[h2]The best, worst of the decade[/h2] [h3]PER Diem: Dec. 29, 2009[/h3]
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By John Hollinger
ESPN.com
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Al Bello/Getty ImagesOne way or another, Isiah's reign in New York provided some memorable moments this decade.
You never want to be too early with an all-decade list because you never know when a last-minute, Tiger Woods-like incident could blow the whole thing up. But with only three days left in the decade, I think we're in the clear.
So without further ado, it's time for my all-decade lists -- except one. My list of the 10 best players of the decade will come under separate cover on Thursday. But I have 10 years' worth of other gripes, vents and monologues to get off my chest, and this is my last shot. Here's my best and worst of the "aughts," starting with the teams that ought to have won a title in the past 10 years but never did.
[h3]Best teams never to win a championship[/h3]
1. Dallas Mavericks: The heartbreak loss to Miami in the 2006 NBA Finals was bad enough, but winning 67 games and losing in the first round a year later arguably was worse. And remember, the Mavs also had a great shot before losing
Dirk Nowitzki to a knee injury in the 2003 Western Conference finals.
2. Sacramento Kings: The Kings undoubtedly would be off this list if they had made another foul shot or two in Game 7 of the 2002 conference finals, if three other human beings drawn at random had officiated Game 6 or if Chris Webber hadn't blown out his knee in the 2003 postseason.
3. Phoenix Suns: The Suns had the misfortune of losing key players at the worst time --
Joe Johnson in the first two games of the 2005 conference finals,
Amare Stoudemire and
Boris Diaw for the pivotal Game 5 in the 2007 Western Conference semifinals, and
Shawn Marion after a franchise-wrecker of a trade in 2008.
[h3]Best Cinderellas[/h3]
1. New Jersey Nets, 2001-02: The sheer misery of the Nets' history made what happened after the trade for
Jason Kidd all the more remarkable. It wasn't just Kidd -- the Nets pilfered
Richard Jefferson and
Jason Collins in the draft, stole vastly underrated
Todd MacCulloch in free agency, and found a miraculous cure for
Kerry Kittles' knees -- but he led the way as the Nets were unlikely winners of consecutive Eastern Conference titles.
2. Phoenix Suns, 2004-05: Yes,
Stephon Marbury's departure preceded this team's rise, as well. The Suns had won 29 games the previous season, but adding
Steve Nash quickly transformed them into one of the most exciting offensive teams in history.
3. Boston Celtics, 2007-08: It wasn't as big a shock as the two above, but it's technically the biggest U-turn in league history. Boston traded much of its youth for
Kevin Garnett and
Ray Allen, kept just enough in reserve to help them along, and rode a tenacious defense to the title.
[h3]Best general managers[/h3]
1. Gregg Popovich/R.C. Buford, Spurs: The tag-team duo that ran the Spurs for the past decade managed to win 50 or more games every season while claiming three championships and strongly contending most of the years they didn't win it all. Sure, having
Tim Duncan helped, but stealing
Tony Parker and
Manu Ginobili with late draft picks proved even more fruitful.
2. Joe Dumars, Pistons: Engineered the free-agent signing of the decade (
Chauncey Billups for the midlevel exception), the sign-and-trade of the decade (getting
Ben Wallace when he was losing
Grant Hill), and arguably the midseason trade of the decade (
Rasheed Wallace, although many would lobby for
Pau Gasol). His team made an amazing six straight conference finals and won a championship despite lacking a superstar.
3. Jerry West, Lakers/Grizzlies: West set the table for the Lakers' three championships by nabbing
Kobe Bryant and
Shaquille O'Neal, then went to Memphis and helped give the Grizzlies their one brief snippet of respectable basketball.
[h3]Worst general managers[/h3]
Thomas
1. Isiah Thomas, Knicks: The gold standard by which all future reigns of error will be judged.
2. Kevin McHale, Timberwolves: An underrated rival of Thomas who managed to screw up the prime years of one of the greatest players of all time, Kevin Garnett, with a series of awful contracts, most of which involved agent Bill Duffy.
