as you get later sure but I would still say good small market teams find cheap role players in round 2.
then you have the 2014 draft:
33 Joe Harris
38 Spencer Dinwiddie
39 Jeremi Grant
41 Nikola Jokic
45 Dwight Powell
46 Jordan Clarkson
pretty amazing second round draft. It could be better than some years first round.
Probably not better than any first round. After 7 years, there are only 7 guys in that second round still in the NBA (Glenn Robinson III is the other), and the entire round has been worth about 185 win shares - almost all from those 7 guys. I'd figure that by the end of it, that round probably gets up to 300 win shares, but probably doesn't make 400. A typical first round gets you to 300 win shares with its top 3-4 players once everybody's career is over. Even the notoriously bad 2000 draft has about 520 win shares in the first round. I went back from 2014 all the way to 1990 eyeballing it and there didn't look to be any first rounds worse than 2000. So, I mean, it was a great second round, but it's probably not better than even the worst first round.