NBA Redraftables: LeBron, Darko and the big simulation questions of 2003 – The Ringer

The draft season is here, even if the NBA season is not, so let’s take a look at some of the most interesting lotteries of the past 14 years. On the Book of Basketball 2.0 food, Bill Simmons and a rotating distribution are reformulating each choice 1-13 / 14, from 1996. Here we go in depth on what makes it made arrive by choosing the best, the worst and the smartest move of each class with the gift of hindsight, and also by looking at how the numbers would re-classify the table of lottery today. (For reference, this is how the 2003 project went.)

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Best move

LeBron James at the Cavaliers, no. 1

I admit it’s not a particularly smart take. Sometimes, however, the correct answer is awfully simple.

James entered the league with seemingly impossible hype, and has managed to live up to it. At the age of 18, he became only the third rookie to accumulate more than 20 points, five rebounds and five assists per game, joining all-time Oscar Robertson and Michael Jordan. He instantly changed the game for the Cavs, who more than doubled their winning streak in their first season and finished behind the Celtics in last place in the Eastern playoffs.

In the second year, LeBron already finished in the top five of the league by scoring – he would not fall 12 years—And the Cavs were back above .500 for the first time since before things really started to escape from Shawn Kemp. James led Cleveland to the playoffs in each of the following five seasons, tied for the longest playoff streak in franchise history. He delivered four seasons of 50 wins, including two consecutive 60-win campaigns, and brought the Cavs to their first appearance in the 2007 NBA Finals.

Obviously, the king’s coronation in northeast Ohio only came after a four-year interregnum in Miami. Even if he never came back, and his entire career in Cleveland consisted only of these first seven seasons, James would always have been the greatest Cavalier of all time over a distance from the galaxy, the first recruit of the year and franchise league. MVP, its most decorated All-Star (six appearances) and its only multiple selection in the first All-NBA team, and its all-time leader in minutes, points, interceptions and just about all the advanced statistics you can conjure . He would always have been the best choice in class ’03 too; LeBron has recorded almost as many victories in those first seven seasons alone as Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh have done throughout their careers, and more than Carmelo Anthony has done in his.

So here is. Good call, Cavs.

Worse movement

Darko Milicic with Pistons, no. 2

I don’t really like to do this. It sounds like a bit of hacking – too easy a choice to distinguish a player who, despite all the slings and arrows sent over the years, made end up sticking to the NBA for a decade, and who has shown at various times (Orlando in 2006, Memphis in 2008, Minnesota in 2010) that he could be a great man in NBA service, especially on the defensive. It’s just that … well, he was the second choice in total, you know?

Thanks to an exchange in 1997 for Otis Thorpe, who retired for two seasons when the choice was finally made, a team of Pistons who had just made the Eastern Conference final was fortunate to become one of the best assets of one of the greatest projects of all time. But all of Detroit came out of this no. 2 picks – Pistons chief of staff at the time, Joe Dumars, was determined to use Milicic, whose hype and trained superlatives would become legend – were 152 points and 114 rebounds in 96 games in total in three seasons . Plus, ultimately, Kelvin Cato and a choice that became Rodney Stuckey. To make matters worse: choose no. 3, 4 and 5 have all pursued their careers which will bring them to the Hall of Fame. (Before we begin: Chris Bosh is one of 30 players who have played at least 11 all-star games; the other 29 are all together. He also has two rings and an Olympic gold medal, and was the unsung hero of ‘a team that has made four consecutive finals. It will enter.)

There were several reasons why things went wrong for Milicic in the NBA. He was an immature teenager suddenly plunged into big time on the other side of the world, far from home, certainly reluctant to do the work necessary to succeed at the NBA level. He was also shunted at the back of the line in a crowded Detroit forward area that included established veterans like Ben and Rasheed Wallace, Corliss Williamson, Elden Campbell, Mehmet Okur and Antonio McDyess.

