[Sewok15Participant]

I am a Sixers fan and can’t help but think what could have been. They have historically been one of the most inept teams when it comes to drafting players with high picks. They have obviously gotten better at this over the years but I am talking more about the days of AI. They never got another superstar to play with him when many were on the board. I am going to review many of the mistakes they made and want to here your teams mistakes so I feel better about the situation.

I am going to start 20 years ago just because that is when I started paying attention to Sixers basketball. In 1993 the Sixers took Shawn Bradley with the 2nd pick. Penny Hardaway (my 2nd favorite player all time behind AI) went 3rd. Bradley averaged 8 points 6 boards and 2.5 blocks in his 10+ years in the league. Only 4 of which were played on the Sixers. Penny could do it all and averaged 15 pts 5 rebs and 5 assits for his injury plagued career. He averaged over 20 a game 3 years in a row after being a rookie but of course was hindered in his career by injuries after that…much like his contemporary Grant Hill (who incredibly is still playing).

In 94 they had the 6th pick when it was pretty much a 5 person draft. Big Dog, Kidd, Grant Hill, Donyell Marshall and Juwan Howard were the top 5. The Sixers selected another big man Sharone Wright 6th overall. Eddie Jones (3x all-star) and Jalen Rose (surprisingly never made an all star game) were taken in the lottery. Wright was solid for the Sixers but his career was also cut short by a car accident after being traded to the Raptors for Ed Pickney, Tony Massenburg and the right to switch draft picks.

In 1995 the Sixers drafted 3rd and took Jerry Stackhouse. The 4th and 5th players drafted were Rasheed Wallace (Philly guy) and Kevin Garnett (MVP and HOFer). Stackhouse was a scorer but he was also a turnover machine which wasn’t conducive for winning games. Joe Smith and McDyess went 1 and 2 so it didn’t really work out for those teams either.

In 1996 the Sixers won the lottery and went with the no brainer and picked AI. They possibly could have traded their 97 pick and also got Kobe, Steve Nash or Peja who went 13,14,15 but I will let them slide because they got one right finally.

1997 they missed out on Tim Duncan and got the 2nd pick. They took Keith Van Horn and traded him to Jersey for Tim Thomas. Thomas never put it all together but that was an awful draft and only Billups and TMac went on to have great NBA careers.

1998 is the year that killed me and I will remember for the rest of my life. The Sixers picked 8th and got the young explosive Larry Hughes. Dirk went 9th and Paul Pierce went 10th. Hughes was exciting as part of the flight brothers but he never shot a high % in his life. Pierce and Dirk are obviously hall of famers and NBA champions. They are also both still playing at a high level.

The Sixers off the strength of AI playing his butt off and being a defensive juggernaut with Larry Brown at the helm played well for the next 5 years. They made the finals in 2001 but were clearly outgunned by the Lakers who had 2 Superstar players.

They made some nice picks over the next few years in the lottery like Andre Igoudala and Thad Young and some bad ones like trading Sefolosha for Rodney Carney and picking Mo Speights over Hibbert, McGee, Ryan Anderson, Serge Ibaka, and Nic Batum.

In 2009 they made one of the best moves they have in a decade and drafted Jrue Holiday 17th. I personally wanted Ty Lawson who went 18th but the Sixers got one right as Holiday is an all star this year even though Lawson is certainly no slouch in Denver.

2010 Evan Turner was the obvious pick at the time. If you could redraft you might take Monroe or Paul George but at the time nobody was second guessing picking ET.

2011 they drafted a gem in Vucevic (5th in league in Rebs) and 2012 I really liked the Harkless pick but they packaged them and Iggy for Bynum and Richardson (who are both hurt right now). I would have traded Iggy for a draft pick and moved forward with the young talent in an attempt to rebuild (It isn’t like Bynum is going to put them over the top and better than Miami). So the Sixers have been screwing up for years is what I am saying. Many teams make mistakes in the draft but I don’t know if any of your favorite squads can beat the Sixers. Thank you for reading my rant (if any of you actually did).

It is 6 years to the day that Billy King was fired…that was my motivation for this topic. I hated Billy King. His first year as GM was 1998…the year I wanted Pierce or Dirk and the year that the draft mistakes likely cost the Sixers a title. Your turn…

[PaulsJayhawksParticipant]

Rafael Araujo instead of Iggy..especially when Vince was on his way out. Killed Raps momentium.

