A retired NBA participant shares his ideas on the category of 2003 being thought-about one of the best in league historical past.
Most of the time, there’s a consensus greatest participant headlining the NBA Draft. As an example, Victor Wembanyama in 2023 or Cooper Flagg in 2025.
Often, most draft lessons have a single prospect headlining the category. Nonetheless, there have been a number of lessons which have produced a number of superstars and Corridor of Fame gamers.
Evidently, these lessons are considered as a few of the greatest within the historical past of the NBA. However what about one of the best class ever? Effectively, many have on condition that title to the category of 2003, headlined by LA Lakers star LeBron James.
6x NBA All-Star Jermaine O’Neal not too long ago made an look on ‘Out the Mud’ podcast with Zach Randolph.
In the course of the episode, Randolph requested for O’Neal’s opinion on one of the best draft class ever in league historical past, whereas declaring the 2003 class is commonly on condition that honor.
Nonetheless, O’Neal shared a special opinion, stating: “I believe my draft class is one of the best draft class from prime to backside.
He added: “We had [Stephon] Marbury, Antoine Walker, Kobe [Bryant], Ray Allen, [Peja] Stojakovic, Steve Nash, AI [Allen Iverson], [Marcus] Camby. It was deep, bro.”
There is no such thing as a doubt that the category of 1996 had insane depth and a stable case will be made for them to be higher than the 2003 prospects.
The best approach to decide which is a greater class is to do a fast comparability between them. Even earlier than that, there’s little question that the category of 1996 had insane depth as NBA legend Kobe Bryant was picked thirteenth general.
Coming to the comparability, the 1996 draft produced 10 NBA All-Stars. It featured legends comparable to Kobe, Allen Iverson, Steve Nash, and Ray Allen.
However, the 2003 draft produced 9 NBA All-Stars. This class gave the league stars comparable to LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh.
However how about profitable NBA titles? Effectively, the 1996 class had 9 gamers win not less than a single NBA championship as in comparison with the 2003’s 15.
Lastly, 4 members of the 1996 NBA draft have been inducted into the Naismith Basketball Corridor of Fame.
Whereas solely two have obtained this honor from the category of 2003, the likes of James and Melo are but to formally get an induction so they are going to equal the 1996 class’ tally on this regard as nicely.
