It sort of happened with Steve Francis, too. He did not want to play for the miserable Grizzlies. Can't blame him at the time. They were a miserable franchise.
http://m.bkref.com/m?p=XXdraftXXNBA_1996.html that was a STACKED draft class. Shandon Anderson was in the last round.
The Nets were set to take Kobe with the #8 pick, but Kobe refused to report to New Jersey if they drafted him. He ONLY wanted to play for the Lakers. So, Charlotte (another team Kobe refused to play for) worked out a trade for Vlade Divac, took Kobe at #13 and then traded him to the Lakers. Kobe's a bad example of a late lottery superstar. He was a surefire mid-lottery pick if not for the extenuating circumstances of his refusal to play for other teams.
yeah, if he didnt refuse all teams but the lakers, i see him going somewhere between 6-8 in the 1st round.
Steve Nash, a superstar, was picked 15th. He wasn't traded. He didn't refuse any team. He was picked 15th. Satisfied?
And lets not forget how the NBA draft has changed. Strong success by Kobe and KG helped make HS stars legitimate high draft picks. The same goes for international players. You can still get steals in the draft, but it is a challenge. More often the guys that are undervalued are the college upperclassmen.
Some upperclassmen are undervalued, sure. Most recent ones were Faried and Brooks. But I think the underclassmen taken late 1st/early 2nd are generally more valuable than their upperclassmen counterparts. Leonard, Harris, Hamilton, Joseph, Honeycutt, J. Williams do more for me than Nolan Smith, JaJuan Johnson, Singler, and Harper. I do think later in the second round may have more value with upperclassmen (Parsons etc.), but I'd probably still go with a younger player (Selby, Darius Morris) than someone like Harrellson or Goudelock. I don't like that the Rockets go Jr/Sr with every 1st round pick (recently). These players have shown us their ceilings. I prefer to draft young and coach them up. However, I really want us to draft a center or two this draft. I don't care if they're seniors or what.
2008: Freshman (Donte Greene) 2009: No pick 2010: Junior (Patrick Patterson) 2011: Junior (Marcus Morris), Foreign (Donatas Motiejunas) Two juniors in a row is not a trend.
You conveniently left out. Aaron Brooks Joey Dorsey Carl Landry Chandler Parsons Chase Budinger All 3 years or more of college....making Donte the exception that proves the rule. DD
How can a rookie player hold out? How can a NBA player refuse to play for a team that drafts him? I mean I know it has been done but why would a owner or GM put up with that and let him dictate his destination? Can the player hold out and not play for the length of the rookie deal or does that team hold his rights forever? I'm sure plenty of players have preferences but don't hold out because a team that wasn't on their list of places to play drafted them. Some serious entitlement issues there.
You can sit out a year and go back in the draft. But you can't play basketball professionally or your rights roll over. DD
Can Kobe keep holding out every draft? Thanks! Kobe is still a douche for doing that. Francis as well. So let's say hypothetically some team not the Lakers drafted Kobe in 1996 and he sits out a year. Then in the 1997 draft some other team not the Lakers drafts Kobe. Can he sit out another year? If so, when does it stop?
Pretty easy, it stops when teams learn to stop wasting first round picks on a guy who's committed to sit out. Basically the only thing a team can do is to call their bluff (most recently Yi and Rubio?)
Only ONE of which was a first round pick, which was the context for the prior poster's statement. A thousand apologies, though, for leaving out Aaron Brooks.
If there is a Kobe Bryant type player available at #13 this season, we just lost him last night to the Phoenix Suns.
