Ranking the NBA Draft Classes Between 2000 and 2015

The NBA draft is one of the most integral part of the league. It’s what keeps the talent flowing. Each year, new players get to make their debut in the best basketball league in the world, hoping to become the next big name. Without the draft, there are no players and with no players, you have no league.

However, not all drafts are created equal. Some years bring an influx of talent to the league while others may be lacking in big names. You often hear that the 2000 NBA draft is among the worst of-all time and that the 2003 NBA draft is an all-time great class.

What if there was a way to quantify those debates? This was my starting question that set me out on a journey that eventually produced this article. I humbly present to you, my attempt to rank the NBA draft classes from 2000 to 2015 as objectively as possible.

First, this is how I went about my way to rank the draft classes:

· 1 point per all-star in each draft class

· One Hall of Famer is included in this experience, that class got 5 points for his inclusion in the Hall of Fame.

· 5 points for each MVP in a draft class.

· 3 points for each FMVP in a draft class.

· 3 points for each DPOY in a draft class.

· 2 points for each 6MOY or MIP in a draft class.

· 3 points for 1st team All-NBA, 2 points for 2nd team All-NBA, 1 point for 3rd team All-NBA.

· 2 points for 1st team All-Defensive, 1 point for 2nd team All-Defensive.

· I counted how many picks in each draft played over 200 games. The drafts were then awarded points on a tier system. Tier 1 drafts got 3 points, tier 2 drafts got 2 points and tier 3 drafts got 1 point.

· If a draft failed to produce a ROY, it lost 1 point (we’ll call this the curse of Blake Griffin)

· I counted how many first rounders in each draft failed to reach 82 games. A draft lost 1 point for every first rounder below 82 games. If your first round pick can’t accumulate a season’s worth of games, you deserve to lose some points.

I also created some rules to avoid having one player (LeBron James) destroy any chance other years might have to compete. The rule is simple: for a player who has multiples of the same award, only one of those awards will be counted. For a player who has made multiple All-NBA teams, only their highest team achieved will be counted.

Using LeBron as an example, he counts for only one MVP despite winning 4 of them, one All-NBA first team despite also making 2nd and 3rd team appearances, one All-Star appearance, despite being a 16-time all-star and one All-Defensive 1st team, despite also making the 2nd time. His other achievements don’t count in the rankings because a player of his stature would carry his draft class on his back and it would make every other player seem irrelevant.

The reason I stopped at 2015 is because going any further wouldn’t be fair to those draft classes. Even 2015 draftees have only had four seasons to score points in my rankings. It would be impossible for later draft classes to be on a level playing field and thus, they will have to wait until at least 2025 to be included.

With that out of the way, let’s look at how things broke down when I started doing the math.

#16

All-Stars: Karl Anthony Towns, Devin Booker, D’Angelo Russell, Kristaps Porzingis (4 points)

All-NBA Players: Karl Anthony Towns, 3rd team (1 point)

6MOY: Montrezl Harrell (2 points)

Players with more than 200 games in the draft class: 31 (Tier 2: 2 points)

1st Rounders with less than 82 games: 3 (-3 points)

Total: 6 points

Other Notable Players: Myles Turner, Kelly Oubre, Terry Rozier, Richaun Holmes, Josh Richardson, Norman Powell, Trey Lyles, Bobby “Crazy Eyes” Portis, Delon Wright, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson

It’s no surprise that this draft is at the bottom. These players have only gotten 5 seasons in the NBA to work their magic. I anticipate that if I was to do this exercise again in five years, this draft class would be considerably higher on the list.

As it stands, the 2015 NBA draft class is anchored by the three players pictured above. KAT owns the sole All-NBA appearance up to this point, though Booker is a threat to join him as soon as next year.

If the Suns keep up their performance post-NBA bubble, we could honestly be looking at Devin Booker in a whole new lens. This is the same guy that people clowned for scoring 70 points in a game, like that wasn’t actually an impressive feat.

It’s something that players on bad teams have had to battle for years. If your team doesn’t win, people don’t watch your games but still label you. “Devin Booker? He couldn’t score that many points with a good team, I’ll tell you that”. It’s bullshit.

If the Suns can finally turn the corner and battle for a playoff spot, Booker is going to get the respect he deserves. This guy has 1st All-NBA potential, I’m not kidding. The way he can get buckets from anywhere on the court is impressive. Especially because he came in the league as a spot-up shooter in Kentucky and has shown to be everything but that in the NBA.

For KAT himself, it’s the same issues as Booker. For most of his career, he’s been on a bad team. The one time he had a playoff team, any of the bad games were instantly attributed to Towns for being “too soft”.

Prior to his wrist injury in 2019–20, Towns was cooking the NBA. The guy was putting up 26.5, 11 and 4 with 41% shooting from downtown. As a big man. It’s ludicrous. If you don’t think KAT has MVP potential down the line, you’re playing yourself.

As for Porzingis, he’s escaped a dark future in New York and now gets to play alongside a generational talent in Luka Doncic for the foreseeable future. I don’t think Porzingis’ ceiling is anywhere close to Booker or Towns, but he can be an elite second banana in the NBA for the next decade. Of the three, he certainly has the best position in terms of teams.

Along with those three, D’Angelo certainly stands a chance to eventually nab a spot on an All-NBA team (though certainly not the defensive teams). His fate might now be tied to Towns as they share the ball in Minnesota. If they can work together to turn the tide for the Timberwolves, they will become local heroes.

For being such a young class, having 31 players already with more than 200 games is impressive. This class may not produce a lot of high-end talent outside of KAT and Booker, but it has produced a lot of solid role players.

What hurts this class the most, outside of being so young, is that the top 10 is hard to see with hindsight. KAT (1st) DLo (2nd) and Porzingis (4th) are the only players that have even neared their ceiling. The rest of the top 10 consists of Jahlil Okafor (3rd), Mario Hezonja (5th), Willie Cauley-Stein (6th), Emmanuel Mudiay (7th), Stanley Johnson (8th), Frank Kaminsky (9th) and Justise Winslow (10th).

Okafor is a player who was born 10 years too late. His post-up heavy game combined with his lack of defensive skills have made him a player no good team wants to employ. Outside of being THE LeBron stopper, Mario Hezonja has shown occasional flashes of brilliance but far more often, he’s been disappointing. Cauley-Stein is already a journeyman player, Mudiay is enjoying a nice renaissance as a solid backup, Johnson is buried at the end of Toronto’s depth chart and Kaminsky battled an injury in Phoenix that left him sidelined for much of the year, though he is no more than a role player.

Winslow is the only potential for another breakout in this top 10. He was starting to come into his own as a point guard of sorts for the Heat two seasons ago. This season, he suffered an injury that kept him out almost all year and he was dealt to Memphis when Miami decided to load up on Andre Iguodala for a potential title run.

If Winslow can return to form with the Grizzlies, he will be in a good environment. He’s only 24 and could help these young Grizzlies find their identity in a tough western conference. It might be a long shot to think he might break through as an all-star by this point, but I’ll always hold out a little hope for Justise.

Another player who might add to 2015’s list of achievements? Myles Turner, who hasn’t yet been named to either All-D teams. If I was taking a bet, I would expect him to make at least once in his career, given his ability to block shots and that he’s still a very young player.

It’s odd to think that Montrezl Harrell is coming off a campaign where he bagged the 6MOY, and his stock might be at the lowest it’s ever been since entering the league. The Clippers’ brutal exit from the NBA bubble has dampened a lot of people’s opinions of multiple Clippers, including Trez.

In terms of energy and rebounding, Harrell will give you that. It’s just that watching him get abused on defense over and over by the Nuggets was tough to watch. Then you consider that he’s not bringing much of anything on the offensive end and you have to ask yourself… is this guy a rich man’s Kenneth Faried?

If you’re asking me, I think that Harrell has peaked in his NBA career. Plenty of players never outdo their 5th best season and getting 6MOY is nothing to sneeze at. I just think the type of player Harrell is just doesn’t coincidence to how teams want to play nowadays and he’s not good enough at what he does to buck the trend.

While the window certainly isn’t closed for anyone else, I think 5 seasons is a good snapshot of a player’s worth in the NBA. At this point, I don’t see Kelly Oubre or Terry Rozier making the leap into becoming all-stars, but they are very good starting caliber guys.

You can say the same about Trey Lyles, Delon Wright, Larry Nance, Kevon Looney, Richaun Holmes or Josh Richardson. They all bring various skills to the table while not necessarily taking center stage. I would bet good money on most of these players getting decade long careers.

I’d also like to give a special shout out to Norman Powell. As a Raptors fan, Norm was the key to the Raptors’ best playoff run before 2019. Without his hammer dunk against Indiana in the first round of the 2016 NBA playoffs, we might be talking about 3 consecutive embarrassing first round exits, and then the We The North era would have died basically on arrival.

This was game 5, capping off a 21–2 Raptors run. It’s one of the defining Raptors playoff moments and gave Norman Powell the “Playoff Norm” moniker. A name he’s upheld countless of times since then. Also, god damn I miss playoff basketball with crowds.

#15.

All-Stars: Nikola Jokic &Joel Embiid (2 points)

All-NBA Players: Nikola Jokic, 1st Team & Joel Embiid, 2nd Team (5 points)

All-Defensive Players: Marcus Smart, 1st Team & Joel Embiid, 2nd Team (3 Points)

Players with more than 200 games in the draft class: 28 (Tier 3: 1point)

1st Rounders with less than 82 games: 4(-4 points)

Total: 7 points

Other Notable Players: Andrew Wiggins, Aaron Gordon, Julius Randle, Zach LaVine, Jusuf Nurkic, Gary Harris, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Spencer Dinwiddie, Jordan Clarkson, TJ Warren, Clint Capela, Dwight Powell, Jerami Grant

This draft class was vaunted at the time. Andrew Wiggins has been getting hype since he was in 8th grade. Jabari Parker was supposed to be his equal and both of them entering the NBA together was going to be the next rivalry. Five years later, we’re still saying that THIS will be the year that Wiggins truly breaks out and Parker is barely holding on to an NBA role while also battling injuries.

Instead of Wiggins and Parker being the headliners, this draft is propped up by another injury-prone big man and a Serbian drafted in the second round; Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic respectively.

Because Joel is such a freak of nature, we spend a lot of time talking about what he hasn’t done instead of what he has. He’s battled through tough injuries to turn into an All-NBA player when people thought he might not even be fit to play in the league. When Embiid got to Philadelphia, the team was a laughing stock. Under Embiid’s direction, they have become a perennial playoff team with a chance to win a title. The guy is 26 and has twice made both the All-NBA 2nd team and All-D 2nd team.

Much has been made about Joel’s diet, the Chik-Fil-A addiction, the Shirley Temples or the four Cookies n’ Creme milkshakes in one flight. It’s to the point where some of these things feel apocryphal. What do I know is that on the court, Joel Embiid is a problem.

Does he have issues? Sure, but what player short of being a GOAT doesn’t? Yes, he relies a little too much on outside shooting for a guy shooting .319 from his career. Yes, his conditioning could stand to get better. It just doesn’t feel fair that we constantly pick on him for the things he struggles with, when there are so many things he does well.

For a league moving towards quicker, leaner big men, Embiid is a unit. He’s built himself into a tank and it takes a lot of strength to move him out of the way. As he continues to learn how to use that strength to his advantage, it will only become more problematic for his opponents.

Plus, I love Embiid’s personality and willingness to take shit before the game is over. Too many players would rather throw shots after they’ve already won. Embiid is going to talk constantly, and sometimes that backfires on him, but it makes it much more enjoyable for the fans… even when he’s flying an airplane against your team in the playoffs.

Besides, if Embiid hadn’t talked trash, it wouldn’t allow our corny superstar rapper to get him back when things didn’t go Joel’s way.

And the reason Joel hasn’t yet made an All-NBA first team? Nikola Jokic. The pudgy Serb who has taken the NBA by storm. He’s the greatest passing big man the league has ever seen. Full stop. And boy, I love me some passing big men.

He might have the face of a pre-teen but he plays like a man and despite a lack of explosiveness, the NBA hasn’t been able to stop him for the last 4 years. Denver just came 2 games short of the NBA finals, in large part because of Jokic’s heroics.

People worry about his conditioning (like his buddy Embiid), and yeah, it often looks like Jokic smoked an entire carton of cigarettes before hooping, but when the game starts, it doesn’t matter. Jokic is going to show up and deliver the goods.

If you’re looking at how this draft class might improve in the future, it starts with the top dogs. Both Embiid and Jokic could win the MVP within the next 5 years, I would be on Jokic a little more than on Embiid, but they both could do it.

After that, the most likely to help this draft class is Zach LaVine, the Bulls gunner who has at least an All-Star appearance in him. I wouldn’t even rule him out of an All-NBA 3rd team appearance if the Bulls can turn it around, or if he finds a better team in the near future. The guy was just born to score the basketball.

We also can’t forget one of the bubble gods, TJ Warren, he came to the NBA restart with some previously unseen fire in his belly. If Warren is going to keep playing like he did in the bubble, he’s got an All-Star spot coming his way in the near future.

There’s also an outside possibility that Spencer Dinwiddie could win a 6MOY award before his career is over. His best chance will be next season, when the Kyrie and KD experience really begins in Brooklyn. Dinwiddie will be looking for every opportunity to make those bitcoins, and getting an individual award would be a good start.

Finally, keep an eye out on Jerami Grant because he’s coming for an All-NBA defensive team. This class is loaded with players who like to score the ball, but outside of Embiid and Marcus Smart, there aren’t too many defenders. Grant is the exception and he will block anything that comes near him.

Speaking of Smart, he deserves some credit for his career. I remember Marcus Smart as a big-time college player. To the point that it was a shock when he chose to return for his sophomore season at Oklahoma State. This is what I wrote about Smart’s decision to stay an extra year back in the day,

Many people have criticized his decision to stay in school an extra year. They mention the possibility of Smart getting injured and how deep next year’s draft is and believe that he should have left this year because he would have been drafted higher.

Is it a flex to quote yourself from the past? I feel like it should be if it isn’t.

Anyways, going into the NBA, it became apparent that Smart wasn’t going to be the superstar in Boston. He realized quickly that the Celtics needed him to do the dirty work, defend and annoy the opponent, and Smart has committed to that.

I’ve long been a believe that a role player who does his job at an elite level is worth a lot more than a 20 point scorer who does nothing else. There are few who are better at Smart’s key skills in the NBA. He draws charges at a high rate, flops convincingly and defends the perimeter like his life depended on it. Any team in the league could use Marcus Smart.

And now, Smart has unexpectedly become an above average shooter from downtown. His value has never been higher and this is coming from someone who hates Marcus Smart (only because he’s not on my team).

Outside of those guys, this draft is a story of disappointment. Wiggins had high expectations and so far, he hasn’t come close. I still can’t believe that Minnesota basically told him, “here’s a bunch of money we didn’t have to give you yet, please promise to keep working hard even after getting the bag, okay?”

I don’t think Wiggins was ever going to pan out the way we hyped him to be. This man was getting media hype in 8th grade. His athleticism was already at NBA levels in high school and honestly, I think that hurt him down the line.

Wiggins never had to learn better fundamentals because he could just dunk on everyone. He was faster and stronger than even his best high school compeition. Even in college, you could tell that his physical gifts were out of this world.

But in the NBA? Wiggins sort of met his match. Yes, he was still probably among the most athletic players, but he was now going up against much more skilled competition. He wasn’t going to be able to out-jump these guys and he was too far behind on all the other things to catch up.

That’s not to say that Wiggins is a total bust as a pro. He’s still scoring 20 points every night (though not efficiently). He’s proven to be a starting level-player. But this is a shining example of what I said about Smart: most teams would take Smart over Wiggins to build their team because Smart does things Wiggins won’t and teams are looking for more diverse scorers than Wiggins as their leader.

Which is to say that if Golden State doesn’t work out for Wiggins, I think he will spend his entire career toiling on mediocre teams, scoring 18–20 points per game in his prime, and never achieving anything of note, personal or team-related. Basically, Andrew Wiggins’ career will be like prime Rudy Gay 2.0.

Parker is even further behind. This man is injury prone and allergic to playing defense. There was a brief moment in time where it looked like he might work out as Giannis’ second-banana, but that was only for a brief second. Since his stand-out 2016–17 season, Parker has played more than 60 games once. I would bet on him being out of the NBA within the next 2 years.

Aaron Gordon seems to be the same player he was as a rookie, much to Orlando’s frustrations. He does everything okay but has nothing outside of his athleticism that makes him stand-out. Julius Randle is the king of empty numbers in the NBA. There are few players more selfish than him when it comes to padding his stats on losing teams. Call him a poor man’s Shareef Abdur -Rahim. Right behind him is his Knicks teammate, Elfrid Payton, who hunts assists like prime Rajon Rondo with half of the talent. Dante Exum has been a bust and Nik Stauskas has been traded to all 30 NBA teams and is now out of the league.

Outside of the lottery, this draft has given the NBA some decent role players. Jusuf Nurkic at 16 was a great get for Denver, through a trade with the Bulls. He has since turned into a very good big man in Portland. In that same trade, getting Gary Harris at 19 was even better. More and more, Jamal Murray has taken the reigns as the lead guard for Denver, but the team still relies on Harris’ defense to help them win games.

I will say that Chicago really blew this trade. They sent Nurkic and Harris to Denver for Anthony Randolph (a bust) and #11 in this draft, Doug McDermott, who has become a decent player, but nowhere near as good as Harris or Nurkic. And we wonder why the Bulls have struggled so much for so long, bad management goes a long way.

Second rounders like Joe Harris (elite three-point shooting), Dwight Powell (high octane energy guy) and Jordan Clarkson (gunning) have all found success in the NBA thanks to tailored skillsets.

All in all, I think that this class delivered a lot of solid NBA rotation players but also failed to produce some high-end talent that was promised at the time. Jokic and Embiid have been great, but Wiggins was projected to be even more than that. We heard about this draft class for years, so much so that 2013 was crazily over-shadowed by Wiggins and co. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s funny to think back and see how that worked out.

Shout-out to my boy Bruno Caboclo, once two years away from being two years away, he’s now two years removed from being two years away and still hasn’t accomplished anything. Safe to say that expirement didn’t pan out.

#14.

All-Stars: Kenyon Martin, Jamal Magloire, Michael Redd (3 points)

All-NBA Players: Michael Redd, 3rd team (1 point)

6MOY: Mike Miller & Jamal Crawford (4 points)

MIP: Hedo Turkoglu (2 points)

Players with more than 200 games in the draft class: 29(Tier 3: 1point)

1st Rounders with less than 82 games: 2(-2 points)

Total: 9 points

Other Notable Players: Darius Miles, Desmond Mason, Quentin Richardson, Morris Peterson, DeShawn Stevenson, Eddie House, Stromile Swift, Joel Przybilla, Keyon Dooling

Thanks to father time, the 2000 draft class gets spared from being last… for the time being. I feel confident in saying that both 2014 and 2015 while amass enough credentials to eventually surpass this class. For as much as people talk badly about 2000, it deserves a lot of the criticism it receives.

It says a lot about the 2000 NBA draft that its best player was drafted in the 2nd round. To me, nobody in this class comes close to what Michael Redd could do in his prime (and the only reason he’s not pictured above is because he’s been so forgotten to time, there aren’t even usable transparent pictures of him online). Had injuries not ravaged his career, I think we are looking at many more all-star appearances and maybe even a 2nd Team All-NBA in there.

Unfortunately, you can only play the cards you are dealt and Michael Redd got a bad hand. Still, he was able to score 20+ in the NBA for more than 6 seasons, got an Olympic gold medal and he will be remembered as one of the most lethal shooters of his generation by die-hard NBA fans.

The rest of this class is unimpressive. It is buoyed in this system by the 6MOY awards won by Mike Miller and Jamal Crawford and by Hedo Turkoglu’s MIP. Miller might have one of most forgettable 6MOY campaigns and Crawford has won the award the most times (along with Lou “Lemon Pepper” Williams).

Those three guys each had decent NBA careers. Crawford has shown insane durability and an unwillingness to age (seriously, is there a picture of Crawford growing older in his attic?) Miller started his career on some brutal teams, eventually managed to spin-off his abilities to shoot 3s into becoming a LeBron-boy, which led to the peak of his career, the shoe-game.

Hedo carved himself a nice role with Orlando as Dwight Howard’s second banana, cashed that in for a nice paycheck and immediately stopped caring about basketball. He’s now probably off committing various politically supported crimes in his homeland of Turkey. Yes, I hate Hedo Turkoglu and always will.

I thought Kenyon Martin would have a bigger career than he did. I think he was hurt by sharing some of his prime years with Marcus Camby, another player who focused heavily on defense and who happened to be better than K-Mart. Had New Jersey kept Martin and allowed him to continuing playing with Jason Kidd, I think his career turns out a bit differently. At the very least, he makes a few more All-Star appearances and I would wage at least one All-Defensive team.

The other All-Star in this class is Jamal Magloire. Coming from the 2000 draft class, it’s fitting that he is considered one of the weakest selections ever. The early to mid-2000s was a nadir for talented big-men. It’s like Shaq had been predicted well ahead of time and all these potential NBA big men opted for different jobs.

As for the rest of this class, it’s mostly role-players, busts and could-have-beens. Darius Miles was a tantalizing talent that just couldn’t put everything together. Stromile Swift had the same fate. Quentin Richardson had a good year with Steve Nash in Phoenix and leveraged that into making the Knicks overpay for him. I have fond memories of Morris Peterson being the stabilizing presence on the Raptors in the team’s most frustrating years. Desmond Mason’s claim to fame is winning a dunk contest no one even remembers. Joel Przybilla is more memorable for his nickname, the Vanilla Gorilla, than anything he ever did on the court. Speedy Claxton had a sweet name and is better in my memory than his stats will show (I think that’s the NBA live influence messing me up). Keyon Dooling sure does exist.

Maybe this draft should get some points for DeShawn Stevenson’s weird beef with LeBron James. Remember the time he beefed with LeBron during the 2008 playoffs and Soulja Boy randomly caught a stray from LeBron?

With DeShawn Stevenson, it’s kind of funny. It’s almost like Jay-Z [responding to a negative comment] made by Soulja Boy. It doesn’t make sense to respond.

Of course, Soulja Boy had to make an appearance at the next Wizards game.

Ironically, this is when Jay Z decided to respond to Soulja Boy, invalidating LeBron’s initial argument. Jigga took the Blow the Whistle instrumental that played during Soulja Boy’s dance at the Wizards game. He decided to write a verse to the song, which was then debuted at a random night club where Wizards were partying and had the lyrics,

Ask my n — — LeBron! We so big we ain’t gotta respond … Who the fuck overrated? If anything they underpaid him. Hatin that’s only gonna make him spend the night out of spite with the chick you’ve been datin’

The series went to 6 games, the Cavs won and LeBron averaged 30, 9.5 and 8 for the series. BUT! Stevenson was part of the 2011 Mavs team that beat the Heat, so I ask you: who got the last laugh in that feud?

Man I love 2000s NBA beefs, you don’t find that kind of thing in today’s NBA.

Then you have the busts in this draft, Marcus Fizer (4th) sounds more like a tonic water brand than an NBA player. Demarr Johnson (6th) left no imprint on the NBA. Chris Mihm (7th) is a Lakers meme from the year Kobe had to score 35 points per game for Los Angeles to even have a chance to win games.

The rest of the lottery is just as bad. Etan Thomas (12th) is far and away the best player picked from 11–14 which also includes Jerome Moiso, Courtney Alexander and Michigan State legend Mateen Cleaves, who I honestly had high hopes for at the time.

It may not have come in last in this ranking, but we know in our hearts that 2014 and 2015 have better days ahead. Everyone in the 2000 draft class has long since retired. They don’t have to luxury of time to add to their legacy. Theirs has been written and it won’t change, this is subjectively the worst NBA draft class of the 2000s. But congratulations, objectively, this class beat my system and thus gets to be the 3rd worst draft class of the 2000s… for now.

#13.

All-Stars: LaMarcus Aldridge, Rajon Rondo, Kyle Lowry, Brandon Roy, Paul Millsap (5 points)

All-NBA Players: LaMarcus Aldridge, 2nd team, Brandon Roy, 2nd team, Rajon Rondo, 3rd team & Kyle Lowry, 3rd team (6 points)

All-Defensive Team Players: Rajon Rondo, 1st team, Paul Millsap, 2nd team & Thabo Sefolosha, 2nd team (4 points)

Players with more than 200 games in the draft class: 29(Tier 3: 1point)

1st Rounders with less than 82 games: 2(-2 points)

Total: 14 points

Other Notable Players: Andrea Bargnani, Randy Foye, Rudy Gay, J.J. Redick, Jordan Farmar, Steve Novak, P.J. Tucker, Daniel Gibson, Shannon Brown, Ryan Hollins

This really is a 5 player draft. When you consider that Brandon Roy’s career was so short because of his long-term injuries, we’re really only talking about 4 players. If you didn’t come away from this draft without Aldridge, Rondo, Millsap or Lowry, your team is probably disappointed with how 2006 turned out.

At the time, picking Andrea Bargnani first overall was not universally agreed upon. There were reasons for the pick: Bargs was a 7-footer with legitimate range on his jump shot. He was nimble, could move the rock and there were signs that he might develop into a good defender. Teams saw Bargnani and saw the next Dirk Nowitzki.

For the Raptors, the pick made even more sense because Bargnani felt like the perfect player to pair with their established all-star, Chris Bosh. With Bargnani able to operate on the perimeter, the low post would belong to Bosh and they could become a lethal combination. In comparison, Aldridge, who was the other contender for the number one pick, was too similar to Bosh at the time.

Unfortunately, we all know how the Bargnani story goes. He never really developed beyond what he could already do as a rookie. He wasn’t a total bust. You can’t average 20+ points per game in the NBA without talent. It’s just that Bargnani never pushed himself to get better. He had no motor when it came to fighting for rebounds. He was a horrific help-defender, though he did turn into a very good rim defender. Bargnani played with no heart and even less intensity.

