10 Worst NBA Draft Picks Since 2000
The 2018 NBA Draft is a week away and while this year’s class is loaded with premium talent, not every draft is so blessed. Next week, we’ll all be watching as the potential future stars of tomorrow get selected, but a few of us will be more focused on trying to pick out the next member of this list.
What follows is our look at the worst NBA draft picks since 2000. Take a look and let us know who you think we left off.
10. Greg Oden, Portland Trail Blazers (No. 1, 2007)
It’s hard for me to do this, because I am 100 percent sure Greg Oden would have been a monster and a perennial All-Star had injuries not derailed his career before it even got started. He was selected with the first pick in the 2007 NBA Draft and many agreed with the selection. I know I did.
I saw Oden play regularly when he was in high school, and watched every minute of his brief career at Ohio State. He was a franchise center on both ends of the court and one of the best, most complete post players to come out of college in decades. His place on this list is more about who was drafted after Oden than the pick itself.
The Portland Trail Blazers passed on Kevin Durant to take Oden. Durant is on pace to wind up as a top 10 player of all-time, while Oden wound up playing in just 105 career games over parts of seven seasons.
Oden was a bust solely because his bones were made of over-salted peanut brittle. He was either the real-life Mr. Glass, or whatever the exact opposite of Wolverine would be. The real crime here was passing on Durant though.
Even on his best trajectory, Oden still wouldn’t have been better than Durant. That’s why this pick was so awful.
1. Anthony Bennett, Cleveland Cavaliers (No. 1, 2013)
What on Earth were the Cleveland Cavaliers thinking? While that question can be applied to virtually all of the franchise’s history, in this instance I’m referring to the 2013 NBA Draft.
The Cavs had the No. 1 pick and opted to select Anthony Bennett over the far more accomplished Victor Oladipo and Otto Porter. Sure, the 2013 draft was historically awful, but still. Bennett averaged 16.1 points per game as a freshman at UNLV and opted to jump to the NBA after garnering comparisons to fellow Runnin’ Rebel Larry Johnson. Not only was he not LJ, he wasn’t even Grandmama.
Bennett wound up spending four seasons in the NBA with four different teams. The Cavs traded him to the Timberwolves as part of the deal that brought Kevin Love to Cleveland, then he wound up in Toronto and Brooklyn before winding up out of the NBA at 23 years old.
In his four seasons, Bennett started a whopping four games and in his 151 career contests he averaged 4.4 points and 3.1 rebounds in 12.6 minutes. He shot a woeful 39.2 percent from the field.
Bennett spent the 2017 season with Fenerbahçe in the Turkish league where he averaged a robust 1.2 points per game. He was released and returned to the G-League where he remains a member of the Maine Red Claws. He’s still just 25 and no one is knocking down his door.
9. Adam Morrison, Charlotte Bobcats (No. 3, 2006)
A prolific collegiate scorer at Gonzaga, some scouts saw some Larry Bird in Adam Morrison. Those scouts were wrong. Despite an unassuming personality, a whispy mustache and an unruly mop of hair that made him stand out in crowd, Morrison was not destined for NBA immortality.
The Ted “Theodore” Logan lookalike finished his final collegiate season as the nation’s leading scorer, pouring in 28.1 points per game. But despite his size (6’8″ and 205 pounds), the Montana native had issues creating his own shot and matching up against players with superior athleticism. That haunted him in the NBA.
The Charlotte Bobcats selected him with the third pick in the 2006 NBA Draft and it was quickly apparent Morrison’s game just didn’t fit the NBA. As a rookie he would post his best numbers, averaging 11.8 points and 2.9 rebounds, but he shot just 37.6 percent from the field and 33.7 percent from 3-point range. That was by far the best season of his career, as he never averaged more than 4.5 points per game again.
In the middle of his second season (after missing a year with a knee injury), the Bobcats traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers in a move to dump salary. The Lakers really wanted Shannon Brown, who came along in the deal.
Morrison won two NBA titles as a rarely-used bench player for the Lakers but never played in the league again after the 2010 season. He was just 25 years old.
He attempted a comeback in 2012 was was waived before the season started, and he retired. He has since embarked on a coaching career.
8. Dajuan Wagner, Cleveland Cavaliers (No. 6 in 2002)
One of the best high school basketball players of his era, DaJuan Wagner looked poised to be a star after his freshman year at Memphis.
