The NBA is a copycat league, and never has that been more evident than in teams trying to outdo each other in accumulating massive hauls of future draft picks.
Fringe playoff contenders who were stuck in neutral shifted in recent years toward trading star players for packages that included not only young prospects but multiple future picks -- in some cases taking over an entire team's draft future.
While the infamous Process of the Philadelphia 76ers began in 2013, the leaguewide trend didn't truly begin in earnest until 2019, when the New Orleans Pelicans and Oklahoma City Thunder both pulled off franchise-altering moves. New Orleans traded Anthony Davis to the Los Angeles Lakers, getting back two unprotected first-round picks and one pick swap (plus a cache of players including the No. 4 overall pick in the 2019 draft). The Thunder sent Paul George to the LA Clippers for five first-round picks (three from LA, two from the Miami Heat) and two picks swaps.
Since then, the race by the league's worst teams to accumulate first-round picks has accelerated, as the Houston Rockets, Indiana Pacers, Orlando Magic and Utah Jazz joined in.
In the past three years, these players have all been traded: Davis, George, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Jrue Holiday, James Harden, DeMar DeRozan, Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon, Malcolm Brogdon, Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell.
As a result, eight teams control 85 picks over the next seven years. But those extra future picks aren't created equal. To gain a better understanding of which teams are set to dominate the draft for the rest of this decade, here's my ranking of the caches of draft picks for the eight teams in the NBA with the most additional picks.
