Are High School Rankings a Ticket to the NBA?

Photo by Isaiah Rustad on Unsplash

So you’re telling me there’s a chance?

YES. A really good one. 

If you’re a nationally ranked high school player, the odds are in your favor to make it to the league. With a myriad of high school scouting and ranking services, it has become a cottage industry. For the purposes of this article we will look at the top 15 players in ESPN’s rankings for the past 10 NBA draft-eligible classes (2009-2018). With this criteria, nearly 75% of nationally ranked prospects became NBA draft choices. And most importantly, from a player’s perspective, 62% of them were first-round draft picks. And we all know what that translates to: guaranteed millions 🤑.

Of the subset we looked at, the most successful group was the class of 2016, where 13 of the top 15 players (87%) were first-round picks. The top five ranked players that year were: 1. Harry Giles, 2. Josh Jackson, 3. Jayson Tatum, 4. Lonzo Ball and 5. Bam Adebayo. The worst year was 2015, where just 6 of the players were eventually taken in the first round.

While the evidence is pretty clear that being a nationally ranked prospect can help punch your ticket to the NBA, it certainly doesn’t translate into success or stardom once you get there. For the 10-year period, only 13 of the 150 players have become NBA All Stars - Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Joel Embiid, Bradley Beal, Andre Drummond, Ben Simmons, Karl-Anthony Towns, Bam Adebayo,  Brandon Ingram, D’Angelo Russell and Jayson Tatum.

Only seven guys (less than 5%) have been named to an All-NBA team - Davis, Irving, Wall, Cousins, Embiid, Drummond and Towns. Just four have earned Rookie of the Year honors - Irving, Simmons, Towns, and Andrew Wiggins. While several of these players are on the right path, one could argue that only Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving have truly reached superstar status. And even so, their ultimate impact has been, unfortunately, limited by injuries.

There’s still hope for highly ranked players that go undrafted as well. Basketball is still paying the bills for players such as Trevon Duval (#6 - 2017), Cliff Alexander (#3 - 2014), Kaleb Tarczewski (#4 - 2012), Aaron Harrison (#9 - 2013), and James McAdoo (#6 - 2011) who have earned NBA roster spots as free agents or carved out successful playing careers in the G-League or internationally.

If the NBA draft often mirrors the high school rankings, one has to wonder why NBA teams spend so much time and effort scouting these players. You can certainly make (catastrophic) mistakes by simply following the high school rankings (i.e. taking Jahlil Okafor over Karl-Anthony Towns), but if you are looking to land a franchise type player, you might be better served focusing more resources on identifying lesser known collegians and international players.

While highly ranked high school prospects such as LeBron James, Kevin Durant, James Harden and Blake Griffin became NBA stars, the All-NBA teams of the past decade have included more under-the-radar guys like Steph Curry, Damian Lilliard, Russell Westbrook, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. Not to mention international stars like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic, Rudy Gobert, Pau and Marc Gasol and inevitably Luka Doncic.

If the pattern continues, then the likes of Jalen Green, Evan Mobley, Cade Cunningham, Scottie Barnes and Jalen Suggs (ESPN’s top five ranked players in this year’s high school class) can pretty much bank on cashing a check from Adam Silver in the not-so-distant future. But an invitation to the All-Star game? They may just have to buy a ticket like the rest of us.