Every NBA season ends with one team cutting down the nets, but every offseason begins with a different kind of prize: the number one overall pick. It is the most valuable single selection in the sport, the reward for a rough season and a lucky lottery, and a chance to land a franchise-altering talent. Some of the names on this list became the greatest players in basketball history. Others became cautionary tales.
The first pick has been awarded every year since 1947, and the roll call doubles as a history of the league itself: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan, LeBron James. Eleven of these players went on to win the NBA’s Most Valuable Player Award, proof of just how much a top pick can change a team’s fortunes.
The chart below lists the number one overall pick for every recent year, the franchises and colleges that produce them most, and the records worth knowing. Take a look, then we’ll get into the history.
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How a team lands the first pick
The number one overall pick is not simply handed to the worst team in the league, at least not anymore. Since 1985, the order at the top of the draft has been decided by the NBA draft lottery, a weighted random drawing among the teams that missed the playoffs. The worse a team’s record, the better its odds, but the lottery means the top pick is never guaranteed. The 2025 draft was a perfect illustration: the Dallas Mavericks jumped up to claim the first pick despite having just a 1.8 percent chance, then used it on Duke star Cooper Flagg.
This system exists to discourage teams from deliberately losing, or “tanking,” to secure a generational prospect. It does not eliminate the temptation entirely, but it adds a layer of chance that has reshaped franchises overnight. Winning the lottery can turn a struggling team into a contender in a single night, which is exactly why draft night draws such enormous attention every June.
The picks that defined the league
Look back through the list and you are really reading a history of the NBA’s defining stars. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, taken first in 1969, went on to become the record six-time MVP and the league’s all-time leading scorer for nearly four decades. Magic Johnson arrived as the top pick in 1979 and immediately transformed the Lakers into a dynasty. Hakeem Olajuwon (1984), Shaquille O’Neal (1992), and Tim Duncan (1997) each anchored championship teams and walked into the Hall of Fame.
And then there is LeBron James, the 2003 number one pick out of a high school in Akron, who arrived with impossible hype and somehow exceeded it, winning four MVPs and four titles while rewriting the scoring record himself. These are the outcomes every lottery-winning team dreams about: not just a good player, but a cornerstone who changes everything. Eleven number one picks have won at least one MVP, a remarkable hit rate for a single draft slot.
When the first pick goes wrong
For every LeBron, though, the list carries a cautionary tale, because the number one pick is a gamble as much as a gift. The most cited example is Anthony Bennett, taken first by Cleveland in 2013, who lasted just four NBA seasons and is often called the biggest draft bust in league history. Greg Oden, picked ahead of Kevin Durant in 2007, saw a promising career destroyed by chronic knee injuries. Kwame Brown, the first high schooler ever taken first overall in 2001, never lived up to the billing.
These misses are a reminder that projecting teenagers and young prospects is genuinely hard, and that injuries, fit, and development can derail even the most certain-looking pick. The pressure on a number one selection is immense, and not every player can carry it. That risk is part of what makes draft night so compelling: nobody truly knows which category a pick will fall into for years.
The franchises and colleges that produce them
A few names recur at the top of the draft. The Cleveland Cavaliers have made the most number one selections of any franchise, six in all, a group that includes LeBron James in 2003, Kyrie Irving in 2011, Anthony Bennett in 2013, and Andrew Wiggins in 2014, along with Brad Daugherty and Austin Carr in earlier eras. On the college side, Duke leads all schools with six number one picks, from Art Heyman in 1963 through Kyrie Irving, Zion Williamson, Paolo Banchero, and most recently Cooper Flagg. Kentucky is next among colleges, a reflection of how the sport’s top programs funnel talent to the top of the draft.
The list has also grown more international over time. Yao Ming became the first player with no US experience to go first overall in 2002, and France has produced three of the most recent number one picks, including the generational Victor Wembanyama in 2023. It is a sign of how thoroughly basketball talent has globalized, with the top pick now just as likely to come from Europe as from a blue-blood American college.
Final Word
The number one overall pick is the NBA’s annual lottery ticket, a single selection that has delivered Kareem, Magic, Shaq, Duncan, and LeBron, and also a handful of busts that never found their footing. The full list, stretching back to 1947, is a year-by-year map of where the league’s hope has been placed each summer, and which bets paid off. Eleven of these players became MVPs, while others became reminders of how uncertain the whole exercise is.
As the next draft unfolds, a new name will join the list, and a new fan base will allow itself to dream. Whether that pick becomes the next franchise cornerstone or the next what-if is a story that takes years to write. If you want more on how the league’s biggest individual honors are decided, see our look at the NBA Finals MVP winners by year.