What if the 2003 NBA Draft happened again? Redraft the class of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Bosh — and watch Detroit's second pick become the most replayed mistake in draft history.
How the 2003 draft really went, pick by pick through the first round.
The first round of the actual 2003 NBA draft: pick number, player and the team that drafted him.
The same picks, re-made with hindsight — and how far each player moves from where he actually went.
The first round of a 2003 NBA redraft: pick number, player, the team holding that pick, and where he actually went.
No changeUp 3 placesNo changeNo changeUp 13 places
Undrafted
Up 44 placesUp 13 placesDown 2 places
Up 32 placesUp 1 place
Up 33 places
Up 34 placesUp 15 placesUp 13 placesDown 2 places
Up 21 placesUp 9 places
Up 30 placesDown 14 placesUp 4 places
Up 21 placesDown 12 placesDown 16 placesDown 2 places
Undrafted
Up 5 places
Up 3 places
Up 12 places
The most anticipated first pick ever taken, and twenty-three seasons later the argument is whether he is the best player who ever lived. Four titles, four Finals MVPs, four MVPs, and an All-Star selection in every season since his rookie year.
Four teams passed. He won Miami a title in his third season and took the Finals MVP doing it, then won two more beside LeBron. The redraft moves him to second, which is where the four teams in front of Miami should have taken him.
Denver took him third and he stayed one of the game's great scorers for fifteen years — a scoring title, ten All-Star selections and the Hall of Fame. He holds his spot in the redraft, which in this class is no small thing.
Toronto took him fourth and got seven seasons before he left for Miami, where he became the third of a team that reached four straight Finals and won two. A career cut short by blood clots, and still a Hall of Famer.
Seventeen picks went by. He gave New Orleans two All-Star seasons and nearly twenty a game at his peak, then took minimum deals at the end of his career to chase a ring — and won two with Golden State.
The Pistons held the second pick and used it on Darko Milicic. Anthony, Bosh and Wade were all on the board. Detroit won the title that season anyway, which is the only reason the pick is remembered as a curiosity rather than a catastrophe — but three Hall of Famers went in the next three picks.
Four teams passed on Dwyane Wade before Miami took him. He delivered a championship and a Finals MVP inside three years, then recruited LeBron James and Chris Bosh to join him. Almost everything Miami became in the 2010s traces back to the fifth pick of this draft.
The Cavaliers had a 22.5% chance at the first pick and got a player from forty minutes down the road. He took them to a Finals in his fourth season, left, came back, and won the franchise its only championship in 2016.
He went 18th and outlasted almost everyone drafted above him — two All-Star seasons in New Orleans and, at the end, two championships in Golden State. The redraft has him fifth, which makes him the biggest riser in a class already famous for its top four.
Hit start and run the first round your way.
Redraft arguments are a staple of NBA Reddit and basketball “pods”, but our NBA redraft tool really tests whether you know “ball”. You have to fill all 30 slots, which means dealing with the awkward middle-of-the-round calls, not just the obvious stars at the top. It’s the difference between saying “they should’ve taken him third” and actually redrafting the entire first round yourself.
An NBA redraft is a tool that lets you redo a past NBA draft class using hindsight instead of pre-draft scouting reports. Instead of guessing who might be good, you're picking based on who actually was good, letting you rebuild the entire first round the way it "should have" gone.
Pick any available draft year, then go through all 30 first-round picks yourself. The redraft tool lets you select any player from that class at each slot, then compares your finished redraft board to the real draft results.
Draft Time Machine's redraft tool covers a wide range of draft years from 1996 to present day. You can jump into recent classes or dig into some of the most talked-about redrafts in NBA history. Check the year selector on the tool for the full list currently available.
Yes and no. The NBA redraft tool is yours to control. Do what you want, build it based on position of need and fit or how a players' careers actually played out rather than how they were originally ranked on draft night.
NBA redraft tools are popular because they turn "hindsight is 20/20" draft debates into something interactive. Instead of just arguing who a team should have picked, you can actually build out the full redraft board yourself and compare it to how others would redraft the same class. You can also test your knowledge of basketball, are you a stats head? Prove it!
Yes, the redraft tool on Draft Time Machine is free to use, pick a year and start redrafting.
Once you've completed a redraft, you can share your board to compare your picks against the actual draft results and see how your redraft stacks up.
