This offseason, NBA FanHouse will address important questions about the league. It will be a Summer of Answers. First up: the biggest draft busts of the decade.
Unless you're a fan of the Toronto Raptors or a huge NBA Draft
When you look back at the 2004 draft, everyone taken in the first seven picks before Araujo turned out to be productive NBA (or Euroleague) players. Well, except for Shaun Livingston who had the gruesome knee injury two seasons ago. But that's no biggie, right? The talent level could have simply dropped off after that point, and Araujo could have been the first on a long list of disappointments who just happened to be drafted eighth overall. Unfortunately for him (and the Raptors), this was a very deep draft.
Players selected after Rafael (pronounced "HA-f-eye-ell" if you believe NBA.com) include Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, J.R. Smith, Kevin Martin, Sasha Vujacic, Beno Udrih, Anderson Varejao, Pape Sow ... just seeing if you were still paying attention. The point is this: when a player is selected with the number eight pick, with this much talent still on the board, and his career averages over three seasons are under three points and three rebounds a game, I don't know if "bust" is a strong enough word to describe his NBA status.
Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ooo, that hurts....why'd you have to remind me?? WHY!?! damn it....
You missed the guy who went right after, Igoudala! Who everyone KNEW was going to be better. This guy was the reason the Raptors were ruined under the Babcock era.
Indeed I did! My bad, I guess I was too focused on including Pape Sow.
I still remember Raptor fans getting on me after I put this up:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/2005/06/24/gallery.nbabusts/content.1.html
"He's only had one year! You can't call him a bust!"
That's awesome. Sometimes one year is all you need to see.