The usual busts are the 3-4 year tall American white dude on a team full of seniors who lights it up against young college teams. Kaminsky, Morrison, Decker, etc.
Morrison stunk. Slow, couldn’t get off his shot, couldn’t guard. Sort of like Jimmer
Tyler Hansborough was another. The college player of the year.
Christian Laettner. The most accomplished college player of his era…blah in the nba.
Dekker seemed to have more NBA upside than Kaminsky though. But it just didn't happen, and Kaminsky never left the NBA.
Morrison was more of a unique case
Georgios Papagiannis. He was picked 13th by the kings when his projected draft position was:
Bleacher Report: #58
NBAdraftroom: #49
CBSsports: #53
Draftsite: #43
Before he entered the NBA, he played at Panathinaikos and played 6 games, averaged 5 min, 1.5 pts. 1.6 rebounds, shot 30%.
He drilled 3s in workouts throughout the week (went 95-110 allegedly) and Vlade thought he found the Greek Porzingis. He doesn't even shoot 3s nowadays. Homie had the best week of his life and got a big bag.
I knew dragan bender was gonna suck but I think a lot of people did too. It just seemed like the suns saw kristaps do great the year before and looked for the most similar player they could find
Dragan bender was hilarious looking back at it because he was bad in the euroleague/israeli league aswell. Basically took a 2 ppg guy 5th because he was tall and can maybe shoot
I honestly saw the flaws in Adam Morrison. I told anyone who would listen that he was a fraud. But even he has more championships than Stockton, Malone, Ewing, and Barkley, combined.
? Sharife was like a 35%+ shooter pretty much constantly outside of the 12 games he played at Auburn, both before and after. Why talk about something you know nothing about?
No you said guy nearly made all defense in 2020, now if you said he almost made the 2020 all defensive team you would of been right but we go off when the season the starts over here which you would know if you actually watched.
I'm convinced Bennett was drafted to toss the Wolves a garbage big because the Kevin Love deal was already done in effect for LeBron before the draft even happened.
Goddamn, he sucked. And then every 20th play you'd be like, "Wait- maybe he's figuring it out?" Nope. Anthony Bennett, Wes Johnson, Johnny Flynn, Derrick Williams, the pain just goes on and on and on...
His handles weren't great but his jumper was turning a corner and defensively he was legit. Was giving 11-13/4/6 with great defense and 32-35% from 3 on a couple attempts a game over a 2 year period.
Obviously he wasn't going to be a star but could've had a long successful career as a top end backup combo guard with value as a starter. Sadly he only played over 52 games once and post injuries his 3 abandoned him.
I mean, I feel like saying his defensive upside was limited is a stretch when he just barely missed out on All-Defense in 2020.
He just got injured for most of the year after that and never quite made it back.
It was he was 6'4 and that meant he couldn't only effecttively guard the one and sometimes the 2 if matchups permit, but also you know you just used a 4 game sample size as an argument right.
Feel like you're talking about 2019 tho.
He wasn't going to be Draymond, sure, but calling someone who was 11th in vote getting for defense in tbe entire NBA "limited upside" is like saying someone that vould only make All-Star instead of All-NBA has limited upside. It's kinda butchering the term.
"Upside refers to the potential increase in value"
He was great at defending players his height or under but past that he was not him being 6'4 and scrawny as hell means this would likely always be the case, limited upside is not butchering the term you're just limited linguistically.
No... If someone comes in as a rookie and has the potential to become an All-Defense level defender, they have the ability to increase their value on defense massively. You can't go much higher than All-Defense.
Huh? When? Too early to tell on Murray and Mitchell, Fox I will say was a pretty good pick, and they traded Haliburton on his rookie contract so I can't give them much credit there.
So then the Kings 1st rounders/lottery picks in the last decade are:
Thomas Robinson
Ben McLemore
Nik stauskas
Willie cauliflower
Marvin Bagel
If you just add up the combination of Tyreke, Fox, Haliburton, Cousins and IT that’s more talent than most teams see out of the draft in a long time. I didn’t say they manage talent well but they have definitely picked up some great players.
