In basketball, having a top five pick is supposed to give hope to a team for the future, but a lot of times, those players never live up to expectations. The question is: What does a player chosen in the top-10 have to do to avoid bust status? Just take a look at some of the top 10 picks from previous drafts going back to 2001 that for all intents and puroses are busts: Kwame Brown DeSagana Diop Eddie Griffin (please forgive me) Rodney White Jay Williams Nikoloz Tskitishvili Dajuan Wagner Darko Milicic Michael Sweetney Jarvis Hayes Shaun Livingst Rafael Araujo Luke Jackson Martell Webster Adam Morrison Shelden Williams Patrick O'Bryant Mouhamed Sene Brandan Wright And of course the verdict is till out on some, IE Greg Oden, Josh Childress (playing in Europe) etc. And that's just top 10 guys. Don't get me started on 11-30. The draft in the NBA is less of a crapshoot than the NFL's given that you don't have to pay so much up front, buy don't you think that The Jay Williams pick by the Bulls didn't set them back a couple of years and forced them to over spend on the likes of Ben Wallace? Don't you think having Kevin Durant and Brandon Roy is a lot more appealing than having Grg Oden sitting in a suit on the bench yet again? How about international players? Or those one and done guys (who for the most part would have been straight from high-scool to pro's guys before the rule changed)? Is there an exact science? Didn't Portland think that Oden's health history was a red flag? Or Dejuan Wagner being a ball hog his whole life, although his career was derailed by health problems, he wasn't very good before that. Do you think that a team who constantly botches draft picks (Clippers) should be penalized and forfeit their pick? I have been watching these drafts for 15 years now and have seen guys picked in the first round be chewed up and spit out by the NBA within 4 years. Robert Traylor? Would you have been the GM who traded Dirk for Traylor? If you look at Cleveland, most of their picks the last 10 years didn't work out, with of course the exception of Lebron, which took a lot of tanking and a lot of work. Is there a risk/reward factor that can be calculated? Do you draft Ricky Rubio with hopes of 2 or 3 years from now, or take Jennings who is a budding star now? Would you still draft Yao over Amare? Do international players work out most of the time? I would say yes, but I would approach with caution like with any other pick, especially one from Duke, given the percentages. In you guys opinion, would does a top-10 or top 20 pick have to do to be considered a "good" pick?
Skill, quickness, and coordination. All of those guys you listed (with the exception of Jay Williams who was in an accident) lack at least the second two. Bad GMs base their picks solely on stats, percentages, and volume. I'm sure Morey considers volume to be the most important of those three, but he watches these guys play to see how they make a team better. Then he determines how misleading the numbers are.
Shaun Livingston had a lot of potential but had that unlucky injury... the rest of them were definitely busts
He is definitely not a bust.. he's a decent 6th man but inconsistent. Check out the mix of him in the sig.
The draft is such a crapshoot, as the OP said, you just never know. I will never blame the Blazers for choosing Oden over Durant, when you have a chance to draft a true 7 footer with skill...U DO IT.
Shaun livingston does not count as a bust ok, he was doing pretty decent and showing lots of improvement till that freak accident with knee.
It's close, he was picked 6th in the draft which should equate in a starter not a bench player or at the very least he should be an above average 6th man which he is not.
Aside from the guys on your list who became busts because of injuries, something a lot of those guys have in common is a lack of basketball skills. A lot of the guys who become busts are just drafted based on athleticism. For a while it seemed that every player that was super athletic was thought to have huge potential, even if they couldn't actually play basketball well. Stromile Swift was a great example of this. The guy had zero bball IQ and no real skill, but he could run and jump so everyone thought he was going to become great.
Man, anyone who watched college basketball could see that Durant was better than Oden. Oden had no offensive game.....the injuries have surely hurt. But it looks like Sam Bowie...part Deaux. DD
I agree with DD. But the poster said you cannot blame them for taking Oden. Which is true. Big men are one in a million.
The reason I feel Webster is a bust is for the fact he was 6th overall pick, does not start, has not grown his game much as a rookie, and appears to be on his way out of Portland. Just think about it: 6th pick. Think in your mind what you expect production wise from your 6th overall pick SG/SF.
I also caught a little flack for calling Shaun Livingston and Jay Williams busts. Let me say it like this: the picks were busts, not neccesarily the human beings themselves. It's not to be taken as a shot at those guys, just pointing out those picks went south for the teams that drafted them. Yes, they could have been good players if it wasn't for tragic situations, but the fact is, they aren't.
Thats why Olowakandi and Kwame Brown were picked 1st, and both are a bust. There is no guarantee than a big man is going to be good.
Talking Top 10 and where the trend is leading the past 4 years, I would not draft a frontcourt player early. Big over small doesn't count much now. The past 4 drafts, could be a coincidence but backcourt players and swingmen have had the more immediate impact. Lamarcus Aldridge, Kevin Love, Brook Lopez, Al Horford, Joaquim Noah. They're good but are any of them franchise types? As compared to Derrick Rose, Kevin Durant, Brandon Roy, Tyreke Evans, Brandon Jennings. Then you can put in OJ Mayo, Russell Westbrook, Stephen Curry, Eric Gordon, Rudy Gay depending what position you classify him. Acie Law is maybe the ONLY complete bust of a top 10 backcourt pick. You can go to battle with Johnny Flynn and DJ Augustine. Jordan Hill's about as good a top 10 frontcourt prospect as you can get the past 4 drafts. 2005 draft - Chris Paul/Deron Willams/Raymond Felton/Martell Webster vs Andrew Bogut/Andrew Bynum/Charlie Villanueva/Marvin Williams Bogut and Bynum are very good. Paul and Deron are SPECIAL.
100% crap. Watching NCAA Durant was a BEAST, Oden was an avg player, he seemed to be Deke @ the very best (barring him working super hard on his offensive game). Couple notes: 1) Blazers knew 1 of Oden's leg was a bit shorter than the other and put him at a HUGE injury risk (him being 7' + this not really good signs). 2) Blazers were offered Shard + #2 for #1 pick from Seattle, why they didn't take that I dont really know. Why haven't the Blazers learned from the past that you don't HAVE to have big men to win titles, and you don't draft just for size. Imagine if you will: PG - WHOEVER (serious stick a 5 year old here with the other 4 would still be a damn explosive offensive team) SG - Roy SF - Durant PF - Lewis C - Aldridge That's just the starters, doesn't count a really solid bench: Webster, Pryz, Batum, etc.
Obviously. I never said bigmen are guaranteed to be good. It is rare to find a bigman who is good which is why so many teams take bigmen with upside as high as they do (hoping to develop them into a superstar dominant bigman). Bigmen have the potential to anchor defenses, be a force on the boards, and just be a bruising force which is hard to stop.