“I’ve said it 10,000 times, the best way to improve is to play,” said Milicic in the 2005 NBA Finals after his second quiet season in Detroit. “All the work in practice and individual training can only help me a lot. I cannot say how good or bad I am because I did not play to show myself or anyone. “

Some head coaches may have gone out of their way to give minutes to a young player in whom the franchise had invested so much. Milicic, however, encountered the legendary thorny Larry Brown, who had neither the time nor the urge to pamper a child as he pursued a title; as he said to Sam Borden of ESPN in 2017: “I don’t regret the way we treated Darko. I wish he could have been more mature and patient. “

Adding wounds to the insult, Milicic crowned his season of washed-out rookie by breaking his shooting hand in a symbolic garbage-like appearance – the genre that earned him the nickname “The Human Victory Cigar” – during the Pistons win in game five. against the Lakers, which cost him a summer of development. Things in Detroit never happened after that for Darko, who admitted years later that he had gone pro (at barely 13 years old) more because it offered him a way out of his war-torn homeland than because he really loved basketball.

I’m open to the argument recently put forward by Ben Wallace that writing someone like Anthony, a college superstar who was ready to play right away and who rightly expected a major role, could have a negative impact on the chemistry and the rotation balance of a team more than the sum of its parts in Detroit. But I’m also open to the counter advanced by Tayshaun Prince – which is a little fascinating, because it’s his minutes that Melo would have taken – that the Pistons could have won several championships if they had taken Anthony (who went third) rather than chasing the myth of the next Dirk.

Since 1947, 73 players have been selected not. 2 in total, of which 71 actually played in the league. (George Kok, second choice in 1947, chose not to play in the NBA’s predecessor BAA; Len Bias died two nights after the 1986 draft.) Of those 71, according to Basketball-Reference.com, the average number is not. 2 choices produced 47.7 career victory shares. When Darko left the league, he was only 7.1-59th of these 71 and 32nd among all players in the ’03 class.

There is simply no other place in the 2003 draft where the choice made seems more dire, given the other options being considered and the productivity gap between what could have been and what was. I looked for one, in the interest of zaggering and writing about something different. But making a stink on, like, Reece Gaines not moving to Orlando, or Zarko Cabarkapa sparkling in Phoenix, is a bit too much like hearing hoofbeats and thinking “zebra”. Again: Sometimes the correct answer is quite simple to see.

Most underrated movement

David West at the Hornets, no. 18

Many teams over the years have made mistakes in catching young people with no established track record, only to discover that a 19-year-old hyper-athletic youngster who cannot read the tusks or remember his rotations can quickly become a 24 year old player. old man who still has the same struggles. West is an example of the potential virtues of going the other way by betting on an older prospect who has already shown what he can do and how he would plan to the next level.

West was a four-year-old college player, entering the project only after graduating from Xavier with a degree in communication, making it one of the oldest board options. But it also made him one of the most decorated players – a triple player of the year for Atlantic-10, and a player of the All-American first team team and the national player of the year of the year. ‘AP as a senior. Some teams have been reluctant to use a first-round pick on a player who would be 23 years old when he made his NBA debut; New Orleans, however, believed that the combination of West’s defensive tenacity, rebound, score in the basket, passed the post and touched the perimeter would translate.

In his third season, West led the Hornets by scoring and bouncing, teaming up with a young dynamite leader named Chris Paul to push the franchise back to relevance. From 2006 to 2011, West averaged 19.2 points, 8.0 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game, winning a pair of star berths and playing a major role in the teams that have played in three playoff games, including the 2007-08 Hornets, who won 56 games and pushed the Spurs to the limit in a seven-game slugfest in the second round.