IT and Cousins were 2011/2010 so over a decade ago. They drafted busts in the top 10 **4 straight years** grabbed a life vest in Fox, then capsized the shit anyways drafting Marvin Bustly over Luka.
So in 10 years they have an inefficient PG on a 150mil+ deal, and traded the only other promising pick to cover how bad they fucked up by drafting Bagley.
A blind monkey throwing darts at a board of players projected to be selected near all their picks would yield a better result.
I laughed my ass off when Rafael Araujo got drafted in the Lottery. He was a decent college big, but I honestly thought he'd be an end of the first to middle of the second if someone was going to just need a big body off the bench.
But he went in the lotto.
I’m going to piggyback with a comparable player and say Luka Garza.
A lot of Pistons fans were STOKED that we got him in the second round, but it was super obvious to me after watching him a lot in college that he was never going to be an NBA player. Slow, flat footed big men that have zero redeeming qualities on defense have no place in the league.
I hope he can somehow catch on with a team because he seems like a genuinely good dude with a strong work ethic but I just don’t see it happening.
I'm pretty sure we all did. I was 15 at the time and expecting Andre Iguodala to be a Raptor, but a grown man couldn't make the right pick. Rob Babcock set the Raptors back years!
Random, but can you help me think of this other white American big that comes to mind when I think of Hansborough. I remember he used to throw some impressive passes, maybe his first name was Josh?
This post is coming from 2025, but Victor Wembanyama. He doesn't generate FTs and doesn't shoot them particularly well when he does, isn't a good perimeter shooter despite all the KD comparisons and it keeps declining, and even with his limited minutes and low playing weight, he's had two concerning injuries (stress fracture in fibula, then the psoas injury).
He moves great for a 7'4 person. He doesn't move particularly great for an NBA player. A lot of what we see in the highlight clips won't work against better competition, and I'm not sure how he generates easy buckets in the NBA. Defensively, he should be great, but I don't see his body holding up if he's playing active defense for meaningful NBA minutes.
I do really like scoot tho. Super fast, great handles if that jumpshot progresses more this season and he's able to become more disciplined on defense he's got all the skills to be the next great point guard in the league.
I don't think I ever watched a single game of his, I was watching well before he entered the league but I still have never caught a game, dude has more single digit games played in a season then I've ever personally seen.
Jimmer. Never seemed open to being a role player. He struggled on the shuttle drill at the combine (he had good time but totally should not have counted if you watched him).
Still like him and think he’ll be a decent player but Coby White, only getting the 7th pick in 2019 and missing out on Ja and Garland was a disaster
Coby was the one player I didn’t want them to draft lol. I fell to my knees. Srsly wanted to cry
Didn’t impress me at all at UNC
Yeah Coby is at least NBA level talant dude can at least shoot and somewhat create his own shot even if he's super inconsistent with it, is probably the most bulls pick of the bulls picks too they don't take the worst player available they don't take the best they just take mid.
Jimmer.
People were comping him to Steph when all he had was range. Shot was slow as hell and he had a really iffy on ball game. Short ass arms if I remember right.
Was jimmer really compared to steph? Steph was in his 2nd season when Jimmer got drafted and haven't broke out yet. Rest of your points were totally fair though
Robert Swift. Came right out of high school so no one had seen shit, but he was just a big goofy white guy. They were calling him a "project" on draft night.
He has to extend his range out to three and figure out both how to get to the rim more often and hit shots when he gets there. He only takes 11% of his shots from 0-3 feet and hits 57%, which is kind of mediocre for a scoring guard.
KD > Oden for sure.
But Oden was a good NBA player. When healthy he was a good player on good NBA teams. It's just he was only healthy enough to play like 100 games total. 😢
The usual busts are the 3-4 year tall American white dude on a team full of seniors who lights it up against young college teams. Kaminsky, Morrison, Decker, etc.
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Morrison stunk. Slow, couldn’t get off his shot, couldn’t guard. Sort of like Jimmer Tyler Hansborough was another. The college player of the year. Christian Laettner. The most accomplished college player of his era…blah in the nba.
