, but the Royals certainly didn’t win it (apparently, they had no idea what they were doing back then also). Cincinnati made the playoffs just once in the next four years, trading Lovellette the very next season and having Paxson retire around the same time.
The Lakers didn’t really knock it out of the park either; despite playing 2 All Star games, Hot Rod was an average professional. His best season came in 1959–60, when he averaged 12.8 points, 5.3 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game.
Hundley retired at age 28 due to knee issues, and went on to have a far more distinguished broadcasting career, becoming known as the voice of the Utah Jazz. Minneapolis went to the Finals in 1959, but famously did not win it all until 1972, after 8 losses at that stage.
1975 — New Orleans Jazz trade pick to Atlanta Hawks
Nine days before the 1974 NBA Draft, the New Orleans Jazz and Atlanta Hawks made a deal, and it was a doozy of a deal. New Orleans were gearing up for their first season in the NBA, and wanted to generate some hype in a strongly pro-football town.
Jazz Executive Bill Bertka identified Atlanta’s Pete Maravich — former star at Louisiana State — as the perfect talking point to kickstart his franchise’s debut in the city. Fortunately for him, the Hawks had missed the playoffs again the previous season, and were looking to sell high on Maravich, who had just posted his best year in the pros.
For Maravich, Atlanta received Bob Kauffman and Dean Meminger, 1974 and ’75 first round picks, 1975 and ’76 second round picks, and a 1980 third round pick. That’s right — seven assets for one player. Let’s slowly begin to digest this.
Kauffman elected to retire rather than relocate to New Orleans. He was 29, and his best years were behind him.
Meminger also never played for the Jazz, after signing as a veteran for the New York Knicks. Both players that New Orleans received in the trade never played a minute for their “new team”.
As for the picks, the Jazz were terrible even with Maravich, and their 1975 first round pick ended up as number 1 — a shocking gaffe that another team later on this list did clearly not learn from. With that pick, the equally as terrible Hawks selected David Thompson out of North Carolina State.
Here’s where it gets interesting — the Virginia Squires also selected Thompson, in the ABA Draft. Fortunately (or perhaps foresight-ly), New Orleans’ trading of this pick becomes instantly less heinous, given they were already going to have a fight on their hands convincing a hot dog like Thompson to sign in the pristine and pure NBA as opposed to the high-flying, cocaine-snorting ABA.
Evidently, after Virginia also traded their pick, Thompson eventually signed in the ABA, with the Denver Nuggets. Ironically, as we know, Denver wound up in the NBA after the merger, and Atlanta got the privilege of playing against a man they selected 1st overall, but by no fault of their own, never played a game for them; advantage Jazz?
As for the other picks, they turned into Mike Sojourner (1st round, 10th overall, 1974), Bill Willoughby (2nd round, 19th overall, 1975), and, in the 2nd round of the 1976 Draft, 23rd overall, Alex English. Hilariously, the Hawks had traded that pick, and it was the Milwaukee Bucks that picked English.
The Atlanta franchise has not won a title since 1958, and the New Orleans franchise has never won one, and moved to Salt Lake City in 1979. Goodness gracious.
1976 — Atlanta Hawks trade pick to Houston Rockets
Your eyes are not deceiving you here folks; possibly due to the bad taste in their mouth from the Thompson pick, the very next year, the Hawks were involved in another trade of the first overall pick in the Draft.
The day before this Draft, Atlanta decided to move their 1st overall pick. They dealt with the Houston Rockets, receiving Gus Bailey, Joe Meriweather and the 9th pick, for Dwight Jones and their 1st overall pick, in a deal not unlike the one made by the Celtics and 76ers this year.
Clearly liking nobody they saw at the drop of the draft board, the Hawks moved backwards and picked up a veteran in Bailey and a First Team All-Rookie selection from the previous year in Meriweather. Of course though, Atlanta just managed to dodge the two future Hall of Famers taken in the top 10 — Adrian Dantley at 6th and Robert Parish at 8th — and drafted Armond Hill out of Princeton, a career role player.
However, the Rockets’ 1st overall pick was hardly a slam-dunk either. They selected John Lucas II out of Maryland, who was First Team All-Rookie, did a bunch of coke, and was on a different team by 1978.
1979 — Utah Jazz trade pick to Los Angeles Lakers
Remember when the Jazz traded for Pete Maravich in 1975? 12 months later, after being god awful, they decided they needed a backcourt partner for him, so they signed 33-year-old Gail Goodrich from the Lakers, who suffered an Achilles injury early in the season and retired in 1979.
As per league rules back in the ’70s, for signing one of Los Angeles’ veterans, New Orleans were required to work out a compensation deal to send back the other way. The teams settled the deal as the Jazz’s first round pick in three consecutive years from 1977–79, and a second round pick.
With those picks, the Lakers selected Kenny Carr in 1977, 6th overall, directly before Bernard King and Jack Sikma. In 1978, they traded the pick to Boston, who selected Freeman Williams, and in 1979, Utah were so bad, the pick landed at 1st overall, and Los Angeles selected Magic Johnson.
If you’re attempting to process this all, the Jazz surrendered the right to draft Magic Johnson for 4 seasons of Gail Goodrich, on the wrong side of his 30s, who made the team more terrible than they could imagine. All the Lakers did was go on to win 5 NBA championships in the 1980s. Ouch.
1980 — Detroit Pistons trade pick to Golden State Warriors via Boston Celtics
We all know the 1980 NBA Draft as the day the Celtics kickstarted their dynasty, 12 months after Los Angeles did likewise. This is another complicated deal that started out the season prior, with a compensation trade.
