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.
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