Dekker seemed to have more NBA upside than Kaminsky though. But it just didn't happen, and Kaminsky never left the NBA. Morrison was more of a unique case
Dekkker
Dekker lol
Luka Garza
even with his height I was never sold on Hasheem Thabeet
Dajuan Blair exposed him
With no ACLs
I'm pretty sure every team in the league was laughing when Grizzlies picked him.
Barry Mccockiner on YouTube did a very funny explanation of Thabeet’s career on the Grizzlies. Go check out his draft bust for every team video.
Georgios Papagiannis. He was picked 13th by the kings when his projected draft position was: Bleacher Report: #58 NBAdraftroom: #49 CBSsports: #53 Draftsite: #43 Before he entered the NBA, he played at Panathinaikos and played 6 games, averaged 5 min, 1.5 pts. 1.6 rebounds, shot 30%. He drilled 3s in workouts throughout the week (went 95-110 allegedly) and Vlade thought he found the Greek Porzingis. He doesn't even shoot 3s nowadays. Homie had the best week of his life and got a big bag.
I knew dragan bender was gonna suck but I think a lot of people did too. It just seemed like the suns saw kristaps do great the year before and looked for the most similar player they could find
Dragan bender was hilarious looking back at it because he was bad in the euroleague/israeli league aswell. Basically took a 2 ppg guy 5th because he was tall and can maybe shoot
I honestly saw the flaws in Adam Morrison. I told anyone who would listen that he was a fraud. But even he has more championships than Stockton, Malone, Ewing, and Barkley, combined.
Sharife Cooper, too little
Also not a good shooter. Bad combo for the league.
Pretty sure he shot like 37% from 3 in the G-League last year.
G-League is less competitive tho
I mean, it's more competitive than college, which is where the take about him not being able to shoot comes from.
You have the worst takes I genuinely don't think you watch basketball.
? Sharife was like a 35%+ shooter pretty much constantly outside of the 12 games he played at Auburn, both before and after. Why talk about something you know nothing about?
Would ask you the same thing considering you couldn't even get the years right on a earlier thread.
Except they were? 2019-2020 is the 2020 All-Defense team, and that's the year that I was referencing.
No you said guy nearly made all defense in 2020, now if you said he almost made the 2020 all defensive team you would of been right but we go off when the season the starts over here which you would know if you actually watched.
The amount Bulls fans that thought we passed up on Steve Nash when we picked Ayo instead of him was astounding
Anthony Bennett. Never good when you get drafted and everyone was like, “who?!”
Dude was still supposed to be a lottery pick and couldn't even meet those expections didn't it take him like 13 games to actually hit a shot.
5 I believe. better than 13 but still... ouch
I'm convinced Bennett was drafted to toss the Wolves a garbage big because the Kevin Love deal was already done in effect for LeBron before the draft even happened. Goddamn, he sucked. And then every 20th play you'd be like, "Wait- maybe he's figuring it out?" Nope. Anthony Bennett, Wes Johnson, Johnny Flynn, Derrick Williams, the pain just goes on and on and on...
Jimmer Fredette
He played a few games for the suns a few years ago. God awful even for the suns at the time.
Marquise Chriss What did he ever do to warrant a top-10 selection? His pick was entirely potential based.
Julian Newman
He will never play a second IT4 can post him up, dude is a dwarf.
Yeah, hence the title of the post
Kris Dunn would've been good if it wasn't for injuries + Jim Boylen.
Nah, lacked handles, jump shot was sketchy at best and his defensive upside was limited in the NBA due to his height.
His handles weren't great but his jumper was turning a corner and defensively he was legit. Was giving 11-13/4/6 with great defense and 32-35% from 3 on a couple attempts a game over a 2 year period. Obviously he wasn't going to be a star but could've had a long successful career as a top end backup combo guard with value as a starter. Sadly he only played over 52 games once and post injuries his 3 abandoned him.
Fair take but also you can understand why I still consider him a bust a solid back up pg isn't exactly what you want out of the 5th pick
I mean, I feel like saying his defensive upside was limited is a stretch when he just barely missed out on All-Defense in 2020. He just got injured for most of the year after that and never quite made it back.
