I think the only thing that could possibly justify Francis being on this list was the fact that he demanded to play elsewhere, therefor making the Grizz's selection of him very moronic.
so john elway is the worst draft pick ever in the history of sports. that doesn't even sound right does it. the grizz should have just stood firm. besides, that's not the criteria they listed, they said the grizz could have picked kirilenko. who plays in the city of the newspaper that produced this trash. another guy who never sees the playoffs.
i made this mistake, I think this article is refering to the draft lottery, when the rockets got hakeem and the bulls got jordan, there was no lotto
Pretty messed up. Maybe the guy didn't know. He probably just looked at the results of all of those drafts and just saw a name he didn't recognize.
The author might has a point if he put Francis at No.4 because the team which drafted him couldn't get him to play one single game so it was an extremely bad pick for them. But if he based that on Francis performance in his 7 NBA years, he is an idiot.
Actually AT THE TIME OF THE DRAFT it was not a bad decision at all for Portland to pick somebody else besides Jordan. In college, Jordan really had not done much besides that shot that made him famous. On top of that, they just drafted Drexler the year before who was already proving that he was going to be a star in the league and he was by far the better college player. It just annoys me sometimes that people say man Jordan should have been drafted number one in that draft or number 2. Hakeem was the obvious number one pick at that time. Portland did not need another 2 guard, so they got sam.
brown,and darko should have been 1 and 2 on that list if you consider that all of them didnt really contribute much and is now playing on different teams then the teams that drafted them.
I like how about four or five people suggest that Francis is on this list because he refused to play for the team that drafted him AFTER I already pointed out that they list Kobe Bryant as someone that should have been picked before Stephon Marbury when Kobe Bryant also refused to play for the team that drafted him. If that's the authors reasoning, it's faulty and selective. I think it more likely that he's just saying Francis hasn't lived up to his potential - which is kind of silly. He does everything he can do. If he had the brain of Steve Nash or Jason Kidd I'm sure he could be much better, but he doesn't. He's stuck with the brain he's got.
i emailed him and this was his response: Chad:I do know what happened to Len Bias and I am not sick. My list of worst lottery picks was not a moral judgment. It was an accounting of picks who could have helped their team and did not, for whatever reason. Bias had amazing talent, but his death hurt the Celtic franchise for a decade. Again, no moral judgements were made by me. Thanks for reading.. SLuhm.
but they were still picks that refused to play for their team, and the author suggested that Bryant should have been taken in place of Marbury. There is no gaurantee that Bryant would have suited up for that team either. Incidentally, the Grizzlies got a whole lot more than Dickerson in exchange for Francis and Massenburg. They got Dickerson, Othella Harrington, Antoine Carr, Brent Price, and a future first round pick. I'm not sure who that first round pick became, but I do know that Dickerson was a very solid player at the time he was traded. He ended up suffering a career ending injury, but he was no slouch. Othella Harrington was also a starter for them for a couple years and gave them quality production (13 ppg and 7 rpg). If I thought Dickerson would remain healthy, I think I'd prefer a package of Dickerson, Harrington and a first round pick to one of Vlade Divac, but I'm sure many would disagree with that.
If they wanted to take a power forward they should have taken Charles Barkley. As big a blunder was not trading Sampson for Drexler and the #2, where the Rockets could have taken Barkley. A team of Olajuwan, Barkley, and Drexler for their whole careers probably would have been pretty good.
hi surprised that Araujo is not on this list ... even if the 2004 draft was not loaded with superstars, there were many better players picked after him and if he put Len Bias on this list, he should have put Jay Williams too (what a waste of talent ... by the way, i think the rockets should sign him for the summer leagues, you never know ...)
You're selling Jordan short - I thought he should go no. 1 back then and I was freaking 8 years old and a massive UH cougars fan.
r****ded article... those silly ppl in utah....... *tsk tsk (shakes head) francis pick was better than marbury pick.. 4 and 5 should be switched.. at the very least. but that is only the begnning of the many problems of the article.. oh yeah,, also didn't andre miller go to college in utah? (something's fishy.. ) i know andre's good, a very solid player.. but DAMN, he got nothing on stevie's flying-sideways power dunks!