Wagner averaged 42.5 points per game in high school, then averaged 21.2 points per game as a freshman for the Tigers. The Cleveland Cavaliers made him the sixth selection of the 2002 NBA Draft and no one really argued with the pick. A lot of people saw him as a young Stephon Marbury-type scorer, but it just never panned out.
As a 19-year-old rookie during the 2002-03 season, Wagner showed solid potential, averaging 13.4 points, 1.7 rebounds and 2.8 assists. But his career trajectory was Jerome Walton-like.
Wagner never played more than 47 games in a season, and after two more awful years in Cleveland, he sat out the 2005-06 campaign due to colitis. He returned with the Golden State Warriors during the 2006-07 season but only played one game. He then played just six games in the Polish league in 2007 and one comeback attempt was halted in 2015 after the league he signed up with folded.
In 103 career NBA games, he averaged 9.4 points, 1.4 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game. For his career he finished with exactly 0.0 win shares in four years. Ouch.
7. Jan Veselý, Washington Wizards (No. 6, 2011)
Entering the 2011 NBA Draft, Jan Veselý’s stock had a lot of helium. He was a versatile, athletic 7-foot forward who was the 2010 FIBA Young Men’s Player of the Year and help lead Serbian club Partizan to nine club trophies in three seasons. Veselý also had a ton of swagger. After being told some were calling him the European Blake Griffin, he said Griffin was actually the American Jan Veselý. I have one reaction to that statement:
Unfortunately, Veselý’s play didn’t match the hype he created for himself.
The Washington Wizards selected the 21-year-old with the sixth pick in the draft and he proceeded to underachieve for two-plus seasons. In the middle of an unremarkable 2013-14 season, he was shipped to the Denver Nuggets, where things did not improve. After that campaign, he headed back to Europe and was done with the NBA before his 24th birthday.
In his brief career, Veselý averaged 3.6 points, 3.5 rebounds, 0.6 assists and 15.2 minutes per game. He played in 162 contests, starting just 25 of them. That’s it.
The Wizards have to still be kicking themselves for that pick, since Kemba Walker, Klay Thompson and Kawhi Leonard were all still on the board.
Veselý is still playing in Europe for Turkish club Fenderbahçe. The 28-year-old averaged 12.5 points in 26.6 minutes per game during the 2017-18 EuroLeague season.
6. Hasheem Thabeet, Memphis Grizzlies (No. 2, 2009)
A 7’3″ Big East Player of the Year and dominant defender without a shred of offensive ability, what could possibly go wrong?
Hasheem Thabeet dominated at UConn from 2006-09, helping the Huskies reach the Final Four in 2009 as National Defensive Player of the Year and a second team All-American. That came despite not actually having any offensive game. Once he hit the NBA, that became a serious, glaring weakness. The guy made Jim McIlvaine look like a dynamic offensive force.
The Memphis Grizzlies selected Thabeet with the second pick in the 2009 NBA Draft and things quickly went downhill. In the middle of his second season, Memphis was done, trading him and a future first-rounder to the Houston Rockets in exchange for Shane Battier and Ish Smith. He was rapidly sent to the D-League.
Thabeet bounced around after that and had stints with Oklahoma City, Philadelphia and Detroit (though he never actually played for the Sixers or Pistons) before eventually winding up in the Japanese B. League. His size meant teams kept giving him a chance but it never actually worked out. He was out of the NBA by the time he was 27.
In his five-years in the league, Thabeet averaged 2.2 points, 2.7 rebounds, 0.8 blocks and 10.5 minutes in 224 games.
Meanwhile, James Harden, Tyreke Evans, Ricky Rubio, Stephen Curry and DeMar DeRozan were all on the board with the Grizzlies took Thabeet.
5. Nikoloz Tskitishvili, Denver Nuggets (No. 5, 2002)
The Denver Nuggets had the fifth pick in the 2002 NBA Draft and thought they were getting a franchise-changing talent. It turns out, they would have to wait another year for that to happen.
Nikoloz Tskitishvili was a 7-foot forward/center who was supposed to be versatile, with a great jump shot and enough ball skills to score at will in the paint. Scouts who made those claims far oversold his talent level. Tskitishvili’s career is the answer to the oft-asked question, “Hey, what would it look like if Dirk Nowitzki’s corpse was reanimated and played in the NBA?” Wait, what? Dirk is still alive?!?
A native of Georgia, Tskitishvili was drafted at 20, just after helping Benetton Treviso win the Italian League title under then-head coach Mike D'Antoni. He never made an impact in the NBA, though he is still playing overseas.
