The second round can seem like an afterthought on NBA draft night.
Start with the fluid nature of the round’s order; entering draft week, more than 60% (17 of 28) of the upcoming second-round picks have already been traded, with another two (Milwaukee and Miami) forfeited for free-agent tampering. Add in that the commissioner never sticks around, contracts aren’t guaranteed and picks are announced rapidly — just two minutes allowed for each selection — and it’s easy to overlook the importance of the round, especially by the time the Detroit Pistons will make their selection, at No. 46.
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Still, the No. 46 spot has produced plenty of talent over the years, with 24 of the 70 players taken there appearing in at least 80 NBA games in their career, including a healthy dose of players who played key roles on championship teams. That covers Danny Green, the 2009 Cavs pick who went on to win titles with three different teams, and Matt Barnes, the 2002 Grizzlies pick who contributed to the Warriors’ 2017 title. But neither made the cut for the most notable No. 46 picks in NBA draft history. Our list:
Too soon to tell
OK, maybe they’re not notable yet. But the jury’s still out on this trio from the past three drafts …
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2021: Dalano Banton, Raptors — An improbable pick after averaging just 9.6 points and 5.9 rebounds a game for a bad Nebraska squad, the hometown kid stuck with the Raps for 64 games and earned a spot in the highlight reels with a halfcourt 3-pointer in Toronto’s first game in Canada in nearly two years.
He averaged only 3.2 points, 1.9 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 10.9 minutes a game, but his seven games with the Raptors’ G League affiliate suggest some potential: 24.1 points, 8.9 rebounds and 5.9 assists per game.
2020: CJ Elleby, Trail Blazers — An All-Pac-12 first-team selection, the Seattle native averaged 18.4 points a game despite shooting just 33.9% on 3s in his final season at Washington State. The small forward’s minutes were minimal in 2020-21 as the Blazers pushed for the playoffs.
But in 2021-22, as Portland rebuilt around Damian Lillard — tanking? Who said tanking? — Elleby started 28 of his 30 appearances, averaging 7.7 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 28.7 minutes a game. Unfortunately for the Blazers, he still hasn’t found the 3-point stroke that saw him shoot 41.4% as a freshman: In 88 career NBA games, he has hit 27.5% from beyond the arc.
2019: Talen Horton-Tucker, Magic — A top-50 prospect coming out of high school, Horton-Tucker underperformed at Iowa State, averaging 11.8 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 27.2 minutes a game for the Cyclones. The Lakers acquired him from the Magic on draft night, and his first two seasons, in which he averaged 8.7 points, 2.6 assists and one steal in 19.5 minutes a game (with the Lakers winning the 2020 title), convinced them to give him a three-year, $30.8 million extension despite trading for veteran point guard Russell Westbrook as part of last season’s general disaster.
Horton-Tucker had his games last season, including a 40-pointer in the final week of the season, but he was also dangled at the trade deadline before the Lakers decided to stand pat.
Productive pieces
They’re not quite household names, but they played key roles with playoff contenders last season …
2018: De’Anthony Melton, Rockets — The former USC star appeared to find his niche in his third season with the Grizzlies, his third NBA team. (He was dealt from Houston to Phoenix two months after the draft, as the sweetener to get the Suns to eat Ryan Anderson’s contract, and averaged just five points and 3.2 assists in 19.7 minutes a game as a rookie before the Suns shipped him to the Grizz in a deal for Kyle Korver.)
Last season, he averaged 10.8 points, 4.5 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.4 steals in just 22.7 minutes a game; his steal percentage (3.0) was second in the league, behind only Philly’s Matisse Thybulle (3.4) and his defensive rating of 106.6 put him among the league’s top 20 defenders.
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2015: Norman Powell, Bucks — It’s like that story about the Canadian trading his way from a red paperclip to a house, but with Raptors GM Masai Ujiri, who sent backup guard Greivis Vazquez to Milwaukee for the 2015 No. 46 pick and a 2017 first-rounder (which became OG Anunoby).
