Is The Number One Draft Pick Always The Best?

(Photo by Joe Murphy/Getty Images)

As Draft Day gets closer, we see Blake Griffin being the number one pick, going to the Los Angeles Clippers.  But is the number one pick always the best?  A lot of the time, the first pick isn't always the best player.  There are stars that got picked first like Derrick Rose, Dwight Howard, LeBron James, Elton Brand, Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson, Shaquille O'Neal, Patrick Ewing, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and more.  There have been not so great players that got picked first in Greg Oden, Andrew Bogut, Kwame Brown, Michael Olowokandi, and more.

So is it a good idea to pick the best player, or the best potential player?  Kevin Durant wasn't picked first.  Neither was Rashard Lewis.  More names include Brandon Roy, Rajon Rondo, Deron Williams, Chris Paul, Danny Granger, Al Jefferson, JR Smith, and Josh Smith.  

Is the first pick always the best?  No, a lot of times, the players that follow the first are the stars of the draft.  Sometimes, it's not.  So how do we pick out the good from the bad?  We can't, only time will tell.

But maybe a team might want to pick some random player, and see how he develops over time.

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