Kentucky, Kansas, and Duke Have Dominated the NBA Draft over Last Decade

The Kentucky Wildcats had six players drafted in Thursday night’s NBA Draft, tying a record for most drafted in one year. That has been hardly an anomaly under John Calipari. Duke, meanwhile, had three players drafted in the top 24 picks, while Kansas (Oubre) had a down year, only by its standards.

Those three programs, though, have dominated the NBA Draft in a way rarely seen. Using the data accumulated for this post comparing the NBA Draft to the NFL Draft in terms of talent distribution, I made a point value for each draft slot.

For the drafts from 2006 to 2015, Kentucky accounted for 6.7% of all NBA Draft value. Kansas and Duke came in a near virtual tie, at 4.3% each. The next programs (Connecticut, North Carolina, and Arizona) each came in under 3.0%.

Of course, another factor is that approximately 14% of all NBA picks over the same time period have been players who never played in college, almost all foreign-born players. Once you remove those players, the three top basketball programs have accounted for 17.6% of all NBA Draft value from college programs.

For comparison, the top NCAA football program over the same time period (USC) has accounted for 3.5% and the top three programs (USC, LSU, Alabama) have made up less than 10% of all college talent going pro.