The Biggest NBA Draft Steals of All Time: Late Picks Turned Stars

The biggest NBA draft steals of all time are the mirror image of every bust - the players picked long after the cameras stopped paying attention who went on to win MVPs, Finals MVPs, and Defensive Player of the Year awards. Nikola Jokić was announced as the 41st pick in 2014 while a Taco Bell commercial filled the screen. Jalen Brunson waited until 33rd in 2018, and in June 2026 he was holding the Bill Russell Trophy in San Antonio. This list covers the back end of the first round and all of the second, the part of the draft where franchises stop paying for certainty and start guessing. Undrafted players have their own list, so they are left out here. Every name below heard it called on draft night, watched dozens of other names go first, and still built a career that most of the lottery never touched.

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What Makes a Draft Steal?

The definition is the bust formula run in reverse. Draft slot - a #5 pick who becomes an All-Star met expectations; a #35 pick who does it beat them by a mile. Peak production - not just a long career, but hardware: MVPs, Finals MVPs, All-NBA teams, Defensive Player of the Year awards, and titles won as a central piece rather than a passenger. The size of the miss - how many franchises passed. That is why this list starts at the back of the first round. Giannis Antetokounmpo at #15 in 2013 and Kobe Bryant at #13 in 1996 were brilliant picks, but they came off the board where teams still expect a starter. The players below came from the range where teams are mostly hoping for a backup.

Nikola Jokić - #41, 2014, Denver Nuggets

The biggest steal in NBA history, and it isn't especially close. Denver took Jokić 41st in 2014, a selection most viewers never saw because the broadcast was running a Taco Bell Quesarito ad with his name crawling along the bottom of the screen. Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, and Joel Embiid went 1-2-3. Jokić stayed in Serbia with Mega for one more season and didn't play an NBA game until 2015-16. Then he became the lowest draft pick ever to win MVP - and won it three times, in 2021, 2022, and 2024. In 2023 he led the Nuggets to the first championship in franchise history, beating Miami in five games and taking Finals MVP with 30.2 points, 14.0 rebounds, and 7.2 assists per game, which made him the lowest pick ever to win that award too. In 2024-25 he averaged 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds, and 10.2 assists, joining Oscar Robertson and Russell Westbrook as the only players to average a triple-double over a season - then did it again in 2025-26. Forty names came off the board before his. The ad got more airtime.

Manu Ginobili - #57, 1999, San Antonio Spurs

The 57th pick in 1999 was a second-round flier on an Argentine guard playing in Italy, and only one name came off the board after his. The Spurs didn't bring him over until 2002. What they got was a 16-season career spent entirely in San Antonio: four championships (2003, 2005, 2007, 2014), the 2008 Sixth Man of the Year award, All-Star selections in 2005 and 2011, and All-NBA Third Team nods in 2008 and 2011. Along the way he led Argentina to Olympic gold in 2004. In 2022 he entered the Hall of Fame as a first-ballot inductee, the first Argentine player ever enshrined. His raw numbers undersell him by design. San Antonio regularly brought him off the bench to anchor the second unit, which kept his minutes modest while his impact on winning was enormous. He is the rare player who is both a Sixth Man of the Year and a Hall of Famer - from the next-to-last pick of the draft.

Dennis Rodman - #27, 1986, Detroit Pistons

Rodman's route to the NBA ran through Southeastern Oklahoma State, an NAIA school, where he averaged 25.7 points and 15.7 rebounds. He was already 25 when Detroit took him 27th overall, in the second round of a draft whose first round ended at #24. The Pistons got the most relentless rebounder of his generation. Rodman won back-to-back Defensive Player of the Year awards in 1990 and 1991, led the league in rebounding for seven straight seasons from 1992 through 1998, made the All-Defensive First Team seven times, and won five championships - two in Detroit and three more in Chicago alongside Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. He entered the Hall of Fame in 2011. Few Hall of Famers have built a career on so little scoring, and almost none started from a small-college campus and a second-round slot.

Jalen Brunson - #33, 2018, Dallas Mavericks

The newest name on the list, and the one who just rewrote it. Brunson arrived as a two-time NCAA champion at Villanova and the 2018 national player of the year, and 32 players still went ahead of him. Dallas took him 33rd. In 2022 he signed with New York for four years and $104 million, and the results came quickly: All-Star selections in 2024, 2025, and 2026, three straight All-NBA Second Team nods, and the 2025 Clutch Player of the Year award. Then came June 2026. Brunson averaged 32.6 points against San Antonio in the Finals - the highest Finals scoring average ever by a point guard - and closed the series with 45 points in Game 5 as the Knicks won their first championship since 1973. He was the unanimous Finals MVP and the second-lowest draft pick ever to win it, behind only Jokić. Only four players listed at 6-foot-2 or shorter have won the award: Stephen Curry, Isiah Thomas, Tony Parker, and now the 33rd pick of 2018.

Tony Parker - #28, 2001, San Antonio Spurs

Two years after Ginobili, the Spurs went back to the international market and found their point guard with the final pick of the first round. Minnesota had forfeited its selection that year, so the 2001 first round ran just 28 picks, and Parker was the 28th. He had skipped college entirely, playing two seasons for Paris Basket Racing before the draft. He became the starting point guard on four championship teams (2003, 2005, 2007, 2014) and the 2007 Finals MVP. He made six All-Star teams and four All-NBA teams - Second Team in 2012, 2013, and 2014, Third Team in 2009 - and the Spurs retired his No. 9. He entered the Hall of Fame in 2023. What makes Parker a steal rather than just a good pick is the role he grew into. San Antonio spent its last first-rounder and got the point guard who ran its offense for more than a decade, one third of the trio with Ginobili and Tim Duncan that defined the franchise's title era.