On the bright side, he did star in maybe the most important commercial ever produced, Primo Pasta and Sauce.

Look at the speed at which he turns into his jump shot after receiving passes. How could this guy ever be stopped in the NBA?

There is some good fortune for Raptors from this draft despite all that. The 2006 NBA draft class includes Kyle Lowry, the greatest Raptor of all-time. It’s not even up for debate at this point, Lowry has given his best years to Toronto and that has led to All-NBA teams, all-star selections and a championship.

I won’t pretend like Kawhi Leonard isn’t a major reason that Toronto went all the way in 2019. But he wasn’t the end all, be all. We saw this season what happens to Kawhi-led teams when they don’t also have a competent point guard to distribute the ball. Lowry was more than competent and his veteran presence and stability was key to the Raptors winning. I will never forget the way he came out of a cannon in game 6 of the NBA finals.

Before that playoff run, Lowry had to endure years of people mocking his failures in the playoffs. He was one half of the “trash bros” with DeMar DeRozan. He wasn’t a top point guard in the east. He was overrated. Lowry internalized all of that stuff and in the biggest moment of his career, Lowry took charge and delivered Toronto its first championship.

I love Kyle Lowry like family.

If you’re a Trail Blazers fan, this draft probably hurts your heart a little bit. They had such a beautiful foundation for success with Brandon Roy and Aldridge. Unfortunately, Roy’s knees were literally not made to play basketball it cost us the career of a potential all-time great 2 guard. We really only got 4 years of Brandon Roy playing with little to no injury concerns, and in those 4 years he was ROY and an All-NBA player twice.

We’ll always have Roy’s final big game, a playoff takeover against the Mavericks. It was a bittersweet moment because Roy was like a supernova and you could tell he was at the precipice of exploding. But for that one brief moment, Roy remained at the top of his game.

As Roy’s career was prematurely ending, Aldridge was starting to develop into a really good NBA player. Had Roy managed to stay healthy, LMA would have been his perfect sidekick. Instead, Aldridge was thrust into the role of being the star and he definitely tried his best to do what was asked, but to me it was always clear Aldridge was never perfectly suited to be the star.

That doesn’t take anything away from what Aldridge has become. At his best, he was easily top 5 at his position (probably more like top 3). As his career has evolved, he’s worked hard to develop his mid-range jumper into a three point jumper. He’s shown the ability to adapt with where the league is going and that has helped stay relevant more than a decade into his career.

For Rondo, his career has been full of ups and downs. He came into the league on a terrible Celtics team that was tanking for Oden/Durant. When they came up short on that, Celtics management decided to screw the rebuild, bank on Paul Pierce and essentially give up anything else to build a contender.

Luckily for Rondo, he wasn’t part of those trades. In comes Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. Now the Cetics have 3 all-stars of varrying levels of stardom. That’s the nucleus for a potential championship. But who’s going to manage the ball for these stars? This kid from Kentucky?

As it turns out, yes. Rondo was the most doubted player going into Boston’s 2007–08 season. He hadn’t started most games in 2006–07 and how could the Celtics trust an unproven kid to manage three big egos? That didn’t seem to bother Rondo, who went about his career to prove doubters wrong.

Eventually, thanks to Rondo’s hard work on defense and as a passer, Boston’s big 3 would come to be known as a big 4. He would go on to lead the league in assists three times and in steals once. He became a four-time all-star and even made an All-NBA team. This guy had a lot of excuses to fail but never considered that an option.

As he’s gotten older, Rondo has earned the reputation for being kind of sullen. He’s had some less than ideal stays with certain NBA teams (Dallas in particular). People have said that he’s an assist hunter in the same way that Kobe was accused of being a ball-hog. After those great years in Boston, it seemed like Rondo was destined to eventually fade out of the league with a less than stellar reputation.

Then, he joined the Celtics’ nemesis, the Lakers, and Rondo’s once nemesis, LeBron James. There, Rondo proved to be a calming influence off the bench. In the playoffs, he hit countless big shots and provided a steady hand that allowed LeBron to play off-ball every once in a while, something LeBron had rarely enjoyed since his Miami days. Rondo’s efforts helped the Lakers secure the 2020 bubble championship and has added some much needed positivity to his legacy.

Going into 2021, Rondo is once again a hot commodity. He may not be the same player he was back in Boston, but those passing skills don’t age. It isn’t unrealistic to think he might add another ring to his mantle before hanging it up.

As for Paul Millsap, he’s been a good B+ NBA player for much of his career. He’s not the most popular or the best. He’s just a guy who knows his role and in his prime was going to give you 17 and 8 with good defense in every game he dressed. He’s not marketable because he’s quietly effective but he’s a guy you want on your team if you’re trying to win a champioship.

There’s also the time he single-handedly dismantled the Heatles early in their first season.

Consider that Millsap was 2 for 20 in his career on 3s up until that point. This was such an out-of-the-blue performance that I can never forget it as long as I live.

The rest of this draft is filled with role players that range from very useful to end-of-the-bench types. There’s a large amount of players in this draft that ended up winning a ring with the 2009 and 2010 Lakers while contributing varying amounts during the actual games (Farmar contributed, Brown had his moments, Morrison happened to be on the right bench at the right time).

This draft shows that NBA players have to work hard to last in the league. Outside of the big 4, the two other 2006 draftees who have had the biggest impact in the league are J.J. Redick and P.J. Tucker. They share more than having letters as first names.

Redick was a college sensation at Duke. Easily the most hated collegiate student in America over his 4 years as a Blue Devil. Side note: it’s kind of crazy how much hate we can find in our hearts for 18 to 22 year olds who don’t play for the right college team. Redick could have easily come into the NBA with a huge ego because he had shown his work in college. The guy was a dead eye shooter with a killer mentality.

But Redick soon found out that the NBA didn’t care about his college achievements. He wasn’t strong or skilled enough to play in the NBA after college and he would end up on Orlando’s bench, mopping up minutes in garbage time.

Instead of pouting, Redick got to work. He got stronger in the gym. He pushed himself to become a more competent defender. He learned how to get open shots in a far more athletic league. All of that work paid off and after 14 years, Redick is still one of the most feared catch and shoot players in the NBA. Many star athletes in his draft class have since retired after teams lost interest in them beyond their athletic abilities and yet every season, Redick finds himself a job in the NBA.

As for Tucker, he came into the NBA after a junior season at Texas where he was named the Big 12 Player of the Year. He appeared in 17 games for the Raptors and at the end of the season, he was waived so that Toronto could give his spot to Luke Jackson. Luke fucking Jackson.

Thus began a long ordeal for Tucker. He spent 5 years toiling away in various European leagues, winning MVP awards in both Israel and Germany. Lesser players might have given up on the dream after 5 years, but Tucker persevered.

His will was rewarded when Phoenix brought him over to compete on their summer league roster in 2012. That led to a 2 year contract which led to Tucker cementing himself as a supreme 3 and D player in the league. In doing this research, I was surprised to find out that Tucker had not made an All-Defensive team during his career. It might be too late at 35, but I think if anybody is going to prop this draft class up at this point, it’ll be Tucker with an All-D selection.

Along with Bargnani, this top 10 has a decent amount of busts that never delivered on expectations. Adam Morrison (3rd) was another collegiate legend. He is like Redick’s mirror image. Both were elite scorers in the NCAA. Both learned that their skills would not transfer 1 to 1 in the NBA. Redick was able to adapt, Morrison, despite being a hard worker by all accounts, could not find a role (though he does have 2 rings to Redick’s 0, so who is the real winner here?).

Tyrus Thomas is one of the uber athletic specimens that got outworked by Redick and Tucker. Thomas could jump out of the gym and make jaw-dropping plays… but he also had the basketball IQ of a middle-schooler. Combine that with his selfishness and overconfidence, and you had a player who was never long for the NBA.

Then there’s players like Shelden Williams (5th), who were made for the NCAA but just didn’t have enough skills or athleticism to become NBA regulars (he was also the least popular partner in his marriage to Candace Parker, which did not end well). Or Randy Foye (6th) who had a decent but unimpressive NBA career.

By far the most surprising player career in the 2006 draft class is Rudy Gay. If you had asked me after the 2006–07 NBA season, I would have bet a lot of money that Gay had at least a few all-star appearances in his future. Unfortunately for Gay, he was born about 10 years too early.

As the NBA moved towards heavier analytics, an emphasis on efficiency and increased attention towards outside shooting, Gay’s main skills became incongruous with how NBA teams wanted to play. Gay was a slashing winger who wasn’t very adept at shooting the ball and wasn’t necessarily a great defender. Had he been around during Allen Iverson’s prime, Gay would have been a multiple time all-star for his scoring alone. With a league evolving past box score numbers, Gay was suddenly in a league that didn’t need his talents.

Not that Rudy hasn’t carved himself a nice career. He’s done an excellent job transforming into a utility player off the bench for the Spurs. Before that, he had a half-decade of being a semi-franchise player in Memphis. He gave the Raptors hope and his trade away from the team sparked the current Raptors success we’ve been seeing since the mid-2010s. His success just didn’t translate into all-star appearances and All-NBA selections and thus, he didn’t end up helping his draft class as much as my 18 year-old self might have expected.

You can also talk yourself into players like Thabo Sefolosha, Steve Novak or Ronnie Brewer. Thabo is probably the best out of this trio, but none of these guys move the needle too much in any particular way. They were just competent, non-exciting guys teams could count on for a good while during their NBA careers. You can’t hate on that.

#12.

All-Stars: John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Paul George, Gordon Hayward (4 points)

All-NBA Players: Paul George, 1st team, DeMarcus Cousins, 2nd team & John Wall, 3rd team (6 points)

All-Defensive Team Players: Paul George, 1st team, Avery Bradley, 1st team, Eric Bledsoe, 1st team, Hassan Whiteside, 2nd team & John Wall, 2nd team (8 points)

MIP: Paul George (2 points)

Players with more than 200 games in the draft class: 28(Tier 3: 1point)

1st Rounders with less than 82 games: 5(-5 points)

No ROY: -1 point

Total: 15 points

Other notable players: Evan Turner, Derrick Favors, Greg Monroe, Al-Farouq Aminu, Ed Davis, Patrick Patterson, Trevor Booker, Greivis Vasquez, Lance Stephenson, Wesley Johnson

This is it, the only draft class that has incurred a penalty for not producing a rookie of the year. Blame Blake Griffin’s knee more than anybody in this draft class but the fact remains, nobody in the 2010 NBA draft class was rewarded as the league’s top rookie.

Still, in 2010, there was a lot of hype around John Wall. His high school mixtape remains the holy grail of all Hoops Mixtape videos.

I mean come on! The guy was Shammgod’ing fools, throwing alley oop passes, finishing alley oop passes, blocking the ever loving shit out of his opponents and generally dominating the competition. And that’s just in the first 30 seconds of the video. Oh, and did I mention the guy had a dance named after him? Everybody was doing the John Wall in 2010. Plus the dude had the cleanest dougie in the history of doing the dougie (which was from April 2010 to December 2010).

And it’s not like John has been a disappointing NBA player. He’s got All-NBA and All-Defensive selections. He’s been an All-Star. He’s been electrifying on the court. All that and it still feels like there’s something missing for his career.

Wall isn’t helped by the fact that he’s been away from the game for almost 2 years because of injury. Or the fact that he’s spent his entire career in Washington for a team that seemed hellbent on throwing away his prime years.

In 2021, whenever basketball starts again, Wall will make his return to the NBA on the wrong side of 30, coming off an Achilles injury. I don’t want to sound like a negative Nancy, but it’s fair to speculate his best days might be behind him.

At the writing of this article in November 2020, it feels like all of the top players in the 2010 NBA draft class are at the lowest moments of their careers. There’s Wall, who we’ve talked about, DeMarcus Cousins, Gordon Hayward and Paul George.

Cousins was Wall’s talented running-mate at Kentucky. Philly, New Jersey and Minnesota all stupidly passed on him because they were scared of attitude issues. That doomed Cousins for a life of misery spent in Sacramento, where Boogie spent the better part of 7 seasons being a dominant force on a team going nowhere.

Then, Cousins got a new lease on life by getting traded to New Orleans and getting the chance to play with another former Wildcat, Anthony Davis. In his first full season with the Pelicans, Cousins and Davis were good enough to push the team in the playoffs. However, like Wall, Cousins suffered an Achilles injury in January, forcing him to miss what would have been his playoff debut.

After re-habbing his injury, Cousins signed with the Golden State Warriors looking for an easy ring. That didn’t happen when the Raptors defeated the Warriors in the finals. Looking for another opportunity at a ring, Cousins signed with the Lakers for the 2019–20 season and suffered a torn ACL in a pre-season workout, effectively ending his season before it even began. Cousins would be waived in February. Of course, with Cousins’ luck, the Lakers would go on to win a ring in the NBA Bubble of 2020.

That’s where Cousins stands now. He doesn’t yet have a team for the 2021 season. He’s had two major injuries over the past three seasons. He’s a big man on the wrong side of 30. Things aren’t looking good for anyone hoping for more Boogie dominance.

And then you have Paul George. Unlike Wall and Cousins, George has dealt with his debilitating injury and moved on. We all remember the gruesome Team USA video in which PG blew up his leg. If you don’t, count yourself lucky and don’t look it up.

Since then, George has switched teams twice, trying to find a match that will land him a ring. That match should have been with Kawhi Leonard on the Clippers. George thought so himself because he spent all of the 2019–20 season talking trash and theorizing that this season was “ring or bust” for the Clippers.

As you might remember, it ended up being “bust”. In the most awful way for George in particular. The Clippers found themselves on the wrong-end of a 3–1 comeback at the hands of the Denver Nuggets. In the deciding game 7, George came out with a 2 of 11 from the floor performance with 10 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists and 5 turnovers to show for it.

After being part of an OKC team that got bounced in the first round of their previous two playoffs, and not getting it done in Indiana either, George has earned the reputation of a playoff choker. He’s seen as a paper tiger, ferocious in the regular season and invisible in the big moments. His reputation is at an all-time low.

It feels like this 2010 class share the bond of terrible injuries because the other All-Star in this crew, Gordon Hayward, had a horrific injury, along the same lines as PG, in his first season with Boston. Hayward hasn’t been the same since and he will likely slip further into becoming a role player as he ages. For a moment in time, Hayward was an exciting player for the Jazz and a symbol of hope for championship contention in Boston. Suddenly, he got injured, has not met expectations in Boston, and could be on his way out. Now he’s a reminder of how things can change in an instant.

The biggest disappointment in this class, for me, is Derrick Favors. I had a lot of hope for him going into the NBA. He was so young coming in with the Nets, only 19, and seemed to have a lot of potential to become a big star. The Jazz agreed with me because Favors became the main piece in the trade that sent Deron Williams over to the Nets (back when Deron Williams was still a dog).

Favors hasn’t been a terrible NBA player. That he’s still playing a decade later is proof enough. He just never broke through in any meaningful way. You can’t hate on a guy for giving you 16 and 8 with good defense for a few seasons but when you expect 20–10 with All-NBA selections, you can’t help but feel a little embittered.

I still can’t get over Wesley Johnson going ahead of Cousins, the guy was like 30 coming out of college and Minnesota still thought he would be the answer to their problems. Johnson’s legacy in the NBA will forever be getting soul-snatched by James Harden.

And I bet you didn’t know that Epke Udoh was still in the league as early as the 2018–19 NBA season. I’m not even lying, look it up, he played for the Utah Jazz.

A whopping 5 first rounders failed to play 82 games in the NBA. Granted, they were all later picks but when you’re getting someone with your first pick, you’re hoping for at least a season’s worth of games from them. That wasn’t the case for Craig Brackins (21st), Damion James (24th), Dominique Jones (25th), Daniel Orton (29th) and Lazer Hayward (30th)

The rest of this class is unexciting. Hassan Whiteside had a tiny moment in the 2010s before we realized his statistics didn’t mean he was actually a good basketball player. Al-Farouq Aminu was a solid defender for a good decade and suffered a season ending injury last season (this is seriously a trend for this class). Greg Monroe is an older version of Jahlil Okafor, a player in a league that has no use for his skills. Eric Bledsoe is a good player who has proven himself not good enough to help you win a championship. And finally, Evan Turner has made it an art to keep cashing them cheques. Did you know he was on the Timberwolves by the end of last year? Neither did I until I started this research.

Avery Bradley had his moment in the sun as a defender in the NBA. This year, he made the correct decision to stay with his children instead of going to the bubble. That cost him the chance to compete for his first championship, but he figures to be a key cog in the Lakers’ quest to repeat in 2020–21.

Ed Davis and Patrick Patterson have both made good careers out of being dependable and not needing the ball very much. Patterson was once thought as the X factor for the pre-Kawhi Raptors, which is ridiculous in hindsight, but he’s still a capable NBA player.

Cole Aldrich’s only purpose in the NBA was to confuse me every time the broadcasters said his last name, leading me to question whether LaMarcus Aldridge had a white brother I’d forgotten about.

It’s a shame that Lance Stephenson couldn’t stay in the NBA on a consistent basis. He had some of the best antics in the game, whether it was blowing in LeBron’s ear or breaking out the air guitars.

This draft class seems like it has reached its potential. A lot of its players are still in the league, and George still operates as a superstar, but short him winning the MVP, it feels like this class has gotten all the points it can for now. We’ll have to wait another decade to see if they get many hall of famers (Paul George feels like a shoo-in, Wall is probably going to get in, Cousins might).

#11.

All-Stars: Yao Ming, Amar’e Stoudemire, Carlos Boozer, Caron Butler (4 points)

All-NBA Players:Amar’e Stoudemire, 1st team, Yao Ming, 2nd team, Carlos Boozer, 3rd team (6 points)

All-Defensive Team Players: Tayshaun Prince, 2nd team (1 point)

Hall of Fame: Yao Ming (5 points)

Players with more than 200 games in the draft class: 27(Tier 3: 1point)

1st Rounders with less than 82 games: 2(-2 points)

Total: 15 points

Other notable players: Mike Dunleavy, Drew Gooden, Nene, Chris Wilcox, Jared Jeffries, John Salmons, Matt Barnes, Rasual Butler (RIP), Luis Scola

2002 tied with 2010, both with 15 points. The only reason I placed 2002 “ahead” of 2010 is because this is the only draft class from 2000 to 2015 to have an inductee in the NBA hall of fame. There will be many more to come in the next decade, but as of right now, Yao Ming is the only player drafted post-2000 to have been enshrined in Springfield.

And that’s because Yao was plagued with injuries throughout his career that forced him to retire early. Otherwise, he likely could have played into the late 2010s, delaying his eventual admission into the hall.

Honestly, pound for pound, I think that 2010, and probably even 2006, is more talented that this 2002 class. Yao’s induction into the hall is basically keeping this class higher than it otherwise should be. Until other players from those draft classes start to retire, 2002 can enjoy its tenuous lead.

To me, there’s a clear best player from 2002, and it wasn’t even Yao. Before injuries completely ended his career, Amar’e Stoudemire was the standout player from 2002. He was like the spiritual successor to prime Shawn Kemp. STAT was athletic beyond belief, had a great touch around the basket and for a large part of his career, played with a point guard that was basically tailored to his skill set.

As a Phoenix Sun, Amar’e struck fear in all of his Western conference opponents. There was no rim he wouldn’t attack and no team he couldn’t drop 40 against on any given night. There are few players who gave Tim Duncan fits on the defensive end, Amar’e is one of them. In 2005, though the Suns would lose the series, STAT averaged 37 per game against the Spurs. In 2007, he averaged 26.

Even going to New York, Amar’e remained an elite player, proving it wasn’t just the Steve Nash effect. Before the Knicks gutted their team to acquire Carmelo Anthony, a player who was going to sign with them in the off-season and the Knicks could have just held off on pulling the trigger, Amar’e was playing at MVP levels. Someone had finally managed to make New York relevant again.

Then Melo got there, the chemisry wasn’t quite right and Amar’e started dealing with nagging injuries. Those injuries would eventually derail his NBA career and Amar’e would be forced to instead become a star in the Israeli Basketball Premier League.

To me, Amar’e is a Hall of Famer, which would help this class in the rankings. A lot of people will say “Hall of very good” or that he fell off too quickly, but I disagree. For nearly a decade, he was among the 3 best Power Forwards in the league. He might be the best PnR big man we’ve ever seen. He was truly dominant and seeing him in his prime was an experience that can’t be understated.

That’s not to say Yao was some sort of slouch. I’ve rarely seen such a big man be so coordinated on the court. Yao had a rare combination of skill and raw strength that few could match. The unfortunate thing about the Yao situation is that no human being is built to give his legs that much punishment on a daily basis at his height and weight.

If Yao didn’t have this feverish commitment to the Chinese national team, he could have added a few more seasons to his NBA career. He was just never going to let his country down and that ended up being the biggest factor in his body breaking down.

Still, in terms of peak, I think we saw what Yao at his best could do in the NBA. He was one of the 15 best players in the league and on offense, he was basically impossible to deny. You couldn’t move him out of the way, because he was basically a tree in the paint, and he could just shoot over you to his hearts’ desire.

I would have liked to see Yao be a better defender. With that height and length, he should have been blocking more shots than he did. It’s just that while he was coordinated, he wasn’t the most mobile player on the court, and teams could use that against him.

After Yao and Amar’e, there’s a steep drop off to players like Carlos Boozer, Tayshaun Prince and Caron Butler. I always thought Boozer was one of the most overrated players in NBA history. He was a one-dimensional scorer who was a horrific defender. In some people’s eyes, that’s good enough to be an All-NBA player. I don’t agree. Though, I will give credit to Boozer for being an efficient scorer, that is one thing you can’t take away from him.

Prince was a fearsome defender who never surprisingly made an All-D 1st team. Still, you can’t argue with making the 2nd team on four separate occasions. If Prince wanted to lock a player down, there wasn’t much anyone could do to stop that. This is one of the best blocks in NBA history and it basically acts as a microcosm for Prince’s entire career.

That was in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals with the score at Pistons 69, Pacers 67. One of the greatest blocks we’ve ever seen. By the way, that game finished 72–67. Other scores in that series were:

G1: DET 74– IND 78

G3: DET 85– IND 78

G4: DET 68- IND 83

G5: DET 83- IND 65

G6: DET 69- IND 65.

Detroit basketball baby.

So that’s what Prince delivered most during his career. Offensively, he wasn’t inept but that was never his bread and butter. If Prince was your 4th best player, you were likely a championship contender but if he was your 2nd, you were in dire straits. And I’m talking about someone who I believe was the 3rd best player in his draft class.

Caron Butler was Tayshaun Prince with slightly better offense and slightly worse defense. He could give you 20 every night but if he did, you likely weren’t going too far in the playoffs.

With players like Drew Gooden, Chris Wilcox, Luis Scola and Nene, this was the year of the serviceable big man. These guys did their jobs and didn’t get much of the credit, but they were all decent to different degrees (Nene>Scola>Gooden>Wilcox if you ask me, Gooden wins points for the hair but loses points for being supplanted by a YouTuber in Google searches).

The rest of this class is basically Matt “violence is never the answer but sometimes it is” Barnes, Mike Dunleavy whose white dude who can shoot act went on for way too long, Jared Jeffries who feels like was employed by the Knicks for like 20 years but was only on the roster for 4, and John Salmons’ perfect mediocrity. Seriously, this guy is one of the most random 20 point scorers in NBA history (well, technically, 19.9).

It’s impossible to say what Jay Williams might have become as he developed. It isn’t easy to adjust to the NBA as a point guard and given that, Williams had a decent rookie season. He looked poised to at least remain a competent starter in the NBA for a decent chunk of time. Then, he had a motorcycle injury that nearly left him paralyzed in one leg. That was the end of his NBA career, one season after it began. Williams is not your stereotypical NBA bust.

But Nikoloz Tskitishvili is, and I will never understand what the Nuggets were thinking drafting this man 5th overall.

Also, Fred Jones won a dunk contest that may even be discussed less than Desmond Mason’s dunk contest victory, so there’s that.

All in all, this draft class is very boring. If you’re not a Suns or Rockets fan, the 2002 NBA draft probably means very little to you. That’s not a statement on its quality, but more of a statement on its entertainment value.

#10.

All-Stars: Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard, Draymond Green, Andre Drummond, Bradley Beal, Khris Middleton (6 points)

All-NBA Players: Anthony Davis, 1st team, Damian Lillard, 1st team, Draymond Green, 2nd team, Andre Drummond, 3rd team (9 points)

All-Defensive Team Players: Draymond Green, 1st team & Anthony Davis 1st team (4 points)

DPOY: Draymond Green (3 points)

Players with more than 200 games in the draft class: 29 (Tier 3: 1point)

1st Rounders with less than 82 games: 3(-3 points)

Total: 20 points

Other notable players: Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Harrison Barnes, Terrence Ross, Austin Rivers, Meyers Leonard, Jeremy Lamb, Maurice Harkless, Evan Fournier, Jae Crowder, Will Barton, Mike Scott, Miles Plumlee

This is a draft class that still has room to grow. Anthony Davis has already acheived first team status for All-NBA and All-D, but he’s certainly a contender to win MVP, DPOY and FMVP for the next half-decade. The Lakers’ championship may have been a crowning achievement for LeBron, but it also proved to the NBA that AD is going to be a massive threat to the league for years to come.

There might have been a time where AD might not be considered the best player in this draft. His injury concerns were legitimate and he was stuck spending his prime on a New Orleans team that seemed to be treading water at best.

Now, Davis is playing alongside the best player in the NBA on the league’s most marketed team. He’s getting so many more pairs of eyes on his game and almost unilaterally, people are realizing how truly dominant and versatile Davis is. I think we are headed towards an AD renaissance and if LeBron is willing to relax even more during the regular season for these coming years, an MVP is well within Davis’ (very long) reach.

Despite Davis’ NBA dominance, it’s funny to think that he was not the ROY in this draft class. Because of a handful of missed games due to injury, and a genuinely great rookie campaign from another guy, the decision was made easier to give it to another consistent NBA all-star, Damian Lillard.