[JordoParticipant]

Kwaaaaaame Brown *Steven A. Smith voice*

[Lebron’s HairlineParticipant]

How about primo pasta over Lamarcus Aldrige? We could’ve had 2 of the most skilled and agile big men in the game

[Chilbert arenasParticipant]

Suns trading Deng 2004 and Rondo 2006 for a bag of peanuts.
2009: Taking Earl Clark over Holiday Lawson and Taj Gibson, (a hindsight regret but nonetheless)
2008: Robin Lopez over Ibaka (who I wanted) Hibbert Mcgee Batum Deandre Jordan and even Ryan Anderson.
2011: Markeif Morris over Keneth Faried and Kawai Leonard
2012: Kendal Marshall over Moe Harkless

[Lebron’s HairlineParticipant]

That whole 2001 draft was weak sauce

[pistonkidParticipant]

just looking at the 2001 nba draft on wikipedia how has jason richardson never been an all star?

[Sewok15Participant]

His best years were in Golden State and we all know they aren’t allowed to have all stars…unless they are top 5 in the conference which hasn’t happened since forever. This could be the start to a new interesting topic…Best players to never make all star game…Andre Miller never made it.

Drazen Petrovic somehow didn’t make it in 1993 despite averaging 23 a game on 52%FG and 50% 3 pt shooting at the time. He was however 3rd team all NBA by the end of the season…it is really one of the true tragedies in the history of sports that he died after that season. If you haven’t seen the 30 for 30 on him you must…it is the best one of the bunch in my opinion.

[pistonkidParticipant]

obviously milicic instead of anthony or bosh or wade in 2003 draft 🙁

[Sewok15Participant]

Haha it doesn’t get any worse than that one….somehow the Pistons still won a title though.

[3 No Biases 3Participant]

Let me start by saying This was an absolutely horrible pick but really They may have not had a chance to win the title that year if they had one of those 3 cause there team was blended together so perfectly already… Carmelo and Wade would not have blended well with already 3 premier scorers in Chauncey, Rip, and Sheed..and Bosh would have been sitting behind Sheed and Okur for 2 years maybe…I Obviously know those 3 are great players but that team one a title with RARE team chemistry they might not have had otherwise…

Just putting the thought out there cause no one really knows if any of those 3 would have produced a championship there…

[aamir543Participant]

Everyone forgets that the Pistons traded for Sheed at the trade deadline that year, Sheed only played 22 games during the regular season for them. Had they drafted Bosh, and especially Wade or Melo, they wouldn’t have needed to trade for Sheed, and I don’t think they would’ve won it without him that year, if you look at his advanced stats his defensive metric stats are DPOY worthy for 2004 when he was with Detroit, but average for every other season of his career. Without his D they wouldn’t have won it that year.

[Lebron’s HairlineParticipant]

Two words: western conference

[Chilbert arenasParticipant]

2001 draft had 8 players that at one point were all stars. Jason Richardson and Richard Jefferson were never all-stars as far as I can remember. Name the 8 players…

[pistonkidParticipant]

chandler, gasol, joe johnson, randolph, gerald wallace, parker, arenas & okur

[joshinator1Participant]

For the Golden State Warriors as of recently:
2005: With the 9th pick choosing Ike Diogu instead of Andrew Bynum who was the next pick
2006: Even though this draft class was weak I still flat out hate how they picked Patrick OBryant with the 9th pick
2007: I hated the draft day trade where they traded Jason Richardson and told the Bobcats to pick Brandan Wright with the 8th pick for them in the trade, when they should of asked them to draft Joakim Noah for them who was picked next
2008: With the 14th pick they chose Anthony Randolph instead of Roy Hibbert, Javale McGee, or Ryan Anderson
2010: With the 6th pick they chose Ekpe Udoh instead of Greg Monroe who was picked next

[Lebron’s HairlineParticipant]

Uhh Gasol, Johnson, Chandler, Okur, Hibachi, and ZBo is all I can think of

[PowerofXParticipant]

*2007 Morris Almond in probly their weakest draft of the decade. Passed on Aaron Brooks, Arron Afflalo, Marc Gasol. Though apart from KD, Horford and some others 2007 was pretty weak all around.
*2008 Kosta Koufos over Serge Ibaka, Nicolas Batum, George Hill, Mario Chalmers, Omer Asik.
*2009 Eric Maynor (traded midway thru his rookie season) over Taj Gibson, Sam Young, DeJuan Blair, Jodie Meeks, Danny Green. Most of those guys are benchwarmers but they would’ve been good depth on 2009’s stacked Jazz team led by D Will and Boozer.