3. Pete Babcock, Hawks: Babcock ran the Hawks for 13 years and had some success in his first decade. In the aughts? Forget it. He drafted
DerMarr Johnson sixth in 2000 and traded for
Dan Dickau on draft night in 2002, swapped Pau Gasol for
Shareef Abdur-Rahim, oversaw Lon Kruger's playoff guarantee, and basically set the stage for item No. 2 in the next section.
[h3]Worst seasons[/h3]
1. New York Knicks, 2005-06: The Knicks' 23-59 mark under Larry Brown wasn't the worst of the decade, but as far as negativity, mistrust and general misery go, this season cannot be topped. Brown feuded openly with management, changed lineups every hour and benched players he had pined to acquire (most notably
Steve Francis). In between, there was a sexual harassment case, the cap-crushing deals for
Jerome James and
Eddy Curry, and the league's second-worst record despite its highest payroll.
2. Atlanta Hawks, 2004-05: I was there, and not a lot of people can say this: On some nights, fans in the upper deck were so lonely they could have written a country music song about it. The Hawks won a decade-low 13 games, then topped it off by passing on
Chris Paul in the 2005 lottery.
3. Cleveland Cavaliers, 2002-03: People forget what an awful franchise this was before LeBron came. My enduring memory of this 17-win team was a late-season game in Atlanta. The pregame "warm-up" consisted entirely of
Darius Miles and
Smush Parker practicing dunks -- not actual basketball plays. Inside, the locker room music blared so loudly that it was impossible to conduct interviews. Basically, the inmates were running the asylum.
[h3]Worst draft picks[/h3]
Milicic
1. Darko Milicic, Pistons: For sheer impact, you can't top this one. Had the Pistons selected
Carmelo Anthony,
Dwyane Wade or
Chris Bosh, they likely would have become one of the greatest teams of all time. However, they won one championship and nearly claimed a second despite getting virtually nothing from the No. 2 overall pick in 2003.
2. Nikoloz Tskitishvili, Nuggets: It's hard to imagine a top-five pick being this overmatched at the NBA level, but that's what "Skita" was after Denver took him fifth in 2002 -- two picks before Nene, four before Amare Stoudemire and five ahead of
Caron Butler. He scored 507 career points and finished with a career field goal percentage of 30.4.
3. Kwame Brown, Wizards: The top pick in 2001 was a huge disappointment for the Wizards, who could have had Pau Gasol. But at least Washington salvaged Caron Butler out of Brown in a steal of a trade with the Lakers. Coincidentally, L.A. then parlayed Brown into Gasol two years later.
[h3]Best award votes[/h3]Yes, best award votes. Before examining some of the worst decisions of the decade, let's first tip our hats to when common sense prevailed over foolishness.
Duncan
1. Tim Duncan, 2002 MVP: One of the few times this decade when the voters rightly voted the best player over the best storyline. Jason Kidd created enormous momentum for his candidacy by helping resurrect the Nets, but Duncan was an abundantly superior basketball player.
2. Tony Parker, 2007 Finals MVP: Many criticized this award because Duncan was the Spurs' best player and go-to guy, but Parker was the man in the four-game sweep of Cleveland. Some argued the Cavs didn't have any good point guards, but they were looking at the wrong side of the floor. Cleveland defended point guards very well that season and had just finished making Chauncey Billups look like a rank amateur in the conference finals.
3. Bruce Bowen, 2001 second-team All-Defense: This is the only example I can find of a player getting such recognition in his first season as a regular starter. There normally is a two- to three-year lag with the All-Defense team such that deserving players are bypassed in favor of those who were good a couple of seasons before, but this vote was a glaring exception. Bowen had never played more than 1,500 minutes in a season before 2000-01, and his Miami team wasn't even that good (50-32), but the coaches noticed him.
[h3]Worst award votes[/h3]And now, let us mark those occasions when common sense didn't prevail.