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Draymond Green - #35, 2012, Golden State Warriors

Thirty-four players went ahead of Green in 2012, starting with Anthony Davis to New Orleans at #1. Golden State took him 35th, and he became the defensive and playmaking hub of a dynasty: four championships (2015, 2017, 2018, 2022), four All-Star selections, and the 2017 Defensive Player of the Year award - the first in Warriors franchise history. Green's value never fit neatly into the numbers scouts measured in 2012. He was a forward without a classic position and not a big scorer. What he did do - switch onto anyone, call out every rotation, and push the ball into a fast break full of shooters - turned out to be precisely what the small-ball era rewarded. Few second-round picks have ever been this central to so many titles.

Dennis Johnson - #29, 1976, Seattle SuperSonics

The original late-round Finals MVP. Seattle drafted Johnson 29th in 1976, in the second round, and three years later he won 1979 Finals MVP as the SuperSonics captured the only championship in franchise history. He later won two more titles with the Celtics, in 1984 and 1986, as the backcourt defender on Larry Bird's teams. Johnson made five All-Star teams and six All-Defensive First Teams, Boston retired his No. 3, and he was enshrined in the Hall of Fame in 2010. For 44 years he held a quiet record as the lowest draft pick ever to win Finals MVP. Jokić broke it in 2023, and Brunson passed him again in 2026. That Johnson still sits third on that list is the clearest proof of how rare his career was.

Rudy Gobert - #27, 2013, Denver Nuggets

Measurables were never the question with Gobert. At the 2013 draft combine he set records for wingspan (7 feet 8.5 inches) and standing reach (9 feet 7 inches). The question was whether a raw French center could play. Denver took him 27th and traded him to Utah on draft night. Gobert went on to win Defensive Player of the Year four times - in 2018, 2019, and 2021 with the Jazz, and in 2024 with Minnesota - tying Dikembe Mutombo and Ben Wallace for the most in NBA history. The twist is that Denver drafted two of the decade's best big men in back-to-back Junes. The Nuggets gave away the 27th pick in 2013 and found Jokić 14 slots deeper in 2014. Denver had both, and kept the right one.

Marc Gasol - #48, 2007, Los Angeles Lakers

The 48th pick in 2007 was the younger brother, and he had already played high school ball in Memphis, at Lausanne Collegiate School. The Lakers drafted him in the second round, and on February 1, 2008, his rights went to Memphis in the trade that sent Pau Gasol to Los Angeles. A deal remembered as Pau's became a franchise-maker for the Grizzlies. Marc won Defensive Player of the Year in 2013 - the first Grizzly, the first Spaniard, and the first European to win it - and made the All-NBA Second Team that season and the All-NBA First Team in 2015. He was a three-time All-Star (2012, 2015, 2017), won a championship with Toronto in 2019 after a midseason trade, and saw Memphis retire his No. 33 in 2024. Not bad for the throw-in.

Jimmy Butler - #30, 2011, Chicago Bulls

Butler was the last pick of the first round in 2011, and he broke through in his fourth season, winning Most Improved Player for 2014-15. From there he became a six-time All-Star. In Game 3 of the 2020 Finals against the Lakers, he scored 40 points with 11 rebounds and 13 assists - the third 40-point triple-double in Finals history, after Jerry West in 1969 and LeBron James in 2015. In 2023 he won Eastern Conference Finals MVP as Miami became the first No. 8 seed since the 1999 Knicks to reach the Finals. There the Heat lost in five games to Denver, which meant the 2023 Finals matched the 30th pick of 2011 against the 41st pick of 2014. Neither team had spent a lottery pick on its best player.

Isaiah Thomas - #60, 2011, Sacramento Kings

Same draft as Butler, 30 picks later: the very last selection. Thomas is listed at 5-foot-9. In Boston he made the All-Star team in 2016 and 2017, becoming the lowest draft pick named an All-Star since the draft shrank to two rounds in 1989. His 2016-17 season was one of the great runs by a small guard: 28.9 points per game, third in the league, an All-NBA Second Team selection, and a fifth-place finish in MVP voting. His peak was shorter than anyone else's here, which is why he ranks last among the main entries. But for one season, the 60th pick of the draft finished in the top five of the MVP race.

Honorable Mentions

A handful of late picks sit just outside the main list:

Alex English - #23, 1976, Milwaukee Bucks. A second-round pick in the same draft as Dennis Johnson. English made eight straight All-Star teams from 1982 to 1989, won the 1982-83 scoring title, and entered the Hall of Fame in 1997.
Kyle Lowry - #24, 2006, Memphis Grizzlies. Six All-Star selections, every one of them with Toronto, and 26 points and 10 assists in the Game 6 clincher of the 2019 Finals for the Raptors' first title.
Khris Middleton - #39, 2012, Detroit Pistons. Taken four picks after Draymond Green, he became a three-time All-Star and won the 2021 championship with Milwaukee.

What These Steals Have in Common

Read the list end to end and a few patterns jump out. The international pipeline is everywhere. Jokić, Ginobili, Parker, Gobert, and Gasol - five of the eleven main entries - are international players, and Jokić and Ginobili were both left in Europe after the draft before playing an NBA minute. The draft overweights size and obvious athleticism. Brunson, Thomas, and Green all lacked the traditional profile for their positions. Late bloomers get missed. Rodman was 25 on draft night, and Butler didn't break through until his fourth season. And fit matters as much as talent. The Spurs found two Hall of Fame guards in three drafts and built a dynasty around them.

The busts list is about certainty going wrong at the top of the draft. This list is about doubt going wrong at the bottom. The 2023 Finals featured a #30 pick against a #41 pick, and the 2026 champion was led by a #33. The top of the draft still produces plenty of stars, but its best value keeps turning up in the rounds nobody watches - sometimes during a commercial break.

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