There is a lot of boredom in the month between the NBA Draft Lottery and the NBA Draft proper.
Narratives get set and seem difficult to reset in the month leading into the draft. Even with a draft as volatile and uncertain as this one.
It is exceedingly rare that the top pick entering the draft is set in stone weeks, if not months, in advance. It is even rarer that there are three players vying for the top pick. And while the oddsmakers may have Paolo Banchero falling off the pace behind a narrowing gap between Jabari Smith, Jr., and Chet Holmgren at the very top.
There are good reasons to draft all three of these prospects. The debate rages on.
But the other side of that debate, and the part that fills gaps in the repeated narrative of who they will pick, is whether there is an option to trade the pick.
Yes, it is that time in the draft process. It happens every year without fail. Someone starts suggesting or thinking, “Hey maybe they should trade the top pick.”
The Orlando Magic are sitting with the first pick and we have entered the phase of pre-draft conversation where people suggest the Magic trade the pick. There is actually a clear roadmap to do that.
Indeed, there are some teeth to this now. Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer went deeper into this on the latest episode of The Void. And there are plenty of others wondering if there is some godfather off out there.
It is hard for any long conversation not to lead to this possibility. Again, there is a long information vacuum to fill between the Lottery and the NBA Draft.
And while Jeff Weltman has not talked to reporters since Lottery night, when he does address the media before the NBA Draft he will surely say, “We are exploring a number of options.” It would be wrong not to listen to any offers on the table.
This is a unique position for Orlando with so much uncertainty at the top of the draft. And there are conditions there for a trade to happen — even in a draft considered less than generational. The question is always: What do the Magic want out of a trade and how much will they demand to get a deal done.
The price for the No. 1 pick in the past has indeed been steep. And so since we have reached this point of the the draft news cycle, it is worth taking a look at the history of trading the number one pick, as rare as it is.
Doing so gives us an idea of the conditions it takes to move such a valuable piece of real estate and how it might apply to this unique situation the Magic find themselves in.
A Brief History of Trading the No. 1 Pick
2017: The process de-processed
In the days leading up to the 2017 NBA Draft, the Boston Celtics stunned everyone when they traded the first overall pick for the third overall pick and a future pick in 2019.
This is honestly one of the least complex and smallest hauls that a team has gotten for the top pick. That was a statement both of how much the Boston Celtics were sure Tatum was their guy and how sure the team was that neither the Philadelphia 76ers at No. 3 or the Los Angeles Lakers at No. 2 were going to take him.
The Celtics had a position of power in not going with the flow and taking Fultz, who was the consensus top pick in this draft.
They took advantage of a 76ers team that was in complete turmoil. Bryan Colangelo had just taken over a year before for Sam Hinkie. And the 76ers were still sorting through what they had in Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons. The Sixers were still figuring out if they were doing the Process or actually going for it.
This was a brilliant trade from Danny Ainge and the Celtics, hiding who they were actually interested in and playing a team’s desperation against them.
It is easy to forget now how such a runaway Fultz was as the top pick. He was a dominant scorer at Washington, doing all the things Orlando Magic fans know he can do now in addition to hitting pull-up jumpers and 3-pointers with ease. This was before TOS hampered his shooting significantly.
He entered the draft with a knee injury that kept him out since February. So despite his prodigious talent, it is easy to see why some teams might have some questions. The Celtics certainly did and ultimately made the right choice going for Tatum.
The Magic are obviously in a very different situation. There are three good options and the cat-and-mouse game of trying to figure out who everyone wants — outside of maybe the Oklahoma City Thunder’s fascination with Chet Holmgren — is a bit unclear.
It is not clear whether the Magic would be willing to part with the choice or how much it would cost in case their preferred player is not there.
Maybe the Magic have no preference and would be happy to take something extra — although I would argue they do not have the room on their roster to eat up more draft picks, nor the desire to continue a prolonged rebuild.
The Celtics were right to fish around for a deal when they understood their guy was not the consensus top pick. That does not seem to be the case here.
A Brief History of Trading the No. 1 Pick
2014: Room for LeBron
The Cleveland Cavaliers were in a weird spot as they made their selection for what seemed like a runaway first overall pick in Andrew Wiggins. They had two other first-round picks on their roster in Kyrie Irving and Anthony Bennett as part of a string of good luck (partially squandered on the Bennett pick, but hey, they had the chance anyway).
