Although the NBA season is in full swing and it is some time until the draft comes along, we have decided to take a look at some of the worst draft deals of this Millennium. So let us inspect the flops made by basketball franchises since 2000.
Anthony Bennett
Pick/Year: No.1/2013
College: UNLV
Team: Cleveland Cavaliers
Chosen Over: Victor Oladipo, Trey Burke, Michael Carter-Williams
NBA career stats (2013-14): PPG 4.2, RPG 3, BPG 0.2
by Erik Daniel Drost
When Anthony Bennett was selected first by the Cavs two years ago it did come as some surprise. The first ever Canadian to be selected as No. 1 had only played just one season of collegiate basketball and it showed.
The Cavs, bar Kyrie Irving, were not great last season and Bennett was forgettable. He lasted 12 months in Ohio before being used as a makeweight in the Kevin Love deal. Ironically, Bennett hasn’t looked to bad in Minnesota. Love, by contrast, has struggled to fit into the Cavs’ system. This is something that LeBron James has pointed out on social media.
It must be irksome for Bennett.
While he was at the Cavs, they were the worse side in the NBA. Fast forward 12 months and they are looking good. You can check out their odds at betfair if you fancy a wager on their chances.
Marvin Williams
Pick/Year: No. 2/2005
College: North Carolina
Team: Atlanta Hawks
Chosen over: Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Monta Ellis
NBA career stats: 10.8 PPG, 5.1 RPG, 1.3 APG
by Keith Allison – Williams (No. 24)
It is a mystery to this day why the Hawks opted for Marvin Williams over Chris Paul back in 2005. The Hawks had just come off a 13-69 season and drastically needed a new point guard. This was due to Tyronn Lue being not up to the task. Logic would suggest that Paul would be the ideal pick in the draft, having been named a First Team Consensus All-America. Logic lost that day.
Instead of Paul they went for Williams. This was a player who didn’t even start in college, although he did come from the defending champions North Carolina Tar Heels. Why on earth would you use the second pick of the draft to get a collegiate sixth man?
The two men went very different ways. As to be expected, Paul has established himself as one of the better players in the NBA. He has a very good chance of winning his first championship ring with the Clippers this season. Meanwhile, Williams was underwhelming at the Hawks before being underwhelming with the Utah Jazz. Whether he will be able to buck the trend with the Charlotte Hornets remains to be seen.
Evan Turner
Pick/Year: No.2/2010
College: Ohio State
Team: Philadelphia 76’ers
Chosen Over: Derrick Favors, DeMarcus Cousins, Paul George
NBA career stats: 11.1 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 0.2 BPG (2006-10)
by Keith Allison
When Evan Turner entered the draft in 2010 he was viewed by many as the number one prospect. Although it turned out to be John Wall, many believed that it was a spot befitting Turner, who had just come off a monstrous season at college.
His final year at college saw him outscore every other player in the Big Ten. He was second only to Mike Davis in rebounds, ranked second in assists and third in steals. With stats like that you couldn’t help but be excited by the prospect of Turner joining the ranks.
The first two seasons with the 76’ers were extremely rough on Turner. Too often he seemed overmatched and his offensive virtuosity deserted him. Media reports suggested that his lack of form could be down to a possible rift with the coaching staff in Philadelphia or undocumented injuries. However, for a player of Turner’s pedigree this should have never have been a problem. It seemed that his dominance of the college game counted for nothing when he came over to the NBA.
Luckily for Turner his game improved significantly by the 2012-13 season. That season he averaged 13.3 PPG and the season after he bettered his points total to 17.3 PPG before being moved on to the Indiana Pacers.
At just 26-years-old Turner has plenty of time left in his career. Now he is starting to find his feet in the big leagues he is starting to look like the player he was supposed to be. The Boston Celtics will be good to him and hopefully the two will be able to go on to do great things.
However, from the 76’ers’ standpoint he has to be viewed as failure. He was going to be the franchise player and yet was shown the door after two-and-a-half years of underwhelming basketball. Former 76’ers player Elton Brand said that former coach Doug Collins was the reason why the 76’ers opted for Turner over DeMarcus Cousins, a player who would have been superb in Philly.
Adam Morrison
Pick/Year: No.3/2006
College: Gonzaga
Team: Charlotte Bobcats
Chosen Over: Brandon Roy, Rajon Rondo, Kyle Lowry
NBA career stats: 7.5 PPG, 2.1 RPG, 0.1 BPG (2006-10)
Adam Morrison was another player picked by Michael Jordan and just like Kwame Brown he proved to be something of a let-down.
After deciding to forego his final year at college, Morrison entered the draft and signed with the Charlotte Bobcats on a $6.25 million two-year deal. Although that is a lot of money, in the grand scheme of NBA contracts it is more like a pittance, which is a very good thing when considering how little an impact Morrison made.
The fact that Morrison managed just four seasons in the NBA should tell you all you need to know about this supposed mercurial talent.
