Second-Round Lottery Tickets: 3 Players Who Can Beat the NBA's Worst Odds

NIL or not, there's some value to be had in the second round

I love a good second round of the NBA Draft. Yes, I also enjoy the average first-round class given the greater chance of grabbing a star, but many of the players in the second round go largely unappreciated until they hit (and sometimes, even when they hit, they don’t get the recognition of lesser first-rounders).

With Summer League coming up — and I’ll be out there, so say hi if you’re around! — I figured this would be a good time to take a look at the second-rounders who may be able to catapult a great few games into an actual NBA career.

Statistically, it’s very rare for a second-rounder to play even 100 games in the NBA, let alone average over 10 points per game for an entire season. Those are the (admittedly arbitrary) markers of “success” I’ve put on second round picks, and are best visualized via the Sankey diagram below:

Note that the second round has an average of 29.7 players per class, which is because of teams historically having to forfeit picks for various punishments. I’m still counting it as 50% for the sake of the diagram.

If you’re a second-rounder, you have a 34% chance of playing at least 100 NBA games, and if you can somehow hit that mark, then you have a 40% chance of averaging over 10 PPG. All in all, that means you have about a 13.6% chance of hitting both marks — not great odds!

So the players I’m talking about today are the ones who I believe:

1. Have a good chance of hitting 100+ games due to team construction and overall play

2. Have an above-average chance of being able to score at the NBA level, clearing that 10+ PPG mark in a season

In other words, I’m betting on a 13.6% chance for each of these guys, and while it is nigh impossible to hit on all of them, hitting on at least one would feel like a win.

Let’s start with your yearly Miami role player classic…