The Cavaliers thought they were building the bones of a young team. They hired a promising new coach in David Blatt to least the organization.
Then LeBron James came calling. He announced he was coming home. And the Cavaliers completely changed overnight.
Suddenly the idea of a ball-dominant rookie who would need time to develop did not seem like such an attractive idea. And suddenly they had a major trade chip to make a move to turn themselves into a contender.
That is what they did in making this three-team trade for Kevin Love. They added a third all-star to James and Irving to lift themselves into championship contention. That is what James would have done anyway.
It is easy to forget now just how much teams angled themselves for the 2014 draft. The idea of Wiggins was something everyone was angling for — including the Magic at the time.
Wiggins, of course, struggled in the Timberwolves’ system and culture. He had big scoring numbers but he struggled to make the kind of impact anyone believed he could.
It took going to the Golden State Warriors and accepting his role alongside Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson for Andrew Wiggins to become who he was meant to be. He was a solid defender and rebounder in addition to a good supporting scorer.
Who knows what would have happened for him if he arrived in a better culture sooner. Instead, his early career was defined more by being a pawn to help the Cavaliers reach title contention.
A Brief History of Trading the No. 1 Pick
1993: Penny for your thoughts
Orlando Magic fans know the story of the 1993 Draft really well.
The team had one ping pong ball in the hopper to win after finishing Shaquille O’Neal’s rookie season at 41-41, going to the fourth tiebreaker to miss the playoffs.
That was a turn of fate. As was what happened on draft night.
This was another of those runaway drafts. Chris Webber was a college icon with the Fab Five at Michigan. Everyone believed he was a generational player — indeed, his Hall of Fame induction later this year will confirm that.
The only problem was the Magic were a team on the cusp of competitiveness, not the likely candidate to have the first pick in the Draft. The league was still big. Having a power forward next to a bruising center was a sound building philosophy. It would not have been crazy to pair Webber and O’Neal together.
But Magic general manager Pat Williams knew he would need a guard to deliver the ball to Shaquille O’Neal. This was the model that built champions for years and years before.
We know the history from there: Anfernee Hardaway made a big impression on Shaquille O’Neal while they filmed the movie, Blue Chips. Hardaway also turned heads in an open scrimmage he had with several players on the Magic. Orlando knew this was the point guard the team needed.
The story then goes that Pat Williams got a call from Warriors general manager Don Nelson asking what it would take to get the top pick. Williams joked it would take six. That started a negotiation that brought the number to three picks (one would become Vince Carter, later traded back to Golden State in a roundabout way, and another would become Rookie of the Year Mike Miller).
Orlando got what felt like a king’s ransom for the top pick. And they got their guy. They certainly did better than Boston did in getting Jayson Tatum in a similar situation — a contending team wanting a player who was not the consensus top pick.
The Magic were picking a player based on need as much as on the best player available. But the picking on need begins to matter a whole lot more when you are closer to contention.
Within two seasons, the Magic were in the NBA Finals and Shaq and Penny were ruling the NBA.
A Brief History of Trading the No. 1 Pick
1986: Pat Williams’ first foray
The day before the Draft in 1986, Pat Williams got his first taste of trading the top pick. A deal that he may regret and one of the few times that a team pulled the trigger on trading the top pick and did not seem so enthused with the outcome — so far, it seems to have worked pretty well for the team dealing the first pick.
The Sixers were coming off a 54-28 season with Charles Barkley, Julius Erving, Bobby Jones, Moses Malone and Maurice Cheeks. They lost in the conference semifinals. But they won the top pick thanks to a trade of Joe Bryant (aka Kobe Bryant’s dad) to the San Diego Clippers from back in 1979.
The Sixers getting the first pick was gravy. And for a veteran team trying to get back into title contention, they did not need a top pick. Nor did they need a center with consensus top pick Brad Daugherty from North Carolina.
A trade made sense. But Williams would later say he regretted that trade, but that may have to do more with a concurrent trade to move Hall-of-Fame center Malone.
Williams said the 1986 draft was not a particularly strong one, kind of like the 2021 Draft is shaping up to be.
