A little draft history lesson
Those who jump to conclusions not looking before they leap
by Truman Reed / special to Bucks.com
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| John Hammond took West Virginia forward Joe Alexander with the 8th overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft. (Getty) |
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June 30, 2008
MILWAUKEE -- Once upon a time, the National Basketball Association Draft may have been best described as an internal allocation of available talent, orchestrated by team executives behind the closed doors of small meeting rooms or by conference call out of league headquarters in New York.
Over the years, it has morphed into a reality television show and a soap opera rolled into one, broadcast over a five-hour span to legions of viewers worldwide and bookended by prequels and sequels of analysis and critique.
Every one of the spectacle’s characters, his family members and his friends are fair game to have their celebrations and agonies exposed for all to see in a place called The Green Room.
The backdrop, more often than not, is a live audience of greater New Yorkers. They can usually be counted on to provide a soundtrack of boos and catcalls regardless of the choices their local teams make during the proceedings.
Each of the 60 selections that is made is scrutinzed by a panel of TV analysts.
These cognoscenti become most entertaining when some franchise ventures outside the box and drafts a prospect whose name and biography weren’t included in the 200-plus page primer the league put together to save them time and effort. The frantic scrambling that ensues is tailor-made for live TV.
Within seconds, these gurus have to determine where in the world between Timbuktu and Katmandu said prospect honed his skills.
They stamp him with a number between one and five.
They put him on a pedestal ranging from Manute Bol to Muggsy Bogues and on a scale somewhere between Oliver Miller and Earl Boykins.
And they attempt to ascertain whether his career will more closely parallel that of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Sofoklis Schortsanitis.
And before, during and after the main event, sports-talk pundits and their audiences speak their onions with regard to all of the characters in this colossal cast. They foresee how their comings and goings will impact their teams and affect their own lives in the weeks, months and years to come.
Intrigue will always have its magnetism, but anyone who has followed the history of the NBA Draft since its more low-profile days can testify of just how futile all of the annual hubbub and cynicism that now surrounds it truly is.
For instance, if all the players bearing the names called by the Milwaukee Bucks on draft nights spanning 1994 through 2007 had made it into the same scorebook and onto the floor wearing Bucks jerseys together, here’s who would have comprised the Bucks roster over the past 14 seasons:
At forward …
Glenn Robinson, selected by the Bucks with the No. 1 pick in the 1994 draft
Gary Trent, taken by Milwaukee with the 11th selection in 1995
Jeff Nordgaard, who starred at UW-Green Bay under coach Dick Bennett, with the 53rd pick in the second round in 1996 (with a choice dealt from the Los Angeles Lakers through Seattle);
Danny Fortson, a familiar figure to local Marquette fans after his All-American career as a bruiser at the University of Cincinnati, as a first-rounder at No. 10 in 1997;
Jerald Honeycutt, another former MU nemesis, out of Tulane with the 39th selection in 1997;
Dirk Nowitzki, a 20-year-old from Wurzburg, Germany whom many NBA execs considered a reach, with the ninth pick in the first round in 1998;
Pat Garrity, a 6-9 jumpshooter out of Notre Dame, taken 10 picks after Nowitzki in 1998 with a pick obtained from Cleveland;
Andre Hutson, who had helped Michigan State win the NCAA championship the previous year, with the 52nd selection in the second round in 2001;
Marcus Haislip, the first Southeastern Conference player chosen in 2002, with the 13th pick in the first round out of the University of Tennessee;
Szymon Szewczyk, a 6-10 phenom deemed one of the best European prospects in his age group, out of Braunschewig, Germany, with pick No. 35 in 2003;
Ersan Ilyasova, an 18-year-old Turk with a high ceiling who had been playing professionally since age 15 in Europe, with the 36th choice in 2005;
David Noel, a member of North Carolina’s national championship team of 2005 and the winner of the slam dunk contest at the 2006 Final Four, with the 39th selection in the second round in 2006;
Yi Jianlian, a five-year veteran – and 2006 Finals MVP -- of the Chinese Basketball Association and a member of the Chinese National Team, with the sixth selection in the first round in 2007.
At center …
Eric Mobley, whom the Bucks chose with their second first-round pick in 1994, via Orlando, at No. 18 overall;
Rashard Griffith, from 80 miles to the west and the University of Wisconsin (from New Jersey via Orlando), with the first of their two second-round picks in 1995, No. 38;
Jason Collier, a 7-footer who had bailed out on Bobby Knight and landed successfully on his feet at Georgia Tech, with the 15th pick in the first round in 2000;
Dan Gadzuric, a former McDonald’s All-American high school player, out of UCLA with the 34th pick (via Houston) in the second round in 2002;
Andrew Bogut, Australia native and the consensus college player of the year, taken with the first overall pick in the 2005 draft out of the University of Utah.
At guard …
Voshon Lenard, a former University of Minnesota sharpshooter, taken by the Bucks in the second round in 1994, via Orlando, with pick 46;
Eric Snow, selected five picks after Griffith in 1995 with a pick obtained from Boston;
Stephon Marbury, an All-American out of Georgia Tech tabbed by Milwaukee with the fourth overall choice in the first round of the 1996 draft;
Moochie Norris, out of little known West Florida, with pick No. 33 in 1996;
Rafer Alston, who had become a New York City playground legend as a teen before playing collegiately for Jerry Tarkanian at Fresno State, with the 39th selection in 1998;
Galen Young, another former Marquette rival, drafted out of UNC-Charlotte with the 48th pick in 1999;
Michael Redd, who had become an all-Big Ten Conference performer at Ohio State in his native Columbus, Ohio before sliding to the second round and the 43rd pick in 2000;
Jason Hart, with a pick from Charlotte, drafted six selections after Redd at No. 49 in 2000;
Ronald Murray, a small-college scoring machine out of Shaw (N.C.) University, with pick No. 42 in the second round in 2002;
T.J. Ford, who had quarterbacked Texas to the Final Four several months earlier, with the eighth choice (via Atlanta) in 2003;
Keith Bogans, once a big-time prep phenom out of Washington, D.C., out of the University of Kentucky with the 43rd choice in 2003;
Ramon Sessions, who in three seasons became the No. 2 assists man in University of Nevada history and helped lead the Wolf Pack to three straight NCAA Tournament appearances, with the 56th pick (from Houston) in 2007.
The records will show that of these 30 players, nearly half (14) never appeared in a regular-season game with the Bucks.
Nine others played fewer than 82 regular-season games in a Milwaukee uniform.
And six spent just one season on the Bucks roster.
If you were to research other NBA teams’ draft histories, you would discover many similar sagas.
So to those distressed Chicken Littles of “Buckdom” (maybe the appropriate spelling is “Buckdumb”) who have been wondering out loud if John Hammond and Scott Skiles are planning to start five forwards and bring several more off the bench in the team’s 2008-09 season opener, please relax.
Learn a lesson or two from history.
And let Milwaukee’s new general manager and coach continue to take care of business.
They have done a more than commendable job of that so far.