In four NBA seasons with four different teams, Tskitishvili averaged 2.9 points, 1.8 rebounds, 0.7 assists and 11.3 minutes in 172 games. He shot just 30.4 percent from the field for his career and 23.5 percent from 3-point range. Yeesh.
4. Kwame Brown, Washington Wizards, (No. 1, 2001)
Michael Jordan was undoubtedly one of the greatest players of all-time, but as an owner/executive he leaves a lot to be desired. So in hindsight, the disaster that was the drafting of Kwame Brown shouldn’t be a huge surprise.
The Washington Wizards took Brown with the No. 1 pick in the 2001 NBA Draft while Tyson Chandler, Pau Gasol, Shane Battier, Joe Johnson and many more were still on the board. The result was one of the most disappointing careers in NBA history.
Brown had the raw talent of a star — which is how he hung around so long — but he didn’t have the head, heart, focus or drive to become an elite basketball player. However, he did possess the dexterity and object permanence of an oversized infant.
After making the jump from high school to the NBA, the 6’11” forward/center spent four years with the Wizards. In that time he played in 97 games and averaged just 7.7 points and 5.5 rebounds in 22.7 minutes per game. He was traded to the Lakers in 2005 and bounced around the league after that.
He retired in 2013, then attempted a comeback in 2016 and played in the BIG3 in 2017.
In 607 career games, Brown averaged 6.6 points, 5.5 rebounds and 22.1 minutes per game. He shot just 49.2 percent from the field in his career and posted a woeful average of 1.2 turnovers per game. That’s horrific for a post guy who was never the focal point of any offense he played in.
For his career, Brown’s average value over replacement player was -0.4. Woof.
3. Jonny Flynn, Minnesota Timberwolves (No. 6, 2009)
This was the David Kahn year, well, one of them anyway. The Minnesota Timberwolves had the fifth and sixth picks in the 2009 NBA Draft and a ton of holes to fill. So they selected a point guard (Ricky Rubio) at No. 5 … and then another point guard at No. 6. Because … well we’re still trying to figure that one out.
The sixth pick was Syracuse sophomore Jonny Flynn, who will always be remembered as the guy taken one spot before Stephen Curry. Yes, the Timberwolves started a run on point guards, took two of them and still didn’t get the right guy. Rubio wound up being a decent NBA player but Flynn washed out so quickly it is still haunting the Timberwolves.
As a rookie Flynn averaged 13.2 points and 4.4 assists in 28.9 minutes per game over 81 contests (all starts). But the wheels fell off in his second campaign, where he averaged just 5.3 points, 3.4 assists and 2.1 turnovers in 18.5 minutes per game.
Flynn was shipped to Houston in 2011 and the 2011-12 season was his last in the NBA. Yes, he was out of the league by the time he was 22. In 29 games with Houston and Portland that season, he averaged 4.5 points, 3.3 assists and 1.2 turnovers in 14.2 minutes. And that was all she wrote. Flynn bounced around other professional leagues until 2014 when he finally quit.
Oh, and that Curry guy who was picked one spot after him? He just got done winning his third title in four years, is a two-time MVP and his 3-point shooting ability has fundamentally changed the game of basketball.
But other than that, this was a great pick by Minnesota.
2. Darko Milicic, Detroit Pistons (No. 2, 2003)
Four of the first five picks from the 2003 NBA Draft are no-doubt Hall of Famers. The other is Darko Milicic, so if you like awkward, wildly disappointing Europeans, you might want to turn away.
Milicic was an athletic, legit 7-footer out of Serbia who had been playing professional basketball since he was 16. He was drafted just a few days after turning 18, and the international scouts went nuts over him. He was supposed to be a highly-skilled force on the interior and a game-changing talent who could stretch the floor and dominate on both ends. He was none of those things.
Darko was just a guy. He never asked for the hype heaped on him and it’s not his fault the Detroit Pistons selected him ahead of Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. It’s also not his fault that he had to play for Larry Brown, a guy who has always been as excited about the development of young players as normal humans are about contracting Norovirus.
Milicic’s butt was stapled to the bench for two-plus years in Detroit. In fact, he saw the floor for a total of 413 minutes in his first two campaigns. He was finally shipped to Orlando during the 2006 season. He wound up on several teams over the years but never truly found a home.
In 10 NBA seasons he averaged 6.0 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks in 18.5 minutes over 468 games.
It wasn’t all bad, Milicic did win an NBA title in 2004 and after retiring for good in 2015 he bought an apple orchard in Serbia. He’ll also always be able to say he was the guy drafted after LeBron James. So … that’s nice.