It was obviously a mistake. But I wouldn't say it was an "all-time" mistake. It's nowhere near Sam Bowie. Who did we pass up at that pick that we couldn't have simply picked with our other two picks? It's not like TJones or DMo changed the fortunes of the team (unlike the prospect of drafting Jordan).
#2 has to be the 2011 draft of picking Marcus Morris (@ #14) over Kawhi Leonard. All the draft gurus saw something golden in Kawhi. #3 is 2001 draft trading up 3 first rounders (Richard Jefferson, Jason Collins, and Brandon Armstrong) for Eddie Griffin. #4 is 2012 with 3 first rounders and nothing to show for it. We should have gotten someone serviceable out of this mediocre draft (like Festus Ezeli who was available at #30). On the flip side, in 2006, we did trade Rudy Gay (our #8) and Stromile Swift for Shane Battier. That was a great decision that helped us for years.
Not getting Jordan for Ralph... Wow!!! The Marcus Morris vs. Kwahi Leonard, we should fire someone in scouting.
I think not drafting a player at #15 can't be seen as an "all-time" mistake. It's simply 20-20 hindsight. 14 other teams passed him up. Every draft could be redrafted 10 years later with massively different results. If a team made a bad top 3 choice, that's different. Penalizing a team for missing a pick at #14 is a stretch, to me. The one exception to me is Rashard Lewis. That one seemed so obvious to everybody at the time and 20-20 hindsight validated it.
If we kept Lin instead of Jonny Flynn in 2011, the whole history of the NBA would have been different.
The White pick was bad not only because he didn't pan out, but because we got him for worse than nothing. The whole fiasco was embarrassing as well as distracting to the whole team. And we couldn't even trade him for anything. Busts like Royce White and Terrence Williams just show you that character such as work ethic is an important part for success as a player. The vast majority of talented busts failed because they either did not see the need or too lazy to work on developing their games. I hope Morey learned from this and seriously consider a guy's work ethic before gambling on his talent.
Fair points but we're talking about the 16th pick in a weak draft here. Gambling on talent and BPA is normally the way to go, all things equal. It was a total swing and miss, no doubt, but I refuse to be overly critical of a move like this. Hell, this shouldn't even be honorable mention in thread like this if you ask me.
While the White pick turned out to be a disaster, as our 3rd pick in the 1st round, it was worth the gamble. Picking Turckan over Lewis with our 3rd pick in the 1st round was a bigger disaster.
ya... it was gamble that you knew wasn't going to pay off... it's crazy that draymond went 35th overall that same year
The mistake wasn't drafting Turckan over Lewis - we later traded Turckan for a 2003 conditional first round pick that we then traded for the rights to Terrence Morris. Ok, I guess that was mistake, but it wasn't the biggest one that year. The bigger mistake was drafting Bryce Drew instead of Lewis - I know we traded Drew in 2000 to Chicago, but I can't find anything that says what we got back. It obviously wasn't anything very good.
You took mine. Not that it was something that hurt our franchise a ton, but definitely a big mistake. Who ever heard of a 7 year deal for a scub?
If I am not mistaken that trade for the second pick in the draft included Clyde. So it would have been Hakeem, Jordan, and Clyde. Is that correct? That's what I have always heard.