To acquire the 1st overall pick Boston sent to the Golden State Warriors, they arranged a compensation deal with the Detroit Pistons after signing ML Carr. That deal sent Bob McAdoo to Detroit, with the Celtics also getting back two first round picks; the picks Boston received were 1980 and 1982 first round picks.
As is not often mentioned, the Celtics made not one, but two teams look like fools on that day; the Pistons’ 1980 pick wound up as number 1 overall, and the Warriors were hungry to select Joe Barry Carroll with that pick. They traded with Boston, giving them Robert Parish and the 3rd overall pick for the 1st and 13th picks.
In doing so, Golden State gifted the Celtics not one, but two vital cogs in their 3 championships in the 1980s — Parish, and Boston’s pick, Kevin McHale. With their picks, the Warriors selected the largely forgettable tandem of Carroll and Rickey Brown — and no, that did not help them win any NBA championships.
For the record, Detroit did not come out of this one smelling nearly as bad as Golden State did. They would end up winning a championship in the ’80s (1989), and went back-to-back, winning one in 1990 also.
1982 — Cleveland Cavaliers trade their pick to Los Angeles Lakers
The dynasty-building moves featured in this article are not quite done yet. The Lakers were looking to put a finishing touch to their championship teams of the ’80s, and they were about to do so, with the 1st overall pick in 1982 — James Worthy.
In February 1980, the Cleveland Cavaliers were looking to trade into the first round of the NBA Draft later in the year. They had previously traded out of it with the San Diego Clippers the year prior, trading their pick for talented swingman Randy Smith, without the trade improving them all that much.
Cleveland’s pick in 1980 wound up being 9th overall, which San Diego ended up wasting, and the Cavaliers traded back into the draft at number 22, after the aforementioned trade with Los Angeles, in which they gave up their first round pick in 1982 — the pick featured in this trade. Confusing, but if you’re looking for some clarity, Cleveland swapped two first round picks (9th in 1980 and 1st in 1982) for 2 mediocre years of Mr. Smith, and no playoff appearances.
1986 — San Diego Clippers trade pick to Cleveland Cavaliers via Philadelphia 76ers
Fear not Cavaliers fans, your team would soon atone for its draft sins. Although the 1986 NBA Draft is most notable for the tragedy that is Len Bias, it did feature some action at the top of the board, involving Cleveland landing the number 1 pick.
This one is relatively simple to understand: in 1979, the Clippers swapped their first round pick a full seven years into the future to Philadelphia for Joe Bryant, Kobe’s dad. Let this be a lesson as to the foolishness of trading first round picks so far in the future.
The day before the draft, the 76ers decided they would rather have Roy Hinson, a forward who had improved out of sight over the past three seasons. Perhaps oddly, they were fine with trading the number 1 overall pick to the Cavaliers for him, which they had acquired from San Diego — the hype must have been pretty real.
Cleveland used that pick to select big man Brad Daugherty out of UNC Chapel Hill, who would go on to make the All-Rookie Team, 5 All-Star Games and 1 All-NBA Team, before retiring prematurely after the 1996 season with a back problem after 2 seasons of sitting on the sidelines. Hinson steadily declined in his 2 seasons in Philadelphia.
1993 — Orlando Magic trade pick to Golden State Warriors
1993 saw the Orlando Magic, despite having the worst odds, win the NBA Draft Lottery for the second year in a row, meaning they had now won it in two of their five seasons of existence. With that 1st overall pick, they selected Chris Webber out of Michigan. Moments later, they traded him to the Warriors (picking 3rd that year) for their selection, Penny Hardaway, and three future picks.
In its early days, this trade showed some sort of promise of working out for both sides; Golden State made the playoffs in Webber’s first year on the team, a year in which he won the Rookie of the Year award. However, Webber quickly fell out with head coach Don Nelson, and the club was forced to trade him to the Washington Bullets; Nelson was fired just a year later, and would not make it back to the playoffs until 2007.
After trading for Hardaway, Orlando made it to the Finals the very next season. This trade showed promise for the Magic also, only for another disagreement — between Shaquille O’Neal and head coach Brian Hill — to break up yet another promising side in their halcyon days.
This was a rare trade where both teams could’ve won big, but instead managed to ruin a good thing for themselves, and wound up almost back where they started.
2011 — Los Angeles Clippers trade pick to Cleveland Cavaliers
The final, and most recent trade of the (eventual) number 1 overall pick was in 2011, and involved two teams who have featured in this article already. February 2011 saw Los Angeles make an odd trade, sending Baron Davis and a first round Draft pick for the upcoming draft to the Cavaliers for Mo Williams and Jamario Moon.
Why odd, you ask? The Clippers were hunting for more experience to pair with their eventual Rookie of the Year Blake Griffin, so they made the move for Williams.
The only problem was, Los Angeles was 3rd last in the Western Conference at the time of the trade, and sitting on the 8th best odds for the number 1 pick. Not a terrible bet in retrospect, but did it jump up to number 1 in the lottery?
You better believe it did. Cleveland wound up selecting Kyrie Irving, another Rookie of the Year winner, and probably a better option at point guard for the Clippers than Mo Williams.
Williams didn’t exactly light the world on fire in Los Angeles either. He spent a season and a half with the Clippers, averaging 13.8 points and 3.8 assists per game.
This story has a happy ending for both sides though. Kyrie Irving’s impressive play was enough to (eventually) entice LeBron James back to his hometown, and later in the season, Los Angeles traded for All-Star point guard Chris Paul, punching their playoffs card for the next handful of seasons.
There’s a long and not always pretty history of trades for the number one pick. Will this one have a happy ending for the Celtics or 76ers? Time will tell, and it may tell pretty quickly.
