Shareef Abdur-Rahim and the '96 Draft

[fatlever]

I found myself in a debate yesterday about Shareef Abdur-Rahim and the 1996 draft. The debate was regarding how the Grizzlies pick of Reef should be viewed historically.

Opinion A:
Picking Reef 3rd in the 2006 was a “terrible”, ‘awful”, “horribly sucky” pick. It was a “massive fail” and the Grizzlies GM should have been “raked over the coals” for selecting Reef at #3.
The reasoning behind these claims is as follows: Reef was picked 3rd, however, he clearly was not the 3rd best player in that draft and therefore the pick should be considered a terrible pick. He was overrated and put up stats on a bad team. He only made one All-star game and that was in a weak conference. “You won’t find any Grizzlies fans who like the decision” to draft Reef.

Opinion B:
It is agreed that Reef wasn’t the 3rd best player in that draft if we look back on it 17 years later, however, he was certainly was not a “terrible” pick. It was a good pick, not great. Reef had 5 very productive years in Vancouver averaging close to 20ppg and 8rpg during that time, including one season at 23ppg and another where he put up 20 and 10. He once finished in the top 20 in 13 different categories. He was immediately good from year one, but never was able to become a true franchise player. Reef was a quiet, laid back player by nature. He wasn’t flashy. He didn’t have highlights plastered on Sportscenter and he played in a small market on a bad team. He would have been best served as a #2 option behind a true franchise player. He got no help from the rest of that roster thanks to Reeves not being able to stay healthy and picks like Antonio Daniels and Stomile Swift falling well short of expectations. Even after the Grizzlies decided to part ways with Reef his value netted the Grizzlies a #3 pick which was used to select Pao Gasol. Reef went on to make an All-star game with Atlanta before eventually slowing down to injury problems.

In hindsight Reef was probably somewhere in the 6-12 range of best players in what turned out to be a loaded draft (albeit one littered with a ton of busts in the 7-20 range). Kobe, Iverson, Nash, Ray Allen and undrafted Ben Wallace all went on to have noticeably better careers. Reef would fall in the tier with guys like Camby, Marbury, Stojakovic, Jermaine ONeal and Antoine Walker. Iverson and Camby were off the board when the Grizzlies picked. In the ranged of where they picked Ray Allen would have probably been the best choice in hindsight, that much should be agreed upon. However, can anyone really blame the Grizzlies for not selecting Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash or Ben Wallace? Does the fact that these 3 players, drafted well after Reef, turned out to be better, make the pick of Reef “terrible’? As for the others – Stojakovic stayed in Europe for 3 years after being selected. It would be impossible to justify a top 3 pick on a player who wouldn’t play for your team for 3 years, especially a 2nd year expansion team. Jermaine ONeal took 6 years before he became an impact player. Reef already had five 20ppg seasons by that point. Would it have been worth waiting for ONeal, a player whose peak isn’t really that much better than Reef’s peak? Can you blame the Grizz for not selecting an unproven high school shooting guard, Kobe, who clearly did not want to play outside of a few select markets? Does every team in the draft who picked ahead of the selection of Kobe also get a “terrible” grade?

If grading that draft today, the selection of Reef should be somewhere in the B range, not “terrible”, “awful”, “massive fail”

I’d rather not say which opinion is mine, but I will give you a hint, its not opinion A.

What are the thoughts of the PC board on this debate?

[Texas Chuck]

I think it was a perfectly fine pick at the time and not so bad by any means to rake them over the coals in hindsight either.

[wallsfamily]

I am then and will forever be a Shareef fan. On a team with a hybrid forward and a defensive minded big + a shooter he would have been a better player with them. In Atlanta we were happy with his career and until injury a fringe all star. Of course in retrospect he was drafted in front of three hall of famers but so was Camby.
Z

[tsherkin]

Not awesome return for his slot, but not by any means a bust.

I align wih opinion B. Biggest draft-day oversights IMO were the next two picks, Marbury and Allen (in reverse order, tho). Others fell or were not rated that highly for one reason or another. Hindsight is lovely, but Shareef was a defensible pick at that slot and I thought Ray Ray was the only egregious error Vancouver made that draft.

