There are good drafts, filled with talent and poised to bring in the next batch of NBA superstars. Then, there are bad drafts, with talent so thin you have to scratch your head and wonder how these guys ended up taken where they were. Let's take a look at the 2001 NBA Draft:
The first overall selection belonged to the Washington Wizards. The Michael Jordan-led Wizards. Who did they deem to be the best prospect in the entire draft? Kwame Brown. In Brown's defense, he is at least still in the league. Brown was taken right out of high school during a time where every NBA team was looking for the next Kobe Bryant (aren't they still?). Brown went on to average 4.5 PPG and 3.5 RPG in his rookie year. Hardly numbers worthy of a #1 overall pick. he has gone on to play for 6 different teams and has never come close to realizing his potential, or at least the potential everyone thought he had. Perhaps he didn't have any to begin with.
The second pick of the draft was another high school prodigy, Tyson Chandler, who was taken by the Clippers and traded to the Bulls. Chandler has been a very good player, helping the Mavericks win the championship last year. Worthy of the #2 overall pick? Nope. Very nice player to have on your team? Yep.
Pau Gasol was taken with the third overall pick by the Atlanta Hawks who would trade him to the Grizzlies who now reside in Memphis but were still in Vancouver at the time. Whew. Finally, a pick worthy of a top three selection. Gasol has been a very good big man in this league and has helped the Lakers win a Championship. By the way, the Lakers traded Kwame Brown, who they acquired from the Wizards, for Gasol. Yeah, I know, confusing.
Moving along to Eddy Curry, the 4th pick in the draft, selected by the Bulls. Wow, the Bulls with basically two top four picks. What was supposed to be the ushering in of a new era in Chicago turned out to be nothing more than a continuation of the old era. Curry did have a couple of decent seasons, one with the Knicks. However, he either developed a heart condition or just became lazy and vanished from the Knick radar. He is, amazingly, still playing, sort of. He recently signed a contract with the Miami Heat who are struggling to find anyone to fit under their cap to play even two minutes of basketball. However, Curry has yet to play a single minute for the Heat. Another thing Curry is noted for? Allegedly soliciting gay sex from his limo driver.
OK, the fifth pick in the draft has to be much better, right? Enter Jason Richardson, taken by the Golden State Warriors who are the only team in professional sports who don't list a city or state in their name. Perhaps because no state really wants to associate with them, not since Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin left anyway. Well, Richardson was good enough to make the All-Rookie team which is either saying he is talented or that everyone else from this class was lacking. Nah, Richardson is a good player. He just doesn't play for Golden Showe....errr, Golden State anymore. The "Warriors" traded him for the rights to Brendan Wright. So wrong. He's on Orlando now and still a threat to score.
Shane Battier was taken with the sixth overall pick. I grew up loving the way Battier played the game, still do. The guy won't put up huge numbers but he is someone you want on your team. He plays this thing that used to be played in the NBA called defense. Yeah, hard to come by and most of the other players think he has some communicable disease but it's just defense. Not worthy of a sixth pick in a draft but I would love to have the guy on my team. He'll make a great coach one day.
Now we get to the 7th pick, Eddie Griffin. Wait, doesn't this guy make bad B movies? Oh, different Eddie Griffin? OK. Griffin was selected # 7 overall by the Nets who traded him to Houston. Can you believe the Nets got Jason Collins, Richard Jefferson, and Brandon Armstrong in return for him? Wow. Griffin would become an alcoholic, get released from the Rockets, go to rehab, sign with the Wolves, got drunk again, got into car accident with parked car, got released, got drunk and then got hit by a train and died. Sad.
OK, hopefully the 8th overall pick will bring about some better news. With the 8th pick the Cavs selected DeSagana Diop. Yet another high schooler, Diop is yet another huge high school prospect that failed to live up to expectations. I swear, because of this draft the NBA banned high school kids from entering the draft. Diop averages less than 2 points per game and has averaged 2.1 PPG for his career. Hey, the good news is he still plays for the Bobcats and that he his career high for points in a game is 10, a plateau he has reached 4 times in his career! Awesome! Wow.
Rodney White is out #9 overall selection. Oh wow, Rodney White. Yeah, the hits just keep on coming. The Pistons were dumb enough, or maybe they were drunk enough to select White with the #9 overall pick. White never did much in the NBA but apparently he is branching out into new fields of endeavor. He was recently arrested and charged with felony manufacture of marijuana and 4 other things. Good job, Rodney.
