Shaquille O'Neal was the standout pick of the 1992 NBA Draft, dominating with 15 All-Star selections and four championships. Alonzo Mourning, similar to Shaq, was at his best after leaving the team that drafted him. Latrell Sprewell, Robert Horry and P.
J. Brown round out the top five. The 1992 NBA Draft holds a special spot in NBA history because of the man who headlined it.
The premier talent of the 1992 draft is as great of a torchbearer as any draft has to offer. The man at the top was an NBA champion, multi-time All-Star, 14-time All-NBA selection, MVP and Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame inductee. Moving past the draft's best player, 1992 still had something to offer.
Twenty players selected in the 1992 NBA Draft went on to play at least 10 seasons in the league. Six players in the 1992 class scored at least 10,000 points in the league. If the margins are widened a touch, 11 players scored at least 8,000 career points.
Regarding the star power available in 1992, the class featured five players who would be selected to the All-Star game during their careers. However, two of those players were held to only one All-Star appearance. In terms of win shares, the 1992 NBA Draft class featured eight players who posted at least 50 during their career.
Three players posted at least 80. The top player, though, posted close to 200 during his NBA career. 1 Orlando Magic – Shaquille O'Neal The Orlando Magic had a very easy decision to make in 1992.
After three seasons at LSU and two utterly dominant campaigns on an individual level, Shaquille O'Neal was ready to make the leap to the NBA. When a freak athlete like Shaq is available, there should be little hesitation about making that selection. The Magic made the call, and it was absolutely the right one.
Shaquille O'Neal – Career Stats and Accolades Category Stat PPG 23.7 RPG 10.9 BPG 2.
3 FG% 58.2 All-Star Selections 15 All-NBA Selections 14 All-Defensive Team Selections 3 Rookie of the Year Yes MVP 1 NBA Titles 4 Finals MVP 3 Career Win Shares 181.7 Unfortunately for the Magic and their fans, they did not reap the full rewards of Shaq's career.
O'Neal did win Rookie of the Year as a member of the Magic and guided the team to its first NBA Finals appearance in franchise history. However, when it came time for O'Neal and the Magic to work out a new contract in 1996, things got messy. O'Neal's decision to leave the Magic came down to several things.
On The Big Podcast With Shaq , O'Neal cited his ego and relationship with co-star Penny Hardaway as one of the reasons he decided to leave Orlando. "Other people were talking and that was the only time I broke the professional jealousy thing..
.When they said it wasn't my team anymore, it hurt a little bit. Since they said it wasn't my team, it's his team now, [I thought] let's see what the other teams want to offer me.
" Finances also played a factor in the equation. The Magic were reportedly unwilling to pony up the money O'Neal believed he deserved. He explained this part in an episode of The Gary Vee Audio Experience .
"I said listen if a BMW cost $115,000, how much do you think this is gonna cost?...
That's all I said. So then they were like, no we're not gonna do it..
. My former agent Leonard Armato called me, had one of those big dope man phones, and said, 'You need to come to see me now, I got what you want'. So when I get there, open the door; it's the great Jerry Buss.
" The L.A. Lakers swooped in and signed O'Neal.
To this day, that move remains arguably the greatest signing in Lakers history and the greatest free agent signing of all time. O'Neal would form one of the greatest duos ever with the late, great Kobe Bryant . Their partnership led to a three-peat in Los Angeles .
At the peak of his powers, the only thing that could stop O'Neal was the free throw line. Besides that, O'Neal was a wrecking ball that one could only hope to contain. Shaq even turned in one of the most dominant MVP seasons ever in the 1999-00 season.
He came one vote shy of what would have been the first unanimous MVP in league history. O'Neal found success with other teams like the Miami Heat , but his Lakers days were the most memorable. Shaq places 13th in NBA history when it comes to career win shares.
O'Neal is also ninth on the NBA's all-time scoring list with 28,596 points. He is tied with Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett for the fifth-most All-Star selections in NBA history. Similarly, Shaq is tied with Karl Malone for fifth place on the all-time All-NBA selections list.