Powell developed slowly under the tutelage of Toronto coaches Dwane Casey and Nick Nurse, averaging 7.1 points in 16.8 minutes a game over his first three seasons. Over the past three seasons, spent with the Raptors, Blazers and LA Clippers, Powell has boomed, averaging 17.9 points in 30 minutes a game while shooting 41% from 3-point range.
2014: Jordan Clarkson, Wizards — Traded on draft night to the Lakers, the Missouri product clicked right away as a backup with 11.9 points, 3.2 rebounds and 3.5 assists in 25 minutes a game en route to making the All-Rookie first team.
After several solid but not outstanding seasons with the Lakers, Cavs and Jazz, Clarkson had a career year in 2020-21, averaging 18.4 points over 68 games to win the Sixth Man of the Year award with Utah.
Cream of the crop
They’re not headed to the Hall of Fame, but if there were a Hall of Very Good …
1986: Jeff Hornacek, Suns — The pick used on the Iowa State guard was filtered from the Lakers and Clippers through the Pistons in a three-team deal in 1983 that landed David Thirdkill in Detroit. He played a total of 56 games for the Pistons (while averaging 1.9 points a game); Hornacek’s time with the Suns was slightly more effective, though it took him several seasons to develop.
He went from 5.3 points, 2.3 rebounds and 4.5 assists a game as a rookie in 1986-87 to 20.1, 5.0 and 5.1, respectively, in his sixth season, when he made the All-Star team for the only time. Still, his greatest value to the Suns might have come the following offseason, when he was dealt to Philadelphia as part of the package for Charles Barkley, who took the Suns to their second NBA Finals. Hornacek wrapped up his career with the Jazz and finished with 14.5 points and 4.9 assists per game in 1,077 appearances.
1984: Jerome Kersey, Trail Blazers — Portland’s ’84 draft will always be remembered for who they didn’t pick, as the Blazers opted for Kentucky’s Sam Bowie at No. 2 overall instead of Michael Jordan. But Kersey turned out to be a solid consolation prize, breaking through in his third season with 12.3 points and six rebounds a game.
His best season came in 1987-88, when he averaged 19.2 points and 8.3 rebounds a game. With Kersey as the No. 3 option (behind Clyde Drexler and Terry Porter), the Blazers made the NBA’s final four in 1990, ’91 and ’92, losing in the Finals to the Pistons in ’90 and the Bulls in ’92. Kersey didn’t get a ring with the Blazers, but he finally nabbed one deep into the journeyman portion of his career with 45 games off the bench for the 1998-99 San Antonio Spurs.
1977: James Edwards, Lakers — The Washington alumnus known as “Buddha” in Detroit had a bumpy start to his career, starting 20 of his first 21 games in the league after starting center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar broke his hand in a fight. He averaged 17.1 points and 8.2 rebounds for the pre-Showtime Lakers, only to be traded to Indiana in December when teammate Kermit Washington sucker-punched Michigan alumnus (and Hamtramck native) Rudy Tomjanovich, drawing a lengthy suspension and forcing the Lakers to deal for Adrian Dantley.
Still, Edwards produced for the Pacers (15.9 points, 7.5 boards a game) over four seasons until he hit free agency. He signed with the Cavs right as their disastrous run under owner Ted Stepien began in 1981 — but was spared after a season and a half when Stepien needed cash and dealt Edwards to the Suns for $425,000. After parts of six seasons with Phoenix, in which he still turned in nearly 15 points a game while the Suns settled into mediocrity, he was rescued in a February 1988 trade to the Pistons. He received backup minutes that season as the Pistons made the NBA Finals, and the following season, when they won their first title, then stepped back into a starting role for the 1989-90 season, with 14.5 points over 27.8 minutes a game in 82 appearances (70 starts) as the Pistons repeated as champs.
Perhaps the decade-plus journey to the top made it all worth it, as Edwards told the Free Press after the Pistons swept the Lakers, his former team, in the 1989 Finals: “We had depth, we had determination, we had everything! And now? Now there’s no feeling like it. We are the world champions. … And this makes up for it all.”
Contact Ryan Ford at rford@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @theford.