It’s been great watching Lillard evolve as the Trail Blazers’ franchise guard over the last 8 seasons. First, he was the scoring threat alongside LaMarcus Aldridge. Not that Lillard was a sidekick, but he also wasn’t the main guy.

Then, Aldridge left for San Antonio and Lillard was thrust into the spotlight. He has shined brightest in those moments. Lillard’s brand of cockiness and intense loyalty for Portland has made him a local hero. At this point, he’s probably the most reverred Trail Blazer of all-time and is only adding to his legacy.

If anybody plays like Steph Curry, with a mix of outrageous but crowd deafening shots, it’s Dame. This guy has made a career out of knocking down huge shots from everywhere on the court. I mean, the guy single handedly waved Russell Westbrook and Paul George off the Thunder.

And there was also the time he yeeted the Rockets out of the playoffs back in 2013–14.

Yeah, Damian Lillard needs more love even though he already gets plenty.

It’s also criminal that Bradley Beal was denied a spot on the All-NBA teams last season. Yes, he’s spending his prime toiling away on a terrible Wizards franchise, but Beal’s skill on the court is undeniable. While Wall coming back may take some shots away from Beal, we’ve already theorized that Wall may be a half step slow moving forward. The Wizards are now fully Beal’s team and I think the media will recognize that Beal deserves end of season recognition sooner rather than later.

Defensively, this class has Draymond Green, one-time DPOY. Green is the X factor that made the Golden State Warriors dynasty possible (and I don’t just mean because he was the guy who recruited KD). Green’s unique blend of defense, passing and willingness to score 6 points per game allowed for Curry and Thompson to take all of the shots.

Without Draymond, there is no Warriors dynasty. He’s the guy we love to hate because he’s whiny, he plays dirty and he talks trash. But at the end of the day, he’s the guy guarding the best players, he’s the one who gets crapped on because he doesn’t score that much, and in big games, Draymond Green comes prepared to play.

Yeah, they lost that game but damn if Green didn’t do everything in his power to help the Warriors win. I fully believe this is Draymond’s best game of his career and if the Warriors had won, his legacy would have gotten a huge boost from this one game alone. Goes to show how much we consider winning when it comes to evaluating players.

Also on defense, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that Khris Middleton could play well enough to snag an All-NBA 3rd team before his career is done. If the Bucks eventually move on from Eric Bledsoe and remain solid defensively, Middleton might also start getting recognition for his stability at that end.

People love to crap on Middleton’s contract while ignoring everything he brings to the Bucks. Milwaukee isn’t all Giannis and Middleton has been a legitmate second star for them during their renaissance. If he could find post-season success, that would go a long way towards helping his reputation moving forward.

You can also never count out NBA voters’ inability to actually see past a box score. If Andre Drummond provides anything to an NBA team, it’s good counting stats. The story changes drastically when you actually watch him play and understand that he doesn’t do much to actually help his team win, but if you’re only looking at box scores, yeah he stands out.

I think most people now understand that Drummond is sort of a red herring, but if he is able to have some sort of “image rehabilitation”, don’t be surprised to see him end up on an undeserving All-Defensive team before his career is over.

In terms of potential new All-Stars, the crop looks a little weak. I could see Evan Fournier sneaking in if he stays on weak Eastern conference teams and continues pilling on the points. He’s not an impact player but he is a guy whose box score numbers might draw attention. If he can put up more than 20 points per game next season, he might steal Nikola Vucevic’s spot as the de facto Orlando Magic All-Star.

I was also shocked to remember that Jae Crowder did not make an All-Defensive team during his time as a Boston Celtic. I was convinced that he had at least one selection during the 2015–16 season, but maybe that’s just because I would have picked him and Mandela effected my own opinions as facts. Cause lord knows that never happens to anyone.

It’s been sad watching Michael Kidd-Gilchrist’s inability to find his footing in the NBA. Back in 2012, the Brow was always going to go first overall, but MKG was considered a very nice consolation prize. Just look at this Bleacher Report article from 2012 that aged poorly (BR is used to their articles aging like milk).

Why Michael Kidd-Gilchrist Will Be the Steal of the 2012 NBA Draft

Want a “reputed” source instead of BR? How about known basketball “expert” Bill Simmons?

The Bobcats take … Michael Kidd-Gilchrist? WOW! They did the right thing?!?!?!? We’re stunned! I can’t stop using exclamation points! Probably not a good sign for the MJ era when it’s shocking that the team picking second took the second-best player. Great pick. I couldn’t be a bigger MKG fan, as explained here. As Bilas gushes, “You can’t teach relentless.” He’s going to be a killer pro. Think Scottie Pippen crossed with Gerald Wallace, only if they had a hyphen and played every game like it was Game 7 of the Finals.

Even before Bill lost his fastball and stopped writing altogether, he couldn’t stop himself with the hyperbole. Scottie Pippen mixed with Gerald Wallace but with even more intensity? Okay Bill.

But seriously, MKG was 2nd on Chad Ford’s big board and was considered to be a difference maker going forward. Especially as the youngest player in the draft, many saw a lot of potential in him. Instead, thanks to a busted jumper, injury issues and a general lack of development, MKG’s career is all but over as he will enter free agency having played 25 games in the last two seasons. Some team might pick him up as veteran insurance, but don’t expect to hear his names in NBA headlines moving forward.

Another highly touted player from this draft class was Harrison Barnes. He was the number one high school player in his class, headed to the historic University of North Carolina. This kid had his own nickname and brand before even entering the NBA. He was the Black Falcon.

As it turns out, placing high expectations on 18 year olds doesn’t always work out. Barnes had a decent freshman season but didn’t perform as expected. That forced him to return for a second year at UNC, where he improved ever-so-slightly.

By then, some of the glimmer had worn off of Barnes’ hype and he entered the draft as regular lottery pick instead of being the next big thing. He got lucky when he was chosen by the Warriors, which helped transform him into an NBA champion.

Unfortunately, by 2016 he was exposed as the obvious weak cog in the Warriors machine. It wasn’t helped by the fact that Barnes was especially bad in the Warriors’ choke in the NBA finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Because of that performance, and because Kevin Durant wanted to join the team, Barnes was left unwanted by the Warriors. It’s a tough call between the greatest scorer of a generation and the Black Falcon, but history will remember the Warriors making the correct decision.

Since then, Barnes has been kind of forgettable. Not because he’s a bad player, he nearly averaged 20 with the Mavs once. Just because he’s been on teams that haven’t really gone anywhere. Since Dallas he’s been traded to Sacramento where the most we’ve heard from him is that he planned on growing a beard and not cutting his hair until the Kings made the playoffs. No word yet on if he’s caved to those expectations.

I would also like to take a minute to highlight Terrence Ross, if only because I’m a Raptors fan. Ross’ random 51 point explosion against the Los Angeles Clippers will always be one of my favorite memories. So too will his many devastating jams he threw down as a Raptor, but specifically this one on Kenneth Faried.

If Ross had that kind of aggression all the time, he would have been an easy All-Star by this point. He just doesn’t.

Some notable role players from this draft include Austin Rivers, son of Doc and a once highly touted high school prospect like Harrison Barnes, Jeremy Lamb, king of sleepy eyes and Raptor-killer, Maurice Harkless, who stopped shooting 3s to cash in on some extra bread, Mike Scott and Kyle O’Quinn.

Notably, this draft class had two players named Quincy taken back-to-back, an accomplishment I’m sure had never happened and will never happen again.

So this class still has some time to add a few awards to their mantle. I think they could pass the next two classes if AD reaches his full potential and brings home the MVP/DPOY/FMVP trifecta. I wouldn’t count him out.

#9.

All-Stars: Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Andrew Bynum, Danny Granger, David Lee (5 points)

All-NBA Players: Chris Paul, 1st team, Deron Williams, 2nd team, Andrew Bynum, 2nd team, Andrew Bogut, 3rd team & David Lee, 3rd team (9 points)

All-Defensive Team Players: Chris Paul, 1st team & Andrew Bogut, 2nd team (3 points)

MIP: Danny Granger & Monte Ellis (4 points)

6MOY: Lou Williams (2 points)

Players with more than 200 games in the draft class: 36 (Tier 1: 3 points)

1st Rounders with less than 82 games: 4 (-4 points)

Total: 22 points

Other notable players: Marvin Williams, Raymond Felton, Channing Frye, Gerald Green, Hakim Warrick, Nate Robinson, Jarrett Jack, Jason Maxiell, Ian Mahinmi, C.J. Miles, Ersan Ilyasova, Amir Johnson, Marcin Gortat

The more time passes, the more this draft becomes the Chris Paul draft. We always clown Atlanta for choosing Marvin Williams (ultimately a solid role player in the NBA for 15 years) over Paul. We never clown Utah for doing the same because they picked Deron Williams. For the younger folks who may not remember, there was a time when the 2005 draft was the Williams/Paul draft and the debate between who was better was fiery and legitimate.

Look at the head-to-head stats between Williams and Paul while Williams was still in Utah:

Deron Williams: 16.69 points per game, 3.06 rebounds per game, 8.38 assists per game, 1.19 steals per game, 2.88 turnovers per game, 12–4 record

Chris Paul: 15.44 points per game, 3.44 rebounds per game, 9 assists per game, 2.4 steals per game, 2.75 turnovers per game, 4–12 record

Now obviously, Deron Williams fell off a few years into his tenure with the Nets. Meanwhile, Chris Paul is still playing at a near all-star level in 2020. The debate between who had the better career is dead and buried. But when they were both playing with their original teams, it was fair to question who was the better player.

I present this only because I want it remembered that Deron Williams was once a dominant player. He was never the most atheltic or gifted, but he was a big boy for his position and he used his size to punish people. Chris Paul, a terrific defender at his position, was hopeless to guard against Williams throwing his weight against him in the post. That’s why for the longest time, Paul couldn’t win against Williams, Deron just had his number.

Still, Chris Paul is the best player from this draft class. He has multiple All-NBA and All-Defensive appearances. You can argue that his 2008–09 NBA season deserved the MVP award (Steve Nash won MVP averaging 15.5 and 11.5 in 2005, CP3 averaged 23 and 11 in 2009) and it’s one of the finest point guard seasons you’ll ever see.

As time has gone on during his career, Paul has received far more criticism than praise. He has a knack for getting injured in the playoffs. His style of leadership has been questioned. His lack of team hardware is pointed to as evidence for his failures as a player.

Then, this season, Paul was exiled to Oklahoma City and he had a rebirth. People remembered why Chris Paul was such a big deal in the first place. Leading a ragtag Thunder group that was formed mostly of young players and misfits, the Thunder surprised everybody by making the playoffs and being a general pain to play against all season.

When his time is up and he retires, Chris Paul’s faults will fade into the background. What we’ll remember most is his incredible basketball IQ, his poise with the ball and the incredible teams he headlined for most of his career. He will go down as one of the greatest point guards to ever play the game, championship ring or not.

Another good guard from this draft? Lou Williams. Mr 6 man himself. I would argue that Lou Williams’ reputation is better than his actual NBA talent. You won’t win too many big games if Lou Williams is an important member of your team, but it’s hard to argue with his numbers off the bench.

Historically speaking, I think Williams will end up with the most points scored as a reserve all-time, if he doesn’t already own the record. He’s made being the 6th man his job and has accepted the role full-fledge. Maybe because his role involves scoring on weaker players and not having to defend anybody. I just hope we can properly contextualize the minimal impact Williams actually had on his team 20 years down the line, when all we remember are the 6MOY awards and off-the-bench scoring numbers.

The number one pick in this draft, Andrew Bogut, is one of two Andrews in this draft that did not reach their full potential. For Bogut, it was mostly due to a freak injury due to a terrible decision from Amar’e Stoudemire.

That injury occurred during the 2009–10 NBA season. Up until that point, Bogut was averaging 15.9 points, 10.2 boards and 2.5 blocks per game and he would go on to be named to the All-NBA 3rd team. It was his 5th season in the NBA and we were starting to see why Bogut had been heralded as a potential #1 pick. The guy was a force in the paint, especially on defense, and for a big man, he had spectacular court vision.

Bogut came back from that injury and continued to be a physical presence defensively but it just about stopped his offensive development in its tracks. Soon after, Bogut was traded to Golden State for another 2005 draft class member, Monte Ellis, and that changed Bogut’s career trajectory.

In Golden State, Bogut’s role was to provide defense, act as a body guard for Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, and he occasionally got to act as a point center for the team’s bevvy of shooters. He played his role perfectly and became a champion for his troubles. Bogut never reached the heights expected of a number one pick, but he also wasn’t a bust. He became a serviceable NBA big man who might have been one horrific injury short of being phenomenal.

The other unrealized Andrew is the Lakers’ Andrew Bynum. It’s hard to explain how weird Bynum’s career arc is. The dude came into the NBA and he wasn’t yet 18 years old. He became a key piece two two NBA championships by the time he was 22, made his only All-NBA team at 24 and was out of the league by the time was 26.

Bynum has been out of the league for 6 seasons and is still only 33 years old (just turned 33 in late October, happy birth day Andrew!). From stories we’ve been told over the years, Bynum didn’t necessarily like basketball and wasn’t as invested as he should have been. Getting injured while rehabbing another injury because he went bowling also wasn’t a great look.

Still, it’s hard to deny that if Bynum had been committed to his craft, he could have been a perennial first team player. Just look at what he did against Shaq as a rookie. Shaq stays being sensitive.

We can talk about a few more players whose careers were cut short or altered by injuries.

Danny Granger was a tremendous scorer for the Indiana Pacers who simply could not stay healthy. By the time Indiana started to rise as a contender with Paul George and Roy Hibbert, Granger, who should have been the team’s featured star, could no longer stay on the court due to injuries.

David Lee’s injuries with the Golden State Warriors led to them giving Draymond Green more minutes. Green’s move into the starting lineup is what propelled the Warriors from good to great, and started their championship run. Lee was a former All-Star who had toiled on some terrible Knicks teams. His time with the Warriors was the first time getting to play with a good team and it got taken away from him overnight. To his credit, Lee never complained, accepted his role as a bench player and did everything to help the Warriors win.

Then there’s Monte Ellis. Another player connected to the dynasty Warriors in one way or another. For Ellis, his NBA life really began with the We Believe Warriors on which Ellis was a key bench player. After Baron Davis decided to move on from the franchise, Ellis was promoted to the starting unit and given the keys to the offense.

That led Monte to becoming the NBA’s most improved player. For a while, the Warriors floundered as Ellis remained the only constant on the team. He was an elite scorer (with sizable defensive flaws) and the Warriors faithful adopted him as THEIR guy.

Then, in the 2008 offseason, Ellis got injured while riding a moped. Then he lied to the Warriors about it because it was forbidden on his contract. But the team found out and Ellis received a 30 game suspension.

Ellis worked his way back to the team. And he experienced a lot of personal success, but the Warriors still weren’t good enough under his guise. Then the Warriors drafted Stephen Curry and it quickly became apparent that Monte and Curry could never function as a legitimate NBA back court.

Despite being the fan favorite, Monte was older and more expensive than Curry. He had to be dealt (for Bogut as mentioned earlier). Ellis spent some time with the Bucks, existing in an odd back court with Brandon Jennings, spent a few seasons with Dallas and Indiana and by then, the league had passed him by.

I always thought that if Monte had gone to an organization that could have convinced him to be their 6th man, he would have had a more successful career. He could have cooked opposing benches, contributed positively to a good team and probably been an All-Star. Instead, Monte got everything too quickly, he wasn’t mature enough to handle it and his career feels like a letdown with hindsight. But when you consider that Monte was a second round selection, this guy outhit his coverage.

Some fun role players in this draft. Raymond Felton was a good player for a long time who eventually became a meme for his weight. He was like the OG Kyle Lowry with non of the career accomplishments. Channing Frye is known more for his podcast, but the man was a key component to the Cavaliers’ 2016 championship and should be credited for being one of the first big guys who came into the NBA with 3 point range already in his arsenal. Gerald Green had bounce for days and despite losing some of that with age, has managed to maintain a role in the NBA. Jarrett Jack was a perfectly average NBA guard for a decade. Ersan Ilyasova is a sneaky good player who drew charges at historical rates. Marcin Gortat was a great back-up for prime Dwight Howard and went on to have a good starting career of his own.

Noteworthy: Amir Johnson at 56 is the last NBA player to be taken straight out of high school. While that may change in the future, since the NBA appears to be reconsidering their stance on letting high schoolers enter the draft, Amir will get to hold this tidbit for a little while longer. He also happens to be my favorite Raptor of all-time, one of the best energy and locker room guys in Toronto history.

This draft deserves a lot of credit for putting 36 players in the league that lasted at least 200 games. That’s an incredible amount of players. It’s also remarkably absent of devastating busts in the top 10, where every player spent at least 200 games in the NBA.

We’ll never know if Fran Vasquez (11th) could have competed in the league, because he chose to stay in Europe. Yaroslav Korolev (12th) is a pick I’m sure the Clippers would want back. The only other two first rounders to fail to hit 82 games were Julius Hodges (20th), who is most famous for getting punched in the nuts by Chris Paul and Wayne Simien (29th), so nothing too egregious.

The 2005 draft is kind of a turning point in this ranking. I feel like every draft moving forward is very solid top to bottom. Yes, there will still be busts to discuss but I feel like if you’re getting a class that’s like the 2005 class or better, the league is getting a good influx of talent that coming season.

#8.

All-Stars: Dwight Howard, Andre Iguodala, Devin Harris, Luol Deng & Jameer Nelson (5 points)

All-NBA Players: Dwight Howard, 1st team & Al Jefferson, 3rd team (4 points)

All-Defensive Team Players: Dwight Howard, 1st team, Andre Iguodala, 1st team, Tony Allen, 1st team, Josh Smith, 2nd team, Luol Deng, 2nd team & Anderson Varejao, 2nd team (9 points)

DPOY: Dwight Howard (3 points)

FMVP: Andre Iguodala (3 points)

6MOY: J.R. Smith & Ben Gordon (4 points)

Players with more than 200 games in the draft class: 26 (Tier 3: 1 point)

1st Rounders with less than 82 games: 3(-3 points)

Total: 26 points

If it feels like the 2004 draft supplied 80% of the high end defensive players from the late 2000s and early 2010s, well it kind of did. Highlighted of course by the player of this draft, Dwight Howard.

It’s easy to make fun of Dwight nowadays. Since leaving Orlando, his career has become kind of a joke. Up until winning a championship with the Lakers this season, Dwight seemed like he was a washed-up star unable to accept his decline.

But in his prime, Dwight Howard was a monster. His three consecutive DPOY awards is a streak that can only be matched by Ben Wallace. Only Wallace and Dikembe Mutombo have more cumulative DPOYs over the course of their career. The 2011 MVP that is often considered unfairly given to Derrick Rose instead of LeBron James could just as easily have gone to Dwight. That season, he averaged 23 points, 14.5 rebounds 1.5 steals and 2.1 blocks per game. His Magic won 52 games.

Dwight’s absolute apex likely came in the 2008–09 season when he carried his Magic to a finals berth against Kobe Bryant’s Lakers. That was an Orlando team built around Dwight. He controlled the paint and was surrounded by shooters, ready to fire open shots off the offensive rebounds Dwight would pull down.

To get to those finals, Dwight had to get through the Big 3 Celtics in the Eastern semifinals and then LeBron James’ Cavaliers in the Eastern finals. They had to battle through the miraculous game winner that LeBron hit in game 2 of the series.

And they battled. Dwight battled. The Magic lost their point guard and fellow 2005 draftee, Jameer Nelson. They plugged in Skip-To-My-Lou, aka Rafer Alston, and kept winning. All on Dwight’s back. Sure, the run didn’t end in the championship Dwight desired, but it showed us how talented he was at his best.

Injuries and bad attitude slowly brought Dwight back down to earth. With a bad back went Dwight’s elite athleticism and without his explosiveness, Dwight’s impact on the game lessened. It took a few teams and some years before Dwight could fully accept his tranformation from a star to a role player but at the midnight hour, he did it. This season, we saw Dwight commit to his role as a rebounder, defensive big man and it made him an elite role player. It also won him a championship. Sometimes old dogs do learn new tricks.

This draft is also the home of Andre Iguodala, owner of one of the least deserved FMVP trophies ever. The man was given the award for “limiting” LeBron James to 36 points, 13 rebounds, 9 assists per game. At that point, the trophy should have just been given to the guy who lead both teams in points, rebounds and assists.

While Iggy doesn’t deserve the FMVP, he most certainly deserves the defensive accolades he’s gotten over the years. There was a time when he was billed as the next AI in Philly. That was a cursed moniker. Iguodala was never built to be a premier offensive player, but he had all the tools to be an All-NBA defender. And that was his NBA destiny.

At his best, Iguodala was a pain to play against. He was built like a house but was also quick on his feet. He could just as easily strip the ball away from you or meet you at the rim and get the ball out of your hands with a block instead. On defense, prime Andre Iguodala could do it all.

Then there’s Tony Allen who is like Andre Iguodala with even less offensive talent but even more defensive tenacity. This man was a bulldog. He never backed down on his opponent.

In the 2008 finals, he gave Kobe a brutal time trying to score the ball. When Allen relocated out west to play for Memphis, he became the most prominent Kevin Durant stopper. Any scorer you put on Tony Allen, he was gonna bother them more than anyone else in the league. Tony Allen was a dog.

Allen is best described in his own words, from his MEMPHIS article on the Players Tribune from 2017.

And then you had me, man. I wasn’t the best player or anything, I wasn’t the All-Star caliber guy. But when I look back on it, I think our teams — they were kind of made in my image: Weren’t the most prolific scoring team. Weren’t shooting anyone’s lights out, or always pushing real fast. But we were louder than you. We were tougher than you. And you better believe that everyone was playing their hearts out on defense. It was like, before you even knew it — we had a real identity.

This draft also has three former 2nd team All-D. Josh Smith, Anderson Varejao and Luol Deng.

Smith was a tantalizing NBA player. I always thought of him of LeBron James if James didn’t have his elite basketball IQ. At his best, Smith was an ultra-atheltic wingman capable of guarding almost anyone on the court. He was 6"9 but blazingly fast and with the vertical to match his speed.

The problem with Smith was the unlike a Tony Allen, he couldn’t accept his limitations. Josh Smith wanted to be a scorer and he wanted to shoot 3s despite being a career .285 shooter from downtown. Smith had great court vision but at the same time, he was always so concerned with getting points that he often didn’t defer to his passing skills.

Still, on defense, a committed Josh Smith was a terrifying thought. He was big enough to defend the post and fast enough to control the perimeter. If you were going to score on Josh Smith, you were going to work for it. Realistically, Smith should have been a member of a few 1st team All-Defensive teams if he could have accepted his true role in the NBA.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have Luol Deng. This man was a workhorse. There’s nothing else to be said. He played under Tom Thibodeau and Thibodeau played Deng every single second he could squeeze out of him.

In a way, I can understand Thibs. When you have a talent like Deng, you want him out there as much as possible. Deng was a dogged defender, locking down perimeter players and never letting them breathe. He was the perfect 3rd star for the D-Rose led Bulls.

Sadly, like most of those Bulls, they broke down over the course of their career from logging so many minutes. Before he even turned 30, Deng was a shell of his former self.

As for Varejao, there was a time in which he was the GOAT at flopping in the NBA. That might sound derogatory but I mean it as a compliment. This man perfected the art of selling fouls to the refs and getting his team the ball back.

That’s not the only thing Andy could do. He was also an incredibly active defender for a big man. This is a guy who could switch onto guards in the pick and roll and be fast enough to recover back to his man to go defend him in the post on the same possession. Varejao was a hard worker and that’s how he made his money in the NBA.

It’s also fun to note that LeBron has only come off the bench once in his career. It was the game that Varejao was due to return to the Cavaliers after sitting out over a contract dispute. Some bad things about Varejao had been said in the media and he had come off looking selfish. LeBron didn’t want his teammate to get boo’ed at home, so he asked to come off the bench and be inserted to the game at the same time as Varejao. Even young LeBron was born to be a leader.

Of course, this draft also has some fun offensive players. There’s Al Jefferson, the player Jahlil Okafor could have been if he had been born in the right era. Jefferson is one of the last true post scorers in the NBA. He was a net-negative on the defensive end but there few players who could keep up with him if he had the ball in the post.

Along with Andrew Bogut, Jefferson has the unique experience of making an All-NBA team while never being selected for an All-Star game.

Devin Harris will remain one of the more random one-time all-stars in NBA history. This man has been on 5 different teams but has only ever signed a contract with the Dallas Mavericks. Talk about not getting the message.

Harris was actually a very good guard in his prime. His all-star season is enough proof. He was good at both ends of the court, could be relied on to take care of the ball and was unselfish enough to get his teammates involved. Do you win a ring with Devin Harris as your second best player? Probably not, but you’ll compete in the playoffs.

Another guy who could score the ball in this draft was Kevin Martin. The problem with Martin is that he was destined to be a “good stats, bad team” guy. The minute he went to OKC as part of the Harden deal, he seemed out of his element playing along better players on a team that was actually winning games. Sacramento Kevin Martin was the guy at his essence, but you weren’t getting anywhere with him as your premier player.

And then there’s the Ben Gordon oddity. This guy came into the league guns blazing. As a rookie, he won the 6MOY award while failing to get the ROY (which went to Emeka Okafor). Gordon had the green light off the bench with his Baby Bulls team.

Gordon had some great season on the Bulls. He eventually became a starter with Kirk Hinrich, and that’s where Gordon was able to score over 20 points per game in two seasons. Sure, Gordon had a lot of defensive issues, but he was fun to watch, and the man was jacked.

Our other 6MOY is another unforgetable character, Earl Joseph Smith III, otherwise known as J.R. Smith. For all of his zany adventures off the court, Smith is a dude who could really score the basketball. In his 2013 6MOY winning season, J.R. scored 18 points off the bench for the Knicks.

For a draft with so many good players, the top 10 has a lot of less than satisfactory picks. It’s crazy that Okafor, picked 2nd, was ever even considered to go above Dwight Howard. For a while, it even seemed possible that he should have been picked ahead of Dwight, as the more mature and NBA ready Okafor took home ROY honors.

