Your Draft Busts/Steals

[Majingir]

Over the years,I'm sure people obviously have in mind who they would like to see their team draft,or even just a general idea of who they think might be good.

So with draft coming up soon,thought I'd make a thread on it. Who are players over the years you thought might have been good,and they turned out to be good? Players you thought would be good,but didn't pan out? Players you didn't think would be good,but ended up being good? Or even team wise,drafts you thought a team did good(or bad) but it didn't turn out that way?

For me:

2007 I'm sure there were alot who bought into the Greg Oden hype and obviously we all know how that ended up.

2008 I really thought DeAndre Jordan was gonna be good. Not as good as he ended up,but still thought he'd be good enough to make starting lineup in NBA.

2009 I really thought the Wolves had a good draft. Too bad it didn't end up like that for them. DeRozan was a guy I really did want Raptors to get,so it was great when they did get him. Ty Lawson was another name I thought was gonna be good, and he's really starting to prove it.

2010 I don't remember it alot,but I think Al-Farouq Aminu was a guy I thought was gonna be good. Hasn't turned out that way,but I still think he needs to be given bigger shot.

2011 Enes Kanter was the guy I did want Raptors to go after,but once he said he wouldn't play for the Raptors if drafted,I hated him,and glad he didn't fall to them either. Tristan Thompson was obviously the guy I was hoping Raptors got,so was mad when he went 4,and Raptors took some international big man(Valanciunas) 5th who wouldn't even play for them that season.

2012 was one I followed alot. Barnes and Drummond were the 2 guys I really thought would be great. Barnes I think was projected to go 1st in 2011 according to some sites? Barnes hasn't been as good as I thought,but he's really getting alot better this season. Drummond has been good too. Was so happy when 7th pick came around and Barnes/Drummond were available. Guaranteed Raptors would get one of those 2 guys...except they decide to go after Ross(a guy they easily could've traded down for) at 8!

2014, besides Wiggins, I thought Nurkic and Ennis would turn into good players.It's only been one season,but both those 2 still seem like they could be good players.

[cima]

Re: Your Draft Busts/Steals

I used to follow the draft/college bball religiously back when I was a teen and a fan of the Bulls. Loved the UC Bearcats Bob Huggins days. The 2000 team I thought was going to win the title and I still remember playing bball at school when an 8th grade girl yelled out the window that Kenyon Martin broke his leg in the C-USA tournament. It was devastating as a UC fan and they didn't recover. That team was stacked, Martin ended up being a solid pro and DerMarr Johnson who was on that team as well was being compared to Pippen but a bad car accident ended up derailing his career. In 2002 Steve Logan was the first pick of the 2nd round and I thought he was going to be a steal yet he ended up never playing in the league. He was one of the most pure scorers ever but was a 6'0 SG who wasn't uber athletic. His senior year he outscored the entire Southern Miss team by himself. They won 89-37, Logan had 41 points, 9 assists, and 6 rebounds, one of the best performances of all time.

I also thought Jay Williams was going to be the missing piece of Chicago and team with Twin Towers 2.0 to be the next great Chicago trio but we all know how that story ended. Speaking of them, Tyson Chandler is about as good as I thought he'd be but Eddy Curry never became the 25 PPG scorer I thought he'd be. His heart issues ended up ruining a very surprising 04-05 year and they were never the same.

As far as 2003 goes, I knew LeBron would be great. However, I was also on the Darko hype train and was obviously very wrong about that. I just remember this one scout who had been around forever praised Darko like none other, so I bought into it as well. He seemed to have all the tools but I think he was mentally too fragile.

Good thread, I'll input some more if others bring up some other drafts.

[vtcha]

Re: Your Draft Busts/Steals

I'd say the biggest bust would be Thabeet.

Taken at #2 over guys like Harden, Tyreke Evans, Rubio, Curry, DeRozan, Jennings, Holiday, Lawson, Teague, Darren Collison, Taj Gibson, DeMarre Carroll.

Damn come to think of it, that was one helluva deep draft class. Easily the best since '03.