The number 10 pick is at least someone who is still playing and someone who is still good. That man is Joe Johnson who was chosen by the Celtics. Midway through his rookie season he was traded with Randy Brown, Milt Palacio, and a first rounder to the Suns for Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk. Wow, Boston. Guess the Celtics wanted to see if they could top the Jeff Bagwell to Astros for Larry Andersen or Babe Ruth being sold to the Yankees. It's ok though, Johnson has only made 5 All-Star teams since leaving Boston.
Boston also had the 11th pick and chose Kedrick Brown. Did you know that Kedrick Brown is still playing? He is....in Turkey. He averaged a little over 3 PPG during his stay in the States. Way to go Kedrick!
OK, moving on to the twelfth pick now. Phew, my head is about to explode. It can't get any worse than this, can it? Enter Vladimir Radmanovic who was taken by the Seattle Supersonics, who no longer exist. Awesome. The Radman is still playing, but for the Hawks. He isn't a terrible player. He isn't a very good player. At least he is a player.
Who is lucky #13? Richard Jefferson, come on down! Jefferson was taken by the Rockets in this position who then traded him to the Nets for Eddie Griffin. I assume that the Rockets really wanted the actor and not the guy they actually got. Anyway, Jefferson went on to help lead the Nets out of obscurity with Jason Kidd and Co. and into the NBA Finals. Jefferson has had a nice career and now is a capable backup, no longer being the slashing threat he once was. At least he was good enough to make some money playing in this league.
At #14, the Golden State Warriors (seriously, can't they just say the Oakland Warriors or something?) selected Troy Murphy. Troy is of no relation to Brittany Murphy the late actress. He is still playing basketball in the United States with the Lakers. He was born in Morristown, NJ and grew up in Sparta Township near where I currently reside. for a local hero you would think there would have been more fanfare when he came to the Nets last season. Murphy was traded from the "Warriors" to the Pacers. From the Pacers he was traded to the Nets. Then the Nets traded him back to the Warriors who bought him out allowing the boy with the Irish name to sign with the Celtics. Now he is a Laker. Cool.
Pick #15 brings us to the Orlando Magic's selection of Stephen Hunter. Mr. Hunter, I think, is playing in Italy somewhere. He is 7' tall so I'm sure he is averagin at least 4 PPG in Italy.
Pick #16 belonged to the Charlotte Hornets (who are now in New Orleans). They chose, Kirk Haston. Yeah, I don't know who he is either. He averaged 1.2 PPG and played in 27 more NBA games than I did. Good for you, Kirk!
Pick #17 belonged to the Toronto Raptors, the only team to be named after a movie villain from Jurassic Park. They chose Michael Bradley. Bradley went on to have a much more successful career than Kirk Haston. Yep. Bradley played in 173 NBA games for 5 teams while averaging 2.8 PPG. He's now a coach at The Summit Country Day School in Cincinnati. I'm not sure if that's a grammar school or high school. Either way, he is probably the only one in the gym that can dunk anyway which makes him the closest thing to an All-Star he'll ever be.
Pick #18 was another one belonging to the Rockets. They chose Jason Collins before trading him to the Nets. Apparently, the Rockets felt bad for the Nets and wanted to give them all of their draft picks for a DVD compilation of Eddie Griffin's standup routines or something. Collins wasn't exactly a world beater. Oh, I was just informed he is still in the NBA! Wow. Collins is a backup center for the Atlanta Hawks. Good for you Jason!
The 19th pick in the draft was used by the Portland Jai...Trail Blazers to select Zach Randolph. Hey, finally a guy we've all heard of. Wow. A guy who is better than the previous five picks combined! Usually, you aren't supposed to find better talent at #19 than you do at #1 but, hey, sometimes the world gets tossed around a little bit. Randolph is still a very good player.
The Cleveland Cavaliers used the #20 pick to select Brendan Heywood. Heywood never suited up for the Cavs because he was traded to the Magic. He never suited up for the Magic because he was traded to the Wizards for Laron Profit and a first rounder. Either Heywood was the most unwanted man or the most wanted. Hard to tell which. Heywood is still doing some pretty good work out there in Dallas.
