New Orleans Pelicans: Best players taken with the 8th pick

The New Orleans Pelicans have the 8th pick in the 2022 NBA Draft, a slot that has produced a lot of good role players, but not too many stars.

The Pelicans have plenty of options for the 8th pick, including using it to trade up or back, but if they end up choosing in that spot, they are statistically unlikely to find a superstar.

Looking at every draft since 1979 (which I am arbitrarily using as the start of the “modern” era), there haven’t been any true superstars taken with the 8th pick, which is the bad news.

The good news is that there have been a surprising number of very good NBA players, ranging from the “solid role player, long career” category all the way to a few guys who were multiple All-Stars.

Out of the 43 NBA Drafts I looked at, 19 of them produced a player that I would at least categorize as a “quality role player for a good team,” which isn’t a bad percentage considering that the draft is largely a crapshoot.

Here are the 19 guys drafted 8th overall who made (or are making, or could make) an impact in the NBA.

New Orleans Pelicans draft: The best players drafted 8th

The 8th spot has produced a lot of quality NBA players, so the New Orleans Pelicans have a pretty good chance of finding impact talent with the 8th pick in the 2022 NBA Draft.

• Calvin Natt-1979 (One-time All-Star who had a very long, productive career)
• Andrew Toney-1980 (Two-time All Star for Philly who flamed out)
• Tom Chambers-1981 (Four-time All-Star)
• Clark Kellogg-1982 (had a great start to his career that was cut short by injury)
• Antoine Carr-1983
• Detlef Schrempf-1985 (3-time All-Star and one of the best international players of all time)
• Ron Harper-1986 (solid role player, key part of the Bulls’ dynasty)
• Olden Polynice-1987 (long career as a solid role player)
• Rex Chapman-1988
• Vin Baker-1993 (Four-time All-Star)
• Kerry Kittles-1996
• Andre Miller-1999 (Great team leader and point guard who played forever)
• Jamal Crawford-2000 (One of the great 6th men of all time)
• Channing Frye-2005
• Rudy Gay-2006 (Somehow still playing)
• Kentavious Caldwell-Pope-2013
• Collin Sexton-2018 (Averaged 24 points in his last full season)
• Jaxson Hayes-2019 (Pending)
• Franz Wagner-2021 (Made first-team All-Rookie)

As you can see, the New Orleans Pelicans are unlikely to land the next face of the NBA with the 8th pick in the 2022 NBA Draft, but luckily they don’t need to.

They have a solid cast coming back, which will hopefully include a fully healthy Zion Williamson, so the Pels would be plenty happy finding a role player who had a solid NBA career, which is quite possible.

I’m sure the Pels would love to find a Detlef Schrempf, Ron Harper, Collin Sexton or Franz Wagner-level player in this draft, a guy who can complement their core and play an impact role on a good team.