Morrrison
1. Adam Morrison, November 2006 rookie of the month: I realize rookie of the month is a minor award, but as far as mistakes go, this will never be topped. Usually, bad award votes happen because the player who won was only the fifth- or sixth-most deserving player instead of the most deserving. In this case, Morrison was quite possibly the
worst rookie in the NBA that season, yet was honored as being the best in November. You can't screw it up worse than that. Although this was not a star-studded rookie crop (in addition to Morrison,
Shelden Williams,
Patrick O'Bryant,
Mouhamed Sene, Fran Vazquez,
Hilton Armstrong and
Cedric Simmons all went in the top 15), nearly anyone else would have been a better choice.
2. Steve Nash, 2006 MVP: I've already written mountains about this one, so here's all I'll add today: Chauncey Billups played the same position, won 10 more games, had an identical player efficiency rating and made the All-Defense team. He came in fifth, and that was about fair. In addition to Billups,
LeBron James, Dwyane Wade,
Dirk Nowitzki and Kobe Bryant all were demonstrably better.
3. Amare Stoudemire, 2003 rookie of the year: Looking back on this, I'm even more appalled than I was at the time. Stoudemire's Suns were a surprise story, and his game was more entertaining than
Yao Ming's, but performance-wise, they weren't even close -- Yao had the same averages in fewer minutes, shot better and blocked nearly twice as many shots. Yao routed Stoudemire when it came to PER, 20.20 to 15.83.
[h3]Worst developments[/h3]
1. AAU ball: The U.S. still produces more talented players than any other country. Sadly, most of the best ones don't have a clue how to play until they head off to the college game at age 18. What happens until that time is a travesty, as our best talents seem to receive the least coaching while competing in AAU tournaments that mostly amount to glorified street-ball tournaments.
2. Expansion of the world championships: The world championships should be a great tournament, the World Cup of basketball. Instead, it is unrelentingly awful until the final three games, by which time all the fans are so anesthetized from 118-54 blowouts that they can hardly be bothered to care.
Somehow, FIBA thought the way to make things more interesting would be to get more countries involved, so it expanded this year's field to 24 teams. This just makes a mockery of what should be a great event. There are, at most, 10 countries that are actually good at basketball; the rest are fillers. This is why the Olympics' 12-team format is perfect and FIBA's tournament is a mess.
3. NBA's abandonment of the Pacific Northwest: Admittedly, this is a cause that's nearer and dearer to my heart. But the Grizzlies and Sonics both had enough fan support to continue as viable franchises; the departures of both were largely management failures.
[h3]Best developments[/h3]
1. De-Riley-ization of the game: In a response to the increasingly rough tactics of the 1990s, personified by the brutish style Pat Riley's teams employed in New York and Miami, the league enforced handchecking rules and made other modifications to open up the floor. The result was a much-more-entertaining style of play and a rebound for the post-Jordan NBA in the second half of the decade. Ironically, Riley stumbled upon the one player best suited for the new rules (Dwyane Wade) and won a championship with him in 2006.
2. Stars who get it: In contrast to the mostly me-first generation that came into the early-to-mid '90s, this generation's most talented players have been much better for the game. LeBron James, Dwyane Wade,
Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol, Chris Paul, Chris Bosh,
Brandon Roy and Yao Ming were the best players drafted from 2001 to 2006, and there isn't a bad apple in the bunch.
3. Jerry Colangelo's one-man cure: He revitalized the U.S. national team, and with any luck, he'll do the same with the Basketball Hall of Fame by shining some light on the murky voting process and eliminating its blatant bias toward college coaches and away from NBA players.
[h3]Most overrated players[/h3]
Walker
1. Antoine Walker: Walker made All-Star teams in 2002 and 2003 while shooting 39.4 and 38.8 percent, respectively. That accomplishment alone should put him first on the list. He was invited to the league's 3-point contest in 2002 despite a career mark in the low 30s; if the goal had been quantity of attempts instead of makes, he might have had a better shot at winning. Somehow, he still got a six-year, $54 million contract in 2005. But he did help in Miami's run to the 2006 title by shooting a
career-high 43.5 percent.