The 21st pick belonged to the Boston Celtics...again. Again, the Celtics screwed the pooch with their pick. They chose Joseph Forte who apparently went to school at North Carolina. According to Wikipedia, his most memorable NBA moment in the NBA came when he wore a Scooby-Doo t-shirt on the bench during a playoff game. He averaged 1.2 PPG for his "career" in the NBA. He has also been arrested in MAryland for drug AND gun charges. He was also later charged with assault for punching a man during a pick-up game giving him a better Crimes Committed Per Game Average than his PPG stats. Great work Forte.
With the 22nd pick, the Magic took Jeryl Sasser. Sasser played 2 years in the NBA and actually managed to put up a better PPG career average than the aforementioned Forte. Yep, Sasser averaged 2.5 PPG. He would later go on to play basketball in Kuwait...who knew they had pro basketball over there?
The 23rd pick was used by the Rockets to select another guy for New Jersey, Brandon Armstrong. Armstrong went on to have a slightly better career than Forte and a slightly, though less productive one than Jeryl Sasser.
The 24th pick brings us to the Utah Jazz's selection of Raul Lopez. Lopez, otherwise known as the "Spanish Fly" was featured on the Spanish version of the 2004 version of NBA Live. Cool, I guess. that's a much better accomplishment than well over half of the guys drafted before him. Senor Lopez no esta aqui. That means he isn't here anymore, I think. Lopez only played 2 years in the NBA but he had better numbers than Forte, Sasser, and Armstrong. The Spanish Fly flew back to Spain to play in the pro leagues over there where he was good enough to make the National Team and win a silver medal in the Olympics.
Pick #25 belonged to the Sacramento Kings and they chose Gerald Wallace. Wallace is a pretty good player. He barely played for Sacramento, mostly because Sacramento barely remembers they have a team. Anyway, the Bobcats chose him in their expansion draft three years later.He averaged 11.1 PPG his first year with the Bobcats which is better than almost 70% of the players previously mentioned. Wallace also plays that thing called defense. He would go on to average over 19 PPG with the Bobcats in in 2007-08 which is better than 80% of the previously mentioned players on this list. Wallace is still playing and averaging over 15 PPg for the Jai...Trail Blazers.
The 26th pick was Samuel Dalembert by the Philadephia 76ers. Dalembert was born in Haiti, moved to Canada, and then was drafted to Philly. He isn't a terrible player. He's a big man who can rebound and block a shot which gives him skills that 90% of the NBA no longer want or possess. He is now on the Sacramento Kings.
Pick #27 belonged to the Vancouver Grizzlies. No, the Grizzlies weren't good enough to earn the 27th pick they had to trade for it. They chose Jamaal Tinsley. Tinsley apparently passed gas when he was being welcomed to the Grizz because he was immediately dealt to Atlanta. The smell must have lingered because he was then immediately dealt to Indiana. Tinsley is a pretty good backup point guard these days. He went from the Pacers back to the Grizzlies once the Grizzlies wised up and moved to Memphis. He now plays for the Jazz.
And now, here we are, the last pick of the first round, pick #28. The San Antonio Spurs sat here wondering what talent could possibly be left. After all Kwame was gone. Forte was gone. Sasser was gone. Whom to take? Dilemma, dilemma. The Spurs put some names into a hat and emerged with Tony Parker. Yeah, the same Tony Parker that has helped them win like 100 Championships and stuff. Yeah, the French guy who slept with Eva Longoria and then married her. I think they are divorced now or something, eh, the French can get annoying after a few years of being around them and I'm sure Tony Parker (seriously, how is he French with a name like that?) grated on Miss Longoria after a while. Parker might be the best steal in the draft.
Other notables, ok, ok, notable from this draft was second round pick Gilbert Arenas by the Golden State Warriors. Seriously, they have to make some of the WORST personnel decisions in sports. First was to draft Arenas, then to trade him. Arenas went on to play and star for the Washington team formerly known as the Bullets, aka the Wizards where he would become embroiled in one of the strangest gun cases I've ever heard. Anyway, the team with the #1 overall pick actually ended up with a player worthy (at least among this bunch) of the #1 pick. Weird. Arenas is now in Orlando where he likes to scare little kids at Disney World in his spare time.
No comments:
Post a Comment