This is also an interesting read

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/179479-2009-nba-mock-draft/page/1

Mock Draft had OKC to take Rubio and Wizards to select Harden.

[cima]

Re: Your Draft Busts/Steals

I'd say the biggest bust would be Thabeet.

Taken at #2 over guys like Harden, Tyreke Evans, Rubio, Curry, DeRozan, Jennings, Holiday, Lawson, Teague, Darren Collison, Taj Gibson, DeMarre Carroll.

Damn come to think of it, that was one helluva deep draft class. Easily the best since '03.

This is also an interesting read

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/179479-2009-nba-mock-draft/page/1

Mock Draft had OKC to take Rubio and Wizards to select Harden.

And on the flip side, 2013 may be the worst draft ever.

[Hassan Darkside]

Re: Your Draft Busts/Steals

And on the flip side, 2013 may be the worst draft ever.

Way too early to pass judgment on that. 2000 is far, far worse.

[cima]

Re: Your Draft Busts/Steals

Way too early to pass judgment on that. 2000 is far, far worse.

That's why I said may be. 2000 was historically bad but 2013 is giving it a good run

[Majingir]

Re: Your Draft Busts/Steals

Don't forget, 2013 draft class....Noel played his rookie year this past season. Nogueira still being partially "stashed" for now. Karasev was actually starting abit so far before the injury issue. Same with Shabazz as well.

The reason I bring up those guys,cause they're the only ones of the top 20 in that class who hasn't played 100 games yet. So while rest of class isn't entirely strong,you'd have Noel who could be one of best players in the class,gonna be entering his 2nd year, 2 top 20 picks who have started but are battling injuries,and another top 20 pick who could break out within 2-3 years.

[VDusen04]

Re: Your Draft Busts/Steals

I was totally on the Darko Milicic hype train. Back then, in the mostly pre-streaming video era of the internet, the best a lot of us could do was go by word of mouth. And in that regard, with Dirk Nowitzki and Peja Stojakovic blowing up the scene, it didn't take much to get scouts and executives excited for the next potential foreign steal. That excited permeated throughout a lot of the general public.

I watched (and taped) the 2003 Draft Lottery just before a Pistons-Nets Eastern Conference Finals game that year. When Detroit lucked into the second pick (thanks, Otis Thorpe) my friend and I high fived and celebrated because "we're getting Darko!" As far as we were concerned, the Pistons were set at four positions and simply needed a true center to plug alongside Ben Wallace. And from what we were hearing, Darko was going to be that dude.

On the flip side, I thought Mehmet Okur was going to be good from the moment I saw him in action in the 2002-03 preseason, and he ended up doing quite well. I originally thought Zeljko Rebraca was going to be our foreign center savior, but he was underwhelming. Then I watched the six-foot-eleven Okur step back and hit a 3-pointer and instantly concluded, "I'm going to like this guy."

[vtcha]

Re: Your Draft Busts/Steals

Calling the 2013 a bust is a big stretch.

There are some decent players with All-Star potential;

Oladipo, Len, Noel, Giannis, Gobert.

Then you have some guys that can be solid role players;

Porter JR, Burke, Adams, MCW, Muhammad, Dieng, Plumlee, McCollum, Schroder.

[JazzMan]

Re: Your Draft Busts/Steals

We all know where this is going.

I watched a lot of Butler during the 2009 season when Gordon Hayward was a sophomore. Dude had all of the moves on offense, he was looking like a second-coming of Manu Ginobili. Having adopted Utah as my team when I was younger (dad was a Lakers fan, I hated LA), I was really hoping that we'd take either Hayward or Paul George at the #9 spot in the 2010 draft.

And sure enough, Hayward went at #9. For the most part he was just a spot-up shooter as a rookie. D-Will was still running the show and he hated the kid. I think that was Big Al's first year in Utah. Kirilenko was still there. He didn't get much time a rook, but he had a game where he exploded for like 34 points or something like that. Just an unreal rookie performance. I didn't think he'd evolve into one of the most well-rounded players in the league, though. He's come a long way.

