The NBA is never a sure thing, even for the number one pick. But over the last 25 years, the number eight pick has had a curse. Can Jaxson Hayes break that curse?
The NBA draft was held at the Barclay’s Center on Thursday night. To no one’s surprise, the New Orleans Pelicans selected Zion Williamson with the first pick. Williamson was the consensus number one player coming out and the Pelicans held true and picked him. But the team used their other top-10 pick on project big man Jaxson Hayes as well, at No. 8 overall.
Williamson looks like a good bet to be a very good to great NBA player, but the number one pick isn’t always a sure thing. Take Anthony Bennet and Kwame Brown as a couple of examples. But more time than not the number one pick turns into a great pick.
Normally even the top five picks have a pretty good chance of becoming a very good NBA player. But something happens when you get to pick number eight. In one of the weirder stats in the last 25 years, no eight pick of the draft has ever made the NBA All-Star game.
For reference, the 10th picks have made 40 All-Star games and the ninth pick has made 33. So why has the eighth pick faired so poorly?
First let’s look at the last 25 picks in the eight spot and then we can see if the most recent eighth pick, Jaxson Hayes, can break that curse.
Last 25 eighth picks
1994 – Brian Grant
1995 – Shawn Respert
1996 – Kerry Kittles
1997 – Adonal Foyle
1998 – Larry Hughes
1999 – Andre Miller
2000 – Jamal Crawford
2001- Dasagna Diop Oak Hill Academy
2002 – Chris Wilcox
2003 – TJ Ford
2004 – Rafael Araujo
2005 – Channing Frye
2006 – Rudy Gay
2007 – Brandan Wright
2008 – Joe Alexander
2009 – Jordan Hill
2010 – Al-Farouq Aminu
2011 – Brandon Knight
2012 – Terrence Rose
2013 – Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
2014 – Nik Staukus
2015 – Stanley Johnson
2016 – Marquese Chriss
2017 – Frank Ntilikina
2018 – Collin Sexton
If you are like me, you probably don’t even remember at least half of these guys. The most recent guys still have a chance, but even then it still doesn’t look great. Nik Staukus has already played for about 15 different teams (that is an exaggeration, but you get the point).
The jury is still out on Collin Sexton and he could possibly be an All-Star in the future, but besides him, it doesn’t look great.
Jamal Crawford and Rudy Gay have been considered some of the better players to never make an All-Star game and they were able to have a really good career. But even with that, the eighth pick has not been kind to the players or teams that have selected them.
The Atlanta Hawks were supposed to have the eighth pick in this years draft, but they obviously knew about this stat and traded that pick to the Pelicans to move up to the four spot. The Pelicans, on the other hand, felt so good about getting Williamson that the stat did not scare them off. With that eight pick, they took Texas center Jaxson Hayes in a bit of a surprise. So does he have what it takes to break the curse?