No it wasn’t, it was a need pick, always a horrible idea in the top 5. The only reason he was the pick is because Drexler was on the team. They didn’t have the vision to see playing them together.
There have been a lot of teams that thought they drafted the Best Player Available high in the draft that also turned out to be shit.
Yes the draft as a whole is a crapshoot but when talking about the top 5 selections of an entire draft if you overlook elite skills and talent for someone less talented but fills a hole in your roster it usually ends in regret.
The benefit of hind-site... Portland not only had a 21 year old Clyde at SG on that team but also 26 year old and 2 time All Star & 2nd team All NBA Jim Paxson. Jordan was obviously an unbelievable prospect coming into the draft, but Bowie also had plenty of hype. He was the #1 player in his class coming out of HS over Ralph Sampson averaging 28 & 18. He dominated early on in college on an elite Kentucky team, was selected for the Olympic team that didn't compete because of boycotts before suffering a broken leg. The stress fracture wasn't diagnosed early, which led to a longer recovery but he returned to play well his Senior year trending up at the end. I saw him in person several times as a Rookie and he was impressive. Though the end results for Portland were obviously awful and they're the butt of jokes for passing on the goat, you just never know. Heck, Jordan broke his foot early on with the Bulls... even with modern medical advances thats a much more concerning injury then a tibia stress fracture. Today with the de-emphasis of the big man maybe teams in Portland's situation would do otherwise. I recall stories in the O about Sam Perkins maybe being the right pick at #2. STOMP
don't forget that Barkley was the 5th pick that year those were the days there were 10 rounds of the draft. Blazers had an interesting draft day: 2 Sam Bowie 19 Bernard Thompson 26 Victor Fleming (never played a minute) 33 Steve Colter 46 Jerome Kersey 65 Tim Kearney (never played a minute) 88 Brett Applegate (never played a minute) 111 Mike Whitmarsh (never played a minute) 134 Lance Ball (never played a minute) 157 Victor Anger (never played a minute) 180 Steve Flint (never played a minute) 202 Dennis Black (never played a minute) 224 Randy Dunn (never played a minute) those never played guys were very common. From round 5 thru round 10, only 5 of about 140 players drafted ever stepped on an NBA floor in a game
Sac Wins, We Lose, moving them to just one less win than us - "race" is tightening up. We are truly awful right now.
This one is updated with tonight's loss; Wizard Mentor was too impatient. https://www.tankathon.com/ AND, I hit #1 on my first simulation try tonight!
Pels win tying us. Apparently, they have the tiebreaker, moving us out of the playin, and into the Pick 8 slot!
My thoughts too. But there are a lot of games to play still, so we'll see. Blazers have a pretty high ceiling, ur, low floor.