Another guy I loved was Rodrigue Beaubois. He had some AMAZING games and highlights his first 2 years in the league. I really thought he was going to be something special. Then, he get hit by an injury... and another. And another. Then he was out of the league. Dude's still young, he could come back if he's healthy and make a difference as a key bench player on a good team. Guy can score.

I thought Rubio was going to be our generation's Pistol Pete when he finally arrived. He instantly made Minnesota a better team. His passing and court vision is incredible, and his defense is tough. I just thought he'd be a better shooter than he is.

I didn't buy into the Anthony Bennett hype at all. I remember a poster on here was completely infatuated with him because he went to UNLV. Thought he was the next LeBron because of his size.

I didn't think Rudy Gobert was going to become this good of a player this quickly. I don't think anybody in the league really thought so, either. He went like 27th in the 2013 draft, and now he's arguably the best player from that year.

I thought Kyrie was going to be a total bust. Didn't seem that athletic, too small to play the two, too focused on scoring to play the one, and he played like 3 minutes of college basketball lol.

Also, I'm well-documented of thinking Rodney Hood is going to be the steal of the 2014 draft.

[vtcha]

Re: Your Draft Busts/Steals

Huge steals of the draft in the past decade:

Paul Millsap - 47th in 2006
Marc Gasol - 48th in 2007
DeAndre Jordan - 35th in 2008
Goran Dragic - 45th in 2008
Jimmy Butler - 30th in 2011
Draymond Green - 35th in 2012
Rudy Gobert - 27th in 2013
Jordan Clarkson - 46th in 2014??

[cima]

Re: Your Draft Busts/Steals

Calling the 2013 a bust is a big stretch.

There are some decent players with All-Star potential;

Oladipo, Len, Noel, Giannis, Gobert.

Then you have some guys that can be solid role players;

Porter JR, Burke, Adams, MCW, Muhammad, Dieng, Plumlee, McCollum, Schroder.

No superstars in this draft though. You don't draft a guy at #3 overall to be a solid role player (Porter). If you're going to say those guys are solid role players, I'll just bring up 2000's class to show it's extremely comparable:

Kenyon Martin, Stromile Swift (dude wasn't terrible but nowhere near a #2 pick), Darius Miles (decent before injuries ruined him for good), Mike Miller, Chris Mihm, Jamal Crawford, Hedo Turkoglu, Desmond Mason, Quentin Richardson, Jamaal Magloire, Morris Peterson, Deshawn Stevenson, Mark Madsen (lol jk), Marko Jaric, Eddie House, Eduardo Najera, Michael Redd.

So actually looking back, 2000 wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. The players in the top 5 or so just weren't worthy of those number picks, but I'm seeing that same theme running with 2013.

[cima]

Re: Your Draft Busts/Steals

Huge steals of the draft in the past decade:

Paul Millsap - 47th in 2006
Marc Gasol - 48th in 2007
DeAndre Jordan - 35th in 2008
Goran Dragic - 45th in 2008
Jimmy Butler - 30th in 2011
Draymond Green - 35th in 2012
Rudy Gobert - 27th in 2013
Jordan Clarkson - 46th in 2014??

Isaiah Thomas is arguably the biggest steal of all-time considering he was picked dead last in 2011 and has been a 20 PPG scorer.

[cima]

Re: Your Draft Busts/Steals

Trying to decide since 2000, which year had the worst top 5?


2000: Kenyon Martin, Stromile Swift, Darius Miles, Marcus Fizer, Mike Miller
2002: Yao, Jay Williams, Mike Dunleavy, Drew Gooden, Nickoloz Tskitishvili
2006: Andrea Bargnani, Aldridge, Adam Morrison, Tyrus Thomas, Shelden Williams
2013: Anthony Bennett, Oladipo, Porter, Cody Zeller, Alex Len

It's a pretty close race between 2000 and 2006. 2013 could join or surpass them eventually, we'll have to wait and see.

[ojandpizza]

Re: Your Draft Busts/Steals

Aldridge alone makes that not a close race between the 3.


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