1. 1996
Hall of Famers: 5 (Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, Steve Nash, Ray Allen, Ben Wallace*)
All Stars: 11 (Bryant, Iverson, Nash, Allen, Antoine Walker, Stephon Marbury, Shareef Abdur Rahim, Peja Stojakovic, Jermaine O’Neal, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Ben Wallace)
Elite Starters: Marcus Camby, Kerry Kittles
Elite Role Players: Derek Fisher, Erick Dampier, Lorenzen Wright, Shandon Anderson
Busts: Todd Fuller (11th)
* Ben Wallace was signed as an undrafted rookie by the Washington Bullets in 1996.
Whats their case? Unprecedented elite depth. 7 different players who made All NBA. 5 players with at least 6 all star appearances. 3 different players who won MVP. 7 different players who led their teams to at least Conference Finals as a primary star. Obviously the accomplishments of Bryant, Iverson, Nash, and Allen speak for themselves, but the quality goes much further beyond them. Marcus Camby, taken 2nd overall, made 4 All Defensive Teams and won a Defensive Player of the Year award.
Shareef Abdur Rahim averaged 20 points and 7 rebounds his first 8 seasons. Stephon Marbury made two all star teams, an Olympics squad, and averaged 20 points and 8 assists for most of his career. Kerry Kittles never made an All Star team but he was an elite two guard, who entered the league scoring 16 points a game as a rookie. He was a starter for New Jersey’s two teams that reached consecutive Finals.
Then there was Antoine Walker. Walker became an All Star after his second season and seemed headed for a Hall of Fame career. With Paul Pierce he led the Celtics to a Conference Finals in 2002. He began to fall in love with the three pointer and his career suffered, even though he made the All Star team twice more. Eventually he bounced around 4 teams in 2 years, resurfacing as the third leading scorer on the 2005-2006 Champion Miami Heat.
Jermaine O’Neal had perhaps the most challenging career of any prominent player in recent years. As only the third high schooler drafted in the modern era, O’Neal spent the first four years of his career stuck behind young All Star Rasheed Wallace who was drafted just a year before him. O’Neal then was traded to Indiana where he made 6 consecutive All Star appearances before being hit with knee injuries. What looked like a sure Hall of Fame career was derailed.
These trials and tribulations are part of why I put this class at the top. The NBA was changing overnight and as a result younger players than ever before were being expected to contribute. The league added 6 teams from 1989 to 1996, often jettisoning players like Abdur Rahim, Camby, and Marbury into woeful expansion team situations with little hope to win. Players like Bryant, Nash, and O’Neal had to sit early in their careers before getting their chance.
At the end of the day, the 1996 class changed the game, it won big, and expanded the concept of longevity in the NBA. Its the only draft in history where different players ruled their class at different times. First Iverson, Marbury, and Walker were the best, then Bryant, Nash, and O’Neal. At the end of the day, Bryant holds the crown, but few remember that Allen Iverson was for a time the league’s marquee star behind Michael Jordan. No other class can match that kind of juice.