This year marks the 25th anniversary of the 1996 NBA Draft. The draft, along with 1984 and 2003, is considered one of the greatest draft classes of all time. Not only is it filled with solid players, but it also brings in some of the most subversive culture players in the history of the league.
This draft has its mark on the 2020-2021 season. First, Steve Nash is the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets. Alan Iverson and the late Kobe Bryant are two idols that current players adore and shape their careers. Not to mention that the greatest undrafted player in NBA history didn't hear his name on Draft Day '96 but will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in September of this year.
So let's look back at the historic 1996 NBA Draft.
Review the 1996 NBA Draft
The 1996 NBA draft, as well as 1984 and 2003, is considered one of the greatest drafts of all time. Not only is it filled with solid players, but it also brings in some of the most subversive culture players in the history of the league. So, with that in mind, let's take a look back at the historic 1996 NBA Draft.
League status in 1996
Before we get into the actual draft, we need to understand where the league was in at the time of the June draft. The Chicago Bulls are finishing what was then a record 72-win season and their fourth NBA championship (their first since Michael Jordan retired). The Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies completed their expansion seasons. Kevin Garnett also ended his rookie season, sparking a trend for players to skip college and go straight to the NBA. Shaquille O'Neal will be the biggest free agent award in memory recently.
The Philadelphia Sixs won the draft lottery after a dismal 18-64 season.
Alan Iverson ranked first
Iverson is an otherworldly player who has left his mark on the NBA. It's not just his performance on the court, he's an 11-time All-Star, a 4-time scoring champion and 2001 MVP, but his style sets the trend for the next generation of athletes. He is a cultural legend. His best season was in 2000-2001, when he led the league with 31.1 points and led his team to the NBA Finals. While the 76ers will lose to the Lakers in five games, his efforts to score 48 points in game 1 (including his win over Tyronn Lue) were his best moments.
The Raptors picked Marcus Camby with the second pick
The Toronto Raptors won 21 games in their first season and are building on 1996 Rookie of the Year, Damon Stoudamire. Hoping to pair Stoudamire with a big man, so opting for MIT center Marcus Camby was an easy option. He played only two seasons in Toronto because during the 1998 draft, he was traded to the Knicks in exchange for Charles Oakley and Sean Max.
Canby would be the only player in the 1996 draft who didn't score more than double-doubles in his career, but he grabbed 2,200 more rebounds in his career than any single draft pick. During his 17-year career, he won the 2007 Defensive Player of the Year award with the Nuggets and will reach the NBA Finals with the Knicks in 1999.
Stephen Marbury-Ray Allen exchange
One of the biggest trades in the draft took place after Marcus Camby and Sharif Abdul-Rahim finished second and third in the draft. With the fourth pick in the draft, the Milwaukee Bucks selected point guard Stephen Marbury from Georgia Tech. Soon after, the Minnesota Timberwolves took UConn sharpshooter Ray Allen. Fifteen minutes later, the two exchanged.
At the time, Minnesota was a franchise to watch out for. A year after selecting high school student Kevin Garnett, Wolves paired him with "Staffory" and built a dynamic point guard sports forward duo that could hand the team over to the next must-see team.
This turned out not to be the case, as Marbury was unhappy and forced to leave within three years. Allen played in Milwaukee for more than six years before being traded to Seattle. He will eventually play with Garnett... In Boston... They will bring their 17th overall title to the Celtics in 2008.
Allen later became a Hall of Famer, winning a second overall title with the Miami Heat and becoming one of the greatest three-point shooters in history. Marbury would bounce around with the Nets, Suns, Knicks and Celtics (yes, where he would be teammates with Allen) before starting a very successful career with the Chinese Basketball Association.
The Celtics chose Antoine Walker at the age of six
Boston moved up three spots in the draft when they traded draft picks with the Mavericks, which turned out to be a steal trade. Boston gave up Eric Montross and their No. 9 pick (which he would turn into Samaki Walker) for the No. 6 pick and the 1997 first-round pick (which would turn out to Ron Mercer). With the sixth pick, the Celtics selected Antoine Walker, who will have a very successful career in Boston. In five of his seven seasons in Boston, he averaged more than 20 points per game and played in three All-Star Games.
Prior to the 2003-2004 season, he would be traded to the Mavericks and would bounce back in the league over the next five years... Won with the Heat in 2006.
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The Nets almost shot the kid
With the No. 8 pick in the draft, New Jersey Nets coach John Calipari knew he wanted a winger's scorer. They were excited about the fact that they traded Derrick Coleman to Shawn Bradley in the middle of the 1995-1996 season and had a big, up-and-coming man in Jayson Williams.
The frontcourt was regrouped, but the backcourt was a mess. They also traded Kenny Anderson to the Charlotte Hornets in exchange for Kendall Gill, but Gill played just 11 games before his hand injury. The two options Kalipari is considering are Kerry Kittles, who is Villanova's all-time best scorer and won the Big East Player of the Year in 1995, or a high school student named Kobe Bryant. The Nets picked something more reliable at Kitters.