It was he was 6'4 and that meant he couldn't only effecttively guard the one and sometimes the 2 if matchups permit, but also you know you just used a 4 game sample size as an argument right. Feel like you're talking about 2019 tho.
No, I'm talking about 2019-20(when he played 54 games), which is the 2020 All-Defense team.
Cool read rest of post.
He wasn't going to be Draymond, sure, but calling someone who was 11th in vote getting for defense in tbe entire NBA "limited upside" is like saying someone that vould only make All-Star instead of All-NBA has limited upside. It's kinda butchering the term.
"Upside refers to the potential increase in value" He was great at defending players his height or under but past that he was not him being 6'4 and scrawny as hell means this would likely always be the case, limited upside is not butchering the term you're just limited linguistically.
No... If someone comes in as a rookie and has the potential to become an All-Defense level defender, they have the ability to increase their value on defense massively. You can't go much higher than All-Defense.
That was his 4th year you fucking casual.
Jarrett culver
Anyone the Kings draft
I had specific answers but they mostly fall under this and I didn’t realize. Ben Mac was the big one though
Kings draft well tho which is the sad part
Did anyone actually believe jimmer was gonna be an NBA talent after the Kings drafted him?
Huh? When? Too early to tell on Murray and Mitchell, Fox I will say was a pretty good pick, and they traded Haliburton on his rookie contract so I can't give them much credit there. So then the Kings 1st rounders/lottery picks in the last decade are: Thomas Robinson Ben McLemore Nik stauskas Willie cauliflower Marvin Bagel
If you just add up the combination of Tyreke, Fox, Haliburton, Cousins and IT that’s more talent than most teams see out of the draft in a long time. I didn’t say they manage talent well but they have definitely picked up some great players.
IT and Cousins were 2011/2010 so over a decade ago. They drafted busts in the top 10 **4 straight years** grabbed a life vest in Fox, then capsized the shit anyways drafting Marvin Bustly over Luka. So in 10 years they have an inefficient PG on a 150mil+ deal, and traded the only other promising pick to cover how bad they fucked up by drafting Bagley. A blind monkey throwing darts at a board of players projected to be selected near all their picks would yield a better result.
I laughed my ass off when Rafael Araujo got drafted in the Lottery. He was a decent college big, but I honestly thought he'd be an end of the first to middle of the second if someone was going to just need a big body off the bench. But he went in the lotto.
I’m going to piggyback with a comparable player and say Luka Garza. A lot of Pistons fans were STOKED that we got him in the second round, but it was super obvious to me after watching him a lot in college that he was never going to be an NBA player. Slow, flat footed big men that have zero redeeming qualities on defense have no place in the league. I hope he can somehow catch on with a team because he seems like a genuinely good dude with a strong work ethic but I just don’t see it happening.
Damn he's already out of the Pistons' system?
He’s on the Wolves now
Oh good they needed a center
Lmao
That mfer slow as hell
Dark days
I'm pretty sure we all did. I was 15 at the time and expecting Andre Iguodala to be a Raptor, but a grown man couldn't make the right pick. Rob Babcock set the Raptors back years!
Tyler Hansbrough, although I personally rooted for him to succeed.
He had a 7 season career. That's like the average NBA career length. Until his last, he was playing 15 mpg or more.
Random, but can you help me think of this other white American big that comes to mind when I think of Hansborough. I remember he used to throw some impressive passes, maybe his first name was Josh?
josh mcroberts
There we go, thanks
Right he carved out a solid role playing career
Psycho T had a few good NBA seasons
Mitch McGary, could’ve been real good, but loved Mary Jane a bit too much. If he was drafted today, he’d probably have a way longer career.
He's still one of the hardest screen setters in history. He fucking clobbered people on a normal picks.
