5 lesser known second round picks who made it big in the NBA
We all know how Isaiah Thomas shocked the league last season by entering MVP talks as the last pick in the draft. We know about players like Manu Ginobili (57th pick) and Draymond Green (35th pick) who despite getting overlooked early on in their career, established themselves as top players in the league and eventually became NBA champions. But who all are the other established players in the league who almost didn't make it to the NBA?
There are a ton of other such players and here we give you the top 5 of those NBA stars who you didn't know were late second-round draft picks.
Honorable Mentions:
- Monta Ellis (40th pick, 2005) - NBA Most Improved Player 2007
- Lou Williams (45th pick, 2005) - NBA Sixth Man of the Year 2015
- Patrick Beverley (42nd pick, 2009) - NBA All-Defensive First Team 2017
#5 Kyle Korver (51st pick, 2003)
If there's one thing Kyle Korver has been doing all his life, it's shooting the long ball with ridiculous reliability. Korver was picked 51st overall in the 2003 NBA draft by the New Jersey Nets. He shot at a rate of 39.1% from deep in his rookie year, before improving even more and dropping a league-high 226 3s in just his second year in the league, cementing himself as one of the best three-point shooters of all time.
Korver finished the 2009-10 season hitting 53.6 percent of his three-point shots to secure the NBA's single-season accuracy record. He earned an All-Star spot in 2015 when he was a member of the Atlanta Hawks. He averaged 12 points a game while leading the league in three-point percentage at 49.2% that year, a feat he has achieved 3 more times in his career so far.
Korver's ability to stretch the floor is deadly, to say the least, and at 36, he's still doing it like a boss.