When it comes to the NBA Draft, the higher your team gets to select is commiserate with the talent of the player you can choose. Generally speaking, lottery picks have a higher ceiling, are more talented, and have the potential of becoming an all-star, a superstar, or if you’re lucky, a Hall of Famer.

The best 1-2-3 NBA Draft picks ever?

Having one of the top three picks puts you in good position to get a very good player. The odds are high at thienhabet that at least one of those draft picks will end up being an NBA legend, if not a couple of them.

That got us thinking about which NBA Drafts classes had the best first three picks. The only requirement to be listed is that each player drafted in those first three picks of that class must have appeared in at least one all-star game. Here’s the 10 best NBA Draft classes that had all-stars as the 1-2-3 picks.

#10 (2016)

#9 (1999)

#8 (1966)

#7 (1981)

#6 (1994)

#5 (1982)

#4 (1968)

#3 (1970)

#2 (1960)

#1 (1992)

As you can see there were a couple handful of drafts where each of the first three picks ended up all-stars, but more often than not, it was one or two superstars, followed by a one-time all-star. To our surprise, not one draft class in the history of the NBA draft had three superstars in top three picks.

So which was the best?

The best 1-2-3 class then? The short of it is there really isn’t a clear cut winner.

The closest that the first three picks ended up being perenial all-stars were the 1968, 1970 and 1981 drafts where all three players selected in the top three had at least three all-star appearances. The 1970 picks were the only draft where the #1 (Bob Lanier), #2 (Rudy Tomjonovich), and #3 (Pete Maravich) picks ended up being Hall of Famers. That said, none of them won championships as players and Tomjonovich made the Hall from a combination of his playing days and 11 seasons of coaching the Houston Rockets.

Based on all-star appearances (23), Hall 0f Famers (2) and championships (5), the 1992 class of Shaq, Zo’ and Laettner is the most-rounded. Yes, Shaq carries this draft class with 15 all-star appearances and four of the five championships, but Mourning’s seven all-star games and one NBA championship measures up well. Dragging his class down is one-time all-star Laettner’s uneven NBA career.

The other consideration was the 1960 draft which yielded all-time legends and Hall of Famers in Oscar Robertson at #1 and Jerry West at #2.  Big O was a 12x all-star and West was a 14x all-star. Both won just one championship when they were paired with dominant centers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain. West’s appeared in nine NBA Finals; winning just one for a 1-8 record in the championship series.

Who’s next?

With Ben Simmons, Brandon Ingram and Jaylen Brown, the 2016 class is off to a good start. The same goes with the newer 2019 class is relatively fresh as of this article, but the first three picks have the potential of becoming one of the best 1-2-3 picks in history of the league. Zion Williamson already has an all-star game under his belt, Ja Morant is destined to be an all-star, and RJ Barrett has flashed potential to becoming a star, but as with all of the drafts before them, time and consistency will tell.