The long and short of it is that O'Neal is one of the greatest players the league has ever seen. Few others rival his career peak. If he had a bit more longevity in the tank when it came to that peak, O'Neal would have been a contender for the spots near the top of the all-time list.
2 Charlotte Hornets – Alonzo Mourning © RVR Photos-USA TODAY Sports For the second time in a row in this redraft, the original team made the right call with its selection. However, for the second time in a row, the best part of that player's legacy was written with another team. That was the case when the Charlotte Hornets selected Alonzo Mourning with the second overall pick in the 1992 NBA Draft.
Alonzo Mourning – Career Stats and Accolades Category Stat PPG 17.1 RPG 8.5 BPG 2.
8 FG% 52.7 All-Star Selections 7 All-NBA Selections 2 All-Defensive Team Selections 2 Defensive Player of the Year 2 NBA Titles 1 Career Win Shares 89.7 Despite the Hornets building a promising young core, a series of unfortunate events led the team to trade Mourning to the Heat.
Mourning gave Miami a franchise center from that point. He racked up multiple All-Star appearances while winning back-to-back Defensive Player of the Year awards in the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 seasons. Mourning's career was interrupted by kidney disease in the latter stages.
He gave the details of what transpired in an interview with Healthline . “I was somewhat of a test rat for my doctors because they had never dealt with anybody my size and treated me the way they treated me..
. The beauty of it is that I had a living, related donor; my second cousin (my grandmother’s brother’s son) is the one who donated his kidney to basically save my life." Mourning returned to the NBA and eventually found his way back to the Heat for a spot on their bench during the 2006 championship run .
He is the only other player here to be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. 3 Minnesota Timberwolves – Latrell Sprewell Latrell Sprewell eventually found his way to the Minnesota Timberwolves during his career. This redraft simply pushes up the timeline.
Latrell Sprewell – Career Stats and Accolades Category Stat PPG 18.3 RPG 4.1 APG 4.
0 SPG 1.4 FG% 42.5 3P% 33.
7 All-Star Selections 4 All-NBA Selections 1 All-Defensive Team Selections 1 Career Win Shares 56.3 Sprewell is the last player available in the 1992 NBA Draft who was a multi-time All-Star. It makes him a relatively each choice for third overall in this redraft.
At his best, Sprewell was a potent scorer and a good perimeter defender. The knock against him is that his production did not necessarily translate to winning. Sprewell has the lowest career win shares of any player in the top five.
His win shares per-48 look even worse: Sprewell ranks 22nd in the draft class, posting a lowly figure of .077. 4 Dallas Mavericks – Robert Horry Robert Horry feels like the anti-Sprewell.
Whenever there was winning involved, Big Shot Bob was typically around. Robert Horry – Career Stats and Accolades Category Stat PPG 7.0 RPG 4.
8 SPG 1.0 BPG 0.9 FG% 42.
5 3P% 32.1 NBA Titles 7 Career Win Shares 66.3 Horry was a great role player.
He could comfortably slot into a lineup and be a good glue guy for whatever a team needed. As a result, Horry has more championships to flaunt than the great Michael Jordan . He won two championships with the Houston Rockets before collecting three more with the Lakers and following that up with another two as a member of the San Antonio Spurs .
5 Denver Nuggets – P.J. Brown There is something to be said about being a quality role player for most of an NBA career.
Horry found a spot in this redraft doing just that throughout, and so will P.J. Brown.
P.J. Brown – Career Stats and Accolades Category Stat PPG 9.
1 RPG 7.7 SPG 0.8 BPG 1.
0 All-Defensive Team Selections 3 NBA Titles 1 Career Win Shares 89.8 Brown ranks second in the 1992 NBA Draft for career win shares with the smallest of edges over Mourning. Despite there still being two more All-Stars available, Brown's longevity and defensive impact make him the more valuable selection for the fifth spot.
Stats are courtesy of Basketball Reference. The 1996 NBA Draft is one of the greatest of all time..
