Of course, a top 5 finish is no guarantee of getting a bona-fide #1 guy on a championship team.
But in this year's draft, IMO there's a clear-cut top 5, all of whom I think will turn into high-impact guys and probably would have gone #1 last year. Flagg is in his own tier.
The way I look at it, we have a 67% chance of getting one of those guys based on where we currently sit which I feel pretty good about. IMO, finishing #6 would be a huge let down, and finishing #7 would be flat out devastating.
Oh yeah, "this time is different!"
There is simply no precedent for all top 5 draftees to turn-out into consistent high-impact players if you look at the draft history. And I am talking about top 5 drafted in June, not who was considered the top-5 in March.
Just to illustrate, here are the duds from the top-5:
2010 - Evan Turner, Derrick Favors, Wesley Johnson
2011- Derrick Williams, Enes Kanter, Tristan Thompson, Valanciunas (achieved nothing in his first 7 seasons and got traded by his original team)
2013 - Bennet, Otto Porter Jr., Cody Zeller, Alex Len
2014 - Jabari Parker, Dante Exum
2015 - Okafor, Hezonja
2016 - Bender, Dunn
2017 - Fultz, Josh Jackson, Lonzo Ball (due to injuries)
2018 - Ayton, Bagley
2019 - De'Andre Hunter
2020 - Wiseman, Patrick Williams, Okoro
You can keep telling yourself that all top 5 draftees will turn out to be impact players but the experience tells us that most likely two of them will end up being duds, i.e. unremarkable, middle-of-the road players or worse.