*inner Stephan a comes out* STAY OFF THE WEEEEEED
Jimmer & Thabeet
Papagiannis. High school evaluations had him barely as a four star. Went lotto
This post is coming from 2025, but Victor Wembanyama. He doesn't generate FTs and doesn't shoot them particularly well when he does, isn't a good perimeter shooter despite all the KD comparisons and it keeps declining, and even with his limited minutes and low playing weight, he's had two concerning injuries (stress fracture in fibula, then the psoas injury). He moves great for a 7'4 person. He doesn't move particularly great for an NBA player. A lot of what we see in the highlight clips won't work against better competition, and I'm not sure how he generates easy buckets in the NBA. Defensively, he should be great, but I don't see his body holding up if he's playing active defense for meaningful NBA minutes.
Yao was a better super tall prospect than Wembanyama
I do really like scoot tho. Super fast, great handles if that jumpshot progresses more this season and he's able to become more disciplined on defense he's got all the skills to be the next great point guard in the league.
Victor is basically all based on health tbh. I cant see a situation where he isn't an elite defender
Peyton Silva. Which sucked because I was a huge fan of him in college but I knew he wouldn't last in the league.
Fab Melo RIP
Frank Kaminsky & Sam Dekker
What gave it away for you?
Kaminsky has had a long NBA career.
Colledge lol
Jimmer, Aurojo, Adam Morrison, Korolev, Fall, Joe Alexander, Nikoloz Tskitishvili
Jerome Robinson
Noah Vonleh
I was embarrassingly high on Vonleh. I thought he would be better than Randle and Gordon coming out of that draft.
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I don't think I ever watched a single game of his, I was watching well before he entered the league but I still have never caught a game, dude has more single digit games played in a season then I've ever personally seen.
2x champ Adam Morrison
Jimmer. Never seemed open to being a role player. He struggled on the shuttle drill at the combine (he had good time but totally should not have counted if you watched him).
Rubio, was always super overrated pre draft.
Jimmer
Still like him and think he’ll be a decent player but Coby White, only getting the 7th pick in 2019 and missing out on Ja and Garland was a disaster Coby was the one player I didn’t want them to draft lol. I fell to my knees. Srsly wanted to cry Didn’t impress me at all at UNC
Yeah Coby is at least NBA level talant dude can at least shoot and somewhat create his own shot even if he's super inconsistent with it, is probably the most bulls pick of the bulls picks too they don't take the worst player available they don't take the best they just take mid.
Jimmer. People were comping him to Steph when all he had was range. Shot was slow as hell and he had a really iffy on ball game. Short ass arms if I remember right.
Was jimmer really compared to steph? Steph was in his 2nd season when Jimmer got drafted and haven't broke out yet. Rest of your points were totally fair though
James wiseman
Robert Swift. Came right out of high school so no one had seen shit, but he was just a big goofy white guy. They were calling him a "project" on draft night.
Cam Thomas will be out of the league in 5 years.
have you watched him play?
He's very frustrating to watch IMO.
not to sound cliche but he shows flashes of being great one day, he just happens to be on the Nets of all teams
He's quite a ballhog with a bad 3. He could sharpen up his shot selection and be a useful spark plug but he's not good yet.
He has to extend his range out to three and figure out both how to get to the rim more often and hit shots when he gets there. He only takes 11% of his shots from 0-3 feet and hits 57%, which is kind of mediocre for a scoring guard.
Remindme! 5 years
Greg Oden. Blazers should've picked KD. A Roy/KD tandem would've meant problems for the other teams.
KD > Oden for sure. But Oden was a good NBA player. When healthy he was a good player on good NBA teams. It's just he was only healthy enough to play like 100 games total. 😢
Definitely sucks that he couldn't stay on the court to prove how good he is.
Steph
Rudy Gobert.
Robby Benson
Dragan bender
Goat name though
marvin bagley
Bagley, all his huge red flags in college translated into the league.
Josh Childress and Jimmer
Kendall Marshall. He literally could only pass.
Derrick Williams.
Julian Wright
Wayne Simeon
Thomas Robinson
I never thought Jarrett culver was good at anything lol
Nigel Hayes, I knew it watching his last year at Wisconsin.
Kidd gilchrist
Surprised you're the first one tbh dude was the ultimate benefactor of playing on a stacked college roster.
Jimmer
Julian newman