Every NBA Draft has a number one pick, showered with attention and expectation. It also has a final pick, the very last name called, a player no team valued above anyone else in the entire class. Borrowing a term from the NFL, that player is often called “Mr. Irrelevant.” And most of the time, the nickname fits: the last pick rarely makes an impact, and many never play an NBA game at all.
But not always. The most famous last pick in NBA history went on to score 50 points in a playoff game, make two All-Star teams, and finish fifth in MVP voting. His story is the reason the final pick is worth talking about at all, proof that on rare occasions, the player nobody wanted becomes someone nobody can forget.
The chart below breaks down the most notable last picks, how the final selection has moved over the decades as the draft shrank, and the records worth knowing. Take a look, then we’ll get into the stories.
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The last pick who became a star
The reason this topic exists at all is Isaiah Thomas. In the 2011 NBA Draft, the Sacramento Kings used the 60th and final pick, the literal last selection, on an undersized 5-foot-9 point guard out of the University of Washington. The pick was an afterthought, the kind of flier teams take with nothing to lose. Thomas turned it into one of the great underdog stories in modern basketball.
By his second season he was a starter, and within a few years he had become a genuine offensive force. His peak came with the Boston Celtics, where he made two All-Star teams, earned All-NBA Second Team honors, and in the 2016-17 season averaged nearly 29 points per game while leading Boston to the Eastern Conference Finals and finishing fifth in MVP voting. For a player chosen behind every other prospect in his class, it was a staggering achievement, and it remains the gold standard for what a last pick can become.
Why the last pick is usually irrelevant
Thomas is the exception that proves the rule. The overwhelming majority of last picks never make the kind of impact he did, and many never play a single NBA regular-season game. There is a simple reason: by definition, the final pick is the player that all 30 teams passed on dozens of times. The talent gap between the top of the draft and the very bottom is enormous, and a second-round flier is a low-cost gamble, not a plan.
In the modern era, teams often use that last pick on an international prospect they can “draft and stash,” retaining his NBA rights while he continues playing overseas, sometimes for years, sometimes forever. That is why so many recent final picks are unfamiliar names who never came stateside. The pick has real value as a cheap long-term option, but it rarely produces an NBA contributor, which is exactly what makes the nickname stick.
Where “Mr. Irrelevant” actually comes from
The label is not originally a basketball term at all. It was coined in 1976 for the NFL draft by former player Paul Salata, who created an entire “Irrelevant Week” celebration for the last player chosen, complete with a parade, a roast, and a Lowsman Trophy depicting a player fumbling a football. The NFL embraced the gag, and the nickname spread to other sports informally.
The NBA never adopted any official version of the tradition. There is no Irrelevant Week for basketball’s final pick, no trophy, no roast. The player simply reports to Summer League and tries to earn a roster spot like any other long shot. So while fans and writers borrow “Mr. Irrelevant” to describe the NBA’s last pick, it is a casual nickname rather than a real institution, which is worth knowing if you came here expecting a basketball version of the NFL spectacle.
How the last pick number kept changing
One reason the “last pick” is tricky to pin down across history is that the NBA draft used to be enormous. In the 1960s it ran as many as 21 rounds, meaning the final pick could carry a number above 200, deep into territory where teams were essentially drafting names out of obscurity. Through the 1970s and into the 1980s the draft gradually shrank, but it still ran around ten rounds, so the last pick remained a very high number.
Everything changed in 1989, when the NBA cut the draft to its modern two-round format, putting the last pick at No. 54 that year and eventually at No. 60 once the league expanded to 30 teams. In a few recent drafts the final pick has actually been No. 59, because a team forfeited a second-round selection as a penalty. So the “last pick” has meant wildly different things in different eras, from a 200-plus afterthought to today’s tidy No. 60.
Final Word
The last pick in the NBA Draft is usually exactly what the nickname suggests, a player the entire league overlooked, often an international stash pick who never suits up. But the story endures because of the rare exception, and Isaiah Thomas is the perfect one: the literal final selection of his draft who became a two-time All-Star and an MVP candidate, proof that draft position is a prediction, not a destiny.
So when you watch the final name get called on draft night, remember that the odds are long but not zero. Most “Mr. Irrelevants” fade quietly, but every so often one of them rewrites the script entirely. For the other end of the spectrum, see our list of NBA first overall picks by year.