2010 Gordon Hayward has been good but you could argue that Paul George would’ve been a better pick because hindsight’s 20/20, back then George was considered a reach at #10. I wouldn’t mind George on the Jazz but Hayward’s making good progress, just have to give him time.

So yeah the Jazz have made some mistakes these past few drafts, expecting more of the same in 2013. Kevin O’Connor doesn’t know what he’s doing.

[chevilicousParticipant]

“So yeah the Jazz have made some mistakes these past few drafts, expecting more of the same in 2013. Kevin O’Connor doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

Except Dennis Lindsey is now the GM making all basketball descisions, and O’connor is widely respected as one of the better GM’s in the association. The only one of the drafts you pointed to here as being a complete failure is the 07 draft of Morris Almond. The other 4, just considering their status coming into the draft i wouldnt say was bad. You have to take into account their position needs at the time, and half the guys you mentioned here wouldn’t have even seen the floor on the jazz roster. Keep in mind they still had Millsap/Boozer and Harpring/Kirilenko during several of the years you mentioned, so I’m not sure where you envision any of those 3’s and 4’s getting playing time over that depth.

[phila9012Participant]

timberwolves

2005- rashard mccants- anybody still in the league
2006- ended up with randy foye, they should have stuck with branden roy or rudy gay
2007- corey brewer- thadeus young or joakim noah
2009- johnny flynn- stephen curry, demar derozen, branden jennings, jrue holiday, ty lawson, jeff teague, darren colison(six point guards taken after him who are better than him.
2010- wes johnson- cousins, monroe, hayward, george
2011- derrick williams- half of the first round picks
2012 traded pick away for marco jaric- any first round pick, jeremy lamb would be nice

The timberwolves always screw up the draft. They had so many top picks and just wasted all of them. They struck with rubio and love but the rest were terrible misses. Both Kahn and McHale are to blame for them sucking for so long and it sucks to be a timberwolves fan because right when the team looks decent and promising the whole team gets hurt, starting with rubio and love last year and continuing this year with every player.

[Sewok15Participant]

You can’t forget that they also forfeited 3 first round picks because Kevin McHale really wanted Joe Smith…

[aamir543Participant]

My Dubs
2005- Ike Diogu- We picked him over Bynum who was taken with the next pick, it looked like he would develop nicely after his rookie season, but he didn’t get big minutes in his season and a half here and was traded to Indiana who heralded him as a good prospect, but he never got much PT there.
Grade:B-

2006-Patrick O’Bryant- Huge miss, don’t know what we were thinking here, been out of the league for 3 years, sort of knew he wouldn’t materialize, he wasn’t like a Hassan Whiteside who was averaging 5.5 blocks a game, he never even had 3 per game in a season, and it just didn’t seem like he was ever that good. We could’ve had Reddick, Sefolosha, Ronnie Brewer, Rondo, Lowry, Jordan Farmar, even Joel Freeland for gods sake.
Grade:F-

2007- Marco Bellineli- I don’t know why we traded him, he was a very good pick, solid player. Some notable players picked later were Wilson Chandler, Splitter, Landry, Big Baby, and Marc Gasol, but I still think we made nice solid pick
Grade: A

2008- Anthony Randolph- The pick itself was great, the handling of the player not so much. There were several solid players picked after him, but I feel that any other Rook’s growth would’ve been stunted as well. The guys picked after him were Robin Lopez, Mareese Speights, Roy Hibbert, Javle McGee, Hickson, Ryan Anderson, Courtney Lee, Kosta Kougas, Serge Ibaka, Nic Batum, George Hill, Darrell Arthur, Nik Pek, Mario Chalmers, DeAndre Jordan, Omer Asik, Luc Mbah Moute, Chris-Douglas Roberts, and Goran Dragic.(Now that I see it, this was a ridiculously deep draft)
Grade:B

2009- Steph Curry- I was only 12 but I was praying all month for him to fall to my dubs, I was really scared when I saw that in a mock he was supposed to go 4th to the Kings, but he fell to us. He was the perfect pick for us, for once we didn’t miss a pick.
Grade:A

2010- Epke Udoh- Terrible pick, I knew he was going to be a bust from the start, I wanted us to pick Monroe, I didn’t think Monroe would be as good as he is now, but I knew he’d be better than Udoh. I really wanted Cousins, badly, but it wasn’t meant to be.
Grade:F-

2011- Klay Thompson- Great pick, sharpshooter who can play really well, loved this pick, wouldn’t rather have anyone else.
Grade:A

2012- Harrison Barnes- Still really young and developing, we couldn’t draft Drummond because we already had Bogut, but Barnes still looks like he’s going to be a very good player, but we still have to wait and see how he develops.
Grade:A

And I graded these based on the value at the pick, Diogu was going to be really good but never got a chance. Randolph still has an inordinate amount of talent and was a good pick, but just poorly handled. And I gave the Bellineli pick an A because I really don’t expect anything more than a 10 ppg scorer for a mid-late first round pick.