It quickly became obvious that Okafor just had a head start. Not that Okafor wasn’t good, he just never developed beyond being a 13 and 10 guy. Then he had a neck injury that effectively ended his NBA career, although Okafor deserves a lot of credit for continuing the grind long enough to land 26 games with the Pelicans in 2017–18 after not having appeared in the NBA since 2012–13.

We all know what became of Shaun Livingston (4th). I still wish we could have seen how his career would have panned out were it not for that horrific injury. But given the cards he was dealt and how Livingston played out his career, it’s hard to call him a bust, at least in the traditional meaning of the word.

Josh Childress (6th) and his baby afro were intriguing for the mid 2000s Hawks. With Smith, he gave them a pair of very capable wing defenders who could guard up and down the roster. The guard saw more money in going to play overseas and essentially willingly gave up his NBA career. By the time he decided he wanted to come back to the NBA, the league had passed him by.

I don’t even want to talk about Rafael Aurujo (8th) other than to say that I considered docking this draft 10 points solely for his existence. Drafting Aurujo is the absolute nadir of my experience as a life-long Raptors fan. It was a bad idea in the moment, there is no hindsight to this selection. For reference, even Bill Simmons didn’t like the pick (and he was oddly infatuated with Aurujo).

Wow! Toronto just took Rafael Aruojo eighth! Even I didn’t like him that much, and I’m the one who once called him a “6-foot-11 Najera.” Sadly, his interview doesn’t come with subtitles.

2004 was also the start of Cleveland doing everything it could to get LeBron James zero help. Luke Jackson (10th) was just a bad pick. He wasn’t good enough to play in the NBA and Cleveland realized it almost immediately. I mean, this is his picture on Wikipedia, tell me that guy belongs in the NBA, I dare you.

This looks more like a cast photo for One Tree Hill than anything else

I also want to point out that Andris Biedrins (11th) is basically the white Andre Bynum. Andris is basically Latvian for Andrew, they have the same initials and they were both out of the league in their mid-20s. Andris’ issue wasn’t bowling but brutal self-confidence. He was an effective rebounder and defender but had some of the worst free throw performances I’ve ever seen. After 2008–09, he never shot above .323 from the line until he was out of the league. Yikes.

In terms of role players, the three that stand-out to me are Jameer Nelson, who along with Devin Harris, belongs in the random one-time all-stars club, Trevor Ariza, whose defense was a valuable commodity for nearly 15 years and Beno Udrih, who had an incredibly quiet but effective 13 year career.

I would also like to note on record that this draft class did not receive extra points for Kris Humphries getting with prime Kim Kardashian for a month, though I did consider it.

#7.

All-Stars: Gilbert Arenas, Pau Gasol, Tony Parker, Tyson Chandler, Joe Johnson, Zach Randolph, Gerald Wallace, Mehmet Okur (8 points)

All-NBA Players: Pau Gasol, 2nd team, Tony Parker, 2nd team, Gilbert Arenas, 2nd team, Joe Johnson, 3rd team, Tyson Chandler, 3rd team & Zach Randolph, 3rd team (9 points)

All-Defensive Team Players: Tyson Chandler, 1st team, Gerald Wallace, 1st team & Shane Battier, 2nd team (5 points)

FMVP: Tony Parker (3 points)

DPOY: Tyson Chandler (3 points)

MIP: Gilbert Arenas & Zach Randolph (4 points)

Players with more than 200 games in the draft class: 29 (Tier 3: 1 point)

1st Rounders with less than 82 games: 2(-2 points)

Total: 31 points

Other notable players: Jason Richardson, Richard Jefferson, Troy Murphy, Brendan Haywood, Samuel Dalembert, White Mamba, Earl Watson, Jason & Jarron Collins

Doing this article, 2001 may have been my biggest surprise. In my head, I always kind of associated 2001 to the 2000 draft, they were both mediocre classes. Its repuation certainly wasn’t helped with Kwame Brown going first overall.

Granted, this class doesn’t have a mega-star like 2012, 2005 and 2004 do with AD, Dwight Howard and Chris Paul. That’s illustrated in this class have no All-NBA 1st team players. Instead, this draft class is better than the sum of its parts with a lot of all-stars who possibly never reached that transcendent talent level.

Even looking at the 2nd overall pick, Tyson Chandler. He never really bloomed until leaving Chicago after his 5th season. At that point, he went to play with Chris Paul and developed a reputation as a hard-nosed defender. It really wasn’t until he became a key piece in the Mavericks’ championship (Chandler’s 10th season) that he became well known for most NBA fans.

If you were to ask me the best player in this draft, it would come down to two European players who peaked as elite second bananas on championship teams. The only difference is their physical size.

In one corner, you have Pau Gasol, 3rd overall in this draft. Pau set out on his NBA journey as a potential franchise player. He was tasked with taking on a team that had just moved from Vancouver to Memphis. His star power was going to be needed to help build a new fanbase.

Right away, it was clear that Pau had major talent. Building around the Spaniard, the Grizzlies made their way into the playoffs for the first time in its history (both in Vancouver and Memphis) by Gasol’s 3rd season. That started a streak of 3 consecutive post-season appearances.

That’s when the questions around Gasol began appearing. For 3 straight seasons, the Grizzlies were swept in the first round. Losing to the Spurs, Suns and Mavericks respectively. That called into question Gasol’s ability to lead a winning team in the NBA.

From there, the wheels in Memphis fell off. Pau suffered some injuries that held him back from a non-negligable amount of games and the Grizzlies would never again make the playoffs under Gasol’s thumb.

Instead, the Lakers came calling. They had rebuilt after the Shaq/Kobe dynamic had crumbled and Kobe needed some extra help to get over the post-season hump. Gasol was picked to be Kobe’s second-in-command. And that’s where Gasol flourished.

Gasol was a key member in both of the Lakers’ championship victories. He battled the image people had of him as the soft Euro and became an intimidating post defender. On offense, Gasol’s finesse and passing abilities meshed perfectly with Bynum’s more inside presence and Kobe’s need to shoot as often as possible.

If there’s any proof of Gasol’s talent and mental fortitude, it’s that he became Kobe’s most trusted and favorite teammate. That’s a position that can only be earned through hard work and success.

Things fell apart with the Lakers later on and Gasol would spend some years in Chicago and San Antonio where it was clear he was past his prime, but still effective (we won’t mention the 3 games with Milwaukee). At his peak, Gasol was a player who was talented enough to be the number one option, but really thrived as the sidekick. There’s no shame in that game, that’s basically describing Scottie Pippen’s career and that guy is remembered as one of the all-time greats.

The other guy was drafted lower than Gasol and thus, was lucky enough to join an already successful franchise. Tony Parker and the Spurs were a match made in heaven. Having Tim Duncan established as the superstar in San Antonio allowed for Parker to take his time while learning how to be a point guard in the NBA.

By the time Parker had really figured out his role on the team, Duncan was getting older and more defferential. Between Parker and Manu Ginobili, they became the second guard on a Spurs team that would simply not go away.

Parker was a master at finishing in the paint despite his stature. He had an array of teardrops, pivot moves and fakes to get buckets when he got in the lane. Watching him outsmart guys a foot taller than him was always awe-inspiring. His spin move was seriously next level.

Parker had a little more luck than Pau Gasol and he made the most of it. That translated into 4 rings and a FMVP (that I still kind of feel should have gone to Tim Duncan, but it’s not Iguodala levels of bad). I think if you had to go back and pick one of them to lead your new team as rookies, you would go with Pau Gasol but it would be close. Parker never got the chance to show what he would do as the number one option but more than proved his worth as a second option. I’m sure he wouldn’t change anything for how his career panned out.

Speaking of how things played out, there is one player in this draft who should regret one tiny decision he made in December of 2009. That is the month in which Gilbert Arenas thought it would be a good idea to bring a gun into the locker room to settle a gambling dispute he had with Javaris Crittenton.

Before that, Arenas was one of the hottest players in the NBA. I was a Raptors fan but Agent Zero may have been my favorite player in the league. He was the reason I proudly wore #0 throughout high school in our extremely shiny and very mid-00s jerseys.

Hibachi was more than just a good player, he was a personality. I remember reading his NBA blogs, which honestly had some crazy stories. I remember reading about his summer workouts and how he would put up 5,000 shots every day. I wanted to be Gil.

And the dude was a sensation on the court. There was no shot he didn’t like. If you think Steph Curry has no contemporary, think again. Arenas was taking Curry-like shots before Curry even got to Davidson, he just didn’t make them at the same insane clip. The dude had no conscience.

You don’t just drop 60 on Kobe Bryant without being an all-world talent.

But yeah, a combination of that locker room incident, and perpetually beat-up knees meant that Arenas’ time in the NBA wasn’t going to be long. After getting suspended for the whole “bringing firearms to the locker room to threaten his teammate” thing, Arenas played in 119 games across 4 seasons and then he went to go play in China.

Joe Johnson and Zach Randolph are also key members of the “2000s high school NBA fans” club. I loved Joe from the minute I saw him play with the Seven Seconds or Less Suns. I am still angry that Robert Sarver was too cheap to keep that team together because more than one year of a Steve Nash, Amar’e, Shawn Marion and Joe Johnson nucleus would have won a ring.

Instead, Johnson ended up in Atlanta, where he became the star player. This is like a reverse Pau Gasol where he was in a great spot as a complimentary player and ended up on a team as the number one option, but without the team success.

Johnson was, for the better part of a decade, a good player on a good team that was never going to be taken seriously as a contender. Still, that kind of longevity allowed him to pile up All-Star appearances and stack up some impressive career counting stats that will likely make him a Hall-of-Famer despite the lack of any hardware or important victories.

As for Zach Randolph, we got to watch him evolve from one of the most selfish players in the NBA as a Blazer, Knick and Clipper to a fan favorite, heart and soul kind of guy in Memphis. The talent was always very evident but Randolph always seemed to play for losing teams. When he got to Memphis, it’s like a switch just flipped in his mind.

The Grit n’ Grind Grizzlies are a product of Randolph and Tony Allen’s ruggedness. If Al Jefferson is the evolved Pokémon version of Jahlil Okafor, Randolph is like the Charizard to Jefferson’s Charmeleon. Z-Bo could barely jump over a phone book but he was still going to embarrass defenders in the post.

Maybe even more impressively, despite being an unatheltic big man, Randolph was a defensive presence. I’m sure having Marc Gasol, Tony Allen and Mike Conley on his team, all of them all-world defenders, didn’t hurt, but Randolph found a way to help his team on defense even with his limitations. He was probably the most physical player in an era often described as soft and the guy legitimately intimidated his opponents.

We’re also looking at a few one-time all-stars in Mehmet Okur and Gerald Wallace. Okur was always an interesting guy to me. He feels like he was born a little too early and had he been given more freedom to roam on the perimeter like modern big men are, he would have been more effective. Wallace was an intense defender whose atheticism was his biggest tool. The guy played on some bad Bobcats teams but he was never the problem.

The role players from this draft also had a lot of impact in the NBA.

Shane Battier is an elite defender. I didn’t realise he never made an All-DA 1st team and knowing Wallace did and Battier didn’t doesn’t seem fair. At least he got to experience team success with the LeBron-led Miami Heat, where Battier’s defense became one of the X-factors for their back-to-back championships.

Richard Jefferson and Jason Richardson were both hyper-athletic players who played far longer than I would have expected.

J-Rich was dealt a tough hand and asked to be the face of the Warriors at their lowest. He was then dealt to an equally bad Bobcats franchise. It wasn’t until he joined the Suns that Richardson got to experience good basketball and by then, he was past his prime.

Jefferson got a little luckier, making the NBA finals as a rookie thanks to an unspeakably bad Eastern conference and getting drafted on a team with Jason Kidd. Then the Nets traded for Vince and it was awkward for Jefferson as he was suddenly knocked down in the team hierarchy. It also had to be insulting getting traded for peanuts after his best season with the Nets.

From that point, Jefferson kind of bounced around, disappointing multiple franchises at the promise of a near all-star player. It wasn’t until, like Battier, Jefferson landed on a LeBron-led team that Jefferson got a return trip to the NBA finals and got to experience the thrill of winning it all.

Then there’s guys like Troy Murphy, who was a rebounding machine without much of any other skills (like Okur he should have been allowed to shoot from distance more), Sam Dalembert and Brendan Haywood whose skills were being tall and physical.

Kwame Brown going first overall is a huge mark against this draft, because that’s what people remember most. We all know the stories about Brown’s rookie year in Washington, dealing with Michael Jordan. Though Brown denies it, Jordan supposedly was so harsh on the rookie that he made cry multiple times in practice and constantly needled Brown for his lack of skills.

It was as if, in Brown, Jordan saw the possibility of a kinship with a future star so luminous as to be deserving of a bond with him. “When he got to camp, it was like Kwame already had the credentials in Michael’s eyes to be a part of Michael’s group,” said a Wizards official who observed them daily. “So Michael let him in. For a while at least.”

Jordan’s infatuation with his protégé waned. He thought Brown was cocky and disrespectful sometimes, particularly when the teenager nagged him about playing a one-on-one game, hinting that doom awaited him. Finally, Jordan agreed to the game, Brown grinning on the court, convinced his youth and height would be indefensible weapons against this shorter man twice his age. Early in the game, believing he had a lunging, jabbing Jordan off balance, the kid dared to say, “You reach, I’ll teach.”

Jordan snapped, “You teach, and I’ll knock you on your damn ass.”

He proceeded to humiliate Brown, mocking him while scoring at will, declining to help him up when the teenager fell hard to the floor, winning lopsidedly and, at the end, yelling at Brown to acknowledge his superiority in front of the team: “You better call me ‘Daddy,’ (expletive).”

“Michael was breaking him down,” one observer recounted, “probably to build him up. But there was a lot of breaking down.”

Things deteriorated quickly thereafter. Brown didn’t work hard enough for Jordan’s taste, and it did not help that many in the Wizards organization, from officials to teammates, thought the kid showed no capacity for either accepting criticism or honoring an old basketball tenet that said rookies should play hard, accept bruises and complain about nothing.

With the criticism mounting and his play getting worse, Brown became maddeningly frustrated, a kid convinced he was being repeatedly fouled in intrasquad scrimmages by two veterans, Christian Laettner and Jahidi White, who weren’t quick enough, Brown believed, to stay with him. He would drive toward the basket and feel himself being bumped by a hard hip, sometimes losing the ball, infuriated the referees wouldn’t blow a whistle. “That was a foul,” he finally groaned.

Play stopped. There was an electric silence. A wide-eyed Jordan was walking toward him. “You (expletive) flaming (expletive),” Jordan exploded. “You don’t get a foul call on a (expletive) little touch foul, you (expletive). You don’t bring that (expletive) here. Get your (expletive) ass back on the floor and play. I don’t want to hear that (expletive) out of you again. Get your ass back and play, you (expletive).”

A stupefied Brown could say nothing. He looked close to tears, thought a witness.

“It was not a mortal wound,” the same Wizards official said. But the man believed that Jordan’s words left Brown numb for several days thereafter, observing that Brown appeared to be increasingly tentative on the court.

Not that Brown would have lived up to the hype of being a first overall pick, but having the GOAT yelling at you within your first few days with your new team couldn’t have helped. Jordan is known for being a psychotic prick, so while Brown denies this story, I don’t think it’s impossible that it really did happen.

Eddy Curry also turned into a big (pun intended) disappointment. He came out with the Baby Bulls and had a promising start to his career. Then, the Knicks traded for him and proceeded to overpay him. Curry got too big, played too little because of injuries and was essentially done as a player by his 27th birthday.

That about sums up this class. A lot of solid A- to B level players and then a steep drop-off when it comes to role players. Having 8 all-stars in one draft class is an impressive feat and 2001 certainly will go down as one of the more surprisingly good draft classes.

It also never hurts to have the White Mamba in your draft class, but surprisingly, he didn’t contribute any points to this one.

#6.

All-Stars: Kyrie Irving, Kawhi Leonard, Klay Thompson, Kemba Walker, Nikola Vucevic, Jimmy Butler, Isaiah Thomas (7 points)

All-NBA Players: Kawhi Leonard, 1st team, Isaiah Thomas, 2nd team, Kyrie Irving, 2nd team, Kemba Walker, 3rd team, Klay Thompson, 3rd team & Jimmy Butler, 3rd team (10 points)

All-Defensive Team Players: Kawhi Leonard, 1st team, Jimmy Butler, 2nd team & Klay Thompson, 2nd team (4 points)

FMVP: Kawhi Leonard (3 points)

DPOY: Kawhi Leonard (3 points)

MIP: Jimmy Butler (2 points)

Players with more than 200 games in the draft class: 34 (Tier 1: 3 points)

1st Rounders with less than 82 games: 1(-1 points)

Total: 31 points

Other notable players: Enes Kanter, Tristan Thompson, Jonas Valanciunas, Bismack Biyombo, Brandon Knight, Markieff & Marcus Morris, Tobias Harris, Kenneth Faried, Reggie Jackson, Corey Joseph, E’Twaun Moore, Chandler Parsons

This draft actually tied with 2001. I gave 2011 the nod mainly because of Kawhi Leonard. The 2001 class doesn’t have any 1st team All-NBA players, the 2011 has 1: Kawhi Leonard. So on his own, he put his draft class ahead of 2001 by just a (subjective) smidge.

There’s no question that at this moment, Kawhi Leonard is THE guy from this draft. As late as the 2017-2018 season, Kyrie Irving definitely had an argument for being the most accomplished player in his class but since then, both players have gone in opposite trajectories.

I may be biased, given that I am a Raptors fan, but Kawhi’s 2019 post-season is one of the most incredible runs we’ve ever seen from a single player. That isn’t to say that Toronto only had one good guy, but Kawhi was the driving force on that championship team. This was especially true against the Philadelphia 76ers, where he seemed like the only one not wilting under the pressure.

That’s what Kawhi has done his entire career. With the Spurs, he was more of a complimentary player as he learned the NBA ropes. It was a great situation to begin his career because he got to evolve as a player without the bright lights being focused solely on him. This is like a common theme for Spurs-bred stars.

Yes, his FMVP with the Spurs is a little janky. It’s in the same vein as Iguodala getting rewarded for being the main player to guard LeBron, but Kawhi did do a good job of making LeBron’s life difficult. As evidenced by the video of LeBron seeing Kawhi check back into the game.

From that FMVP, Kawhi built himself into a two-way star for the Spurs. At first, he was primarily known for his defense, as evidence by his 2 DPOY awards and multiple All-D selections, but by the mid-2010s, Kawhi had become a lethal and efficient scorer.

Then there was the weird saga with the Spurs and his quadricep. Was he legitmately hurt? Did he simply want out of San Antonio? Why was he going to so many doctors? Who the fuck is Uncle Dennis? As time passed, it became clear that Kawhi was done playing for the Spurs and in the 2018 off-season, San Antonio off-loaded him to Toronto.

We now know that Kawhi was far from finished, but at the time, there were a lot of questions surrounding his health and ability to perform at a high level. Kawhi basically hadn’t played for an entire season, logging only 9 games’ worth of action in 2017–18. What were the Raptors really acquiring in this trade?

The answer was simple: they acquired a championship ring. Kawhi Leonard proved to be the caliber of player who can single-handedly take a good team to contention status. That’s a level of skill that historically, only a few NBA players can claim. If he manages to do it again for the long-maligned Clippers, especially after the mess that was their bubble experience, Kawhi will really ascend to a whole other level in NBA history.

Then you have Kyrie Irving. The dude is obviously highly skilled. There are few players who have better control at finishing their layups in traffic. The english that Irving can put on a ball is honestly absurd.

Not only that, Kyrie has some of the best handles in the NBA and a beautiful shot from downtown too. He is one of the most complete offensive packages in the NBA right now. In terms of what he can do on the court, it’s hard not to like Kyrie Irving.

The issue with Irving is that unlike Kawhi, he has been unable to prove that he is a player who can carry a team all the way. Up until this point, any notable success Kyrie has experienced in the NBA, is thanks to some help. Like the time, after playing on some miserable Cavs teams early in his career, Kyrie got the gift of a lifetime when LeBron decided to return home in 2014.

That enabled Kyrie to play for some truly fantastic teams that would take him to 3 NBA finals (though 2015 barely counts for him, because of injuries). Out of those finals, Kyrie earned himself a ring and in the process, made one of the biggest shots in NBA history.

But getting that ring wasn’t enough for Irving. He didn’t like that most people (rightly) attributed more credit to LeBron for taking the Cavaliers all the way. Kyrie wanted to prove to the world that he could lead his own team to the promise land. I don’t begrudge this of Kyrie, all elite competitors want the chance to show that they are the alpha dog.

It’s just that since Kyrie opted to go off on his own, things haven’t gone as planned. It started off well in Boston. In that first season, Kyrie and his young guns Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, really took the NBA by storm. That led to an Eastern conference showdown with Kyrie’s old buddy LeBron in which the Cavaliers prevailed in 7 games. Unfortunately for Kyrie, he would not take part in any of the playoff action because of injury.

Despite the loss, there was hope for optimism. In Kyrie’s first year in Boston, they had gotten to within 1 win of the NBA finals. Tatum and Brown had nowhere to go but up and they had managed to take the Cavaliers to 7, even without Kyrie (and Gordon Hayward) for the entire playoffs.

That optimism led to this historic NBA media moment:

And then the wheels fell off in Boston. Kyrie was miscontent and acted out. He kept getting weirder and weirder with the media. He would say things about wanting to be in Boston one day and allude to wanting out the next. Basically, the Celtics were crumbling under expectations and Kyrie was deflecting blame on everyone but himself.

After that season, the Celtics were done with Kyrie Irving saga and he got his wish to leave. Kyrie signed a deal with the Brooklyn Nets, who also snagged Kevin Durant. That Nets experiment is still a work in progress since KD was injured for all of 2019–20. Still, if the Nets have any sort of team success, it’s fair to assume that will be more the shoulders of Kevin Durant than Kyrie Irving.

4 years after wanting out of Cleveland to prove he could win on his own, Kyrie Irving has aligned with a top 3 player in the NBA. I would surmise that this wholeheartedly proves that Kyrie Irving cannot carry an NBA team all the way. He was wrong and Kyrie’s legacy will ultimately be hurt by this.

After those two, there is a clear second tier that belongs to Klay Thompson and Jimmy Butler. I would say that Butler is like an inch ahead of Klay, especially with Butler’s stock being at an all-time high and Klay missing all of the 2019–20 season, but it depends how much you value team success over individual success.

Butler is a true rags to riches NBA story. He started on the Bulls as an unheralded rookie who played tough defense and refused to back down from anyone. He only appeared in 42 games in his first season. Nobody ever considered Butler a future All-NBA level player, he was just supposed to be a solid role player who puts in a good 10–12 year career.

We just didn’t know that Butler had legendary work ethic and psychotic need to be the top dog. Butler worked so hard to become an all-around NBA player and the work paid off. He became an All-Star in Chicago and his intensity made him into a fan favorite.

Given his obsession with hard work, Butler was a Thibodeau disciple. When Thibs got the pink slip in 2015, that was the beginning of the end for Chicago and Butler. He did not get along as well with Fred Hoiberg, Thibs’ replacement, and eventually, the Bulls thought best to move on from Butler.

That’s how he got to Minnesota for a reunion with Thibs. In his first year in Minny, the Timberwolves managed to make the playoffs, something that team hadn’t done since the Kevin Garnett era. But the happiness was short-lived because certain teammates could not match Butler’s intensity level.

Which led to Butler being traded to Philadelphia midway through his second season with the Timberwolves. That 76ers team ran into Kawhi Leonard and the Raptors in the post-season, where Kawhi made one of the all-time greatest shots in NBA playoff history.

It was the dagger.

Butler did not find Philadelphia to be structured enough for his tastes. He did not believe coach Brett Brown was putting his players in the best position to succeed. So instead of re-signing there, Butler took his talents to South Beach.

It was a match made in heaven. The Miami Heat are known for their culture of hard work. Pat Riley has instituted rules that ensures players come into camp under a certain weight and maintain that weight throughout the season. The Heat expect excellence out of every single player on their roster. That is exactly how Jimmy Butler sees basketball.

After being labelled as a locker room cancer because of his troubled past, Butler emerged as a locker room leader with the Heat. In the bubble, Miami thrived under pressure and cobbled together a Cinderella run to the NBA finals with Butler’s hard-work and laser focus as the prime narrative focus. Those two wins Miami managed to snag against the Lakers in the finals were only possible because of Butler’s insane performances.

So far, Butler hasn’t cracked any higher than an All-NBA 3rd team. I think that is about to change this upcoming season. Butler has a renewed reputation among the media and all eyes are on Miami after their unexpected success in the bubble. If he can produce at relatively similar levels next season, expect a 1st or 2nd team appearance in Butler’s future.

Klay’s story is a lot less complicated. He was drafted in the perfect situation for him and he is the most laidback star the NBA has ever seen. With Steph Curry, they form the best shooting backcourt in the history of the NBA, with no one near their level.

Despite his quiet attitude, Klay is a killer on the court. This is a guy who can put up 60 points in a single game, with only 11 dribbles. When Klay Thompson catches on fire, there is no stopping him. Like the time he poured in 37 points in a quarter.

On top of being possibly the 2nd greatest shooter in NBA history, Klay is an all-world defender on the perimeter. When you’re talking 3 and D, it’s my opinion that there is no greater 3 and D player in NBA history than Klay Thompson. He’s like a role player but at a superstar level.

His accolades speak for themselves. Klay is a three-time champion. He’s an All-NBA and All-Defensive player. He will likely end up with the 2nd or 3rd most made 3s in NBA history (depending on his health and where James Harden lands). Maybe Klay got lucky with where he landed but he certainly made the most with his good luck.

It’s impossible to speak about this class without also mentioning Isaiah Thomas, the last pick of 2011. Thomas was chosen after NBA legends like Targuy Ngombo, Ater Majok and Adam Hanga.

To be fair, IT was only picked that low because of his diminutive status. His exploits as a scorer in college were well known but it was hard to see him putting up the same kind of numbers in the NBA.

