Which college basketball team produces the best NBA talent? The NBA has boasted a Development League for over a decade but its real “D” league long predates the existence of the Association. The schools that develop the most productive NBA players, unsurprisingly, are the one perennially vying for national championships.
Kevin Durant was the No. 1 Value Add player at Texas in 2007, and the top rated player based on PER listed on Hollinger’s NBA ratings this season. However, Kentucky (Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins) and UCLA (Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook) each claimed two of the top seven NBA players this year to rank higher than Texas in the top 25 NBA producers listed below.
The total team value is based on the cumulative of every player’s value listed on a separate post.
In the playoffs a Wake Forest trio dominates as Chris Paul and Tim Duncan scored 28 and 27 points respectively in Game 1 of their respective series, and Jeff Teague leads Atlanta in scoring as they have stunned Indiana two out of three games. Marquette’s Jae Crowder (Dallas), Wesley Matthews (Portland), Jimmy Butler (Chicago) and Dwyane Wade (Miami) all boast big playoff games already.
Stanford sneaks into the top 25 with over half their value coming from the Lopez twins, as Brook and Robin actually both had a value of 22 for the season to account for 44 of Stanford’s 77 total points.
We flagged players who first came to the US to play in the NBA with their country, meaning France (with nine players led by Tony Parker) would rank as the 9th best “college” and Spain comes in 24th led by Pau Gasol but not with his brother Marc, who first came to the US to attend at Lausanne Collegiate School in Tennessee. All of these 23 schools and two countries have at least one player who deserves to start in the NBA (20 or higher).
| Rnk | Team | Value | # players | Best | Last Name | Team | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kentucky | 362 | 21 | Anthony | Davis | NO | 31 |
| 2 | Duke | 286 | 17 | Kyrie | Irving | CLE | 25 |
| 3 | North Carolina | 283 | 16 | Ty | Lawson | DEN | 24 |
| 4 | Kansas | 261 | 15 | Cole | Aldrich | NY | 24 |
| 5 | UCLA | 235 | 12 | Kevin | Love | MIN | 31 |
| 6 | Florida | 222 | 12 | Al | Horford | ATL | 27 |
| 7 | Connecticut | 219 | 13 | Andre | Drummond | DET | 27 |
| 8 | Texas | 192 | 11 | Kevin | Durant | OKC | 34 |
| 9 | France | 164 | 9 | Tony | Parker | SA | 24 |
| 10 | Arizona | 157 | 11 | Jordan | Hill | LAL | 24 |
| 11 | Georgia Tech | 147 | 8 | Chris | Bosh | MIA | 24 |
| 12 | Wake Forest | 135 | 6 | Chris | Paul | LAC | 30 |
| 13 | Southern California | 119 | 6 | DeMar | DeRozan | TOR | 23 |
| 14 | Marquette | 119 | 8 | Dwyane | Wade | MIA | 27 |
| 15 | Memphis | 118 | 8 | Tyreke | Evans | NO | 23 |
| 16 | Ohio State | 118 | 6 | Mike | Conley | MEM | 25 |
| 17 | Washington | 114 | 6 | Isaiah | Thomas | SAC | 25 |
| 18 | Georgetown | 105 | 6 | Greg | Monroe | DET | 23 |
| 19 | Syracuse | 101 | 6 | Carmelo | Anthony | NY | 29 |
| 20 | Michigan | 99 | 6 | Jamal | Crawford | LAC | 22 |
| 21 | LSU | 97 | 6 | Brandon | Bass | BOS | 20 |
| 22 | Brazil | 96 | 5 | Anderson | Varejao | CLE | 22 |
| 23 | Gonzaga | 78 | 5 | Kelly | Olynyk | BOS | 20 |
| 24 | Spain | 77 | 4 | Pau | Gasol | LAL | 24 |
| 25 | Stanford | 74 | 5 | Brook and Robin (tie) | Lopez | BKN | 22 |
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