Points in the Paint 09.25.06
Posted by Rob Bonnette on 09.25.2006
The biggest number one pick ever hits American soil!
Hey there everyone, it's Monday so it's time for another pathetic attempt at basketball journalism by yours truly. We got two weeks left in our series, and this week we're at 2002. If nothing else, this draft looked like somewhat of a backlash to the high school disaster of 2001. There was only one high school player chosen, and he turned out to be a good one. Instead of going gaga over anyone under the age of 20, GMs decided to go back to upperclassmen some this year, along with a new element: international players. Six guys from outside the U.S. were drafted by teams in the first round, with the biggest pick of all (literally and figuratively) hailing from China. Yao Ming was both the first player from China to get drafted in the first round and the first international player to be chosen first overall, and it worked out a lot better than the first high school player picked number one.
2002 Draft Recap
Lottery Picks:
1 Houston - Yao Ming C China.
2 Chicago - Jay Williams PG Duke Jr
3 Golden State - Mike Dunleavy Jr SF Duke Jr
4 Memphis - Drew Gooden PF Kansas Jr
5 Denver - Nikoloz Tskitishvili F
6 Cleveland - Dajuan Wagner G Memphis. Fr
7 New York - Nene Hilario PF Brazil.
8 LA Clippers - Chris Wilcox PF Maryland So
9 Phoenix - Amare Stoudamire PF HS.
10 Miami - Caron Butler SF Connecticut Jr
11 Washington - Jared Jeffries SF Indiana So
12 LA Clippers - Melvin Ely PF Fresno St Sr
13 Milwaukee - Marcus Haislip PF Tennesee Jr
The shying away from underclassmen had mixed results. Butler and Gooden have both become very good players who seemed to have found their niche as supporting players who often play above their station on the team. On many nights Butler is the best player on his team, the Wizards, while Gooden is often the second best member of the Cavs next to Lebron. But they're about the only ones who panned out here. Haislip wasn't any good while Ely has been a roster guy and not much else. Of the three international players chosen in the lottery, only Yao has been as good as advertised. Nene has been an OK player who managed to follow in Kenyon Martin's footsteps by robbing the Denver Nuggets for over $10 million a year starting in a few weeks, and the other guy just flat out sucked. Dunleavy has been no better than the third or fourth best player on his team, which somehow landed him a 5 year, $45 million dollar deal from the Warriors. Wagner and Williams both had careers that started off only OK and were derailed completely by injures; Williams only played a year in the league before a bad motorcycle accident nearly killed him and landed him out of the league while Wagner went through a series of basketball related ailments that landed him on the IR for most of the next few years before the Cavs finally cut him loose. Both men are trying to get back in the league now. The other underclassmen in this group, Wilcox and Jeffries, were both not ready for the league and struggled until this past season where they finally managed to find their way. The crown jewels of this group are clearly Yao and Stoudamire; both have gone on to become bonafide All-Stars and would be the first two players chosen if this lottery were to be held again.
The rest of the first round:
14 Indiana - Fred Jones SG Oregon Sr
15 Houston - Bostjan Nachbar G/F
16 Philadelphia - Jiri Welsch G
17 Washington - Juan Dixon SG Maryland Sr
18 Orlando - Curtis Borchardt C Stanford Jr
19 Utah - Ryan Humphery PF Notre Dame Sr.
20 Toronto - Kareem Rush SG Missouri Jr
21 Portland - Qyntel Woods F Northeast Mississippi CC So
22 Phoenix - Casey Jacobson SG Stanford Jr
23 Detroit - Tayshaun Prince SF Kentucky Sr
24 New Jersey - Nenad Kristic C
25 Denver - Frank Williams PG Illinois Jr
26 San Antonio - John Salmons s SG Miami Sr
27 LA Lakers - Chris Jeffries SF Fresno State Jr
28 Sacramento - Dan Dickau PG Gonzaga Sr
Not a great group here. Prince and Kristic are very good, while Dixon has found a role as a guard off the bench. The rest of these guys…..yikes. Salmons and Dickau are OK players but not much else. Jones falls under the unlimited but unfulfilled potential column; he's a great athlete who has performed well off the bench but hasn't gotten good enough for anyone to start him. The rest of these guys are no good; five of them are out of the league already and several more are just hanging on.
Here's your count for 2002:
2 All-Stars (Yao, Stoudemire)
1 Potential Hall of Famers (Yao)
1 Championship Ring (Prince with Detroit)
5 Productive second round picks (Dan Gadzuric, Carlos Boozer, Ronald Murray, Darius Songalia, Rasual Butler)
8 Players who were legitimate starters at some point
12 who totally sucked
Five best players: Yao, Amare, Caron Butler, Prince, Boozer
The second rounders helped this class, but overall it's not that great. It's better than 2000, and maybe 1997, but it comes up way short to the others.
Draft Superlatives
Most pleasant surprise: Yao - Yeah, I know that putting the first player taken here doesn't make much sense. But you've got to remember just how many people doubted him when he got drafted. A lot of the doubt was due to prejudice, pure and simple. People saw this big, awkward looking guy, threw in that he comes from a country not known for being any good at basketball, and figured he'd be some over hyped stiff who couldn't play. Even his supporters were careful to temper expectations, saying that he'd be another Rik Smits, which was basically saying that he'd be a good player but not a dominant one. Well, he's managed to exceed just about everyone's expectations so far. After taking a year to figure things out, he's been a consistent high teen's scorer and hasn't averaged less than eight boards a game. This past season, he broke the 20-10 barrier for the first time in his career.
Biggest disappointment: Jared Jeffries - Jeffries was Big Ten player of the year his sophomore year at Indiana, and led the Hoosiers all the way to the NCAA Championship game. So of course the whispers started about him leaving early, and as is usually the case the whispers quickly became reality. Most people figured he'd take a few years to get his feet wet, then blossom into a good player at the pro level. And while he doesn't totally suck, he hasn't come close to duplicating any of his success at the collegiate level in the pros. He is OK at a lot of things, and really good at nothing. He developed a reputation as a good defender over the past year, but a lot of that is overblown. Yes, he does have stretches where can give opponents real fits at the defensive end and can guard multiple positions, but he is nowhere near the class of a Tayshaun Prince or Bruce Bowen.
What were they smoking? In the weeks before the draft, something really crazy happened. Mike Dunleavy, who had been the fourth most talked about player on the Duke team that year, suddenly found his name at the top of a lot of hypothetical draft boards. Now Dunleavy hadn't announced that he was leaving Duke early, but once his name got that big he had to leave before people realized just what the heck they were saying. He got picked third, and hasn't done much to distinguish himself since. He's been an OK player who scores in double figures on a regular basis and rebounds OK for his position but is the fourth option in Golden State, with good reason. And a few seasons later he managed to work the same voodoo on the Warriors front office, when he must have pulled out those pictures he has of the Warriors GM in some real compromising positions and scored a 5 year, $45 million contract. For a guy that gives you roughly eleven points and five rebounds a game. America, what a country!
Alright, that's it for this week everyone. Next week we wrap it up with the coming of King James and the arrival of the one and only Darko!!!
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