Except that Thomas did just that. It was short-lived, but his peak as a Boston Celtic was electrifying. 29 points per night as this 5"9 slithery warrior. Thomas doing things we never thought possible at the NBA level.

Unfortunately, IT went through some injuries that he tried to play through for Boston. That only worsened his condition and Thomas’ hip problems sapped him of his speed. If you’re 5"9 on an NBA court and you can’t move around, you’re going to have a bad time. It’s likely that we’ve seen the last of Isaiah Thomas as an impact player of any sort in the NBA, but the short time we had with him was unforgettable.

The other two all-stars on this last are lesser tier stars. Kemba Walker is Boston’s newest lead man after moving on from Kyrie (and previously before that, Isaiah Thomas). Before becoming a Celtic, Walker was one of the few bright spots in a Charlotte Hornets history that has been checkered with failures. In Boston, Kemba is less THE guy but he will have more of a chance at team success, which after nearly a decade in Charlotte, is all the man wants.

As for Nikola Vucevic, he is the heir to Dwight Howard as Orlando’s big man. Unexpectedly, in a trade that featured Dwight and Andrew Bynum, the Magic getting Vucevic ended up being the winner of the trade. Nobody would have predicted that when it happened.

Vucevic isn’t an impact player the same way Kawhi, Kyrie, Jimmy or even Kemba is. He’s just one of those guys who plays on a mediocre to average team and puts up good stats. You’ll see those types of players make a few all-star appearances in their career and true to form, Vucevic has made one all-star team so far. That will probably be the extent of it.

This class helped stock up the NBA with good big men. You have players who are still impactful for their teams like Jonas Valanciunas and Tristen Thompson. Then there are players who have clear value on offense (Enes Kanter) or defense (Bismack Biyombo) but are net-negatives at the other end of the court. Bisnes Biyanter would be an all-time great NBA center. The Morris brothers exist in the realm of useful but maybe not? Finally you have guys who used to be good but are either fully out of the league or on their way out like Kenneth Faried and Donatas Montiejunas. Nikola Mirotic had some good moments in the NBA (and some less good, like getting punched out by his own teammate) before going back to Europe to cash in.

There are a few good smaller players in this draft too. Most notably, Tobias Harris, who might be a darkhorse to sneak into an all-star game within the next 2 years if Philly can get its shit together. Iman Shumpert and his hair had good NBA moments. Alec Burks has been quietly okay his entire career. Reggie Jackson and Cory Joseph have provided solid, if unimpressive guard play for much of their NBA lives. Davis Bertans is on the rise and Chandler Parsons’ descent has concluded. We also have Brandon Knight, who is essentially the Bad Luck Brian of the NBA.

In terms of busts, there are a few players here who had big reputations in college but never brought it to the NBA. Most notably, Jimmer Fredette, who was unable to accept that an unatheltic small man doesn’t just get the green light to shoot from anywhere on an NBA court. Nolan Smith’s Dukie career didn’t do much for his NBA career. Derrick Williams was a beast in the NCAA but appeared pretty ordinary when he met equally atheltic opponents in the pros.

Of course, the biggest bust in this draft will forever be Jan Vesely. His best NBA moment was kissing his hot girlfriend when he got drafted by the Wizards. It was downhill from there. Though, for what it’s worth, Vesely has had an excellent career back in Europe. JaJuan Johnson also deserves a shoutout for being the only first rounder to play less than 82 games (seriously, even Jan got nearly 200) but he went 27th overall so it’s not like we expected him to be a star.

2011 is a great year in my estimation. When your Mount Rushmore is Kawhi Leonard, Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson and Jimmy Butler, that’s one hell of a crop of talent for the league. There’s even still time for this class to gather more points. It’s not inconceivable that Kawhi could win the MVP (though load management may have something to say about that), Jimmy might make a 1st or 2nd team and Tobias could very well become an all-star. When all is said and done, 2011 has an outside chance at the top 3.

#5.

All-Stars: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Rudy Gobert, Victor Oladipo (3 points)

All-NBA Players: Giannis Antetoukounmpo, 1st team, Rudy Gobert, 2nd team & Victor Oladipo, 3rd team (6 points)

All-Defensive Team Players: Giannis Antetokounmpo, 1st team, Rudy Gobert, 1st team, Victor Oladipo, 1st team & Andre Roberson, 2nd team (7 points)

MVP: Giannis Antetokounmpo (5 points)

DPOY: Rudy Gobert & Giannis Antetokounmpo (6 points)

MIP: Victor Oladipo, C.J. McCollum & Giannis Antetokounmpo (6 points)

Players with more than 200 games in the draft class: 31(Tier 2: 2 points)

1st Rounders with less than 82 games: 2(-2 points)

Total: 33 points

Other notable players: Otto Porter, Cody Zeller, Alex Len, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, CJ McCollum, Steven Adams, Dennis Schroder, Mason Plumlee, Tim Hardaway Jr., Tony Snell, Gorgui Dieng, Kelly Olynyk

This draft is proof we don’t know anything about NBA prospects. This is what people were saying about the 2013 NBA draft. Let’s go to USA Today,

No one in this draft makes sense as a №1 pick. The talent at the top is weaker than any draft since at least 2006, when Andrea Bargnani was selected first overall by the Toronto Raptors.

Here we have the always basketball knowledgeable Business Insider,

DOES THIS DRAFT SUCK?

Yes, in a way! There are no surefire stars. There may be no stars period. It happens. But there is some solid depth and plenty of intrigue. Because of the unsettled nature of the lottery, we may see a bunch of trades. Also remember that free agency begins on Monday — this could turn into a week or two of heavy movement as teams look to prep for stricter salary cap and trade rules. The Mavericks, for instance, have openly discussed trading out of their lottery spot.

But yes, it’s unlikely we’ll have many, if any, All-Stars from this draft, and that does put a damper on the whole thing. All we can hope for is fun during the event itself.

Or how about NBADraft.net,

Our first extended mock draft of the season. While this doesn’t appear to be a particularly strong draft, the same thing was said around this time last year and a number of rookies are showing signs of becoming stars.

And what about our always reliable Bleacher Report?

Even though this crop of players entering the NBA is admittedly weak, the 60 players who will be selected are still the future of the Association.

Now, just for fun, let’s see what people were saying about the 2014 NBA Draft as it was approaching. First, Bleacher Report again,

We could also be looking at an awfully deep draft here. Having a second-round pick this year could end up going a long way.

From Business Insider (seriously, why are they even talking about the NBA Draft?),

The 2014 NBA Draft is expected to be the best, deepest draft in a decade. Andrew Wiggins, Joel Embiid, and Jabari Parker are the top-tier players, but there are a whole bunch of other guys who have the potential to turn into stars

NBADraft.net:

While the 2013 NBA Draft may have lacked star power, it made up for in value from top to bottom. However, titles are won with Hall of Famers.

Next year’s draft features a number of guys who could develop into franchise players. And just like in 2003, with players such as LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony on the draft horizon, teams have already begun to gut their rosters in an apparent attempt to position themselves for a shot at the Andrew Wiggins sweepstakes. On draft day, Philadelphia and Boston traded away veteren talent for a shot at lady luck.

It’s not all about Wiggins, though. Jabari Parker should make a nice consolation prize for the team that ends up with the second pick. And players such as Marcus Smart and Julius Randle should factor heavily into the top of the draft.

A lot can change between now and the 50 weeks until the 2014 draft, but heading into the summer, these are our top-20 NBA prospects in what is shaping up to be one of the best draft classes in recent memory.

USA Today’s Joseph Adi,

Are any of the prospective members of the 2014 draft class still worth tanking for?

Adi Joseph, USA TODAY Sports: Yes. And no. I’m not a big fan of the concept of tanking because it instills bad habits in young players such as the Philadelphia 76ers’ Michael Carter-Williams. But this class still is special, particularly in the top eight or nine picks. Ensuring a high pick in this draft isn’t such a bad move, as it would have been last year.

You get the picture. 6 years later and 2014 has ranked 15th out of 16th Draft classes in my rankings. 2013 has officially made it into the top 5. The lesson? As always, we are all stupid and cannot predict how an 18–22 year old player will develop down the road.

Instead of Andrew Wiggins becoming the next big thing in the NBA, Giannis came in and took his role one draft earlier. Everybody on draft night projected Giannis as a big-time project. Someone who wouldn’t be ready until 3 or 4 years down the line (2 years from being 2 years away anyone?).

Giannis wasn’t instantly the man we now know in the NBA, but he was far from being as unprepared as “experts” would have had us believe. As a rookie, he made the 2nd All-Rookie team and only got better each season afterwards. Within 4 years, he was making the All-NBA 2nd team.

Some of the luster from the Greek Freak’s image has faded because of a tough bubble loss for the Bucks. I understand that this is a very reactionary culture and that loss wasn’t the greatest image to leave the fans until next season. But that doesn’t take away from Giannis’ previous 2 seasons.

While there has been some stiff competition, Giannis has proven to be the best player of 2018–19 and 2019–20. He has Shaq’s brute strength with none of the body fat. He’s fast as a gazelle but strong as an ox. He has great court vision.

Defensively, he’s a nightmare to have guarding you because he is so long, so quick and so strong. You can’t shoot over him, you can’t get past him and you can’t move him in the post.

It’s a good thing for the rest of the league that Giannis’ jumper is still a work in progress because if it ever becomes even halfway decent, it’s over for the rest of the NBA.

By himself, Giannis got 14 points for this draft class. That will tie him with LeBron for the most points by a single person in their draft class (bet you LeBron is steaming he didn’t get that DPOY now).

Outside of Giannis, this draft’s score comes from two sources: Rudy Gobert and Victor Oladipo.

Like Giannis, Rudy’s stock may not be at its highest right now. He was patient zero for the COVID-19 outbreak in the NBA and the way he handled that entire situation lost him a lot of points.

Still, Rudy Gobert is a legitimate NBA talent (if he wasn’t there was no way he would have come back from infecting his star teammate). He is probably the best paint defender in the NBA currently. His long arms put even Giannis to shame in comparison.

Oladipo was more highly-touted than either player going into their draft but took longer to really break out as a star in the NBA. It took a few tries in Orlando and Oklahoma City, but in Indiana, Oladipo found a home.

In 2017–18, Oladipo established himself as an all-star with his all-around performance with the Pacers. Offensively, he took on a more important role than he had in the past. On defense, he accepted the toughest assignments from the other team. In that season, he really proved why Orlando committed to him with the 2nd overall pick.

Since then, Dipo has had some injury issues. He has struggled to stay on the court since 2018–19 and with his contract finishing in 2020, there are now questions about Oladipo’s future.

Will he stay on with the Pacers and their new coach? There’s been rumored interest in going to Miami, though that may be one-sided coming from the player. There whispers around the league about Oladipo’s status upon his return and if he can ever tap into his 2017–18 form again.

If we want to talk about potential players coming up and filling for Oladipo’s potential downfall, that starts with C.J. McCollum. He has spent his career as the other half of the Blazers’ potent backcourt. So far, he’s only taken home a MIP award but it isn’t impossible to see McCollum as an all-star or All-NBA in the next couple of years if Portland can build on their performance.

It should also be mentioned that Dennis Schroder was robbed of a 6MOY award this season with the Thunder. The positive impact he had on that team was plain as day and yet, for the first time since Lamar Odom, the voters decided to vote for the big man instead of the high scoring guard.

If there is justice to be had in this league, I would peg Schroder for a 6MOY in 2021 if he can repeat sensibly the same performance he had for all of this season. This is a tremendous turnaround for a guy who pushed his former starter out in Atlanta because he wanted the starting role for himself.

This draft also has some sneaky good players who don’t necessarily jump out immediately. I’m talking about players like Otto Porter, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (his stock has never been and will never be higher than right now) and Tim Hardaway Jr. They have all developed into successful role players in the NBA whether that role is defense, shooting or supplementary scoring.

What really hurts this draft is the failure universally achieved by the big men in the top 10. There 2 first overall picks who failed to reach at least 200 games in the NBA. One is Greg Oden, and circumstances can explain why that happened. The other? Anthony Bennett.

Yes, I understand that Bennett should have never been the first overall pick. This was a reach from the Cavs that were hoping to fill a need in a draft where there was no consensus first pick. Still, Bennett was understood by everyone to be a lottery selection. That means people had high expectations for him.

Bennett delivered on exactly 0 of those expectations. He appeared in 151 games and averaged 4.4 points, 3.1 rebounds and 0.5 assists per game. Bennett looked like he could barely breathe after running up and down the court once. It’s normal for rookies to sometimes look out of their depths, but Bennett was next level. He barely even belonged in the D/G-League.

Take a shot every time you hear, “Bennett. No!”

Cody Zeller, Alex Len and Nerlens Noel all had varrying degrees of success in the NBA, all more than Bennett, but also never really delivered anything exciting for their franchise. Zeller was the most stereotypical Charlotte pick ever, a big white dude. Len was another big white dude who, for reasons unknown to me, had momentum as the first overall pick in the draft. As for Noel, he would have been the first overall pick if he hadn’t suffered a bad injury during his year at Kentucky. He has since not really panned out in the NBA. He also turned down a ludicrous amount of money to bet on himself and then had to settle for the vet minimum when his bet flopped.

Thankfully, those bigs are propped up by later picks who ended up shining. Players like Steven Adams, who looks more like he should have been picked in the 2003 draft and Tim Hardaway Jr, who may not be as good as his dad, but is a great value scorer if you want some pop off your bench.

I will say that Michael Cartrer-Williams winning ROY for this class is a bad look. But this class is full of late bloomers, MCW did actually have good looking stats for his rookie season (always a plus with voters) and it’s hard to shake the memory of his first NBA game. Possibly the GOAT first game of any NBA player in the modern era (1980 and on).

Another thing that should be mentioned with 2013: despite having a lot of success with later first round picks, the 2nd round for this class is putrid. Allen Crabbe, Mike Muscala, Isaiah Canaan, Raul Neto and James Ennis are the names you might have heard of. You can usually count on one or two diamonds in the rough, but there are truly no good players to be found in that second round.

It’s clear why this draft performs as well as it did: Giannis. If he hadn’t worked out and Wiggins had, 2013 and 2014 would completely flip positions in these rankings. But we live in a reality where that did not happen. Drafting isn’t an exact science and these two successive drafts are proof enough. Sometimes, can’t miss prospects like Wiggins do miss and long-term projects like Giannis work out perfectly (if only it could have been Bruno). That’s a huge part of the fun of the draft.

#4.

All-Stars: Kevin Durant, Joakim Noah, Marc Gasol, Al Horford (4 points)

All-NBA Players: Kevin Durant, 1st team, Joakim Noah, 1st team, Marc Gasol, 1st team & Al Horford 3rd team (10 points)

All-Defensive Team Players: Joakim Noah, 1st team, Marc Gasol, 2nd team, Al Horford, 2nd team & Mike Conley, 2nd team (5 points)

MVP: Kevin Durant (5 points)

FMVP: Kevin Durant (3 points)

DPOY: Joakim Noah & Marc Gasol(6 points)

MIP: Aaron Brooks (2 points)

Players with more than 200 games in the draft class: 30(Tier 2: 2 points)

1st Rounders with less than 82 games: 3 (-3 points)

Total: 34 points

Other notable players: Jeff Green, Corey Brewer, Thad Young, Spencer Hawes, Rodney Stuckey, Nick Young, Marco Belinelli, Jared Dudley, Arron Afflalo, Wilson Chandler, Ramon Sessions, Glen Davis, Carl Landry

Outside of Sam Bowie and Michael Jordan, there may be no greatest NBA draft “what if” scenario than Greg Oden and Kevin Durant. It has to be painful for Trail Blazers fans to be on the losing end of both cases.

Hindsight being 20/20, it’s now obvious that Durant, who put up monster numbers as a freshman at Texas, was the clear-cut number one choice. But if we go back to 2007, the picture is much blurrier.

Greg Oden was a dominant player at Ohio State. As a freshman center, he still managed to be the strongest player on the court. In the finals, he gave a Florida Gators team that would end up repeating as champions, 25 points, 12 boards and 4 blocks. This was against Joakim Noah and Al Horford, both of whom would become NBA all-stars in the future.

The guy was going to be a problem for the NBA. Unfortunately, Oden’s body was made of papier-maché. We would quickly realize that Oden was never meant to survive the rigors of a single NBA season, let alone a career’s worth.

Meanwhile, Durant has proven himself to be one of the 3 best players in the NBA over the course of his career. Very few players historically can score the basketball as easily as KD. His combination of high scoring and efficiency is unbeatable and that has tranformed him into an MVP.

Sure, some of Durant’s reputation in the basketball world has taken a hit for his decision to join the Warriors. Truth be told, it was the easy way out and I can never personally respect his championship rings the way I would other legends. But that doesn’t take away from Durant being the 2nd best player in the NBA during LeBron’s reign. Giannis may try to challenge for that role but in my estimation, he’s still well behind Durant’s career accomplishments, despite having 1 more MVP already.

This draft also features two defensive players of the year. With Joakim Noah, there’s a lot that feels unfinished. Those Derrick Rose and Noah Bulls teams will always be a giant question mark historically. Between Rose’s injury issues, Noah’s abilities rapidly declining because of injuries and fatigue and Jimmy Butler peaking a little too late, it’s interesting to wonder what might have been.

Still, at his prime, Noah was a pain to play against. He is one of the most intelligent big men I’ve ever seen in the NBA. Noah wasn’t particularly gifted athletically (though he was no slouch). His wasn’t naturally skilled. He just out-worked everybody and had better instincts than most players. He’s the kind of guy you hated to play against but loved if he was on your team. And he also very much hated Cleveland.

My favorite thing about Noah’s game was his passing ability. Outside of Jokic and the Gasols, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a big man in this era pass the ball like Noah did. To play with a guy like Rose, who maybe wasn’t a “traditional” point guard, having Noah’s passing ability made perfect sense. It allowed the Bulls’ most athletic player work off the ball, get cuts to the basket and Noah was perfectly suited to simply throw him accurate dimes from the high-post. It was a thing of beauty.

Not too many big men in the NBA who can throw some of these passes.

Our other defensive giant is Marc Gasol. In my opinion, Gasol was the most important member of the Grit n’ Grind Grizzlies but the one who made the least noise. He’s the kind of player whose full impact can never be understood unless you see him play.

Gasol at his peak could do everything well. He’s an elite post-defender, his passing is out of this world, he had good post-moves and he could even step outside to shoot the ball. Outside of his lack of explosiveness, prime Marc Gasol had no weaknesses.

He was the anchor that allowed the Grizzlies to play the way they did. Tony Allen and Mike Conley, who we will talk about later, would aggressively pursue players on the perimeter and funnel them to Gasol who would snuff them out. If Randolph became a decent player on defense when he got to Memphis, it wasn’t by accident. Marc Gasol is the kind of guy who raised everybody’s impact on the floor while taking none of the glory.

By the time he got to Toronto, Gasol was past his prime but you could still see glimpses of what he used to be. An incredible pass here or a brilliant defensive play there. Kawhi Leonard was the big piece to get to that championship but let’s not underestimate the impact that switching out Jonas Valanciunas’ defense for Marc Gasol’s had on the Raptors. I love JV but it was like going from a 6th grader to a college professor when it came to defensive mastery.

In case you haven’t figured out by now, I love passing big men.

Another prominent player from this draft is Mike Conley, who is connected to both Oden and Gasol. He played basketball with Oden up through college. To go from one dominant big man like Oden, to another like Marc Gasol in the NBA, Conley has to know so much about playing with defensive aces.

Which might go towards explaining why Conley has been such a great defender himself. He’s had the freedom of knowing he had elite help behind him and that allows him to throw himself into dogging his opponent. Conley is a very quiet personality but he’s a monster when he’s guarding someone one on one.

While Conley has never been an all-star, he’s a player right below that level in my eyes. He’s the kind of guy who gives 15 points and 6 assists every night while containing his match-up. You don’t have to worry about massaging his ego or making sure he gets shots. Conley understands the flow of the game and operates within it. That’s the kind of player a coach loves to have because he’s low-maintenance while still providing a lot of assets to the team.

Speaking of players coaches love, how about Al Horford? Horford is the definition of a no-frills player. There are few all-star players from this era I would classify as more boring than him. I say that as nicely as possible. In Atlanta, everyone knew Horford was going to average near a double-double with a couple of assists, and play fantastic defense.

None of that is bad, it’s just that Horford, like Conley, is the type of guy who is going to compliment a good team but would be lost if asked to carry the load on his own. It doesn’t help Horford that he’s currently on a 76ers team that just doesn’t have a fit for him. If Philly can find a way to trade him, I think we will see a renewed energy towards Al Horford, because he’s still an effective NBA player.

I think this class is best represented by these players. To be ranked so highly, this year didn’t provide too many role players who had huge impacts on the NBA. Even Aaron Brooks, who won an individual award, isn’t somebody anyone is going to be talking about 10 years from now, they barely even talk about him now.

Probably the most consistent and accomplished role player from this draft is Thad Young. The guy feels like he’s been in the NBA forever, always averaging like 12 points and 5 rebounds. The best thing I can say about Young is that you don’t really ever remember him, but that’s mostly because he doesn’t make any stupid mistakes.

Which is more than you can say for the other Young in this draft, your boy and mine, Swaggy P.

Imagine being John Wall in late 2010. You’re excited to finally begin your NBA career and you join a roster with Gilbert Arenas, Nick Young and Andray Blatche. That has to be the worst collection of NBA vets a young rookie could ever ask for.

For all the memes about Nick Young, the guy could score the basketball. He’s never going to be the crown prince of efficency or team play, but if you needed a quick burst of offense, you could do worse than Swaggy. One of my favorites stats in NBA history is that it took 3 seasons and 450 minutes for Nick Young to get an assist on a Kobe bucket. Gunners gonna gun I suppose.

This draft has plenty of unexciting contributors like Rodney Stuckey (I’m sure Pistons fans were less than thrilled with the Rodney Stuckey era in Detroit), Summer league GOAT Marco Belinelli, Jared Dudley, Arron Afflalo, Wilson Chandler and Ramon Sessions. Does anybody own any of these guys’ jerseys?

There’s also Corey Brewer, whose claim to fame (outside of also playing for those Florida Gators teams) was scoring a random 51 points, basically all on fast break layups. Brewer is a solid pro who never did anything noteworthy before or after those 51 points, so it bears mentioning.

Carl Landry is in this draft and I have to bring up the time Dirk Nowitzki elbowed him in the mouth and got two of Landry’s teeth stuck in his elbow. Leading to Dirk needing to get a shot to avoid infection. Think about how different the NBA is if Landry kills Dirk with his teeth.

Outside of Oden, there were some tantalizing prospects in this draft that just never panned out. To me, most notable is Jeff Green. This guy keeps getting contracts based on showing 10 to 20 times every year, that he could be a big-time contributor in the NBA. It’s just that the other 70-ish games of the season Green will barely make an impact on your team at all.

If Rudy Fernandez hadn’t decided to go back home to more money, I think he also could have been a useful bench player in the NBA. The guy had hops, he could shoot from distance and was generally competent at every facet of the game. We only got to see 4 seasons of Rudy in the NBA and it would have been fun to see how he developed later in his career.

Yi Jianlian, the chairman, could have been a promising NBA big man but it never materialized. He has since gone to the CBA where he is in the process of becoming one of the GOATs of his league, so it’s not all bad.

I always saw a lot of raw talent in Brandan Wright too. He was athletic and very long. In my mind, I could see a career trajectory for Wright pretty much exactly how Gobert’s career would play out a decade later. I don’t know if it’s a motor thing or if Wright just wasn’t as good as I thought, but outside of some promising moments here and there, it never became much of anything.

Of note, the other half of the locker room gun drama in Washington is in this draft, Javaris Crittenton. Somehow, for as bad as the fallout of this event was for Arenas, it was even worse for Crittenton. Like Arenas, Crittenton was suspended for the season and after that was served, this Wizards cut him.

Crittenton never saw an NBA court again. In 2011, Crittenton was arrested on murder charges. Those charges would eventually lead to Crittenton being imprisoned for 23 years, starting in 2015.

Gilbert really was messing with the wrong guy and somehow, the way things turned out in that locker room was probably best-case scenario.

#3.

All-Stars: James Harden, Stephen Curry, DeMar DeRozan, Blake Griffin, Jrue Holiday, Jeff Teague (6 points)

All-NBA Players: James Harden, 1st team, Stephen Curry, 1st team, DeMar DeRozan, 2nd team & Blake Griffin, 2nd team

All-Defensive Team Players: Jrue Holiday, 1st team, Patrick Beverley, 1st team & Danny Green, 2nd team

MVP: Stephen Curry & James Harden (10 points)

6MOY: James Harden (2 points)

Players with more than 200 games in the draft class: 36 (Tier 1: 3 points)

1st Rounders with less than 82 games: 2(-2 points)

Total: 34 points

Other notable players: Tyreke Evans, Ricky Rubio, Brandon Jennings, James Johnson, Darren Collison, Taj Gibson, Patty Mills, Gerald Henderson, Ty Lawson, Omri Casspi, DeMarre Carroll, Wayne Ellington, Dante Cunningham

This was a terrific draft if you were a team in need of some guard power… unless you happen to be the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Yeah, that’s kind of a low blow because of hindsight. But how bad does it have to feel knowing your team took two guards at picks number 5 and 6 and neither were Stephen Curry (who chosen immediately thereafter)?

Despite James Harden’s offensive brilliance, Steph Curry is the biggest name from this draft. Barring any freak injuries, he will finish with the most three pointers of all-time and he should shatter Ray Allen’s current record in the process (Harden will likely finish second).

At the peak of his powers (2015–16), Steph Curry was inevitable. At that point, nobody had ever made 300 3s in a season, Steph messed around and made 402. The guy was simply unstoppable. You actually had to start defending him at half court or he might just drop a bomb on your team from there like he was pulling up from mid-range.

You don’t become the first unanimous MVP by putting up good stats, you do it by being dominant in a way nobody ever has before. I know that Curry’s storybook season has a sour end because it’s the season they blew a 3–1 lead in the finals, but it shouldn’t diminish what this man did in the regular season.