Kittles began his career with a blast, averaging 16.4 points per game as a rookie and averaging 17.2 points per game in the following season. After that, a knee injury plagued him, and he played only eight seasons in the league before retiring. He was a key role player for the Nets' back-to-back Eastern Conference championships in 2002 and 2003.
A series of busts
After the Boston Celtics picked Antoine Walker with the 6th overall pick, the draft was in a fairly calm situation. Lorenzen Wright (Clippers), Kittles, Samaki Walker (Mavericks), Erick Dampier (Pacers), Todd Fuller (Warriors) and Vitaly Potapenko (Cavaliers) were drafted from the No. 7 to No. 12 positions, none of which made it to the All-Star Game. Kitters, who ranked No. 8, was the most successful of the group (averaging 14 points per game in his career), but only lasted eight seasons. Dampier, Wright and Walker will have long careers, mostly as a substitute for big men.
The six players have scored a total of 27,871 points in their NBA careers. That would be 5,772 fewer than the one in 13th place.
Hornets draft draft Kobe Bryant, ranked 13th
The best player in this draft wasn't selected until the unfortunate 13th pick, and it was created by a team he wouldn't even play for. The Charlotte Hornets used the draft pick to select high school guard Kobe Bryant and traded him to the Lakers in exchange for Vlad Divac. The deal was all but rejected because Divac threatened to retire instead of going to Charlotte. He compromised, and all that was left was history.
Bryant won the championship with the Lakers 5 times, 18 times was selected as an All-Star, 4 times to the All-Star MVP, 12 times to the all-defensive team, and was named to the MVP in 2008. He and Shaquille O'Neal make up one of the deadliest duos in NBA history, the last triple-header in league history to date. His "mamba mentality" inspired people from all walks of life and became the foundation of many NBA stars today.
On January 26, 2020, Bryant died with his daughter and seven others in a helicopter crash. He was 41 years old.
Peja Stojakovic ranked 14th
With the genius of the Hall of Fame being drafted in this draft, one tends to forget how good Peja Stojakovich was. Although Stojakovic was selected with the 13th pick in 1996, he did not play in the NBA until 1999. After several seasons as a role player, he exploded in the 2000-2001 season as the Kings became title contenders and rivals for the Shaker-Bryant Lakers. While Sacramento can't reach the Finals, Peja is emerging as one of the league's best goalscorers. His best season was 2003-2004, where he set career-high scoring (he ranked second in the league with 24 points) and rebounds (6.3) while shooting 43 percent from three-point range and 92.7 percent from the field.
After eight seasons with the Kings, Stojakovic was traded to the Pacers. Before signing with the Dallas Mavericks in the 2010-2011 season, he bounced around with the New Orleans Hornets and Toronto Raptors. He will come off the bench to play for a Mavericks team that won an NBA championship. Stojakovic will retire after the series.
Steve Nash was ranked 15th
When the Suns used the 15th overall pick in the draft, Steve Nash wasn't very famous. Born in South Africa, raised in Canada and attending college in Santa Clara, Nash wasn't a very popular choice for Suns fans... Especially since they already have Kevin Johnson and Sam Cassel as point guards.
Nash is a slow correlation construct. After two years on the bench at Phoenix and starting in 67 games in Dallas, Nash made great strides in the 2000-2001 season. With Dirk Nowitzki, Nash became one of the best point guards in the All-Star and league. Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was reluctant to give Nash the long-term contract he wanted, nash returned to Phoenix as a free agent.
As the Suns, Nash will win back-to-back MVP awards in 2005 and 2006 and put the team on the cusp of the Finals every year. He's never made it to the Finals because the Suns' offensive style (which is now the norm) isn't as reliable in the playoffs. After a time with the Lakers plagued by injuries, Nash retired in 2015.
Another high school phenomenon was chosen
Remember, high school players going straight into the draft was something new in 1996. While most people are focused on Kevin Garnett breaking down barriers, becoming the first high school guard in the 1996 draft with Kobe Bryant in 1995, Jermaine O'Neal is another prep stud who went straight into the pros. O'Neill's career wasn't as accomplished as KG or Kobe Bryant's and it took some time to get started, but he ended up becoming a six-time All-Star.
He started out as a deep and talented bench player for the Portland Trail Blazers before being traded to Dale Davis, Indiana. O'Neal is replacing a key gear for the Pacers, who have just reached the Finals, but he quickly won the support of fans as he finally showed his commitment. Over the course of four years, he became a 20+ppg scorer, but injuries and ugly "malice in the palace" prevented the Pacers from returning to the Finals. Before retiring, O'Neal would bounce back in the NBA for five other teams. From the very beginning of the establishment of the Big Three, he has become one of the spokesmen for it.
