I was just over at epsn looking up what time the draft started, and found a history of our first round draft picks. Now, admittedly this is a little skewed because it doesn't include guys we traded for on draft day like Roy and Aldridge, just those we actually drafted with our picks, even when they were immediately traded. Results are kind of impressive. In the past 25 years, there were 2 good players drafted in the first round: Zebo and Jermaine. There are also 2 who might yet prove to be good: Oden and Elliot Williams. But that's it. The rest is a sad list of washouts. barfo
That's more than a little skewed - for example the same method would make Dallas look really stupid because they drafted Tractor Traylor instead of Dirk Nowitzki. And if a team does a LOT of trades where the player it picks is actually picked for the other team, then if the player is bad, that's a condemnation of the other team. (Like Tyrus Thomas instead of Aldridge.) On the other hand, does it say we drafted Deron Williams?
Yeah these lists are nearly worthless. A list of drafted players we ended up with at the end of draft day would be useful.
Agreed, of course. It doesn't, it lists Martell. Maybe that means we traded the pick rather than the player in that case. barfo
To be fair, a lot of that time was spent in a pretty awesome playoff streak. We averaged over those 25 years the 18th pick in the draft. How many times is the 18th pick decent? You also overlooked Arvydas. He was a pretty nice pick. And although Outlaw was nothing special, he was a serviceable role player and a decent trade chip.
I didn't overlook him, I saw him as the last pick before the list of picks I was talking about. If you go back further you also find Drexler, who was a decent pick, Porter, Walton, a few others. You are right about the pick level. But, I wasn't trying to prove anything with the list. I was not saying "blazers suck at the draft". I merely thought it was an interesting list because of the volume of nobodies. barfo
Aaron McKie at 17 wasn't bad - he's remembered fondly in Philly, at least. And Jermaine at 17... Zach at 19... Yeah, I see what you mean.
Previous 21s: Mark Bryant (could be worse) Hollywood Robinson (yeah....) Qyntel Woods We're on a downward spiral!
The better news is that most of that time.....we were a playoff team, with 2 Finals, 3 WCF's, and a bunch of one and outs. Drafting doesn't matter if you're already there!!!
To the top teams, the draft is a minor event. They build through trades and signings. Pritchard drove me nuts because his lack of talent allowed only one of those 3 legs. We used to be a top team. In the Whitsitt years, a 20s pick was just a leftover he had failed to already trade. He didn't care what became of it. Now we rely upon those scraps. We've come down in the world. Bring back Bob!