2. Michael Olowokandi: Everyone pretends this never happened, but Olowokandi is probably the most overrated free agent in history. When he was a restricted free agent in the summer of 2002, the Clippers offered him $50 million to stay and were roundly criticized for being too cheap to offer him more. Kandi Man took the qualifier because he was so sure he'd make more money the next summer. Remember, this was coming off a season when he shot 43.3 percent and averaged 11.1 points per game. A year later, Kevin McHale took the bait (of course) and signed him for three years, $16 million, and that was still about five times what he was worth.
3. Latrell Sprewell: Regarded as a superstar because he played in New York and had such a charismatic on-the-court persona, Sprewell made the 2001 All-Star team despite scant evidence he belonged (16.3 points, 43.0 percent shooting, 15.1 PER); I believe this to be the lowest PER by a player who made the squad. He was a decent starting shooting guard in this decade, but nothing more.
[h3]Most underrated players[/h3]
Brand
1. Elton Brand: Although he's ending the decade on a down note, he's the most unappreciated star of the past 10 years as a whole. His unspectacular style won him few fans and fewer sponsors, but Brand nonetheless had eight All-Star-caliber seasons, even though he made the team only twice -- once as a sub after being passed over for
Wally Szczerbiak in the original voting. His shared rookie of the year award with Steve Francis was another unconscionable oversight.
2. Shawn Marion: The prototypical underrated player because he rarely had the ball in his hands except when finishing and shot a high percentage with few turnovers. In 2006, Marion led the Suns in games, minutes, points, rebounds, shooting percentage, blocks and steals, and was by acclamation the team's best defender. His teammate won the MVP, and Marion got one fifth-place vote.
3. Andre Miller: Never quite good enough to be an All-Star, Miller was nonetheless one of the 10 best point guards of the past decade and probably will go down as the best alley-oop passer ever. Splitting his time among various mediocre teams, he never stayed long enough to generate the kind of appreciation that a
Richard Hamilton gets in Detroit or a
Derek Fisher gets in L.A., and that has hurt his renown, too.
Milicic, Oden among pack of worst picks
Tuesday, December 29, 2009 |
Print Entry
Posted by Chad Ford
The NBA draft can be quite a crapshoot. Highly regarded players in college, high school or international play can end up as busts in the NBA.
Taking a bust in the lottery can have devastating effects on teams. Here's a look at 10 of the worst draft picks from the past decade, virtually all of whom have one thing in common: A team swung for the upside fence and ended up striking out.
1. Darko Milicic, Detroit Pistons, No. 2 overall in 2003
Darko Milicic's name will live in infamy forever in Detroit and on my Wikipedia page. Milicic was a supertalented 17-year-old Serbian big man and was known as an athletic, 7-foot-1 forward who could play in the paint and shoot it from the perimeter. I traveled all the way to Serbia with a number of NBA scouts to see him in November 2002, and we were all wowed by his skill-to-size ratio. An amazing workout in front of Pistons GM Joe Dumars and me in New York the day before the NBA draft lottery convinced us both that he would be a star. Longtime Pistons scout Will Robinson (the guy who discovered Dumars and
Grant Hill) compared him to a young Wilt Chamberlain. The Pistons were so enthralled that they ended up drafting Milicic ahead of
Carmelo Anthony,
Chris Bosh and
Dwyane Wade.
Alas, just a few months after getting drafted, Milicic's name became more punch line than legend. Pistons coach Larry Brown had no need for him on his NBA championship team. Milicic would play only in blowouts or at the end of games, and fans anointed him the Human Victory Cigar. During his third season in the league, the Pistons gave up on him and traded him to Orlando for a future first-round pick.
Milicic began to show some promise in Orlando alongside
Dwight Howard, but Orlando decided to go in a different direction when Milicic hit free agency. Then he signed with the Grizzlies, expecting significant playing time. It never happened. He now earns regular DNPs at the end of the
New York Knicks' bench and has recently indicated that he wants to return to Europe next year -- ending his NBA career and sealing his destiny as the bust of the decade.
