Which number 1 pick, since 1990, has been justified? I think it's too early to tell on Dwight Howard, but the ones I don't think have been justified have a name under it which I think should've been the number 1 pick. 1990- Derrick Coleman Gary Payton #2 1991- Larry Johnson 1992- Shaq 1993- Webber 1994- Glenn Robinson Grant Hill #3 1995- Joe Smith Kevin Garnett #5 1996- Iverson 1997- Duncan 1998- Olowokandi Paul Pierce #10 1999- Brand 2000- Kenyon Martin 2001- Kwame Brown Pau Gasol #3 2002- Yao Ming 2003- Lebron James 2004- Dwight Howard
I think people forget what Derrick Coleman was like at Cuse. He did alot of stuff that you have just started seeing bigman nowadays doing from a verstile standpoint. As his NBA career went along he just got lazy, lacked the work ethic to keep his body in the right condition, which led to alot of injuries & poor play. But if you asked any scout about DC when he came out of college they would have told you an automatic future hall a fame type big. And Joe Smith going infront of Kevin Garnett is no surprise. KG was the 1st player to come striaght out of high School since Darryl Dawkins. It wasnt the norm like it is today, so alot of teams werent going to take that type of risk. And definately not with the #1 pick. The thing that allowed Minny to take the risk and draft KG as high as 5th is the fact that they were a fairly new franchise with no expectation for winnning anytime soon. GState didnt have that type of luxury, they were a team with alot of parts already in place Timmy, Spree, Chris Mullin. And were use to playing in the playoffs, but fell out o0nce they gave up Webber. So they needed a bigman who could jump right in... You have to take the teams circumstances into account during that draft time. You cant just look at the player and say well this guy is better then the guy drafted in front of him now , so thier draft selection is or isnt justified
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">1998- Olowokandi Paul Pierce #10</div> Paul Pierce only, he's not even the best player from that year? #9 Dirk Nowitzki #4 Antawn Jamison #5 Vince Carter Right now I'd even take: #8 Larry Hughes #15 Matt Harpring and #21 and #25 Ricky Davis and Al Harrington over him Kandi got picked high because people didn't know much about him, he was an athletic freak, he was extremely fast because he ran track in College. He started playing basketball very late, so he was really raw and had good numbers for a raw player, but he just never got to where people expected him too. He can be a 12 points, 9 rebounds, 2 blocks player with minutes, be he's so uncomfortable in the post, and has weak FG%'s for a center, it would be more served for him to score about 9 points for you on just dunks and layups and give you the boards and blocks. Kwame can still be good, so I don't know with him, but we'll see... Joe Smith is not surprising, he was killer in college, and he was a pretty good player as a rookie and early in his career, athletic guy who had range on his jumpshot, could defend, had some post moves but didn't have the strength to effectively use them, then he got buried in Minny behind KG. I agree with Henacy on DC, and Glenn Robinson was good himself, just never learnt to pass and play defense. Most of those except Kandi were not really "bad" picks, Kwame just had so much potential coming out of high school, and considering the other top picks were highschool, highschool, Euro, it's not muvh to complain about.
