I guess it's also debatable how good of an NBA prospect Barlow was. I can't imagine that some NBA team wouldn't have given a #23 overall pick a fair shot sometime in the first few years after he was drafted. But the fact is, he was the second-to-last pick in the first round, so he was hardly a can't-miss prospect. The Warriors didn't seem that impressed with him after they got his rights. Again, I guess once he had been out of sight for a couple of years, Barlow just wasn't a hot enough commodity for NBA teams to go to much effort to lure him back.

It's too bad Barlow's relationship with the Hawks deteriorated the way it did, setting in motion the events that prevented him from getting his shot at the NBA right away. By the time he got free of the Hawks, his window had closed, for a combination of reasons, some probably the Hawks' fault, some not.

And, yeah, the numbers are probably off a little based on weird circumstances where guys were drafted but didn't play, or went by a different name during their McDAA days, etc. I'm just going to go class-by-class and sort by Win Shares, so if you see more data discrepancies, definitely let us know.

Re: Cormac - You're right, the MLB draft isn't a perfect analogy, because they're not all high-schoolers, I was just trying to find some frame of reference in another sport for comparison's sake. There really isn't a great analogue in any of the other big 3 pro sports: hockey is a lot like baseball, a mix of college kids and teens, but the top teenagers play for junior teams that act as a feeder system to the NHL, so it's not really comparable; meanwhile, football's draftees are all college players. But the important thing to take away from all this is that it's basically a 50-50 crapshoot as to whether or not one of the 24 best high school basketball players is going to stay in that elite group after 4 years have gone by.

Another oddity is that there is at least one player on the list who was a 1st round pick but never actually played in the NBA: Ken Barlow. Barlow was drafted 23rd overall by the Lakers in 1986, then had his rights traded to Atlanta on draft day in what was probably a pre-arranged deal. He signed to play overseas, and would never play in the NBA.

There's more to the story, however. Barlow became involved in a dispute with Atlanta concerning whether the Hawks had made sufficient effort to sign him. This wasn't all in Barlow's mind; the Hawks appear to have had no particular use for him and presumably took him just because he was the best player available when their pick came up. Barlow asked the Hawks to relinquish his rights, but they refused. They seemingly didn't want to spend a roster spot on him, but didn't want to just give him away for nothing. The Hawks reportedly tried to trade Barlow's rights during both the 1986 and 1987 off-seasons, but couldn't work out a deal they liked. Barlow eventually became involved in legal action challenging the validity of the NBA draft and salary cap.

Atlanta finally traded Barlow's rights to Golden State during the 1987-88 season in exchange for Chris Washburn. IIRC, a Warriors official would later say the team had no special interest in Barlow but was really just trying to unload Washburn. Barlow played for Golden State's summer league team the following offseason but was apparently hampered by injuries and did not get an invitation to trianing camp. He went back overseas and I'm not sure if ever made a serious attempt to get into the NBA after that.

(also, there are many players very successful in high school or college sports whose games aren't built for the big show. think eric crouch. but it doesn't mean he wasn't good in college)