West’s tenure in New Orleans ended on a negative note, with an ACL tear cutting short in its 2010-11 season; he would continue to sign with the Pacers after the 2011 lockout and would become one of the pillars of a lasting playoff team in Indianapolis. He retired in 2018 after winning two NBA championships with the Warriors, concluding a 15-year career in which he steadily improved teams and earned respect throughout the league as a smart, honest contributor. , solid and reliable. It is close enough to a dream scenario for a choice in the lower half of the first round.

In addition, a special cry to the 76ers landing Kyle Korver at no. 51 in what was to become an infamous night job. As Zach Lowe wrote to Grantland in 2014: “With none of their favorite choices on the board, the Nets’ brass selected Creighton striker Kyle Korver with the 51st choice – and immediately sold his draft rights to the Sixers for $ 125,000. That covered [the cost of New Jersey’s] summer league [team]. With the remaining money, the Nets bought a new photocopier. Korver would continue to shoot just under 41% from the 3-point range over five seasons in Philadelphia – just the first chapter of a 17-year NBA career that continued in Milwaukee when the NBA suspended the game.

“A few years ago, this copier broke down,” said Korver in an opening speech to Creighton last May. “And I still play.”

Best Screenplay

My first thought was by far the most discussed alternative calendar of the 2003 project: What if the Pistons took someone other than Darko? We cover this elsewhere, however, here is another one that I have wondered about a bunch over the years:

And if the Grizzlies had landed no. 1 choice?

As the 1996-97 season drew to a close, “The sour relationship between Pistons forward Otis Thorpe and coach Doug Collins [had grown fractured] irreparable, “wrote Jackie MacMullan of Sports Illustrated. Citing team sources, MacMullan reported that Thorpe, a veteran power striker who was key to the Rockets through their first championship season, “would most likely be traded this summer.” Stu Jackson, desperate enough to stabilize the veterans’ presence for his Grizzlies, has dispatched a future first-round pick to pick up a flyer on the 35-year-old.

It was not that hot: after 47 games, the Grizz sent Thorpe and Chris Robinson to the Kings for Bobby Hurley and Michael Smith. And that really did not go so hot across the board, as a selection protected from our. 2 to 18 continued to drive continuously; “By 2003,” as ESPN’s Brian Windhorst wrote in an oral history of the 2003 project, “the only way the Grizzlies would keep their pick was if it weren’t. 1 overall. “

Memphis entered the lottery with the sixth best chance at choosing first. But when NBA Deputy Commissioner Russ Granik opened the envelope to reveal the no. 6 choices, the card inside featured the Clippers logo, not the Grizzlies, which means Memphis jumped into the top three. And then, no. 3: the Nuggets.

That was it: a coin throw, a 50-50 shot. The Grizzlies would get LeBron James, or they would get nothing.

They have nothing. And Jerry West’s face told the story.

“It was devastating for the franchise not to have that choice,” West told Windhorst. “We were able to build a respectable team after that, but just imagine a player like Mr. James playing for your team. It was incredibly disappointing. “

Remember: this Memphis team shocked the league, winning 50 games in 2003-2004. Imagine if the Grizzlies had LeBron to line up alongside Pau Gasol, with future Heat teammates Mike Miller and Shane Battier on the wing, all 25 or younger. Put Jason Williams – not as eye-catching as he was in his days in Sacramento, but still a table dresser – on the ball, with versatile, athletic and tough pieces like Bonzi Wells, James Posey and Lorenzen Wright. the rotation. How good and how much fun, could this Memphis team have been?

“For some of us, we were filled with anger because we thought,” How could we not protect this draft pick? Remembers West. “With all the good things that have been done in Memphis and where they are today, this franchise could have gone much further. It hurts to think. It was a sad day.”

In all fairness, the Grizzlies could still have pulled away from the 2003 draft in a much better position than if West had hit the first two made to have. Memphis was the owner of our. 13 and 27 choices, exchanged them for the Celtics for our. 16 and 20, and finished with Troy Bell and Dahntay Jones. Jones spent four largely innocuous seasons in the backcourt rotation of Memphis. Bell suffered several knee injuries that led him to play only six games in a Grizz uniform before the team gave it up at the start of the 2004-05 season.

Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered as much; maybe Hubie, and Mike Fratello after him, wouldn’t have spoiled what was a good young front yard. But if Memphis had ended up with, say, David West and Boris Diaw – or a late guard in the first round like Josh Howard, Carlos Delfino or Leandro Barbosa – these mid-decade Grizzlie teams might have had the power of fire to get out of the first round of the playoffs and establish itself as a growing threat in the West, even without LeBron.

If things move differently, does Gasol end up degrading the situation in Memphis and looking for a job? If he doesn’t: does Kobe Bryant ever get his second round of titles in Los Angeles? And if Pau never goes to the Lakers, then Marc Gasol never arrives in Memphis, and maybe the Grizzlies don’t end up with a flying reconstruction around him and Zach Randolph. If this alternate timeline mixes Grit and Grind from the deadly reel, is it really the one that Grizzlies fans would choose? If they end up with LeBron, I guess the answer is always yes. But anything less? It’s an interesting question.

How the Knicks fucked up

Well, they had three of the top 39 choices. Two of their chosen players never recorded a single minute in the Knicks’ uniform during a regular season game. The third only lasted two seasons in New York, and was completely expelled from the league after four. So: not great.

First of all, the two guys who have never been Actually Knicks. The team traded 30th pick, Maciej Lampe, a 6-foot, 11-year-old Polish striker who had impressed in the summer league, just seven months after his draft, in the deal that brought Stephon Marbury home. . (This business, you may remember, included New York’s 2010 first round pick which would eventually become Gordon Hayward.) Knee tendonitis kept 39th pick Slavko Vranes, a project of 7 feet 5 inches from Montenegro, on the sidelines early in his career. Looking for players who could contribute immediately rather than invest in long-term projects, Isiah Thomas gave up Vranes on Christmas Eve, just two days after taking over as New York manager after Scott Layden was sacked .

Still on the board when the Knicks took on two European hopes: Jason Kapono, Luke Walton, Steve Blake, Willie Green, Zaza Pachulia, Keith Bogans, Matt Bonner, Mo Williams, James Jones and Kyle Korver. Difficult things.

The most damaging miss, however, came with the no. 9 choices Layden used on Georgetown star Mike Sweetney. It was a defensible selection: Sweetney was the last in a line of great Hoya quality men, averaging just over 21 points, 10 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game in his last two seasons. on campus, and won the honors of the second All-America team as a junior. But while Georgetown precursors like Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutombo were all legitimate centers with size and athleticism to protect the rim, the 6 foot 8 inch Sweetney was more grounded and heavy and struggled to stay on the ground against the NBA length; he averaged 7.0 points and 4.8 rebounds in 16.8 minutes per game in two seasons in New York.

However, these problems paled compared to what Sweetney faced off the field. In 2015, Sweetney said he had long battled undiagnosed clinical depression; in a later interview with Alex Kennedy from HoopsHypeSweetney said he had attempted suicide after losing his father to a heart attack just before the start of his rookie season. Sweetney turned to food for comfort, which resulted in problems keeping her weight and staying in shape; which continued after being traded to Chicago, and played a major role in Sweetney’s exit from the league before his 25th birthday. (On a positive note, Sweetney seems to be in a good position now, serving as an assistant coach at Division III Yeshiva University in New York.)

Of course, the Knicks would have gotten more for their money if they had taken, say, Nick Collison, a similarly decorated college striker who finished 12th overall in Seattle and spent 14 seasons with the Sonics and Thunder. In this case, however, it is difficult to cast too much blame on the organization for the way things fell apart. Now the way they left Sweetney – in the dramatically destined Eddy Curry trade, who sent the 2006 and 2010 Chicago first round picks that would turn into LaMarcus Aldridge and Joakim Noah? It’s a different story and definitely more Knicksier.