In fairness to Morrison he actually started his debut NBA season in decent form. His maiden game against the Indiana Pacers saw him throw for 14 points, three rebounds and two assists. In the following month – December – Morrison scored a career high of 30 points, again against the Pacers. Unfortunately the giant from Montana could not sustain his form and he was dropped by the midway point of his first season due to his poor shooting and defensive statistics.
It wasn’t the best of debut campaigns for Morrison but it was by no means a career-defining season. Morrison had shown enough talent for people to retain faith in his abilities. However, before the small forward could start to rebuild, he tore his anterior cruciate ligament. This injury ruled him out for the entirety of the 2007-08 season.
With an attempted return the season after being lackluster, the Bobcats decided to discard their number three pick to the Lakers. Here, Morrison’s career took a particularly peculiar turn. As a member of the brilliant LA Lakers side of 2009 and 2010, he ended up winning two NBA Championship rings although his input was minimal.
Nowadays Morrison is playing in the European wilderness and craving a return to the big time. At 30-years-old the boat has not sailed but it would be one of the bigger shocks in basketball if he were to make a return.
Morrison was very much a bust for the Bobcats. He entered the league as the Chevrolet Player of the Year and the United States Basketball Writers Association Co-Player of the year alongside J.J. Redick. It was a draft that curtailed the development of the Bobcats as a franchise. Despite being with the side for three years, Morrison did not even manage two full seasons of basketball.
Kwame Brown
Pick/Year: No.1/2001
College: Glynn Academy – High School
Team: Washington Wizards
Chosen Over: Pau Gasol, Tony Parker, Zach Randolph
NBA career stats: 6.6 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 0.6 BPG (2001-13)
by Keith Allison – It doesn’t really matter which way you look at it, Michael Jordan was the greatest basketball player ever. He may be tremendous on the court but when he’s trying to manage a side off it, he has proven to be the polar opposite. His signing of Kwame Brown proves just that.
Brown was a mercurial talent in high school and was named in the 2001 McDonald’s All-American Team. This was all MJ needed to see before making Brown the first ever high school player to be picked with the first draft pick.
His first season with the Wizards was terrible, but you can allow some leeway for that considering it was his debut campaign. The next wasn’t much better, despite his game time being increased. Neither were the two that followed. And then to add insult to injury he turned down the Wizards’ new contract offer and instead preferred to go on the free agent market.
Since the Wizards, Brown has been passed from team to team. He has been without a team since 2013. Not only was he a waste of a pick, he thought of himself as above the club and jumped ship the second the opportunity presented itself.
Nikoloz Tskitishvili
Pick/Year: No.5/2002
College: N/A – Entered the draft after playing for Italian side Benetton Treviso
Team: Denver Nuggets
Chosen Over: Amar’e Stoudemire, Caron Butler, Tayshaun Prince
NBA career stats: 2.9 PPG, 1.8 RPG, 0.7 BPG (2006-10)
Bringing over European players in the draft is always a big risk. The pace and intensity on the American courts is all the more than those over in Europe.
Alarm bells should have been ringing for every Nugget fan when they heard rumours circulating that Denver were looking at Nikoloz Tskitishvili. The seven foot Georgian was averaging 6.6 points per game for former LA Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni. Those figures in the European leagues are hardly impressive, but the Nuggets made an exception for a player who was being touted by scouts as a versatile, inside-out, big man. Perhaps the exceptional rise of Dirk Nowitzki at the Dallas Stars was the reason to entice them to move for Tskitishvili.
Despite his size, Tskitishvili profusely struggled in the NBA. The physicality in America saw him look far less composed on the ball. In fact, he was knocked off it more often than not. If you take away his lack of physical presence you still have a player who was not up to scratch both offensively and defensively.
By 2005 Denver had had enough, trading Tskitishvili to the Golden State Warriors, who in turn shipped him off to the Minnesota Timberwolves after 12 appearances. His stay with the Timberwolves was even shorter. After just five appearances in the jersey he was discarded and sent packing to the Phoenix Suns.
Tskitishvili is now used as the barometer for assessing how bad a European player is performing in the NBA.
Darko Milicic
Pick/Year: No.2/2003
College: Hemofarm (Serbia)
Team: Detroit Pistons
Chosen over: Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh
NBA career stats: 6.0 PPG, 4.2 RPG, 1.3 BPG (2003-12)
The 2003 draft was a golden opportunity for the Detroit Pistons. The previous season saw them lose to the New Jersey Nets in the finals of the Eastern Conference, but they had the No.2 pick thanks to a deal made with the Vancouver Grizzlies back in 1997. Here was a case of good team being made better, which it would have done had they gone for the three players listed above.
You can defend Joe Dumars by saying that Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade were not needed due to Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince being on the roster. But the argument that Chris Bosh was not tough enough for the NBA has long been discredited. All three of these players individually were equal to Milicic squared.
What’s worse, they signed Milicic and then never gave him consistent game time. During his three seasons with the Pistons his average MPG was 5.73. He may have been a star in the making had he been given the game time, but when you look at who the Pistons passed up he has to be looked at as a massive draft failure.