6/15/09
by: Scott
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A few things before we get into the draft talk... I attended the sports blog conference, Blogs With Balls, in New York City over the weekend. It was my first trip to New York and it was a cool opportunity to meet fellow sports bloggers and attend panels featuring some of the top sports journalists and bloggers out there. Hard for me to say what the highlight was, but I spotted Kris Humphries at Pearson Airport before my flight to NYC and I told him that I thought he was better than Reggie Evans. Locker room dissent!
I'd also like to take this opportunity to brag about nailing my NBA Finals prediction of Lakers in 5. Hey, I'm wrong so often on this blog that I have to point out when I'm occasionally right. As for all you people doubting Phil Jackson's legacy — stop hatin'. Every coach needs great players to win championships, but not every coach with great players actually pulls it off. I'm not trying to debate whether or not Phil Jackson is better than Red Auerbach, but Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, Tommy Heinsohn, Sam Jones, John Havlicek and Frank Ramsey (all Hall-of-Famers) were among the players on Red's nine championship teams. Besides, it's absurd to compare eras more than 40 years apart. I'll ask you this, however... if Phil Jackson isn't the best NBA coach of the past 30 years, who would you put ahead of him?
For today's exercise in pre-draft wankery, let's take a look at the recent track record of the top 10 draft picks over a 10-year period of NBA drafts. Since I figure you need about five years before you can accurately pass judgement on a player (Bargnani is three years in, for example, and the jury is still out on him), I started from the 2004 draft and picked out the top five players in each draft slot dating back to the 1995 draft. Below, I've listed them in order of the best draft slot to the worst over that 10-year period.
1. First overall: Tim Duncan, LeBron James, Allen Iverson, Dwight Howard, Yao Ming
Shocker! The first pick is usually the best one! You have to say this about the NBA Draft: It's a hell of a lot more reliable than Major League Baseball when it comes to evaluating the top prospects.
2. Fifth overall: Kevin Garnett, Dwyane Wade, Ray Allen, Vince Carter, Devin Harris
We drop a few slots down for the second-best group. With the exception of Ray Allen, this group is populated with incredible athletes who were likely seen as a little too raw to draft higher.
3. Ninth overall: Dirk Nowitzki, Tracy McGrady, Amare Stoudemire, Shawn Marion, Andre Iguodala
Again, four of the five players were athletic freaks who apparently lacked the "polish" to go higher in their respective drafts. The Dallas Mavericks, of course, made the draft day steal of this 10-year period when they traded their sixth overall pick, Robert Traylor, to Milwaukee for the rights to a 20-year-old German phenom named Dirk Nowitzki
4. Third overall: Chauncey Billups, Carmelo Anthony, Pau Gasol, Baron Davis, Jerry Stackhouse
Solid group here. The only real surprise about these players' success was that it took Billups six seasons to finally arrive as an NBA star.
5. Fourth overall: Chris Bosh, Rasheed Wallace, Lamar Odom, Stephon Marbury, Antawn Jamison
Who has had the better career out of this group? Bosh or Wallace? Bosh has better numbers, but 'Sheed was a far better defender and he has a ring.
6. Tenth overall: Paul Pierce, Joe Johnson, Jason Terry, Caron Butler, Kurt Thomas
Only the Celtics truly reaped the reward of sticking with their pick from this group.
7. Second overall: Steve Francis, Antonio McDyess, Mike Bibby, Marcus Camby, Emeka Okafor
Ouch. The giant turd in this punch bowl, of course, was Detroit's pick of Darko Milicic in the 2003 draft. I know they still won the title the following year, but they could have been a dynasty if they had used that pick on Carmelo or Wade. Say what you will about picking Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan, but at least that selection made a certain kind of sense at the time. The Darko pick seemed reckless then and it looks even worse now.
8. Seventh overall: Rip Hamilton, Luol Deng, Kirk Hinrich, Damon Stoudamire, Nene
9. Sixth overall: Shane Battier, Antoine Walker, Wally Szczerbiak, Chris Kaman, Ron Mercer
10. Eighth overall: Andre Miller, T.J. Ford, Jamal Crawford, Larry Hughes, Chris Wilcox
No real superstars in any of these groups, and yet you could make the case that three superstars came from the ninth position during the 1995-2004 period.
I don't know that you can learn any lessons from this breakdown, except that it often pays to take a chance on a raw, athletic player with a mid-to-late lottery pick — Demar DeRozan, anyone? It's worth noting that 2005 was the final year you could draft a player right out of high school, which might have made it more difficult to grab a future star with a later pick. Case in point: the last four selections from the ninth spot were Ike Diogu, Patrick O'Bryant, Joakim Noah and D.J. Augustin. 
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