Daugherty had a nice career — 19.0 points per game and 9.5 rebounds per game and five All-Star appearances in eight seasons. He was fifth in his draft class in win shares.
The top guys in win shares in his draft class? Jeff Hornacek (taken 46th overall), Dennis Rodman (Hall of Famer taken 27th), Mark Price (taken 25th) and Ron Harper (taken eighth).
All of those players picked up tons of wins by latching onto playoff teams. Rodman won titles with the Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls. Hornacek was a key member of the Utah Jazz’s title runs in 1997 and 1998. Harper was a member of the Bulls’ second three-peat.
The Cleveland Cavaliers essentially built their strong run through the late 1980s and 1990s in this draft with both Daugherty, Price (acquired in a trade with the Dallas Mavericks) and Harper.
This turned out to be an OK draft in the end. Although it lacks the true superstar that would have made the 76ers think twice about trading the top pick.
What should become clear is that teams that move the No. 1 pick are teams that do not need the No. 1 pick to build their team. They are teams that had motives beyond taking whatever the draft gave them. They were teams looking to compete.
That is what led Williams to make the deals he made in both 1986 and 1993.
A Brief History of Trading the No. 1 Pick
1980: Red at it again
There is a long list of teams Boston Celtics president Red Auerbach has fleeced throughout his storied career with the Celtics in building the greatest long-term dynasty in NBA history. This trade of the first overall pick (acquired in trading Bob McAdoo a year earlier) proved to be more fortune falling the Celtics’ way.
It always comes up right for Boston.
This deal helped define the next decade of basketball just as the No. 1 pick in 1979 of Magic Johnson defined the decade too.
Boston got a Hall of Fame center in Robert Parish and a Hall of Fame sixth man in Kevin McHale. They would win three titles in the next decade.
Like the other deals, the Celtics were putting their team around Larry Bird coming off his rookie year. They were not the ones who needed the top pick. They needed someone who fit what they were doing.
That would seem to be a center in Joe Barry Carroll, considering what Boston eventually got for him. Then again, Basketball-Reference lists Joe Barry Carroll’s nicknames as “Joe Barely Cares” and “Just Barely Carroll.”
Auerbach probably saw that pretty clearly and went to get the guy he really wanted in McHale. Getting a solid player in Parrish was just typical Auerbach mastery.
It is the repeated tale of this exercise: When a team thinks the consensus No. 1 pick is not their guy, they find their way to trade down, grab the player they are interested in and add something extra. That is the way the top pick gets traded.
A Brief History of Trading the No. 1 Pick
Early NBA Trades
1957: Hot Rod Hundley
The early NBA is a bit of a wilderness, so I want to move quickly through the first two instances of the first pick getting dealt.
The Minneapolis Lakers grabbed Hot Rod Hundley from the Rochester Royals (they would later become the Sacramento Kings, thus the logo above) with the first pick back in 1957. Hundley was a two-time All-Star who averaged 8.4 points per game.
Not exactly a strong endorsement. And no one would blame you for not knowing who the Kings got in return for trading the No. 1 pick.
Hundley finished fifth in win shares for his draft class. First was Red Auerbach’s selection of Sam Jones with the eighth pick. Only one other player had more than 10.0 win shares in their career.
Not exactly a strong draft.
1950: Chuck Share
This is another case of Red Auerbach knowing his talent and getting the guy he really wants. Auerbach is quite possibly the best manager in NBA history. But that is also probably a product of his and Celtics’ ownership’s seriousness about competing and winning in an era when the rest of the league was not as invested in that.
Auerbach once got the Celtics’ owner to promise to send the Ice Capades to St. Louis for an extra week to acquire Bill Russell in 1956 (or at least that is how the story goes, they got some good players in return for that second pick too). That is the kind of era of NBA basketball that we are talking about.
Here the Celtics again win the deal.
They acquired Sharman coming off a rookie year where he averaged 12.2 points per game. His team, the Washington Capitals, was dissolved after his rookie season and he went to the Pistons in the dispersal draft. That might be why the Pistons were OK parting with him.
Sharman would become an All-Star and a key part to the Celtics’ dynasty of the 1950s.
Share was an All-American in college, but struggled to find his footing in the NBA. He averaged 3.9 points per game his rookie year. He averaged 8.3 points per game for his career.
Mark another win for Auerbach and the Celtics.