[Durins Baynes]

Drafts are assessed in hindsight. That's the only way to assess it. You can factor in mitigating factors (like Oden's injury, or Jay Williams motorcycle accident), but almost every bad pick or trade can be justified on a "yeh, it made sense at the time" logic.

[Langdon Alger]

Drafts are assessed in hindsight. That's the only way to assess it. You can factor in mitigating factors (like Oden's injury, or Jay Williams motorcycle accident), but almost every bad pick or trade can be justified on a "yeh, it made sense at the time" logic.

All except Kwame Brown, and Olowakandi. The Brown one still confounds me.

[Durins Baynes]

If picks were assessed based on what mock drafts said, then who needs scouts? Just read the mock drafts around the web, and do what they say. Seriously, this "he was said to be rated such and such" is a cop out excuse. We have no idea what is being said in the war room for these teams, or what their top scouts are telling them. It's fun for us to speculate, but the idea we should assume we know who they really thought was good based on mocks is absurd.

[Texas Chuck]

Drafts are assessed in hindsight. That's the only way to assess it. You can factor in mitigating factors (like Oden's injury, or Jay Williams motorcycle accident), but almost every bad pick or trade can be justified on a "yeh, it made sense at the time" logic.

of course they are assessed in hindsight, but if you dont factor in the thinking at the time the picks were made you are doing it very very wrong.

Take the 98 draft where Dirk and Truth go 9, 10. It was obvious how good Truth was and him falling so far goes to how measurables tend to take the day over basketball playing ability, but Dirk was a crapshoot. You cant go back and kill every pick (cept maybe Vince) now and think you are doing anything worth doing. Donnie Nelson believed in Dirk(and if you believe the Celtics--they did too) but basically no one else did. Heck the Bucks were willing to add value to have Tractor Traylor instead.

Or the 97 draft--Duncan was obviously a no-brainer but then 6 spares and Chauncey rolled off before TMac. But he was a high-school kid so you can see why some of those others were taken ahead of him.

You have to look back, but you also have to look at the realities of what was then. Killing a team for not taking Kobe would be stupid especially considering his position at the time.

[Durins Baynes]

There's evidence you can invoke to show how a guy was unknown, and that can mitigate the bad decision sure. But you still have to evaluate a pick based on how it turned out, that's what the millions of dollars of resources teams have are for- to know stuff we don't know, and you don't find on some mock draft site.

I don't know why you mention Kobe, let's not act like Shareef was taken 1 pick too high or something. This was a guy taken way too high. Nor were guys like Kobe totally unknown- sure, a lot of teams had no access, HS scouting wasn't as good, and he threatened to play overseas. But I'd still be very harsh on the teams who worked him out and decided not to take him. In particular, Philly, the Clippers and the Nets should be crucified for not taking him. The Nets should have called his bluff, and Kobe actually was happy to play in Philly or LA (2 of the only markets he was happy with). There were, what, at least 8-9 guys better than Shareef that draft? Kobe, Ray Allen, Iverson, Marbury, JO, Nash, Peja, Camby and Z-Ill. Yes, he was a big mistake, in a draft where most prospects were not hidden from the Grizzlies view (sure, Kobe was, but other than that...)

[Langdon Alger]

If picks were assessed based on what mock drafts said, then who needs scouts? Just read the mock drafts around the web, and do what they say. Seriously, this "he was said to be rated such and such" is a cop out excuse. We have no idea what is being said in the war room for these teams, or what their top scouts are telling them. It's fun for us to speculate, but the idea we should assume we know who they really thought was good based on mocks is absurd.

Agreed, but it also should be said that there are a lot of "Yes-Men" in the team's front offices. If a higher up wants a guy and makes clear his intentions, the scouts and assistants often back him up. That is what happened with Kwame Brown, with a bunch of yes-men going with the great MJ. Also the reverse of what happened with the Heat. Riley was all in on Kaman in 2003, and if it wasn't for Randy Pfund who vehemently disagreed and dared to challenge his boss (obviously he backed up his talk with contacting Grover and Tom Crean) things would have turned out very different for the Heat as we currently know them. He eventually left the organization, don't know the reason but he was always reported by the local media as someone who always spoke his mind. That's not the best way to stay in an NBA organization, long term.

Nepotism and "yes-men" are rampant in the NBA. If you don't believe me just see who MJ has on his payrole in Charlotte currently. His brother is VP of "something", and one of his sons is also on his payrole. Yet Bobcats fans will have you believe, the state of their organization has very little, if anything to do with MJ.