Curry is the reason Kevin Durant receives so little respect in NBA circles nowadays. Despite being one of the most talented players in the league, KD felt like he needed to go to Steph Curry to win a ring. That tells you so much about Curry’s levity in the NBA, this guy is a mortal among men.

Getting only five games of Curry this season was another disappointment in a long line of things that were disappointing in 2020. The NBA doesn’t feel the same if Curry isn’t around bombing threes from everywhere on the court, terrorizing his opponents.

It might just have been a reprieve from the Warriors’ era of dominance. Steph will be back next season. Presumably, so too will Klay Thompson. They have the 2nd pick in the NBA draft. Draymond Green isn’t going anywhere. Andrew Wiggins’ potential is in the best possible scenario to be tapped. Maybe we should be getting ready for the birth of MVP Steph 3.0 because lord knows his shot won’t go away any time soon.

And that’s just one MVP guard from 2009. The other guy started out from more humble beginnings, off the bench for an OKC Thunder team that looked poised to grow into a dynasty given their stock of young talent.

That team was so talented that a guy like James Harden was asked to come off the bench to provide an offensive spark when Russell Westbrook or Durant came off the floor. Imagine having to sit your MVP caliber players, only to replace them with any MVP level talent.

Because of those circumstances, Harden is the first player to win 6th man of the year and follow it up with the MVP trophy later down the line (Bill Walton did the opposite). All it took was a trade to Houston to unlock Harden’s full potential.

What really pushed Harden’s skills to the limit was Mike D’Antoni coming on as the Rockets’ coach in 2016–17. In Harden, D’Antoni saw a potential game-changing point guard. People thought D’Antoni was crazy when he told the media that,

Hopefully, he’ll double his number of assists, and he had seven or eight (7.5) last year. I hope he can average double that. He’s one of the best passers I’ve been around.

Maybe hoping for double was a bit much, but Coach D’Antoni knew what he was seeing. In 2016–17, Harden averaged 11.2 assists per game, leading the league and finishing 2nd in MVP voting.

That was really the start of Harden’s ascension towards greatness. He followed up that campaign by nabbing the 2017–18 MVP trophy. Then, in 2018–19, he averaged an almost unfathomable in today’s NBA 36 points per game. He was denied another MVP due to Giannis Antetokounmpo’s arrival, but this (and the one he lost to Westbrook) are 2 MVPs that will always receive scrutiny in my eyes.

All that’s lacking in Harden’s repertoire is playoff success. If he wants to acheive life-long legend status, he will need to carry his team further in the post-season. So far, his Rockets teams have either come up short earlier than expected, or lost to the Golden State Warriors.

Most memorable was the duel between both teams in 2017–18 where the Warriors, with Kevin Durant in tow, were pushed to 7 games by Harden and the Rockets. Not even LeBron can claim to have placed the KD-era Warriors that close to elimination (when healthy, obviously the Raptors bested them in the 2019 NBA finals… with the caveat that KD and Klay Thompson missed most of the series).

Harden is always going to have haters. His style of play can be difficult to watch, but he’s proven that it gets results. Everyone ref baits, Harden is simply unapologetic about his methods. There’s also his reputation for being a bad defender, even if that hasn’t been true in years. Reputations like that tend to stick (conversely, good defenders will always be called good defenders, even when they stop being able to stop anyone. See: Kobe late in his career). It’ll be interesting to see where the Rockets go from here now that Darryl Morey’s left the front office and the Russell Westbrook expirement has kind of failed.

Clearly, Harden is still the most talented piece on that roster. He’s got the kind of game that should age well. He’s not going to want to stick around a team whose championship window is being slammed shut. He knows what he needs to do for his legacy. Does that mean a trade? Or can Houston leadership finnagle a way to fix this Westbrook situation (which Harden caused by the way, a prime example for ownership never to allow your players to dabble in GM’ing… unless they’re LeBron)? Either way, this is the murkiest Harden’s future has ever been, and that should be fun to follow in the next couple of seasons.

Below our two MVPs, we’re looking at two players who were once the faces of franchises that were historically mocked. These guys raised those teams from the ashes to become perennially good teams that underpeformed in the post-season. Both signed long-term contracts with these squads, showing loyalty, only to be traded early into their extensions as yet another reminder that the NBA is a cold, cold business.

We’ll start with the guy in Los Angeles that made the Clippers cool for the first time in the hisotry of the NBA. Our first overall pick in 2009: Blake Griffin. Because he spent his first year recovering from surgery on his knee, we had to wait an entire year before we got to see the explosive Griffin in the NBA. That year was worth the wait.

No, really, it was worth the wait.

Oh? You thought I was done?

You know it’s a dunk and a half when it becomes a verb afterwards. Nobody wanted to get Mozgov’ed in 2011 but Blake was out there doing this to basically anybody that stood in his way.

For how well John Wall played as a rookie, this is one of the most obvious rookie races I ever remember following. Within a few weeks, it was a foregone conclusion that Blake Griffin was going to be the NBA’s rookie of the year.

It’s hard to describe Blake’s atheltic prime for someone who wasn’t there to experience it. There was nothing more exciting than your buddy asking if you’d seen what Blake Griffin did the night before. Anything you thought was possible in the sphere of dunking, Griffin pushed it to the limits. I wouldn’t have crossed out the possibility that Blake might do an NBA Live 04 style backflip dunk in-game. That’s how endless he made the possibilities become.

But Blake wasn’t just a dunker. He was a great NBA player. He picked up the Clippers from the NBA’s cellar and propped them to the top. Without Blake (and David Stern’s interference), there is no Chris Paul on the Clippers. Lob City never becomes anything. First and foremost, Griffin’s basketball acumen made everything else possible and while he was still in tip-top shape, Griffin’s potential felt unlimited.

For the first four years, we kept waiting for Griffin to take the next step. Instead, he seemed to plateau. His rebounding numbers were down from his rookie season (attributed mostly to DeAndre Jordan’s rise in the depth chart) and his scoring was dropping too. In 2013–14, Griffin felt like he finally broke through, putting up 24 points per game. A tough loss to the Thunder in the 2nd round of the playoffs felt like only a stumble towards the greater good.

And that’s when the deluge of injuries really began. An injured quadricep in 2014–15 (along with bruised knuckles from punching Clippers’ staff outside of Canadian restaurants). Knee surgery required in 2016. A big toe injury that ended his 2017 playoffs prematurely. An MCL injury in 2017–18 that kept him out for the better part of 1 month.

By then, the Clippers felt like they had seen enough of Lob City to know it wasn’t going to get it done. Injuries were too frequent, especially in the playoffs. The chemistry between Paul, Griffin and Jordan seemed too chaotic to be positive. Changes needed to occur, including shipping Griffin to the NBA’s version of the land of misfit toys, Detroit.

To his credit, Blake took the trade very well. He committed himself to improving on the basketball court and leaving everything else to be dealt with accordingly. That was obvious when he turned in his best season to date in 2018–19 (24.5 PPG/ 7.5 RPG/ 5.4 APG), essentially dragging the Pistons to the playoffs on his own. If the Pistons were just a little bit better, there would have been a narrative for Blake as league MVP. That’s how well her performed in 2018–19.

Unfortunately, Griffin was unable to build on the momentum from his best season in 2019–20. He had yet another surgery on his knee which kept him out for all but 18 games, in which Blake was clearly not ready to play basketball.

It’s hard to say where Griffin’s career will go from here. He’s still owed 2 years on his massive contract that the Pistons would like to shed. If he’s healthy, Griffin clearly has a lot to give for a prospective team. It’s just hard to take a gamble on such a big contract without knowing in what condition Griffin will be. He’s been sapped of much of his athleticism and the excitement that came along with rookie Blake, but he’s still a great player. Hopefully Griffin can battle back once again and show everyone he’s not done quite yet.

He can at least take solace in that, whatever happens, at least he’s not Taylor Griffin.

Then, up North, there is the legend of DeMar DeRozan, once the known as the greatest Raptor of all-time.

To truly understand the reverence we Raptors fans have for DeMar, we have to go back to the 2011 NBA off-season. That was a low point for Raptors fans. It was when we knew for certain that Chris Bosh, our franchise all-star, would be heading to Miami to team up with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. He would be leaving a Toronto team that had little hope for optimism once he departed. That’s when DeMar, coming an okay if unimpressive rookie year, tweeted this:

I mean, what was there to get? In the Raptors’ first home game of the 2010–11 NBA season, Jarrett Jack was the last player introduced in the starting lineup. It was a truly depressing timeline. But DeMar wasn’t lying, he had us.

Every year, he worked to get better in the off-season, tirelessly putting time in the gym. Every year, he came back with something new in his bag of tricks. Better footwork, improved handles, more comfort in breaking down defenders, better decision making abilities as a passer. You name it, DeMar was putting things together.

At the same time, the Raptors were starting to build a better team. The emergence of Kyle Lowry as DeRozan’s sturdy sidekick really solidified the Raptors as a playoff team. DeMar became the face of the franchise, proudly professing his loyalty and the fans loved him for it.

The highs were incredibly high. All-star appearances, All-NBA teams. A 27 point per game regular season in 2016–17 that had me convinced DeMar had reached another gear. A 52 point 2018 New Year’s day performance that had me believing that no, this time, it was for real.

Countless clutch shots and jaw-dropping dunks.

Yeah, bet you didn’t know DeMar Mozgov’ed Mozgov too.

But the lows were also incredibly low. Highlighted by numerous playoff disappoinments, headlined no doubt by back-to-back sweeps at the hands of LeBron’s Cleveland Cavaliers. For better or for worse, DeRozan developed the reputation for being somebody who just couldn’t get it done in the playoffs.

DeMar showed Toronto unprecedented loyalty. He became the first Raptor to ever sign a 3rd contract with the Raptors (a 5-year deal in 2016). He did so in emphatic fashion,

I am Toronto. Outside of where I’m from, I represent this city harder than anybody. I’ve got so many goals I want to accomplish still, I just can’t wait to put that jersey back on and keep going.

Two years after signing that contract, DeRozan was swiftly traded to the San Antonio Spurs for a malcontent Kawhi Leonard. Raptors’ boss Masai Ujiri had seen enough from DeRozan and the playoff failures were too convincing. A change needed to happen.

Of course, we all know that this change ended up paying off for the Raptors. They won the 2018–19 NBA championship which only further cemented DeMar’s legacy as a playoff failure.

All of that ignores what DeMar has accomplished in his NBA career. He built himself into an all-star. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the gear to reach the next level of stardom in the NBA but few do. Without his hard work, the Raptors would not have become the legitimate franchise they are today. DeMar had the Raptors and he never let them down.

Who knows what lies ahead for DeMar. He’s on the wrong side of 30, and for a player who relies heavily on his athleticism, and can’t shoot, that can be problematic. What I think might be different with DeMar is that he also happens to have the best footwork in the NBA. It’s something he’s worked on and I do think he will be able to make a living scoring in the mid-range with that once his athleticism is fully gone. I just don’t know if that’s a recipe for winning basketball in the 2020s.

I think after the four players you would put on the Mt. Rushmore of this draft, the next best player is very clearly Jrue Holiday. At the time, Jrue was the youngest player in the draft. So, I remember Jrue as being the first player in the NBA who was born a year after I was. He’s the first guy to make me feel old.

Since that time, Holiday has evolved into one of the steadiest two-way guards in the NBA. He can score, he’s a reliable ball handler and playmaker, and he’s a defensive beast. This is the kind of guy you want as a complimentary player if you’re building a team to contend for a championship.

You won’t see too many Jrue Holiday highlights. Hell, you might watch an entire game and not really notice his impact unless you’re playing attention. His ability to deny the ball, his doggedness as an on-ball defender. The hustle plays. Holiday excels at the little things that help make a team incrementally better over the season. That’s why so many teammates come out and talk so highly of the guy even when he’s not an NBA “A lister”.

That’s the sort of help that Danny Green also provides a team. The biggest difference between a player like Holiday and Green is that Holiday can create for himself whereas if Danny Green ever takes a dribble in the half-court, a coach would want to bench him immediately.

Green’s best use is an elite 3 and D player. When he was at his peak, Green could shut down the other team’s best perimeter player and knock down 4–5 three pointers per game. Green will never headline a team but you need players like him to win a championship, it’s no coincidence that he’s been on the Raptors and Lakers for their most recent championship runs.

Jeff Teague is an all-star too, but it’s still hard to accept that being true. He is perhaps the most average all-star to ever exist and got in purely because those 2014–15 Atlanta Hawks were playing dominant team basketball at the time. It’s nothing that Teague did on his own exceptionally well, he just happened to be a cog in the machine.

Despite all the talent in this draft, it’s not crazy to think it could have landed even higher than 3rd if things worked out slightly differently. With Griffin missing his original rookie season, the 2009 ROY would have to go to someone else. It didn’t go to Curry or DeRozan or Harden. In fact, the latter two didn’t even crack 10 points per game. No, the 2009 ROY went to Tyreke Evans.

I loved Tyreke Evans in college. He was such a bulldozer, getting to the rim with reckless abandon and doing pretty much everything for his Memphis Tigers team. When he got to the NBA, I expected pretty much the same thing and as a rookie, he delivered. Just look at his stat line: 20, 5 and 5. The guy was a monster.

At that point, I fully expected Evans to become a consistent all-star and I thought he would be the one to bring Sacramento basketball back to life. Doubly so after the Kings lucked into DeMarcus Cousins one year later. It should have been a deadly duo.

Unfortunately, Evans peaked as a rookie. In fact, he would never average 20 per game in the NBA again. What teams glommed onto after his rookie year was the Evans, while a great slasher, couldn’t really shoot from distance consistently. Combined with a general lack of talent on the Kings at the time, defenses simply collapsed into the paint and didn’t let Evans get to the rim.

Combine that with Evans’ inability to develop his skills further than what he came in the NBA with, he became a very stoppable player. It wasn’t until he ended up on the Pelicans that Evans dedicated himself to becoming a better shooter.

He ended up having a renaissance season with the Grizzlies in 2017–18. It makes sense, Memphis was always where he did his best work. Unfortunately, that bounce back was short lived when, with the Pacers in 2018–19, Evans was given a minimum 2-year NBA ban for violating the anti-drug policy. We won’t see Evans for at least another year, by which point I think the league will already have fully passed him by.

Then you have Ricky Rubio, the teenage basketball sensation. In 2008, Rubio was starting in the Olympics championship game as a 16 year old against the USA. Rubio didn’t star in that game, but he certainly more than held his own. To cite another example, at 14 years old, Ricky Rubio was playing in the Spanish ACB league. That’s how high the expectations were for Ricky as a basketball player.

It’s not debatable that Rubio didn’t reach the lofty heights expected of him. He was never an all-star, never even really close. Instead, Rubio has carved himself a nice career as a very dependable point guard. He’s not going to be the reason your team wins most of their games, but he’s also never going to lose you a game.

In my mind, Rubio is eternally young, but on his current Phoenix Suns, Rubio has become the elder statesman of sorts. His role is now to be the mentor for players like Devon Booker and DeAndre Ayton as they try to bring the franchise back to relevancy. By all accounts, Rubio is a genuinely great teammate, so depsite being unfairly thrust into stardom at a young age, this is the role he was always born to play.

We also can’t forget Brandon Jennings, who made a lot of headlines back in the day for choosing to play in Europe over going to the NCAA. Jennings didn’t star in Italy, and that hurt his draft stock, but by the time he got to the NBA, Jennings was ready to put on a show.

Imagine being able to time travel back to November 15, 2009 and telling people that one of the two rookie guards in this game would go on to become the first unanimous MVP. Almost everyone would assume you’re talking about Brandon Jennings.

While Jennings didn’t really deliver on the hopes of consistent MVP-level play, he did become a solid NBA player. It’s really easy to pinpoint just where things went downhill for him: January 2015. That’s when Jennings ruptured an Achilles tendon. That took away a lot of Jennings’ speed and without that, Jennings just wasn’t a player you can afford to play big minutes.

Ty Lawson also had a moment in the sun, running the post-Melo, pre-Jokic Nuggets. Unfortunately, his problems were bottle related and they are reportedly still hurting his career overseas. But honestly, are we going to sit here and pretend like Jeff Teague is better than Ty Lawson?

I think the most dubious selection in this draft is just as easy to pick out now as it was then. What the hell were the Grizzlies thinking in choosing Hasheem Thabeet 2nd overall? Yes, they thought they needed size because they didn’t yet understand what they had in Marc Gasol. Zach Randolph hadn’t made his appearance yet. And they had players like Mike Conley, O.J. Mayo and Rudy Gay tying up their minutes in the backcourt/wings. But still, we all knew back in 2009 that Thabeet was not meant for the NBA.

People sold it as drafting for defensive toughness, but Thabeet wasn’t even tough. He got shredded in college by DeJuan Blair and that man had no ACLs in his knees. Predictably, Thabeet was out of the NBA shortly after his rookie deal was finished and he never even came close to being an NBA player.

You can also harp on the Wolves for taking Jonny Flynn instead of Curry. I’m not here to say that Flynn was have gotten even near Curry’s level in the NBA, but he was a hot commodity at the time. He had been the star of the Syracuse vs UConn game that had gone to 6 overtimes in the Big East tournament. He had been the only one to show some fight in Syracuse’s elimination at the hands of Griffin’s Oklahoma team in the tournament (Blake went 12 for 15, college Blake was built different).

Then, after his rookie season, Flynn underwent hip surgery and he was never the same. Like Jennings, the surgery cost Flynn his speed and that was all Jonny had at the NBA level. Without that, he wasn’t good enough to make an NBA roster and by the time his rookie contract was over, he was out of the league.

There are some good role players in this draft, though maybe less than you might expect. Taj Gibson has been a reliable inside presence his entire career, he just doomed himself by ending up on the Knicks. Before giving up on his career to chase Jehovah Jesus, Darren Collison spent a decade being one of the more solid back-up point guards in the NBA. DeMarre Carroll was never that good at 3s or D, but he certainly had the reputation of doing both. Wayne Ellington was a world-class sniper and offered literally nothing else. Patty Mills has built an impressive career as the permanent back-up point guard in San Antonio and the guy Popovich releases all his anger on. And of course, you could always rely on James Johnson to cock it back and bang on you.

#2.

All-Stars: LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, Josh Howard, Kyle Korver, David West, Chris Kaman & Mo Williams (9 points)

All-NBA Players: LeBron James, 1st team, Dwyane Wade, 1st team, Carmelo Anthony, 2nd team & Chris Bosh, 2nd team (10 points)

All-Defensive Team Players: LeBron James, 1st team, Dwyane Wade, 2nd team & Kirk Hinrich, 2nd team (4 points)

MVP: LeBron James (5 points)

FMVP: Dwyane Wade & LeBron James (6 points)

6MOY: Leandro Barbosa (2 points)

MIP: Boris Diaw (2 points)

Players with more than 200 games in the draft class: 34 (Tier 1: 3 points)

1st Rounders with less than 82 games: 4 (-4 points)

Total: 37 points

Surprise! Bet you thought this class was going to end up first (unless you cheated and counted on your own, in which case, shame on you)? Not that second is anything to sneeze at, but given the pedigree of 2003, I won’t lie, I was shocked to see them anywhere but first.

Of course, the way I set up my points system was directly because of 2003. If I was going to count each MVP and All-NBA selection separately, no one would have been able to touch LeBron James. Like has been the case in his career, LeBron was going to need help from elsewhere to land the top spot and though he certainly got some help, it wasn’t enough.

Clearly, James is the cream of the crop in this draft class, and well, any draft class post-2000. He came in hyped as the next Jordan, the newest in the long line of future Jordans. His high school games were being televised on ESPN2 when James was just a junior. If you were into basketball in the new millenium, it was basically impossible to not know about this guy.

This was a dude who had “Chosen 1” tattooed on his back as a teenager. And it wasn’t a “No Ragrets” type of tattoo. It was fully earnest. The odds that LeBron James could have even come close to delivering on expectations should have been low.

Yet, if anything, 17 years later, LeBron James has actually surpassed the expectations we had of him as a teenager. He’s got 4 championships, 4 MVPs, 4 FMVPs, 16 All-NBA selections (13 1st team selections) and is a 16 time all-star. You may not have LeBron James as your GOAT but nobody can argue that he hasn’t entered that debate.

LeBron has put together the dominance that Michael exhibited on the court mixed with Kareem’s longevity. He took the two most prominent elements of their respective games and mixed them together to create a deadly basketball cyborg. LeBron James was born to be a basketball demigod.

I could go on and on about LeBron James but what really can I say that others already haven’t? Each year, people expect that THIS will finally be the year he declines. Each year, he proves everyone wrong. He’s like if the San Antonio Spurs were a player instead of a franchise.

For my money, this latest championship, in a bubble full of healthy and rested teams, is one of LeBron’s two finest accomplishments. He’s not getting any younger and yet, in 2020 LeBron was able to pull out a dominant playoff run. He established that until proven otherwise, he is still the NBA’s top dog and Giannis and Kawhi will need to work a lot harder to take the throne (Kevin Durant too, but let’s see how he returns from injury first).

The only thing better in LeBron’s career, in my estimation, is 2016. That was the championship he knew he needed to get in his career. It’ll be impossible to separate Cleveland from LeBron when he retires. He’s an Ohioan and he understood Cleveland’s plight. He knew he was born to deliver them a championship. The manner in which he did will always be legendary. It’s his iconic moment, the one we will always remember first in 2065 when LeBron finally decides to retire.

It should say a lot about Dwyane Wade’s career that for all of LeBron’s accolades, the gap between LeBron and Wade in this class isn’t as wide as some other classes on this list. If Wade is the 2nd best player in your draft class, it’s a loaded draft class.

This is the thing about my choice of points system. It’s definitely not perfect. I fully believe that the best 2 picks in 2003 are better individually than the class that is ranked 1st. You can win a championship with LeBron or Wade as your best player (the proof is in the pudding). I don’t think you can say the same about the players who headline the #1 NBA draft class. But I had to choose a way to rank these classes while also eliminating as much subjectivity as possible. I have to live with the results.

If Wade hadn’t won anything before LeBron joined him, his legacy might be different. That 2006 championship means a lot for how we see his career now that everything’s said and done. And yes, he had Shaq on his team but Shaq’s presence on the Heat was overstated. He gave the team 20 and 9, he was definitely the 2nd best player but by that point in his career, he was more of a comparison to Pau Gasol than he was to prime Shaq of the Lakers three-peat. For his part, Wade was throwing in 27–6–7 every night. He was the alpha dog on that Miami team and Shaq’s attempt to retroactively change that doesn’t work with me.

Plus, that finals performance is still one of the finest I’ve ever seen from any player. Let alone a 24 year old getting his first taste of being in the most pressurized environment the NBA can produce. The man averaged 35 points per game and yes, he shot an incredulous amount of free throws, but damn if he didn’t work his tail off to get those numbers.

Let’s not forget that the Heat started off this finals losing the first 2 games. Wade just took the entire team on his back from there and took them to the promised land. He was a scary player when everything was clicking.

Before LeBron’s full rise, it wasn’t impossible to debate that Dwyane Wade was the better player. Until LeBron joined Miami, Wade enjoyed more team success and put together some dominant seasons. I’m partial to his stupid 2008–09 season where he averaged 30 points, 5 boards, 7.5 assists, 2.2 steals and 1.3 blocks every night. As a guard, he was blocking more than one shot per game. Insanity.

With LeBron coming to Miami, Wade’s role changed a bit. He settled into being the sidekick after proving he could win titles as the guy. Wade didn’t argue against it, he accepted his role and that went a long towards helping Miami secure 2 more titles.

Wade and LeBron weren’t even perfect fits as teammates. They both liked the ball in their hands and neither were world class shooters. It’s a testament to both players they were eventually able to make it work, but unquestionably, Wade sacrificed a lot more than LeBron did. It takes a mature player to willingly accept a lesser role to help ultimately make the team better. By the time they had everything figured out, boy did they make some magic happen on the court.

Sadly, injuries hobbled Wade for the latter part of his career. Because of that, it feels like we were robbed of seeing how Wade would have fully evolved his game as an older player. We got to see Michael and Kobe do it, I would have loved to see a more healthy Wade go through the same changes, because I don’t doubt that he would have done it seamlessly.

To me, Michael and Kobe are the number 1 and 2 shooting guards of all-time, Wade is easily 3rd on my list. He was a real problem at his peak and I’ll never forget watching him steal a championship away from Dirk (though Dirk got his revenge in the end).

Since we’re talking about the Miami Heatles, we may as well talk about Chris Bosh now too. If we talk about Wade sacrificing his game for the betterment of the team, Bosh did so ten-folds.

I got to watch Bosh closely for the first 7 years of his career. When he chose to go to Miami, I knew what the Heat were getting. Raptors Bosh was certainly a force. He could go down low and bang with the big guys, he could pull-up from mid-range and for a 4, he had some pretty good dribbles for his time.

Toronto didn’t do Bosh any favors during his time with the team. They built some shoddy groups that were never going to compete for a title. There was also some bad luck in that 2006 was the first year that high schoolers weren’t allowed in the draft. That meant no Oden or Durant (though we know now that Oden wouldn’t have worked out) and the Raptors had to settle with Bargnani instead.

With that said, it also became clear during his tenure with the Raptors that Bosh wasn’t going to be the #1 guy on a title contender. He was an all-star but he wasn’t that next level star like Wade or LeBron. So, when you can’t beat them, why not join them?

Still, Bosh was joining the Heat as a 5-time all-star who had also once been named to an All-NBA team. He was a huge part of what the Heat were going to build with LeBron and Wade. But, there is only one ball on the court, and shots were going to have to be sacrificed.

Bosh ended up taking the biggest hit out of the Big 3. He went from averaging 24 points every night in his last season with Toronto, to averaging 18 with Miami in his first year with the Heat. It was clear that in Miami, he wasn’t going to be the guy like he had been in the past.

A lot of players would bristle against that. Their ego wouldn’t allow them to accept a backseat and they would push back against it. Bosh didn’t do anything like that. Sure, it wasn’t an easy adjustement, but he understood that if he could figure out how to transition his game, it would mean that his team would have better odds to win it all. It was a selfless decision for Bosh to accept the changes.

