According to ESPN http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/page/nbarank-19393608/every-team-best-worst-lottery-picks
We really haven't had that many lottery picks (started in 1985), I believe I counted 9. Would Telfair or Webster be worse?
I'd still put Bowie as the worst pick over Oden. We got a little more play out of Bowie, but the lost opportunity of MJ was so much greater than Durant.
Good point. Still painful to Blazers fans to have two such disastrous drafts in our team's history, though.
While I get that Bowie is excluded from this exercise, I think Bowie was by far the worse selection. Even at the time of the draft, nearly everyone agreed that Bowie was not as talented as Jordan. Bowie had the leg up primarily because he was a "big man" and because Portland already had a two-guard. Whereas, it was an open question who was more talented between Oden and Durant--generational big man versus generational perimeter player. Selecting Oden over Durant, if Oden had stayed healthy, would have been more like selecting Olajuwon over Jordan, not Bowie. And even that presupposes that Durant would have been better than a healthy Oden, which we don't know. As it turns out, Oden was definitely the wrong pick due to health (and there can be an argument over whether the Blazers should have seen red flags with Oden), but Bowie was the wrong pick in any universe--even one where he never suffers a single injury.
Ha! Last year my intramural team played vs Todd Fuller...we were in the faculty/grad student division here at NC State (I think he is a grad student in mathematics). He stomped us, but lost in the championship game against a group of faculty/staff old guys that I play with every MWF at noon.
Would Michael Jordan have won six rings had the Bulls not drafted Pippen in 1987? Jordan's enormous shadow really has eclipsed what a special and essential player Pippen was in Chicago. We wouldn't have had Pippen at that time.
We had Clyde Drexler though. Either you try to play them together, or you trade Clyde and get something. I would have taken my chances.
In hindsight maybe, but I would disagree with the certainty about Jordan. Nobody debated to take Jordan over Olajuwon--it would not even have been considered. At the time I would argue that Bowie (very dominant defensive center) and Jordan were much closer in value. Certainly having Clyde on the roster tipped the scales, but I do not agree that everyone knew Jordan would become what he did. Otherwise Jordan would have been the first pick. I watched a lot of college ball back then and Clyde was my favorite player the year before he was drafted. I really wanted Bowie if we couldn't get Olajuwon. But for a the injuries, Bowie probably would have helped that team get over the top. And, as BGD said, it is impossible to really know how Jordan would have developed along side Clyde. In hindsight it probably would have been as good or better than he an Pippen, but we really cannot know for sure.
Not a lottery pick, but totally agree in terms of worst draft pick. Injuries can happen to anyone, but Martin was just a bad pick.
Michael Jordan wouldn't have won six rings if Arvydas Sabonis had come to the Blazers when they drafted him in 1986. Well, unless of course they had drafted Jordan in 1984 instead of Bowie. Porter, Jordan, Drexler, Buck Williams and Sabonis? That would have been some lineup.
Can I like this post twice? At least Oden and Bowie were high profile college centers that were projected to go high. Martin's selection had everybody in the league scratching their heads. My own personal opinion about our bad lottery picks is that our lack of player acquisition opportunities exacerbates our screwups. Of course people are going to focus on our screw ups when those are the only big headlines for this team. Big Free Agency misses? Please. Turner and ummmm..... ummmm.... long list there. We don't get a do over through free agency so people just point at the draft. It's an easy mark.
