All for Tennessee
Fansided

Tennessee basketball: Ranking all Vols NBA Draft classes this decade

By Caleb Calhoun

NEWARK, NJ - JUNE 23: Tobias Harris of the Tennessee Volunteers greets NBA Commissioner David Stern after he was selected #19 overall by the Charlotte Bobcats in the first round during the 2011 NBA Draft at the Prudential Center on June 23, 2011 in Newark, New Jersey. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images)
NEWARK, NJ - JUNE 23: Tobias Harris of the Tennessee Volunteers greets NBA Commissioner David Stern after he was selected #19 overall by the Charlotte Bobcats in the first round during the 2011 NBA Draft at the Prudential Center on June 23, 2011 in Newark, New Jersey. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
1 of 6
Next
Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images /

The 2019 NBA Draft is over, and it was a bang for Tennessee basketball. Here is a ranking of Volunteers classes throughout the 2010s.

Coming off a bang in the 2019 NBA Draft, Tennessee basketball saw four different coaches put out pro talent throughout this past decade. Despite many of the rough years, the Vols had plenty of success on that front.

All four coaches deserve credit for getting NBA talent into Rocky Top and developing them, and three of them had some form of success with that talent. Donnie Tyndall just inherited a player who had already been developed, but he still gets credit for helping that player get to the next level.

In fact, Tennessee basketball’s success in the pros was far more impressive than what happened in the 2000s. During that time, they only had one year in which anybody was ever taken in the NBA Draft. Marcus Haislip and Vincent Yarbrough both were taken in 2002.

No Vol was taken again in the draft until 2011, although CJ Watson enjoyed a solid NBA career as an undrafted free agent. Still, beginning in 2011, despite the major bumps in the road, including three coaches in three years and two this decade fired for NCAA violations, Rocky Top has churned out some pro basketball talent.

With the 2019 draft in the books, this post is going to take a look at the best draft years for the Vols throughout the 2010s. Next year will be the start of a new draft decade for the Vols, and given what Rick Barnes has built, it may be a return to the late 1970s early 1980s, when UT made a habit of turning out pro prospects.

We will be ranking all the draft years for the Vols this decade, and our criteria is not just based on the number of players taken. It also weighs when players were selected. But the impact they had in the pros is irrelevant. This is just a look at how stocked each draft year was.

So let’s go ahead and wrap up the 2019 NBA Draft with a look back at how the Vols did throughout the decade when it came to pro prospects. This is a ranking of every draft year for Tennessee basketball for the 2010s.

Home/Vols Basketball