What if the 2021 NBA Draft happened again? Redraft the class that gave Detroit Cade Cunningham, Cleveland Evan Mobley and Orlando a franchise wing at eighth overall in Franz Wagner.
How the 2021 draft really went, pick by pick through the first round.
The first round of the actual 2021 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 2021 NBA redraft: pick number, player, the team holding that pick, and where he actually went.
No changeUp 1 placeUp 5 placesNo changeUp 11 placesUp 14 placesUp 10 placesDown 6 placesDown 4 places
Up 25 places
Undrafted
Up 43 placesDown 6 placesUp 13 placesDown 1 placeUp 9 placesDown 11 placesUp 12 places
Up 19 places
Up 16 places
Undrafted
Undrafted
Undrafted
UndraftedDown 7 placesDown 11 places
Up 19 placesDown 19 placesNo changeDown 8 places
Detroit got this one right and then had to wait: a shin injury cost him all but twelve games of his second season. By 2026 he was an All-NBA First Team guard averaging eight assists a night and the Pistons were back in the playoffs. The only pick in this redraft that doesn't move.
Cleveland took him third and got the best defender in the class. He was Defensive Player of the Year in 2025 and made All-NBA the same season — the only player from 2021 to have done either.
Orlando's second lottery pick of the night, and by production the third-best player of the class. He has never been an All-Star and has exactly one NBA honour to his name — the redraft rates him on what he does, not what he has been given: 19.2 a game across five seasons, and 24.2 in 2024-25.
Rookie of the Year ahead of Mobley, two All-Star selections since, and an All-Defensive team in 2026. Toronto took him fourth and the redraft leaves him exactly there — the rare lottery pick nobody has to argue about.
Fifteen teams passed, and the pick that took him was made on Houston's behalf — Oklahoma City selected him at 16 and sent his rights over for two future firsts. Two All-Star selections and 20.4 a game in 2025-26 later, he is the biggest climb in this redraft.
The Rockets used the second pick on Jalen Green and Cleveland took Mobley one pick later. The redraft swaps them almost exactly: Mobley second, Green eighth. One pick separated the two teams on the night, and six separate them with hindsight.
The Magic held two lottery picks and took Jalen Suggs at five and Wagner at eight. They got the right player — just with the wrong pick. This redraft has Wagner third and Suggs ninth, which means Orlando could have had Wagner and still been choosing again three picks later.
The Thunder made the 16th pick and sent his rights to Houston that night for two future first-rounders. He is fifth in this redraft. Oklahoma City won a title in 2025 without him, so it is hard to call the trade a mistake — but eleven places is a long way to move.
All sixty picks went by. He signed with the Lakers as a free agent and became a starter on a team built around two of the best players alive. The redraft takes him 11th, ahead of thirteen players who actually heard their names called.
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.
