No. 1 overall NBA Draft picks to win Rookie of the Year

Of the 76 Rookie of the Year winners officially recognized by the NBA, 24 were former No. 1 overall draft picks.

The first player to be selected No. 1 overall and go on to win NBA Rookie of the Year was Ray Felix of the Baltimore Bullets in 1953/54.

Per Basketball Reference, Felix, a 6-foot-11 center, averaged 17.6 points and 13.3 rebounds per game in his rookie season, the first of a nine-year NBA career in which he also played for the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers.

Felix is not named as the first player taken in the 1953/54 draft in some online archives due to the listing of territorial picks first, a concept created by the NBA to allow teams to select players who attended college in the same market as their professional team, in order to grow certain local markets.

Oscar Roberston is considered both a territorial draft pick and the No. 1 overall pick in the 1960 NBA Draft, selected by the Cincinnati Royals after playing college basketball at the University of Cincinnati. ‘Big O’ won Rookie of Year in 1960/61 by averaging 30.5 points, 10.1 rebounds and 9.7 assists.

Lew Alcindor, the top pick in the 1969 draft and Rookie of the Year with the Milwaukee Bucks, would later change his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1971.

Elgin Baylor, Oscar Robertson, Walt Bellamy, Lew Alcindor, Ralph Sampson, Patrick Ewing, David Robinson, Shaquille O’Neal, Chris Webber, Allen Iverson and Tim Duncan are all former No. 1 overall picks and Rookie of the Year winners who were later inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

LeBron James will be added to that list once he retires and becomes eligible to be inducted.

The longest run of No. 1 overall picks going on to win Rookie of the Year was between 1989/90 and 1993/94. Five-straight top picks (David Robinson, Derrick Coleman, Larry Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal and Chris Webber) completed the feat.

Read more NBA Draft news on site.

David Schneidman

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