[Sewok15Participant]

When Thompson was lighting it up the other night on TNT I was thinking how good the Warriors drafted as of late. They were clearly lucky that Curry fell to them but the Thompson pick was brilliant. I didn’t even know who the guy was in college and I follow basketball more than anybody I know. He flew up the draft boards and now is one the best scoring SGs in the game.

If I were them at the time I would have either taken Burks or Marcus Morris who are solid but not special like Thompson. I was definitely a victim of the East coast sports media bias because I don’t know how you can average 20 points a game for 2 years in the Pac 10 while also having a father who was a former # 1 pick and still be a relative unknown.

[Forte IVParticipant]

Don’t even get me started on my Clippers…

[aarondsonixfanParticipant]

Seattle Sonics when Rick Sund was the Gm
Robert Swift, Johan Petro, Mohamed Sene… all in consecutive years….

[King CaluchaParticipant]

I think the Sonics they the prize for this streak of awful picks.

[cargathusParticipant]

I still don’t get why they drafted johnny flynn over steph curry. It made so much sense to pair rubio with steph curry (since they proclaimed that a two pg smallball lineup was what they were going for)

[Sewok15Participant]

I think they were just saying that because they planned on trading Rubio because the rumor was he would only play in a big market. They drafted PGs like they were going out of style…remember when they announced Ty Lawson that draft and everybody was all like WTF!!!!! Then they traded him to Denver…

[khaled_a_dParticipant]

Dallas
I know we made a lot of draft mistakes b4 Dirk era ,but I wasn’t following the NBA back then ,so I will talk about recent drafts
2012: Bad trade,should have just kept Zeller ,or at least drafted Perry Jones over Cunnigham
2011:traded the pick for Rudy and Koponen ,then traded Rudy for nothing ,so it is basically Jordan Hamilton for Koponen who might never play in the league,again should have just kept Hamilton
2010:Dojo over Jordan Crawford,Greivis Vásquez,Lance Stephenson ?
2009:Roddy B looked like the right pick tbh ,same goes for Ahmad Nivins who had strong summer league and then strong start in Spain but both injuries totally screwed them ,so I won’t blame the Mavs for that one,Nick Calathes is really good overseas too
2007:we could have Glen Davis,Marc Gasol &Ramon Sessions ,and we ended up with Nick Fazekas,Reyshawn Terry,Renaldas Seibutis ,that is probably one of the most frustrating drafts for Mavs fans
2004:Pavel Podkolzin over Kevin Martin

[goldie92689Participant]

Knicks draft Jordan Hill ahead of derozan and jennings….many more knicks draft mistakes, too many to name, that would be the most recent

[omphalosParticipant]

I honestly think Sacramento have been beyond awful in the past few seasons. Tyreke yes, Cousins yes, but then trading down for Jimmer with Brandon Knight available was beyond ridiculous given how seamlessly he would have complemented Evans, and then taking Thomas Robinson over Harrison Barnes or Drummond when both of those guys fill a team need and are projecting to be much better players.

I really just have to shake my head when I think of the team they could have assembled.

Cleveland is another team who whiffed on their picks lately; Irving obviously a home run, Thompson was a bad choice IMO but too early to call, and then Waiters over Drummond or Barnes was insanity.

[apb540Participant]

Preach!!! Great write up; 1998’s blunder cost every Sixers fan at least one championship.

[chrsw003Participant]

Hawks drafted marvin over cp3. 2004 Drafted childress over luol deng and iguadola, even though they made a good pick in Josh Smith. 2006 took sheldon williams(AWFUL) over brandon roy and rudy gay.

[Sewok15Participant]

The Hawks have been looking for a good PG ever since. That #2 over 3 pick is as bad as Darko over Carmelo looking back but at the time it seemed like Williams would be pretty good.

[Scottoant93Participant]

Antonie Wright 2005- could of had Granger,David Lee. not a good choice

Terrance Williams 2009- could of had Jrue Holiday,Lawson,Teague,Maynor,Collison, Taj Gibson, basically anyone after would have done

2010 Favors- we should have kept him, idc i still think they should have built there team from the draft instead of trying to get big players.

2006- i only liked the marcus williams pick(not a good class in general), wish he would have panned out better, same for sean williams in 07.

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