You can find any number of NBA Draft Bust articles online, and since we’re super realistic and use exactly the same pool of players as the NBA, we obviously have a similar list. Because of that, I’m going to focus on guys that were picked higher in the NLL than the NBA and didn’t reward that confidence and give props to the collective NLL GMs that passed on guys that were drafted way too high in the NBA. For obvious reasons, our picks pretty closely mirror NBA draft order, so finding differences of more than one slot was a bit tough.

As with any analysis of draft picks, you have to be at least a few seasons removed from the draft in order to properly evaluate a good percentage of the picks, so the most recent draft I’m even considering is 2013. Also, to carry the tag of “bust”, you’ve got to have the sky-high expectations of a high lottery pick to disappoint so badly, so strong preference will be given to guys near the very top of each draft.

The Reaches

Whether the NBA picked a guy way higher than the NLL or the NLL picked a guy a few slots higher than the NBA, these are sure to draw criticism/praise for deviating from your NBA counterparts. We saw this gamble most recently when Digeze reached to get Dejounte Murray at #11 while he barely scratched the first round in the NBA.

Why did we reach for THAT guy?

Ben McLemore – I understood this pick at the time (well, I wasn’t in the league, but I thought he was going to be good and wasn’t super impressed with the other available candidates) and Dave is the RJ Buford of the NLL, keeping the team at near-dynasty level for most of his tenure in the NLL. But McLemore is seen a bit of a bust in the NBA, where he was picked seventh. In the NLL, Dave used the rare gift of a #1 overall pick by a playoff team and struck out swinging. McLemore is still on the Sixers, but buried under their deep bench and has never averaged even 6 points/game in the NLL. He’s still young, but you don’t see a guy move up 6 slots in the top half of the lottery very often and some of the guys that he jumped over were pretty good players like Victor Oladipo, Nerlens Noel and CJ McCollum, so Ben gets a spot on the All-NLL bust team.

Thomas Robinson – TRob has been a pretty huge bust in the NBA. He came out and looked like one of the can’t-miss kind of prospects that has all of the physical tools, had performed on a big stage in Kansas with plenty of footage for scouts to critique, and he just hasn’t been able to get it going. He’s also young enough that he could resurrect it, but it’s not looking at all likely. What makes it worse is that he moved up from 5^th to 3^rd in the NLL, while having to go all of the way down to 12^th (Kendall Marshall) to find a guy that is currently worse in NLL or ESPN ranking. Drummond and Lillard are both a few slots behind him, but NBA GMs didn’t get those right either.  The two guys that Detroit directly passed over were Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Dion Waiters – neither is a franchise cornerstone, but both are fairly solid starters in the NBA and NLL currently.

Jerryd Bayless – Bayless has had a reasonable career as a journeyman scoring guard, but hopping up 4 spots from 11^th to 7^th in the NLL draft and passing over guys like Danilo Gallinari and Eric Gordon, who have both been just altogether better is enough to get you on this list. It’s rare to see this big of a gap in the mid-lottery, so if you’re going to make that gamble, you need to make sure you’re right!

Gerald Green – He was rumored to be a top 5 pick leading up to the draft and it’s hard to tell whether that was legitimate or just NBA GMs trying to throw each other off. But who they did throw off was the 2005 Indiana NLL GM (not sure who that was). In the NBA, he fell to a very appropriate 18^th pick. But NLL Indy saw fit to raise the bid on his top 5 selection after seeing this and went with him at #3. This is another one of the bigger examples of setting your draft board before the NBA draft and being unwilling to adjust. The 2005 draft was notably bad, so this didn’t end up being as bad as it should have been. Chris Paul fell from 4^th all the way to 9^th during the days of the NBA Live short-guard disease, but outside of him they only missed out on a handful of productive NBA players. Seriously, look at the 2005 draft page – not a single current NBA player between 10^th and 29^th. Also interesting – there are currently the same number 2005 second round picks on NBA rosters as first round picks!

Well at least we’re better than NBA GMs…

Anthony Bennett – Bennett is considered by some to be the biggest NBA bust ever. He’s probably the most notable #1 pick that had a horrible career without having significant injury issues. The NLL GMs (at least the first two of them) held strong and passed on the NBA #1 pick, instead selecting Ben McLemore (ok, not that much better, but still better) and Victor Oladipo. Sure, he should have slid down the draft board a lot more with several great players still behind him, but at least he wasn’t a #1 pick here!