2. Kwame Brown, Washington Wizards, No. 1 overall in 2001
Michael Jordan may be the greatest player to play the game. But as a GM, he got off to a shaky start when he took Brown with the No. 1 pick in the 2001 draft. Jordan was wowed by Brown's size and body. In a one-on-one workout the day before the draft, Brown dominated another top prospect,
Tyson Chandler, and afterward told Jordan that if MJ drafted him, he'd never regret it. Yeah, right.
Brown got off to a shaky start with coach Doug Collins and eventually slid into the abyss. His confidence shattered by Jordan's and Collins' rapid-fire criticism, Brown never really developed. Although he had a ton of physical abilities, his bad hands and lack of self-esteem have kept him from living up to his potential. Had Jordan drafted
Pau Gasol (who went No. 3 that year), his reputation in the front office might have been much, much better.
3. Nikoloz Tskitishvili, Denver Nuggets, No. 5 overall in 2002
New Nuggets GM Kiki Vandeweghe famously drafted Tskitishvili without actually seeing him play. Vandeweghe had been the guy behind
Dirk Nowitzki's development in Dallas, and based on Mike D'Antoni's glowing reports about "Skita" (D'Antoni had been Tskitishvili's coach in Italy), Vandeweghe decided to gamble.
Unfortunately for the Nuggets, Skita was more myth than player. He had all the physical tools you want in a forward but lacked real basketball IQ. He was a kid who looked terrific in workouts but clueless in an actual game.
Four picks later, the
Phoenix Suns drafted
Amare Stoudemire. Stoudemire went on to win rookie of the year honors. Meanwhile, Skita was out of the league four years later with a 30 percent career field goal percentage.
4. Adam Morrison, Charlotte Bobcats, No. 3 overall in 2006 -- over Brandon Roy
Chalk Morrison up as Michael Jordan's second devastating mistake as a GM. This time the scene moves to Charlotte, where Jordan had just bought a stake in the Bobcats and was named the team's vice president. The Bobcats were in desperate need of a 2-guard, and Roy looked like the perfect fit. However, Jordan was wowed by Morrison's career at Gonzaga, loved his workout and decided to gamble on the athletically challenged player.
The results have been disastrous for Charlotte. Morrison was awful as a rookie. He missed his entire sophomore season with a serious knee injury, then was traded to the Lakers. Meanwhile, Roy has developed into one of the best 2-guards in the game.
5a. Marvin Williams, Atlanta Hawks, No. 2 overall in 2005 -- over Chris Paul
Williams was the consensus upside pick in the draft. He was incredibly skilled for a player his size and had just put on a terrific performance for North Carolina in the NCAA tournament. However, every scout in the league knew Paul would be special and a perfect fit in Atlanta. The Hawks had a gaping hole at the point guard position and had drafted two athletic forwards --
Josh Smith and
Josh Childress -- in 2004. Paul would've been the perfect complement to them. Even Paul knew it, and a few days before the draft, he campaigned for the Hawks to take him at No. 2.
Billy Knight made a move that only he could pull off: He ignored all the context and selected Williams over Paul. At the time, a source inside the Hawks' front office told me that Knight believed Paul was too small and that he really liked only big point guards.
Paul has gone on to be one of the best point guards in the history of the game. Williams has been an average player who has especially struggled of late after inking a five-year deal as a free agent this past summer.
5b. Shelden Williams, Atlanta Hawks, No. 5 overall in 2006 -- over Rajon Rondo
One year after the CP3 debacle, Knight had a chance to redeem himself. Washington guard Brandon Roy looked able to play some point guard in the league. Kentucky point guard Rajon Rondo looked like the perfect type of point guard to push the pace and play smothering defense. But Knight balked at both Roy and Rondo and instead took Williams about 10 places higher than any other GM had predicted he would go.
