The single most important thing to do when rebuilding an NBA franchise is to find good players in the draft. Young players are cheap, and if a team finds a good one, they’ll likely have them at a bargain for the first few years of his career. As a part of our ongoing Decade Debate series, here is a list of draft picks from the ’00s that…um…didn’t work out so well. I’ll rank them in order of magnitude of the blunder, which takes into account the talent of the pick as well as the players that the team passed up.
10. The Grizzlies select Mike Conley (#4), passing on Jeff Green and Joakim Noah.
Conley has played better of late, and may eventually prove to be a good pick, but he certainly hasn’t had the kind of consistency that the Grizzlies hoped for when they took him with at #4 in the 2007 draft. What’s funny is that GM Chris Wallace made this pick when the Grizzlies still had Pau Gasol on the roster. Then he traded Gasol, and now he’s drafting for size (Hasheem Thabeet, DeMarre Carroll). What’s even funnier is that he’s still the GM in Memphis.
9. The Knicks select Jordan Hill (#8), passing on Brandon Jennings and Ty Lawson.
When it became clear that the Knicks might miss out on Stephen Curry, they settled on Hill as their fallback option. Jennings is the current ROY frontrunner, while Hill is seeing regular DNP-CDs. Even at the time, the pick was strange since Hill plays the same position as current double-double machine David Lee and Mike D’Antoni is dying to find a point guard that can run his offense. While Jennings may not have the pass-first mentality of Steve Nash, he can certainly push the ball and find open people. Were the Knicks worried about Jennings being a ball-dominant guard when they hope to add a ball-dominant small forward named LeBron next summer? Even if Jennings wasn’t the right fit, what about Lawson, who is getting 21 minutes per game on a good Denver squad? This Hill pick was not Donnie Walsh’s finest hour, but as a sometimes-proud Bucks fan, I couldn’t be happier that Jennings fell in Milwaukee’s lap.
8. The Pistons select Rodney White (#9), passing on Joe Johnson.
This blunder is overshadowed by another pick from the same draft (’01, we’ll get to it), but it’s ponderous nonetheless. Johnson was picked at #10. At the time, the Pistons’ top four players were Jerry Stackhouse, Corliss Williamson, Clifford Robinson, Chucky Atkins and Ben Wallace. I think Joe Johnson could have found a place on that team.
7. The Raptors select Rafael Araujo (#8), passing on Andre Iguodala, Andris Biedrins and Al Jefferson.
The list of big man busts is extensive, and back in ’04 the Raptors were looking for a center to protect Chris Bosh at power forward. They could have had Biedrins (#11) or Jefferson (#15), but took the BYU product instead. It’s a shame, because Biedrins would be a perfect fit for the up tempo style the Raptors want to play. Iggy would look pretty good at off guard as well.
6. The Bucks select Joe Alexander (#8), passing on Brook Lopez, Jason Thompson and Anthony Randolph.
Boy, this one looks bad already and it will probably get worse. This was John Hammond’s first draft as the Bucks GM and he admitted this past summer that he felt rushed leading up to the ’08 Draft. As well as he did with Jennings in ’09, he blew this one. Passing on Lopez is somewhat understandable, since the Bucks already had Andrew Bogut on the roster. But Milwaukee definitely needed a power forward and both Thompson and Randolph would have fit in well. Randolph especially looks like a budding star. Imagine if the Bucks were building around a Jennings/Randolph/Bogut core.
5. The Bobcats select Adam Morrison (#3), passing on Brandon Roy.
Granted, Charlotte’s second- or third-best player at the time was point guard Raymond Felton (diminishing the need for Roy), while Morrison was phenomenal at Gonzaga, even drawing comparisons to Larry Bird. Who knew he’d be such a dud in the NBA. He somehow lost his shot once he went pro. The kid hit almost 51% of his attempts in college and is hitting at a 37% clip since joining the NBA. It got so bad that the Bobcats traded him for an overpaid three-point specialist who can’t play a lick of defense (Vladimir Radmanovic). I must also mention the Hawks’ decision to draft Shelden Williams at #5 with Roy still on the board. That pick is probably worse, given the Hawks’ needs at the time, but at least Williams is contributing on a stacked Celtics squad. How lethal would a Brandon Roy/Joe Johnson backcourt be in Atlanta?
4. The Nuggets select Nickoloz Tskitishvili (#5) passing on Amare Stoudemire and Caron Butler.
Denver isn’t alone in this one. In the ’02 Draft, Cleveland drafted Dajuan Wagner at #6 and passed on the same guys (and Nene, who went #7 to the Knicks and was traded to the Nuggets). After years of sleeping on international prospects, teams were reaching on foreign players hoping to find the next Dirk Nowitzki. Tskitishvili was a bust, but if the Nuggets had landed Stoudemire or Butler, they may have won a few more games and missed out on Carmelo Anthony the following year.
3. The Blazers traded out of the #3 pick, selecting Martell Webster (#6) and passing on Chris Paul and Deron Williams in the process.
Yes, Portland was in the midst of its “Jail Blazers” era with Zach Randolph, Darius Miles and Ruben Patterson getting big minutes, and it would still be two years before Kevin Pritchard would take over the reins. But Steve Blake was running the point — why not take Chris Paul or Deron Williams? Webster is just 22 and still has room to grow, but those are two franchise point guards and Portland basically said, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Portland would turn things around the following summer with draft day trades that landed Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge. I should also mention Atlanta’s decision to draft Marvin Williams. He has been a decent (i.e. starter-quality) pro, but Atlanta would have been a great fit for either Paul or Williams, and instead of picking one of those future All-Pros, the Hawks drafted a guy who didn’t even start for his college team. (I know, it was a loaded North Carolina squad, but still.)
2. The Wizards select Kwame Brown (#1), passing on Pau Gasol and Tyson Chandler.
This is the second pick that has fingerprints of His Airness all over it. Gasol was a legit seven footer with a polished offensive game, yet the Wizards went with the high school kid with hands of stone. Brown has turned into a decent defensive center, but Tyson Chandler is twice as good, and the Wizards passed on him as well. Michael Jordan was the greatest player ever to play the game, but the Bobcats should lock him out of the war room on draft day from here on out.
1. The Pistons select Darko Milicic (#2), passing on Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade.
Really, the only other real option was Melo, as no one was thinking about Bosh or D-Wade over Anthony back in ’03. But Joe Dumars was worried about Melo’s impact on the Pistons’ chemistry, and he already found a pretty good small forward (Tayshaun Prince) the year before. Ironically, Detroit won a title that year with Milicic riding the pine. Would they still have won if they had gone with Anthony instead? How much better would the Pistons be now if Anthony were still on the roster? These are the questions that try men’s souls.