John Wallace sat in the waiting area
There are always people who miss out in the draft, leaving fans and prospects confused about what happened. In 1996, the player was John Wallace of Syracuse. Looking back, Wallace's loss in the draft (he will eventually finish 18th to the Knicks) is a sign of how the NBA draft has changed.
Sure, the lowerclassmen were early, but in '96 we saw a bunch of freshmen, sophomores, two high school students and several international players before being brought to Wallace — a four-year player who had just led his team to the NCAA Championship Championship.
Wallace spent a long time in the waiting area because his contemporaries, as well as the aforementioned high school and international players, were selected before him... Some even went back to the green room to support him.
Of course, he played seven seasons in the NBA for just five different teams, averaging 7.6 points and 2.8 rebounds per game in his career, which made it wise for scouts to decide to pass to him. In fact, of the 17 players before Wallace, only Todd Fuller had a shorter career.
After the Knicks chose Wallace at age 18, they turned around and chose 19-year-old Walter McCarty, Kentucky.
McCarty's Wildcats beat Wallace's Oranges in the National Championship (Wallace scored 29 points in that game; McCarty has 4), but now the two will be linked, with hopes the Knicks' two forwards in the coming years. Of course, they didn't spend long together because the two were traded in October after the rookie season — McCarty was traded to rival Celtics, while Wallace was traded to the Raptors.
Large Z
With the 20th pick, the Cleveland Cavaliers selected Tsedrunus Ilgoskas from Lithuania. The Lithuanian national basketball team rose to prominence on the world stage after gaining independence in 1990. They won bronze at the legendary 1992 Summer Olympics (they will also take bronze at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics) and silver at the 1995 European Basketball Championships.
Il Goskas averaged 20 points per game for Atletico before being drafted by Cleveland. His career was both successful (new show team, two All-Star nods, career 13 and 7.3 points) and limited (leg and foot injuries plagued him). LeBron James did have a decent performance during his initial spell with the Cavaliers — a point highlighted on the 2007 NBA Finals trip.
In the No. 20 position, Il Goskas was the latest draft pick in 1996 and averaged double-digit career scoring.
Save the fish at the end of the first round
The final nine draft picks are all over the place for guys who haven't lasted (Roy Rogers, Donta Jones, Evsimius Lenzias and Martin Mussep) or... WITH ALL DUE, No. 26 chose Junkyard Dog Jerome Williams, a relatively insignificant career (Travis Knight, Brian Evans, Lauderdale Reverend). There is one major exception: Derek Fisher.
Fisher was known as a tough body defender at Arkansas-Little Rock and could be a useful combination defender for the next level.
With the Lakers landing Kobe Bryant in a trade with Charlotte... Their line-up was torn apart by an offload contract to sign Shaquille O'Neal... Fisher is the kind of player who thinks strongly and can play for a high-profile team with high-profile teammates.
Fisher won five NBA championships with the Lakers, first as a key role player and occasional starter for the 2000-2002 triple-title team, then as a cold guard and a big hand for the 2009-2010 back-to-back championship team. He will play 18 seasons in the NBA for the Lakers, Warriors, Jazz, Mavericks and Thunder.
Second round of discoveries
Diamonds (or at least some very beautiful gems) can always be found in the second round of the NBA draft – check out the top second overall pick and 2021 MVP Nikola Jokic as an example. While the second round of the 1996 draft didn't feature mvP-caliber geniuses, there were a few who lasted quite some time in the league.
Oserra Harrington (No. 30) played 12 seasons, and his best season was with the Vancouver Grizzlies. Moochie Norris (No. 33) has a 9-year career, most notably on the Rockets. Jeff McInnis (No. 37), Randy Livingston (No. 42), Malik Rose (No. 44) and Shandon Anderson (No. 44) all have solid NBA careers.
Eleven of the 29 second-round picks have never played in the NBA.
Not inducted into the Hall of Fame
One candidate who was not selected in 1996 was Ben Wallace of the Virginia League. Wallace would find a spot in the Washington Bullets, slowly accumulating time as a defensive presence in the paint. In 1999, he was traded to the Orlando Magic, where he started 81 games.
A season later, he will be trading with Chucky Atkins (another player who was not selected in 1996) to the Pistons, a deal that sent Grant Hill to Orlando.
Apparently, he became an All-Star player in Detroit. He has won defensive player of the year four times, been selected to all-NBA teams five times, won two rebounding championships, two Eastern Conference championships and a 2004 NBA championship. In September, he will be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
He was also a key figure in one of the ugliest moments in the league's history: malice in the palace. The Pistons' brawl with the Pacers began when Wallace was seriously fouled by Ron Artest, Indiana. Wallace was enraged and threw his autograph headband at Artest, after which Pistons fans began throwing things at the Pacers' players. Soon after, there was a terrible quarrel between the players and the fans in the stands.