Of course, the Hawks already had drafted three other forwards in the past two years, and although the thinking was that Williams could play some center, it didn't work out. The Hawks gave up on Williams a few years later. Meanwhile, Roy is a two-time All-Star, and Rondo has a championship ring and huge contract extension with the Celtics.
6. Yaroslav Korolev, Los Angeles Clippers, No. 12 overall in 2005
Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy has done a lot of the team's scouting throughout the years. In 2005, Dunleavy took a disastrous trip to the Euroleague Final Four in Moscow. There he saw an international juniors tournament that featured a young Russian named Yaroslav Korolev, who was the Russian equivalent of Dunleavy's son,
Mike Dunleavy Jr. He had a high basketball IQ, moved well, shot the ball with range and could play point guard in a pinch. Dunleavy fell in love and promised Korolev that he'd take him with the 12th pick -- never thinking that a player such as
Danny Granger might slip all the way down to 12th.
Korolev turned out to be a disaster. Although he looked great in that juniors tournament, he had no real experience playing at the highest levels of the game and was completely overwhelmed.
7. Fran Vazquez, Orlando Magic, No. 11 overall in 2005
This list is beginning to read like the perils of drafting international players. In this case, Magic GM Otis Smith just didn't do his homework. Vazquez was a big, bouncy forward in Spain having a breakout season. Every scout in the league was high on him. But there was a problem. Several weeks before the draft, Vazquez began having doubts about playing in the NBA and started getting lucrative offers to stay in Spain. Virtually every team in the league got the message, and Vazquez plummeted on our Big Board.
The Magic didn't know what was going on, didn't interview Vazquez before the draft or talk to his agent and then -- surprise! -- found out a few days after drafting him that he didn't really want to play in the NBA. Five years later, he is still in Spain without any real desire to play in the league. Players the Magic passed on to get Vazquez include Danny Granger,
David Lee and
Monta Ellis.
8. Rafael Araujo, Toronto Raptors, No. 8 overall in 2004
Newly minted Raptors GM Rob Babcock didn't take long to screw up the team. The Raptors had just landed Chris Bosh in the 2003 draft and had been playing him at center. Bosh wanted to move to the 4, so Babcock began to scour the draft for a center.
The problem was there weren't any great centers other than Dwight Howard and
Emeka Okafor in the 2004 draft. Instead of taking the best player available (i.e.,
Luol Deng or
Andre Iguodala) or taking a risk on a young, athletic big like
Andris Biedrins, Babcock selected Araujo, a 24-year-old Brazilian who had put up good numbers at BYU. Most scouts had him ranked somewhere in the mid-to-late first round on the draft boards. The Raptors reached and then watched Araujo flounder for two years before sending him in a trade to the Jazz. Araujo played just 28 games in his third season before falling out of the league.
9. Greg Oden, Portland Trail Blazers, No. 1 overall in 2007 -- over Kevin Durant
This may be very premature, but after Oden went down with his second season-ending injury, the question has to be asked: Did the Blazers blow it when they drafted Oden over Kevin Durant?
The short-term answer is a definitive yes. Durant has turned into one of the most dominating scorers in the game. Oden, by the time the season is over, will have missed two of his first three seasons with injuries.
The long-term answer is a little harder to ascertain. Oden was beginning to look worthy of that No. 1 pick early this season before the injury. If he can find a way to stay healthy, he still has the size and defensive instincts to be a great NBA center. But with so many questions swirling around his long-term health, it's becoming impossible to justify picking Oden over Durant.
10. Jordan Hill, New York Knicks, No. 8 overall in 2009 -- over Brandon Jennings
This one, too, may be a bit premature. We are only one-third of the way into the season, and big men, especially those like Hill, take longer to develop. However, Hill can't find any minutes on a lottery team, while Jennings has been terrific in the early going. Given Jennings' strong play, it seems like a stretch to say that the Knicks drafted the right guy.
It could be a costly mistake. The Knicks are trying to lure
LeBron James as a free agent in the summer of 2010 and need to convince LeBron that they have enough young talent around him to make them contenders. Having Jennings on the roster could've made a pretty impressive case. Hill? Not so much.