Slowly, he developed a better three-point stroke. He focused on his work at the defensive end where he improved significantly over the couse of the Heatles era. By the end of his career, Bosh was a good defender and a great help defender.

By no means was Bosh the best player on these Heat teams, but I do think he was their most important. None of what those teams were trying to do would have worked if Bosh hadn’t gone along with the plan. He played pivotal roles on those title teams and didn’t get his fair share of the credit. His rebound is what allowed Ray Allen to hit the iconic shot. Then, in overtime, Chris Bosh is the guy who made the closing play.

Eventually, LeBron moved on from Miami. That left only Wade and Bosh. By that point, Wade was significantly banged up and couldn’t be relied on every night. That thrust Bosh back into a starring role, 4 seasons after he had been relegated to third wheel status.

Bosh didn’t show much rust. In 2014–15, he went right back to averaging more than 20 points per game. It seemed like after giving up shots for a while, Bosh would get to build on his legacy in the latter part of his career. Shortly after the 2015 All-Star game, Bosh was administered to the hospital. It turns out he had developed blood clots in one of his lungs.

The question then became if he was ever going to play again. Blood clots are obviously dangerous and not to be messed with. Bosh worked his way back into shape and got the okay from physicians to come back in 2015–16. He picked up right where he left off, averaging a shade under 20 points per game.

Around the same time as 2015, another blood clot was discovered, this time in Bosh’s leg. Another year, another season ended due to a very serious medical concern.

Doctors basically put the kaibosh on Bosh’s hopes to return from a second clotting issue. It didn’t get any better when those issues kept going through 2016. The Heat eventually got the nod from the league that Bosh’s blood clots would be considered career ending, thus removing his contract from the Heat salary cap. At which point, Bosh was waived from the Heat. By the time he was 31, Chris Bosh was done in the NBA.

We’re talking about an 11-time all-star losing a good 4 or 5 years of productivity. Bosh’s game was tailormade to age well. He wasn’t particularly reliant on his speed or jumping ability. He had worked to extend his range out to the perimeter. He was a very responsible player. We lost out on the twillight of Bosh’s career and, man, that sucks.

Still, 2 rings, 11 all-star appearances and an All-NBA 2nd team is nothing to scoff at. This guy, despite agreeing to sacrifice a lot for his Miami teams, is going to be inducted into the NBA hall-of-fame along with his two teammates and 2003 NBA classmates.

Then there’s Carmelo Anthony. Early in on these guys’ career, I would say that Melo was LeBron biggest rival. There was obviously the Oak Hill game in high school. Then Carmelo went to Syracuse and won a national title as a star freshman, something few players can claim. After that, Bron and Melo both started their NBA careers running, with the ROY race coming down between the two.

As the years waned, Carmelo’s star faded a little as Wade’s rose. Wade became LeBron’s primary rival and Carmelo was kind of the guy putting up points in Denver that no one really considered a big threat.

Then Carmelo forced his way to New York, with the Knicks gutting their talent to acquire him. Wade, LeBron and Bosh all joined forces and suddenly, the top 4 players from the 2003 draft were competing in the east. On two teams known for their rivalry back in the 1990s.

Unfortunately for Carmelo, the potential rivalry was one-sided. LeBron and company faced the Knicks only once in the playoffs. It was during the 1st round of the 2011–12 postseason. Despite Melo averaging 28 points, it was not a close series, with the Heat winning in 5.

For much of his career, Carmelo has been viewed as a “me first” type of player. The kind of guy who cares more about his scoring numbers than if his team won the game or not. Historically, he’s been compared to Dominique Wilkins, who is now remembered as exactly that kind of guy.

I think there is some truth to that. Carmelo was a world class scorer and he certainly enjoyed pouring in the points. He has one of the smoothest shooting strokes I’ve ever seen. If I was that clean, I would want to show it off too.

But to stop yourself at that line of thinking is to ignore that Carmelo did improve his teams during his best years. He came into the NBA with a Denver team that won 17 games the season prior. With Melo on board, the Nuggets made the playoffs his rookie year. Carmelo made the playoffs for the first 10 years of his career. This was not a guy putting up empty stats on bad teams, he played in games that mattered.

Where you might take umbrage with Carmelo’s career is that despite making the playoffs so often, he rarely went very far. 8 of those 10 playoff runs ended in the first round. I would say that Carmelo’s best postseason performance was in 2008–09, when he took the Nuggets to the Western Conference finals on the back of his 27–5–4 performance.

Later in his career, Carmelo has become an NBA drifter. He spent one season in OKC, where he never fit in with Russell Westbrook and Paul George. Then, he had a cameo with the Rockets in 2018–19 before getting cut 10 games in. That looked to be the dagger to his NBA career, another big-time scorer who couldn’t adjust to becoming a role player.

Then Portland came calling this season. They needed another player to come in and relieve Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum of some of their scoring duties. Melo accepted the role and bought into it fully. He became the 3rd option and seemed happy to take the shots that came to him.

His performance in Portland has rejuvenated the NBA’s interest in Carmelo Anthony. Gone are his days as a top scorer, but it’s not impossible to imagine him becoming a key role player for a good team or even winning a 6MOY trophy if he ends up coming off the bench. For a career that seemed like it was going to end abruptly, it’s been nice to see this Melo rennaissance amidst the chaos that has been 2020.

This class was loaded with talent. 5 of the top 6 picks ended up making at least one all-star game. The one exception? Darko Milicic. This man was billed as an all-time great going into the draft. Not from randoms but from experts like Chad Ford,

But what really excites them is his mature low-post play. “More than Nowitzki, Gasol or even Divac, Darko has a nasty streak in him that will help him succeed in the post,” a league executive said. “A lot of the Europeans are really threes in the pros. He’ll be a true low-post player. His coach is doing us a huge favor by forcing him to develop those skills now. He already has moves that remind me of (Hakeem) Olajuwon in the post. Once we get a hold of him, the sky’s the limit.”

The Hakeem comparison gets me every time. Now, how about actual NBA employees, like the Pistons’ scout Will Robinson,

He’s going to own the game. Own the game. We’re going to have to build a new arena. The only thing that could destroy a kid like that is a woman.

or Pistons trainer Arnie Kander,

You can’t teach Darko’s lateral quickness or explosiveness. He needs to get a bit stronger, but not too strong, because that quickness gives him a bigger advantage in the post than more strength ever will.

And I just want to add this paragraph from Sports Illustrated that actually highlights why Darko was such a failure in the NBA, but skips right by that to instead throw some shots at LeBron James instead,

Why is the NBA so high on Milicic? He’s averaging only 9.6 points
and 4.9 rebounds in 17.9 minutes per game, and his coaches
constantly badger him in the manner of Bobby Knight, as is common
in Serbian basketball. But Milicic is more than an athlete; he’s
an all-around shooter, passer and rebounder who makes his
teammates better. “He has the makings of the most dominant center
in Europe since Arvydas Sabonis,” says an NBA scout who isn’t
sure that James should be picked ahead of Milicic.

SI had the answer right there. His coaches constantly had to badger him, not because it’s common in Serbian basketball, but because Darko had horrific work ethic and didn’t actually like basketball that much. People were so blinded with what Darko might eventually be able to do that they didn’t stop think what he could actually do in the moment, which was not a whole lot of anything.

Granted, Milicic also ended up in potentially the worst scenario for his situation. He was drafted by an already established Detroit team that owned the Grizzlies’ pick. That team was stocked with big men like Ben Wallace, Mehmet Okur and eventually, Rasheed Wallace. Not a lot of room to find minutes in that rotation.

On top of that, the Pistons were coached by Larry Brown, a man notorious for not trusting rookies. When you consider that Darko wasn’t much of a practice player and his coach had a bias against rookies in the first place, Darko wasn’t going to get a lot of love from that particular Pistons roster.

Darko’s tantalizing talents just never materialized because, again, he didn’t like basketball and he didn’t want to work for it. Despite that, teams kept giving him contracts because that hype was still in the back of their minds. It didn’t work for the last team, but we will be the team that truly taps into Darko’s vault of skills.

Haters can hate but Darko can still lay claim to the first championship ring for the 2003 NBA draft class. Before Wade and well before LeBron, so who really came out the winner from this class? It’s gotta be manna from heaven.

The other all-star in that top 6 is Chris Kaman, a fringe all-star who happens to be a center. You’ll see a lot of those in the history of the NBA because sometimes, you just have a dearth of options at that position. That isn’t to crap on Kaman, who was a very serviceable player for a good decade. He’s just not the first thing I think about when I think about NBA all-stars. or the 100th.

The other all-stars in this draft are David West, Josh Howard, Mo Williams and Kyle Korver. Together, the 4 of them have a combined 5 all-star appearances, with West making it twice.

I guess, I’ll start with out two-timer. West was the biggest beneficiary of New Orleans drafting Chris Paul. Right away, CP3 needed a pick and roll partner and West became the guy. That led to two years averaging more than 20 points, and a couple of seasons hovering near that mark. I’ve used this term before in this article, but West is a B-level NBA player. If he’s on a good team, you can make great use of him, but don’t expect a player like West to suddenly improve your bad team.

Later on in his career, he became the tough guy in the Pacers’ George Hill/Lance Stephenson/Paul George/West/Roy Hibbert starting 5. That was gritty as all hell and West was the muscle. Hibbert might be the guy shutting down the other team’s drives to the basket, but if you needed someone to lay a guy on his butt, West was your guy.

West would eventually get 2 rings for being at the end of the Warriors’ bench in the KD era. By that point, he wasn’t getting too many minutes on the court but a ring is a ring, baby. I’m sure he contributed far more to those Warriors than Darko did for the Pistons’ championship.

Then there’s Mo Williams. Mo became an all-star by the sheer virtue of LeBron James being his teammate. This is going to sound like a slight on Mo Williams, but it’s meant more as a slight to the Cavs management: it’s an insult to LeBron that Mo Williams was one of the best players Cleveland managed to pair with him during his first stint in Cleveland. It’s no wonder LeBron left when he did.

Williams was a perfectly average 3rd scorer on any given team. He could shoot, he could handle the ball and he could pass a little. He also had one of the more random 50+ point explosions in the last decade, well after what we would consider Mo’s prime.

With Josh Howard, he became an all-star in 2006–07 thanks to injury replacements for Yao and Carlos Boozer, and because he was part of a Mavericks that would finish with a 67–15 record (no need to explore how they did in the playoffs). He was even better the following season, in 2007–08, when he was not named an all-star.

Howard was a great complimentary player for the scorers they had in Dallas. Whether it was Dirk Nowitzki or Jason Terry, Howard was more comfortable being the support guy, getting his numbers off broken plays and open shots. He guarded pretty well and he was a good rebounder for his size.

Unfortunately, Josh Howard had some rough luck in the NBA. He suffered multiple ACL tears that quickly tore away at his athleticism. At the same time, the league started moving towards 3 and D players and while Howard had the D (pause), he was more comfortable in the mid-range that shooting from the perimeter.

Maybe even more importantly, Howard was outspoken about things that people just weren’t comfortable talking about. Like how the United States does not support black people,

Or about how he and other NBA players smoked marijuana (GASP!),

Now look, was Howard wrong about any of this? If 2020 has hammered home anything, it’s that the USA does not do very much to protect and help its minorities. And the weed thing is a complete non-issue, it should have been then and it certainly is now.

The sad truth is that people don’t like hearing someone like Josh Howard, a black man, talk badly about their country. Because their experience living in their country does not match someone like Josh’s. Combine that kind of outspokenness with injury issues and Howard quickly became a player nobody wanted on their time.

By the time Howard was traded to Washington in 2009–10, his career was essentially over. 10 years later, his classmate is still dominating the NBA and winning championships. Crazy how some of these things play out.

Then there’s Kyle Korver. Look, the dude is a great shooter. He’s probably top 5of all-time when it comes to 3 point shooters in the NBA (statistcally, he’s 4th) but an all-star? It’s always been hard to fully accept. The guy averaged 12, 4 and 2.5. Like Jeff Teague, Korver was the beneficiary of an Atlanta Hawks team that praised ball movement and team play. Their success led to them getting 4 all-stars, the last of which was Kyle Korver.

This is what’s remarkable about Kyle Korver: the guy is tied for the longest career in his draft class, based solely on one skill. Think about how good Korver had to be as a shooter to survive 17 seasons in the NBA when the rest of his game was only average at best.

Whether he was next to A.I. in Philly, D-Will and Boozer in Utah, D-Rose in Chicago, his plethora of all-stars with the Hawks, LeBron James, or Giannis, all of those star teammates could rely on one thing; “if I get the ball to Kyle for an open 3, he’s going to knock it down”. It’s that kind of reliability that has made Korver employable for so long.

In Phoenix, the notoriously cheap Robert Sarver hadn’t yet begun his yearly tradition of selling his draft picks to make a few million dollars. Instead, the Suns were allowed to draft someone, and they made the right choice going with Leandro Barbosa.

When Steve Nash came to town and D’Antoni was appointed head coach, the pieces fell into place. The Suns quickly became one of the fastest moving offenses of its era. For a guy like Barbosa, whose nickname was “the Brazilian Blur”, it couldn’t have been a better match.

Barbosa accepted his role coming off the bench and spent the first part of his career as a deadly 6th man. Nash would sub out of the game and Barbosa would come in as a change of pace. Whereas Nash was pushing the ball to find his teammates, Barbosa demanded attention because he could go from halfcourt to finishing a layup within seconds.

For my money, Barbosa’s 2006–07 6MOY winning season is one of the best 6th man seasons of all-time. It’s hard to argue against 18 points and 4 assists off the bench, punishing teams for not being able to keep up with your speed.

Unfortunately, Barbosa eventually moved on from the Suns. In my mind, that was always a mistake. For the Suns that is, they traded him away for a clearly checked out Hedo Turkoglu. Not that Barbosa was good for the Raptors, but he was certainly better than Hedo’s useless ass.

After Toronto, Barbosa had stints in Indiana and Boston. I have nothing really to say about these two years, because I barely even remember he was on those teams.

Barbosa did tap into his abilities off the bench one more time in his career. Though not as effective as with the Suns, Barbosa played a fairly important role off the bench for 2016 champion Warriors. Along with Shaun Livingston, he gave the Warriors enough veteran experience to allow Curry and Thompson to sit every once in a while.

I’ll always feel good about any member of the Seven Seconds or Less Suns getting a championship ring. Even if it’ll forever be a tragedy that Steve Nash didn’t get a ring (looking at you Robert Horry…).

The 2003 draft was a good one for the Seven Seconds or Less Suns. This was also the year that Boris Diaw would be admitted into the NBA. He would become the key piece coming back to Phoenix in the Joe Johnson trade.

Diaw became the key that unlocked the full potential of those Suns teams. He was big enough to play as a forward, but he was such a great passer that he could also create for his teammates. On a fully healthy Suns team, Diaw would act as the secondary playmaker whenever Nash was out of the game.

That said, the Suns were rarely fully healthy. Like Diaw’s inaugural season with the Suns, in 2005–06, when Stoudemire missed essentially the entire season. Diaw, whose NBA career had been underwhelming to that point, stepped in as a starter and blossomed. He played so well that he was rewarded as the league’s most improved player.

Like Barbosa, Diaw had his best early success with the Suns. Then he was traded to a truly dreadful Charlotte Bobcats franchise and had to suffer some rough years at the bottom of the NBA standings.

You would figure it would be the end of your career when a bottom feeding team like the Bobcats cuts you like they did Diaw in 2012. For Boris Diaw, it was simply a rebirth.

He went to the Spurs and went back to doing what worked best for him: creating as a role player off the bench. Diaw played a key role for the Spurs in 2014, when they would unseat the Miami Heat and snatch the NBA championship.

Another key player in the early days of the SSOL Suns came from this draft, LeBron’s buddy James Jones. This is one of the few sold draft picks that ended up working out for Phoenix, as Jones was acquired for a 2nd round pick from Indiana.

Like a lot of players who played with Steve Nash, Jones had his best year playing alongside Nash. As a sweet shooter, all Jones had to do was spot-up and wait for Nash to give him wide open shots.

Later on, Jones would become iconic for being a part of James’ first three championships. He followed LeBron from Miami to Cleveland so he got to share the milestone of making 7 consecutive NBA finals before eventually retiring and becoming the Suns’ current GM.

There were a few more LeBron buddies in this draft some from his early Cleveland days, and some that had more productive careers before joining James in his second Cleveland stint for their twillights.

Of course, one was Mo Williams, who we discussed already. Sasha Pavlovic is a name only Cavaliers fans would really remember. This kid was a gunner off the bench for the Cavaliers. I remember him fondly because he always turned into a beast in the NBA Live 04–06 era. In real life, he wasn’t as much as a beast as LeBron might have liked. Otherwise, LeBron may never have left.

Dahntay Jones made a name for himself as a hard-nosed role player around the NBA, especially for Memphis and Indiana. He would go on to become the victory cigar for the 2016 Cavaliers, signing late in the season and appearing in 15 playoff games, averaging 3 minutes in those games.

As for Kendrick Perkins, he experienced team success early on in his career. If Rondo made the Celtics a big 4, Perkins was the unheralded big man who did all of the dirty work. He defended hard, he was intimidating and he always had his teammates’ backs. Celtics fans will be quick to tell you that 2010 would have been different if Perk had been healthy for those finals.

Perkins took all those things that made him successful in Boston and brought them to Oklahoma City. He remained their starting center until Steven Adams was ready to take on the mantle. That’s how he ended up getting traded to Utah and subsequently waived, which allowed him to join LeBron.

Unlike Jones, Perkins joined LeBron in the wrong season, 2014–15, where the Cavaliers would fall short in the finals. He was also on the 2017–18 Cavaliers, but that barely counts because he never played any meaningful moments and served only to anger Kevin Durant, once his buddy.

There are a lot of great role players in this draft. Going to Chicago with the 7th pick was Kirk Hinrich. Captain Kirk had a great NBA career as the guy who was going to throw his body on the line in every game. He wasn’t the most skilled or the most athletic, but it was rare to see someone play with more intensity than he had. So much so that later on in his career, his body started breaking down on him. In my mind, Hinrich is always like the baseline for the kind of player you want starting on a team… if you want to be good.

And if you’re talking about Hinrich, you can throw Luke Ridnour in there as the poor man’s Kirk Hinrich. This guy was even less reputed than Hinrich, but he was always a steady influence on whichever team he was on. Ridnour was also added as a throw-in to a lot of deadline deals, so he’s been around the league a few times.

To complete the trifecta of competent white point guards, you have to also include Steve Blake. You know what’s funny? Whenever I picture Steve Blake, I always think of him as a Blazer. But in reality, he played only 4of his 14 seasons there. In fact, he spent as much time with the Lakers as he did the Blazers, which really blew my mind.

Blake is best remembered, at least for me, for putting throwing hands with one of his Maryland teammates in practice once. For others, it’s probably the Steve Blake r/NBA memes of him being an asshole.

There’s also Zaza Pachulia, notorious dirty player and effective NBA big man. This guy played a big part of the mid to late 00s Hawks and at the tail end of his career got lucky to be chosen as Andrew Bogut’s replacement for the Warriors. That gave him 2 rings to add to his resume. But we have to ask ourselves, was it the Zaza or KD addition that really made the difference for Golden State? Another reason to doubt KD’s legacy.

Luke Walton, son of Bill and current coach of the Sacramento Kings, came from this draft too. It’s always weird to consider that LeBron and Luke were in the same draft when one is well past his playing career, having moved onto coaching instead, and the other is still the best player in the world. LeBron James really is one of a kind.

It does say something about Walton that he is one of the few Lakers who went through the Kobe-solo phase of Los Angeles and managed to stay on the roster. Kobe hated a lot of the guys he was paired with after Shaq was traded, so he must have trusted Luke a decent amount to let management keep him around so that Luke could collect 2 rings.

Shoutout to Travis Outlaw, Willie Green and Keith Bogans for playing more than 10 seasons in the NBA as bench players. It takes a lot of toughness and willingness to grind to keep going that long without ever being a featured player. Travis used to be kind of nice off the bench for Blazers too, just never reached that next level.

One of Perkins’ former teammates, Nick Collison, is another one of those guys who won’t show up in the box score but you will notice if you watch the games. Collison was the heart and the soul of the Oklahoma City Thunder from their inaugural season through the time he retired in 2017–18. He was such a fan favorite for his grittiness and work ethic that despite averaging 6 and 5 through his career, Collison became the first Thunder player to have his jersey retired.

There’s also a decent amount of noteworthy Toronto Raptors in this draft (outside of Bosh, who is obvious and Barbosa, who we’ve already mentioned).

At 8th, there’s T.J. Ford, who the Raptors swindled out of Milwaukee in 2006 by cashing in on Charlie Villanueva’s one good NBA season (the Raptors are good at fleecing the Bucks in trades). As Raptors fans, we remember Ford for two reasons: he was the first point guard to have the honor of getting his starting job stolen by Jose Calderon (to be followed by Jarrett Jack, Jerryd Bayless and even Kyle Lowry before they traded Calderon) and his career was irreparably damaged by Al Horford.

Ford had already been through two scary injuries playing basketball that had left him temporarily paralyzed. This in Ford’s own words, his reactions to the injury he sustained with the Raptors that night,

It was a freak play. He apologized immediately. But this injury was different for me. When this had happened before, I immediately had the will to get up and try to continue my basketball career. That’s all I ever really thought about. But this time I had no idea if my body would actually respond. I’d already had surgery to make sure this wouldn’t happen again. I was truly afraid that this might be the injury that paralyzed me permanently.

Ford did come back for 4 more seasons, but that injury always felt to me like it scared him too much. I never saw the same fearless Ford, throwing himself at the basket. He knew there was too much at stake and he played with a reticence that was logical, but hurt his ability to contribute to his teams.

From this draft, there was also Carlos Delfino and Jason Kapono, two Raptors who didn’t have much of an impact for the franchise, but came at a time where I was so invested in the team even when they were so bad, that they’ll always be memorable to me. Plus, Kapono is one of the most flawless shooters I’ve ever seen. If he comes along in 2010, this man has a complete different career.

There’s also Mickael Pietrus. This guy barely even registers as a Raptor, having only played 19 games with Toronto in his final NBA season. I don’t know why but despite only dressing 19 games with the Raps, there was always something I loved about Pietrus on the Raptors.

Where Mickael really made his name was as a role player for the We Believe Warriors. That was part of the reason Orlando was intrigued in Pietrus’ game and signed him during the 2008 off-season. He didn’t start many games for the Magic, but his defense was one of the keys for that team reaching the finals in 2009. I always remember him having more of an impact than the box score might indicate.

And one more, Matt Bonner. Now look, all things considered, Matt Bonner belongs to the San Antonio Spurs. He spent a decade with them and won two rings. People mock the guy, but for a very long time, Bonner was a serious contributor for those Spurs teams. He just also happens to be a goofy, red-headed white guy.

But us Raptors fans, we feel a little ownership in Bonner stock too. After all, he started his career with us. We nicknamed him the Red Rocket because dude was taking the Subway to get to the ACC for games. The man even tried to become a Canadian citizen so he could play for our National Team and our government shot him down.

Yeah, Bonner played only 2 seasons for the Raptors. Yeah, the Raptors were atrocious during those years. But that’s why we love him so much. He was one of the few bright spots off the bench for those Toronto teams. It still hurts that we gave him up for 151 games of Rasho Nesterovic.

This draft is so good. Which is why missing the mark hurts. Especially for Detroit. But you have to feel for teams like Orlando (Reece Gaines at #15, sounds more like a candy bar), Boston (Troy Bell at #16, are we sure this isn’t just a made up name?), New Jersey (someone named Zoran Planinic at #22, now this one HAS to be made up) and Minnesota (Ndudi Ebi at #26, the Timberwolves and making bad draft picks, name a more iconic duo).

Still, 2003 is the mark of a new era in basketball. It was the next great player’s arrival to the NBA. The one who would take the torch from Kobe and keep it going to this day. Outside of LeBron, getting Wade, Melo and Bosh all in the same draft felt like a much needed influx of talent in a league that felt like it needed it.

2003 was a breath of fresh air and it’s my favorite draft class, even if the numbers don’t rank it first.

#1.

All-Stars: Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Love, DeAndre Jordan, Goran Dragic, Brook Lopez, Roy Hibbert (7 points)

All-NBA Players: Russell Westbrook, 1st team, Derrick Rose, 1st team, DeAndre Jordan, 1st team, Kevin Love, 2nd team & Goran Dragic, 3rd team (12 points)

All-Defensive Team Players: DeAndre Jordan, 1st team, Serge Ibaka, 1st team, Roy Hibbert, 2nd team & Brook Lopez, 2nd team (6 points)

MVP: Russell Westbrook & Derrick Rose (10 points)

6MOY: Eric Gordon(2 points)

MIP: Kevin Love, Ryan Anderson & Goran Dragic (6 points)

Players with more than 200 games in the draft class: 34 (Tier 1: 3 points)

1st Rounders with less than 82 games: 2(-2 points)

Total: 44 points

Other notable players: Danillo Gallinari, Michael Beasley, O.J. Mayo, D.J. Augustin, Robin Lopez, Mareese Speights, Javale McGee, Courtney Lee, Nicolas Batum, George Hill, Luc Mbah a Moute, Jerryd Bayless, Jason Thompson, Mario Chalmers

Two ultra-athletic guards, both would go on to win the MVP award and yet, both of their careers feel like they’re missing something at this point. Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook, while they may be flawed products for their respective reasons, are the highlights of this 2008 draft.

A 2008 draft that ended up surprising me with their numbers. They are the only draft class to break 40 points. They upset the 2003 class to claim the top ranking and looking back on it, I can see how talented these guys ended up being. I said in the 2003 entry that LeBron and company entering the league felt like a new era for the NBA. I think that 2007, 2008 and 2009 collectively marks the division for another era of basketball, classes that would feature the 5 post-LeBron NBA MVPs. Thanks to a solid supporting cast, 2008 ended up triumphing over the classes that sandwich them.

