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Oklahoma basketball: Sooners’ Top-Eight NBA Draft picks

By Chip Rouse

NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 04: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver speaks to the media prior to the start of the NBA 2K League Draft at Madison Square Garden on April 4, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 04: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver speaks to the media prior to the start of the NBA 2K League Draft at Madison Square Garden on April 4, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images) /
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LAWRENCE, KS – FEBRUARY 19: Trae Young
LAWRENCE, KS – FEBRUARY 19: Trae Young /

The 2018 NBA Draft lottery draw was Tuesday night. This got us to thinking about Oklahoma basketball and former Sooners who were part of the NBA Draft.

During halftime in Tuesday night’s NBA conference championship series between the Boston Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers, the draft order of the 14 teams that did not make this year’s NBA playoffs was determined, with each of the 14 teams hoping for one of the first three picks in this year’s draft on June 21.

Not only is this annual event of high interest to the NBA teams involved, but also to the players expected to become 2018 lottery picks (the first 14 players selected in the upcoming draft), such as Oklahoma’s Trae Young.

Forty-eight Oklahoma Sooners have been selected in the 70-year history of the NBA Draft. Of that number, nine have been first-round selections and six have been lottery picks.

Buddy Hield is the most recent of the former Sooners to become a lottery pick. The former winner of both the Wooden Award and the Naismith Award as the best player in college basketball in the 2015-16 season, was selected by the New Orleans Pelicans with the sixth overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft.

Blake Griffin is the only Oklahoma player to be taken with the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft. Griffin was the top pick of the Los Angeles Clippers in the 2009 NBA Draft.

It is a reasonable certainty that Trae Young will be one of the first 14 players selected in this year’s draft. That would make him the 10th player from OU to be selected in the opening round. Where would Young fall among the all-time OU NBA Draft picks? Would he make the top 10?

We’ve ranked the all-time, top-10 NBA Draft picks who played collegiately at Oklahoma. This listing is not based on how high in the draft pecking order they were selected, but rather how good they were and for how long once they made it to the NBA.

That knocks Young out of the running this time around, given 1) that he has not yet been drafted, and 2) he has yet to play a game in the NBA.

For now, here are the 10 best Oklahoma NBA Draft picks of all-time:

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