Of all the painfully ambitious first round draft picks of the past decade, few have been more ambitious than that of Yaroslav Korolev. In fact, the list might start and end at Nikoloz Tskitishvili. The Korolev pick was a majorly epic fail, and self-uberpwnage of the highest degree. The theory was this; an athletic and fluid 6'9 forward, with a decent handle and a solid jumpshot, Korolev was going to be the next in a long and illustrious line of Big Skilled Foreign Dudes Whose Surname Starts With K. Kukoc, Kirilenko, Karaulov....and now Korolev. Korolev had proven himself against junior competition, and the idea was to snap him up really fast at the painfully young age of 18, despite his lack of professional experience, and nurture him along on the cheap until he flourished into the next Scottie Pippen. (Or, at the very least, the next Mike Dunleavy.) But no one remembered to check if he was any good. No one gave enough credit to his completely bare CV, and put too much credit into the spot minutes he played in the Russian Superleague at age 17. The distant image of what he might become in an absolute best case scenario proved too be too alluring to the Clippers, and they went for it. They missed. Five places behind Korolev in the 2005 draft, the Indiana Pacers picked Danny Granger 17th overall. Granger has gone to become an All-Star, a winner of the Most Improved Player award, and one of the league's highest scorers. Meanwhile, Korolev still hasn't achieved at any standard of the professional game, and has NBA aspirations about as realistic as I do. Whoops. - 13th October, 2009. http://www.shamsports.com/content/pages/playerProfiles/profileDisplay.jsp?id=581
LaRue Martin (from the 70s) off the top of my head is the most SYMBOLICALLY bad worst draft pick of all time. I'm kinda with emjohn in thinking picks that at least made SOME SENSE but ended up being bad shouldnt count as much as a REACHING high for an obvious scrub in the making. I'd still have to put Chris Washburn high on the list. Washburn was a poster child for all things 80's washouts - lazy work ethic, drugs, crimes, knuckleheaded-ness, cheating on grades, all #3 pick worthy
And I considered it...but gave it a pass. In hindsight, it was a highway robbery. But when it happened? Traylor was actually a big name in that draft after his season in Michigan, and plenty of people thought Nelson was off his rocker taking Nowitzki. And during their rookie years, Nowitzki looked like he might be a bust. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/1998/draft/si/teamgrades.html