The Derrick Rose NBA story has been filled with emotion. He became the youngest MVP in league history, winning at just 22 years old. Think about this, Rose could have been a senior in college and he was taking home the MVP trophy.

Over time, people have tried to denigrate his win because LeBron had been just as dominant as ever (and Dwight had a fantastic year) but that takes away from how well Rose played in 2010–11. Just look at his highlights.

If there’s one thing you might notice in this video, outside of how well Rose was playing in 2010–11, it’s that Derrick Rose lands with the grace of an obese man jumping out of a tree. Maybe it wasn’t obvious back then, but knowing how Rose’s story plays out, it’s hard to ignore now. And that, coupled with bad luck, and a season in which he dealt with a lot of nagging injuries, is how it led to this.

You can almost feel the weight he puts into that gather step. Those legs having to bear the brunt of Rose’s entire body for so many years, they were eventually going to give out. It just hurts seeing that score and how much time was left in the game, knowing that Rose could have been momentarily spared by pulling him out of the game.

Rose got injured during the 2012 playoffs, one season removed from winning the MVP award. He had yet to turn 24. He never got close to playing at an MVP level consistently again.

It wasn’t for lack of trying, Rose vigorously worked to come back from his ACL tear. He missed the entire 2012–13 season, working to get back to shape so that he could return to the NBA. The entire league was pulling for this man’s return. If this commercial doesn’t make you misty, you’re heartless.

At this point, it should be noted that Chicago and Derrick Rose have an even deeper relationship than a normal MVP would have with their local fans. Derrick Rose is Chicago. He was born and raised in the city. It was serendipity that the Bulls would have one of the luckiest NBA lotteries of all-time, defying 1.7% odds in getting the #1 overall pick (some people might call it fishy, I choose to believe in destiny).

After all that work to get back to the team, to get the chance to once again represent his city, Derrick Rose suffered another knee injury. This time it was the right meniscus, and he needed season ending surgery after only 10 games.

Once again, Rose fought his way back to health. Midway through the 2014–15 season, Rose re-injured his right knee and needed yet another surgery. If you’re keeping count, that’s three surgeries in three seasons. This time though, Rose was able to make it back in time for the playoffs. It’s where we got this moment of redemption.

Chills every time.

Thankfully, by 2015–16, Rose seemed to be through the rough patch of injuries and played most of the season. Unfortunately, for a former MVP, he just wasn’t playing up to his standards. That led to a fracture between the team and Rose and in the 2016 offseason, Rose was traded away from his hometown.

Being traded away from the Bulls changed Rose’s career. He became something of a journeyman. And like many players who change homes on a consistent basis, Rose began doubting if he even wanted to keep playing. During his time with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Rose seriously considered hanging it up.

After being waived by the Utah Jazz, a team he never actually suited up for, Rose signed a deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves and reunited with his old buddies Jimmy Butler and Tom Thibodeau.

This is where the D-Rose story feels like it gets happier. With the Timberwolves, Rose seemed to find his role as an off-the-bench scorer and he began to thrive in it.

Rose played so well that he got a 2-year deal with the Detroit Pistons to be the first guy off their bench. In his first year with the Pistons this season, Rose got serious consideration for 6MOY, ultimately finishing 7th in voting. After so many years of trials and tribulations, it feels good seeing Rose once again playing well in the NBA.

Sure, maybe we were robbed of seeing Rose’s absolute peak but those are things we can’t control. Those are things he can’t control. Rose has had to make peace with the fact that he lost a first-ballot Hall of Fame career. That he might become the first NBA MVP not to even make the Hall of Fame. But when the dust settles, Derrick Rose was once an MVP-level player, and no one can ever take that away from him.

Then there’s Russell Westbrook. Unlike D-Rose, Westbrook was not the prince that was promised. He wasn’t going first overall, hell when Sam Presti drafted him 4th overall, a lot of people thought Presti was going for a major reach. I have to link this analysis from Real GM after the draft.

I love Westbrook (5) and believe he has the skill set to eventually be a great point guard, but I know Jerryd Bayless does have the offensive skills to be a great point guard. Bayless works extremely well without the ball and would have been the perfect point guard for a system built around Kevin Durant. While not a defender like Westbrook, Bayless has enough athleticism and desire to be well above average.

Westbrook will be a great player, regardless, because of his skills defensively, but if he doesn’t become a great point guard, for the sake of argument, then they will be stuck with an energy 6th man.

There is a slight chance that Westbrook ends up being a better player than Bayless, but I don’t like that risk/reward equation.

Maybe it’s just me, but I always thought Westbrook was going to work in the NBA but to think Jerryd Bayless would have been the better option, with everything we know now, is downright slanderous.

That goes to show what people thought of Westbrook. Unlike Rose, Westbrook was joining a team that had already selected the face of their franchise. Westbrook wasn’t asked to be the star, he was brought on to complement Kevin Durant. At the time, Russ was just this super athletic kid. He was expected to play defense and contribute what he could on offense.

Then we found out about Westbrook’s intensity. About his passion for getting better. About his refusal to accept not being the best in the world. That’s what Presti and his crew knew. They saw in Westbrook that dogged intensity that has come to define him as a player.

Within 3 seasons, Westbrook had already transformed himself into an all-star. Despite sharing shots with Kevin Durant (and James Harden). Despite people claiming he wasn’t a real point guard. Kevin Durant alone was never going to magically make the Thunder into a good team. It was going to need some help and nobody carried his share of the work more than Westbrook.

You could see the star potential in Westbrook early on. For me, the moment I realized that this guy was going to be a perennial All-NBA player was the 2012 NBA finals. It didn’t go the way the Thunder would have liked, but seeing Westbrook step up just as much as Durant told me a lot about both players. These kids were young and they were going to be a problem in the NBA for a long time (and they have, just on different teams).

We got more insight into Russell’s star power in 2014–15 when Durant missed most of the season because of injury. Suddenly, Westbrook went from averaging 21–23 points to 28 points. You could see the team taking his identity without Durant around to command his share of the shots.

It was still a foregone conclusion that the Durant and Westbrook nucleus would eventually break through. In the 2016 playoffs, it looked like the moment had finally arrived. They had the 73 win Warriors at the brink of elimination, up in the conference finals 3–1.

I doubt I need to tell anyone who that finished. The Thunder wilted, Durant in particular looked to shrink in the moment, and they couldn’t close the deal. The Warriors came back and won the series in 7.

Then, Durant decided to join that same Warriors team in the off-season, the hardest road as it were. That left Westbrook in the dust, by his lonesome, to pick up the pieces. That’s when the Russell Westbrook revenge tour began.

Thanks to a great narrative, and some genuinely jaw dropping stats, Westbrook was crowned the 2016–17 MVP. He became the first player since Oscar Robertson to average a triple-double for the entire season. A feat he would repeat two more times.

You can argue that Harden had just as much of a case for this MVP. I wouldn’t try to take that away from you. But the fact remains that nobody was more fun to watch in 2017 than a pissed off Russell Westbrook. Compare that to Harden’s style, add-in Durant’s defection, and it became the perfect combination to give Russ his due.

It helped for Thunder fans that in KD’s return, Westbrook gave the Warriors a cool 47 point (but not the win). Westbrook’s anger-fueled basketball was cathartic for a fan base that was going through its first superstar betrayal, at the hands of the team that had beaten him the season before.

As time has gone on, it’s become clear that Westbrook is an excellent, high-level player but that he also has flaws that stop him from being a GOAT. His shot is sporadic at best. His shot selection can be even worse. Though lauded for his defense coming out of college, he hasn’t realy developed into a stopper in the NBA. He can get serious tunnel vision in big moments and has to learn to trust his teammates.

Basically, if you made Kobe a point guard for his entire career, his numbers and career achievements might look like Westbrook’s. Out of anybody since Kobe, nobody has more of the same alpha dog energy. When Westbrook is one, that’s great… but when he’s off, he can’t just turn off that mentality. That’s how you get the Bestbrook and Worstbrook memes.

It’ll be interesting where Westbrook’s career goes from here. The Rockets expirement was a failure in year 1. It looks like they may already be trying to move on from Russ. He’s on the wrong side of 30, but barring Patrick Beverley attacking his knees again, he’s managed to stay pretty healthy during his career. Something Rose can’t claim. As Westbrook’s athelticism declines, he will have to transform his game, but is that something he can really do?

You probably can’t win a championship with Rose or Westbrook as your best players. It’s hard for a team to play through its point guard as their leading scorer. Basically, championship teams that have been able to do that are the Pistons with IT, the Lakers with Magic and the Warriors with Curry.

I don’t knock Rose or Westbrook for not being able to win a championship as THE man. There are plenty of legends who can say the same. It’s much rarer to be in the LeBron or Jordan category where your mere presence makes a team a championship contender.

The 3rd man for me in this draft is Kevin Love, Westbrook’s roommate at UCLA.

With the Timberwolves, Kevin Love was a load and a half to handle on offense. His ability to determine where a rebound was coming from and getting to it before anyone was uncanny. Nobody is going to claim that Kevin Love was out there jumping higher than everyone, he was just outthinking them.

This is a man who went out and got 31 points and 31 rebounds against the Knicks. Yeah, it’s the Knicks, but they are still technically an NBA franchise. An division one player would still struggle to grab 31 rebounds against a good high school team, which I feel is the right equivalent in this situation.

The thing about Kevin Love is that he is a horrendous defender. It’s tough to build around a star big man who can’t defend his own shadow. The Timberwolves were never good during his tenure, but that’s also partly on Love because he was such a net-negative on defense.

Getting traded to Cleveland and becoming the third guy behind LeBron and Kyrie Irving is the best thing that could have happened for Love. Like Bosh before him, it was an adjustment at first. It’s hard to go from being the number one option and all the shots you could ask for, to only getting a few shots every quarter. But Love was able to make that change in due time, through a lot of outside criticism.

Having Love as your 3rd option is a blessing for any team. He averaged 26 and 12 the year before coming to Cleveland. It’s not like he couldn’t score the ball when asked. And when Love got hot for the Cavs, he got really hot.

And for a guy who has been criticized for his defense for his entire career, Love was possessed by the spirit of Ben Wallace when it mattered most: the dying seconds of game 7 in the 2016 finals.

The Warriors played this perfectly. They got the switch they wanted, getting Curry on Kevin Love. It should have been an easy shot for Curry. Kevin Love had never moved like this at any level of basketball. He has never moved like this again. In the most clutch situation, Kevin Love turned into an absolute lockdown defender for 24 seconds, and that stop is what helped guarantee the championship for Cleveland. 4 years later, I’m still mystified.

Love is also the master of the outlet pass, which is something I can’t just ignore.

Post-LeBron, Love has mostly been an 18 and 10 player. He battled some injuries in 2018–19 but came back for a pretty healthy 2019–2020 season. Given his rebounding, passing and scoring abilities, Love might be an attractive player for potential contenders. There are two reasons he hasn’t been traded: teams still don’t want his defense and his contract is really brutal for the next 3 seasons (roughly 30 million per year).

The three best players in this draft are easy to call. It’s the 4th best player I’m not sure of. Ultimately, I think the honor should go to DeAndre Jordan. He’s made an All-NBA first team, for the Clippers, he was a consistent defensive threat. He’s got an all-star selection.

Jordan is not a guy you build your team around. He’s just a nice asset to have around your superstars. He doesn’t demand any shots outside of an occasional lob. He gobbles up rebounds like they were going out of style. He used to be a good shot blocker too.

Lob City became what it was because of Jordan’s rise. Otherwise, Chris Paul would have only had Blake Griffin to be lobbing too. With Jordan in the mix, that’s when things got exciting. And Jordan killed Brandon Knight so badly, it deserves to be posted twice in this series.

Of course, Jordan’s most memorable moment may have nothing to do with basketball. For me, it’s his 2016 free agency. At the time, it looked like Jordan was committed to signing with the Dallas Mavericks. He had verbally agreed to a 4-year deal worth $80 million. He was just about to leave the Clippers.

His teammates weren’t about to let that happen. What happened was that Blake, Paul, coach Doc Rivers and owner Steve Ballmer came down and talked Jordan out of leaving LA. What was reported was basically a kidnapping where Jordan was forced to sign with the Clippers against his will, leaving Mark Cuban Cuban “beside himself. Driving around downtown HOUSTON begging (thru texts) Jordan’s family 4 address to DeAndre’s home”.

Paul Pierce also tweeted a picture of a Rocket emoji instead of tweeting the emoji itself. Good times.

Then KD signed with the Warriors a few days later and the NBA imploded on itself for a couple of seasons.

It was a tough call not to tag Serge Ibaka as the 4th best player in this draft. I’m talking both for personal and logical reasons. If Jordan is 4A, I think Ibaka is 4B and giving him some close competition.

At the peak of his powers for the Thunder, Ibaka was a defensive nightmare. The guy had bounce, he was agile and he was as strong as an ox. Scoring on him was practically impossible.

There’s a reason that the Thunder decided they needed to trade James Harden, and it’s because they wanted to pay Ibaka instead. That’s how highly they evaluated their guy. And, at the time of the trade, there were plenty of people in and out of the NBA that agreed with that mentality.

Of course, Ibaka never reached Harden levels of game, but he has his place in NBA lore. As time has gone on, Ibaka transformed himself into a 3-point shooting big man and has managed to remain an important piece for most teams.

While he won’t get the lion’s share of the credit, Ibaka had a big impact on the champion Raptors. On the court, he hit some steadying shots and was always doing his work defensively. Off the court, he levity and ability to be everyone’s friend helped smooth over Kawhi Leonard’s integration into a tight locker room.

Besides, when Ibaka catches on fire, he really catches on fire. Like the time he went 8/8 against the Utah Jazz in only 14 minutes, which was part of a stretch of games in which Ibaka made 27 of 29 shots.

And watch out if you get Ibaka angry, he might be a nice guy 99% of the time, but when that switch flips, he’s terrifying.

Or this time where if he had connected, he would have one-punched Robin Lopez.

Yeah, don’t mess with Serge. Especially about scarves.

If Roy Hibbert hadn’t completely fallen off the face of the Earth, he might have some claim to that 4th spot on this Mount Rushmore. There are few people I ever felt made LeBron feel uncomfortable on offense. Roy Hibbert was one of them.

This was back in the day when Roy Hibbert figured out the best way to play defense in the paint; verticality. The concept was simple. Roy would simply throw his hands straight up in the air and jumped straight up and down. He didn’t lean on the offensive player, his arms didn’t bend. He was simply standing his ground, and the refs had to let him do so.

For a guy like LeBron, especially in those Miami days, it was a pain having to deal with Hibbert’s verticality act, because all LeBron wanted to do was get to the rim. It’s weird how this concept never caught on with anyone else, but Roy Hibbert was Mr. Verticality.

It sort of feels like Hibbert faded out of the NBA so that Jordan could take his place as the guy known for defending the paint. Like there can only be one paint defender in the league at a time.

We should also show some love for Brook Lopez, who for most of his career spent his prime toiling for the Nets, whether in Jersey or Brooklyn. At the time, Lopez didn’t get much credit because he was a big man who didn’t rebound that well. As it turns out, instead of selling his soul for rebounds (like Minnesota K-Love), Lopez excelled at boxing guys out and often leaving easy rebounds for his teammates. He was also an impactful shot blocker and generally a much better defender than anyone ever really considered him.

Lopez has been getting a little more attention with his turn in Milwaukee. There, he’s fully transitioned into being a defensive player who allows Giannis and Middleton the freedom to play a little riskier on that end. As an offensive player, he’s turned himself into a 3-point shooter after not even taking 3s his first 6 seasons.

Prior to Chris Paul getting traded to the Clippers, it looked like Blake Griffin’s second star was going to be Eric Gordon. He had a good two-year start with the Clippers as a sweet-shooting guard. He looked like the perfect player to pair with Blake’s destruction at the rim. As it turns out, when you have a chance to grab the best point guard of a generation, even a guy like Gordon is up for grabs.

Life in New Orleans was shaky for Gordon. He struggled with injuries and having to find room for himself amongst players like Jrue Holiday and Tyreke Evans. Despite his attempts to find his form, it never really worked out for him in that city.

It took signing with the Rockets for Gordon to really understand his role. He came to Houston with the understanding he would be coming off the bench. This was the team that prioritized 3s and layups above all else, and if anything, Eric Gordon can shoot 3s.

Houston revitalized Gordon’s career. He won 6MOY in his first season with the Rockets. He followed that with an even better 2nd year in 2017–18. Ironically, Chris Paul joined Houston that year, teaming up with the guy he was traded to Los Angeles for.

Gordon had an up and down 2019–20. He had surgery that required him to miss almost 2 months. He also put up a career-high 50 points. No doubt, adjusting to backing up Westbrook and Harden had to be a change from backing up Paul and Harden.

On the surface, Gordon can still be an impact player. It probably hurts his case that he’s owed about 60 million over the next four seasons (though his last year is not guaranteed). Gordon averaged his lowest scoring output in 2019–20 since his time in New Orleans. If you’re looking to take a chance on him, you might think his best days are behind him.

Another one of Gordon’s teammates (in two cities) managed to win an individual award for this draft class: Ryan Anderson, 2012’s most improved player.

Anderson’s best skills included being tall and proficient at shooting 3s. In a league that has been evolving towards big men extending their range, Anderson was one of the founding fathers of the new style. And it got him paid.

You ever work with a person whose skills just don’t match with their title? That’s exactly what happened to Anderson. He excelled at specific things right when those things started being in demand. At the same time Anderson was due for a new contract, the salary cap also happened to jump up. It was a perfect combination that led to Anderson being paid nearly 20 million dollars per year, an amount he just wasn’t worth for any team in the league.

By the time his 3-year contract ran out in 2018–19, Anderson had been traded twice and waived by the Miami Heat, essentially ending his career.

Another MIP from the 2008 draft class has had better luck staying in the NBA, Goran Dragic. When he was drafted, Dragic was seen as the heir apparent for Steve Nash. Unfortunately, he struggled to find his rhythm in the NBA and 3 seasons into his career, he was dealt to Houston for another MIP winner, Aaron Brooks (this article has to be the most you’ve thought of Aaron Brooks in years).

His time in Houston saw some improvements. He broke double digit scoring averages in his second year with the Rockets and kind of proved he belonged in the NBA. Because time is a flat circle, Dragic took his first opportunity at free agency to sign with the Suns, his former team.

Now that Nash was gone, Dragic had more room to find his role in Phoenix. In his second season with the Suns (the 2nd time around), he played well enough to earn 3rd team All-NBA and the MIP award. Many also felt that he was robbed of an all-star spot but the All-NBA selection sort of made up for it after the fact.

As he was rising up the NBA ranks, Goran kind of got uncomfortable with the Suns. They weren’t horrific, but their roster composition was a little weird. Dragic found himself sharing a backcourt with Eric Bledsoe, Isaiah Thomas and Brandon Knight (plus Seth Curry was on the roster for 2 games). That was a lot of backcourt talent for one team, so Dragic asked for a trade.

He was villified by a lot of people in Phoenix and Suns fans at large. Dragic said he didn’t trust management and man, people didn’t like that. He was called a diva and someone chasing the nightlife because he preferred being sent to LA or Miami.

That was in 2015. Dragic was sent to the Heat. Since then, Bledsoe, IT and Knight have also all left Phoenix. The Suns haven’t been to the playoffs since 2010, and Dragic’s team just made the NBA finals. Tell me, who ended up being right about this?

In Miami, Dragic has continued to excel like he did in his second Phoenix stint. He’s a reliable 2nd or 3rd scorer. He doesn’t take away anything from your team and he doesn’t demand the ball enough to interfere with your better players (a reason Jimmy Butler loves playing with him). He’s intense and will stop at nothing to win. He’s a guy the locker room will rally around.

There are a few players who became good NBA players that could have been even better without injury concerns. One is Danillo Gallinari, likely the best Italian player to ever grace the NBA (sorry Bargs, it’s just the truth).

Gallo has some of the best foul drawing rates in the NBA. It’s not something you would expect unless you heard the stat, or you watched him play. This man is a seriously talented scorer. He’s also constantly hampered by injuries, breaking 70 games only twice in his career so far. Had he stayed healthy, it’s not prepostorous to think he could have become an all-star.

Then there’s Nikola Pekovic, Kevin Love’s first sidekick and possibly the strongest man I’ve ever seen in the NBA. Pekovic was on the road to becoming an efficient scorer in the NBA, putting up 17.5 and 9 boards on 54% shooting in 2013–14. He just had even worse injury issues than Gallo.

Pekovic hasn’t played in the NBA since 2015–16 when he appeared in only 12 games for the Wolves. He was already a shell of his former self by that point. His issues were feet related, he could never relieve pain from his ankles and it completely limited his use as an NBA player. Don’t tell me he isn’t one of the most intimidating players you’ve ever seen though.

It won’t shock you to learn that after his NBA career, Pekovic has been tied to Balkan mafia connections.

In terms of role players, the 2008 draft class also delivered. If you want guards, you can do a lot worse than D.J. Augustin, who seems destined to be beaten out by better rookies for starting roles, Courtney Lee, George Hill, Mario “the meme himself” Chalmers, or even Jerryd Bayless.

You need front court players insetad? No worries, 2008 had plenty of starting level forwards too. How about Jason Thompson, Brook’s twin brother Robin Lopez, Nicolas Batum, Mareese Speights, JaVale Mcgee (who hilariously has the most NBA rings from this draft class) or Luc Mbah a Moute?

And that’s without mentioning guys that stuck around for longer than you might think like Brandon Rush, J.J. Hickson, Kosta Koufos, Darrell Arthur, Omer Asik and Sonny “Money” Weems (gotta shoutout the Raptor, Young Gunz for life).

Incredibly, this draft class should be even more loaded because the 2 most intriguing talents didn’t work out.

First, you have Michael Beasley. This guy was a walking bucket in college at Kansas State. In his one season of NCAA ball, Beasley averaged 26 and 12 on 53% shooting. Like Kevin Durant a year before him, he was just on another level compared to his competition.

Unfortunately, it just couldn’t come together at the NBA level. It was clear that Beasley had the talent to be a productive NBA player. By his 3rd season, he was given NBA defenses nearly 20 points per game. It’s just that Beasley didn’t have the work ethic and basketball IQ to use his skills to transcend to another level.

And when you’re an offensive player who isn’t providing much offense, you’re of no use to NBA teams. I’m sure Michale Beasley would toast Andre Roberson if they played 1 on 1 but Roberson is going to help your team win without so much as taking a shot. If Beasley isn’t shooting all the shots, he’s taking up a roster spot for no reason.

Then there’s O.J. Mayo. This is a kid we heard about since high school. He was going to be the 2nd coming of LeBron James. He was a two-time Mr. Basketball recipient for the state of Ohio. His last ever high school dunk was a thing of showboating beauty.

If NBA players could have still gone to the NBA out of high school, there’s a high likelyhood that O.J. Mayo is a first overall pick. Unfortunately for him, the NBA required players to be at least one year removed from their high school graduation beforing entering the league.

Instead, Mayo went to USC for a year (where he was later found to be ineligible, forcing USC to later vacate all of their wins for that season). At USC, Mayo performed well, but he didn’t destroy his competition like Beasley did at Kansas State. Thus, his stock dropped a little going into the NBA.

It didn’t drop too far though, because the Grizzlies opted to do a draft day trade to get Mayo at 3rd (sending Love to Minnesota with their 5th pick). In Memphis, O.J. Mayo even started his career on the right foot. He was an impressive perimeter defender and provided enough offensive firepower to show promise for the future.

But by the 3rd season, Mayo’s bad habits started bubbling at the surface. He was late for team events. He got his ass beat by Tony Allen over some unresolved card debt. He was suspended 10 games for getting caught with steroids. It go so bad with Mayo that the Grizzlies didn’t even try trading him, they just let him go unqualified after his rookie contract, allowing him to hit unrestricted free agency.

Turns out that was a smart move by Memphis. After his first two seasons, Mayo barely made an impact in the NBA. He had one decent season with Dallas, in the middle of a bunch of average showings, and then caught a 2 year ban in 2016 for violating the NBA’s drug policy.

Mayo hasn’t sniffed the NBA since.

A special shoutout to Bill “Henry” Walker, O.J. Mayo’s high school teammate. I can think of very few players who were screwed by the NBA banning high school players. This dude would have been a lottery pick straight out of high school.

Instead, Walker graduated early in December 2006 and got permission to begin college basketball in the 2005–06 educational year’s second semester. Walker went to Kansas State, where 6 games in, he tore his ACL and ended his freshman season. This was the second time Walker suffered such an injury and he wasn’t even 19.

For an athletic beast like Walker, tearing his ACL so early into his career had permanently altering changes to his game. Instead of a lottery pick and guaranteed NBA money, Walker had to return to college for a second season. Then, in a pre-draft workout with the Warriors, Walker suffered a 3rd knee injury, sending his stock plumetting all the way to the 2nd round.

Walker battled for minutes in the NBA, spending parts of 5 seasons in the league but never really found his spot. I like to wonder what mgight have happened if Walker never suffered that 2nd ACL tear, because I believe Walker was a harder worker than Mayo and had real potential as a game changing NBA big man.

It feels like this draft should cop a penalty for giving Joe Alexander an NBA job. Alexander is potentially the worst lottery pick I have ever seen in the NBA, and I say that with 25 years of following the NBA. Dude was bad as a 2nd rounder, let alone someone with a guaranteed contract.

All in all, I get why this draft ended up first overall. It’s a quantity over quantity type of deal because while 2003 has higher highs, 2008 seems very consistent across the entire draft. Maybe Westbrook and Rose don’t match up to LeBron and D-Wade, but they have a lot of help in the background propping up their class.

I hope you enjoyed this walk through memory lane as we tried to evaluate the NBA draft classes from 2000–2015. This was a lot of work to compile, research and write, but it’s also the most fun I’ve hated writing in months. So if anything, I had fun, and this was for me. If you too enjoyed it, that’s a bonus for all of us.

But seriously, if you got through this entire piece, reading the whole thing, you have my undying thanks. Until next time folks, I’m going to go sleep for a while.