Hasheem Thabeet – Hasheem is tall and he’s a pretty funny guy, he just didn’t have the determination to be an NBA star. He’s out of the league now and a few NLL GMs saw him for what he was. He was a highly touted #2 pick in the NBA – being compared to the dominant Georgetown centers of the 80s and 90s, especially Dikembe Mutombo. But he just didn’t have what it took. The 3 GMs that passed on him were rewarded with James Harden, Tyreke Evans, and Ricky Rubio. Harden is a perennial MVP candidate and the other two are solid starters. Good job NLL!

Joe Alexander – It was only two spots from 8^th in the NBA to 10^th in the NLL, but just like the guys that Jerryd Bayless hopped over – Danilo Gallinari and Eric Gordon were the two that Alexander fell behind. The two teams that passed on Joe were rewarded with two guys that have started 681 of their combined 846 NLL games, compared to a guy that barely made it into his second NBA season.

Fran Vazquez – Fran was the lowest pick on this whole list, going 11^th in the NBA Draft. He was supposed to be paired with a young Dwight Howard as the frontcourt of the future on the NBA Magic. But, he decided he never even wanted to TRY to play in the NBA/NLL, and his rights remain with the NLL Warriors to this day. Luckily for them, they only wasted the 17^th pick on him in that woeful 2005 draft. The biggest winners for passing on him didn’t end up with much better than rotational pieces though – guys like Jarrett Jack and Charlie Villanueva.

 

The Tough Choice

Many drafts, there is a tough choice at the top between two players. Sometimes we get it right other times we dread thinking about it for the next 10 years while the better player taunts us. These are the picks at the top that differed from the NBA selections and were dreadfully wrong or brilliantly right.

We picked the wrong one!

Emeka Okafor – Dwight vs Emeka was a big thing before the draft. I remember talking to the Pacers GM at the time (because I held the 2^nd pick). I was hoping Emeka fell to me, because I really needed a center and not a skinny high school kid that looked good, but like he’d be more of a power forward. Fast forward 12 years, and that high school kid is still an NLL force and Emeka has worked his way out of the league.

Greg Oden – Okay, this one stuck to the script as both the NLL and NBA got it wrong, but can you really have a bust list without Oden? He himself recently said he considers himself the biggest bust of all time, and that it gets worse with every point Kevin Durant scores. His is a sad story of injuries and being the Sam Bowie to KD’s MJ.

Michael Beasley – This wasn’t too much of a discussion at draft time as I don’t think it was seen as a two horse race – Rose was the choice (correct me if I’m wrong). But Beasley was an amazing rebounder with great athleticism coming out of Kansas State. The allure of picking him to lockdown your power forward position for the next decade was strong and Golden State hasn’t historically been known for amazing management. Derrick Rose has had his ups and downs, but the guy won and MVP and B-Easy has been out of the league multiple times since his #1 selection in the NLL.

We picked the right one!

Andrea Bargnani – Charlotte was faced with the tough decision this time, the do-everything foreigner or the freshman out of Texas, LaMarcus Aldridge. Charlotte chose correctly and Aldridge has had a consistent all-star level career and is still going strong 10 years later. Bargnani finally bounced his way out of the league this last season. He actually fell all of the way to fourth, but the teams that selected Adam Morrison and Tyrus Thomas in front of him really didn’t fare any better – in hindsight there was one obvious star in the top 4 of this draft and Aldridge was it.

Darko Milicic – This deviates from the model a bit, in that it wasn’t #1 vs #2, but #2 vs #3. But when #1 is LeBron James, it’s really a battle for #2 to begin with. Joe Dumars will always rue the day that he selected Darko over not just Carmelo Anthony, but Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh as well. This was the very first NLL draft and it started off with a bang. The Clippers (for a brief year, possibly not realizing what they had) managed to procure the top 2 picks in this loaded draft and very wisely selected LeBron and Melo both. They never let the two young players develop into the dynasty they should have been, but they certainly made the right choice on that day.