[fatlever]

i guess you guys figured out who opinion A is? it rhymes with burins dayes

[fatlever]

I don't know why you mention Kobe, let's not act like Shareef was taken 1 pick too high or something. This was a guy taken way too high. Nor were guys like Kobe totally unknown- sure, a lot of teams had no access, HS scouting wasn't as good, and he threatened to play overseas. But I'd still be very harsh on the teams who worked him out and decided not to take him. In particular, Philly, the Clippers and the Nets should be crucified for not taking him. The Nets should have called his bluff, and Kobe actually was happy to play in Philly or LA (2 of the only markets he was happy with). There were, what, at least 8-9 guys better than Shareef that draft? Kobe, Ray Allen, Iverson, Marbury, JO, Nash, Peja, Camby and Z-Ill. Yes, he was a big mistake, in a draft where most prospects were not hidden from the Grizzlies view (sure, Kobe was, but other than that...)

yay, here we go again.

shareef taken "way too high" "big mistake".

how do you manage to put everything in terms of absolutes? cant shareef be a good pick, not a great one? cant he be a draft grade of B rather than the F it seems you would give the pick?

how about something more reasonable like "the grizzlies would have been better off takning ray allen. allen was a proven 3 year college star from a big program. he was a high character player that would have been an excellent player to built a second year expansion team around"

how can you suggest the grizzlies should have taken peja in that draft. peja wasnt coming to the NBA for a few more years. he was drafted in 96 and didnt come over until 99. do you really think a 2nd year expansion team should have burned a top 3 pick on a player who wouldnt even play for them for another 3 years?

perhaps they reach like crazy and select jermaine oneal who is thrust into a starting job as an 18 year old immature kid. he crumbles under the pressure and never reaches his all-star levels. oneal sat on the bench for 5 years before he broke out. i think its a massive leap of faith on your part to think that he would have been an impact player for the grizz early in his career. as i mentioned before, reef had five 20ppg seasons before oneal broke out.

[Eoghan]

Shareef was a really good player. Only Ray Allen was maybe a better pick at the time. I don't see Peja making All-Star teams on the craptastic roster of the Vancouver Grizzlies and Kobe was so young, to be on a bad team might not have ended up as well either. Nash was super unknown, can't ignore hindsight on that one, and honestly Nash wasn't that great until he started playing Nellie ball and the 7SOL D'Antoni Suns.

[Doctor MJ]

I think it was a perfectly fine pick at the time and not so bad by any means to rake them over the coals in hindsight either.

Yeah it's no crazy pick. Clearly if you knew then what you knew now you don't even consider him at the 3rd spot, but nobody thought that was clear cut until years after the draft.

People are pretty ridiculous with how they judge GMs on drafting. Unless a GM goes way out on a limb he's basically just doing what others would do. Sure you'd like him to do more than that, but it hardly makes sense to call a guy an idiot for being par for the course.

[Masigond]

Abdur-Rahim was a 21/8 player in college (from a program that brought Kidd, Kevin Johnson and Lamond Murray to the NBA in the 10 years before Reef) and he obviously was able to produce from the get-go.
In hindsight Nash became the much better player but don't forget that he was booed by Suns fans at the draft, he was a backup in Phoenix (so he obviously wasn't that great a pick for that team other than trading him for a draft pick that became Shawn Marion), and even in Dallas he needed another three years to become an undisputed starter. Kobe was an 18 year old high school kid in an era when there had only been one other player coming directly from high school before for the last 20 years, and while Garnett showed a lot of promise in the second half of his rookie season, he wasn't a bonafide star yet. So picking Kobe with the 3rd pick was seen as risk (and would he have played in Vancouver or forced a trade?). Antoine Walker was more versatile and more talented but he was neither a better college player nor a better NBA player.
Jermaine O'Neal? Another high school kid who needed a couple of years to become a better player than Reef.
Peja? A 19-year old Euro player in an era when NBA teams signed only older and more experienced foreign players (Divac was the youngest. But still 2 years older than Peja at the time of the draft), and he played in Europe for another two years. The Dirk era with unproven Euro players coming to the NBA had not yet begun.


So in 1996, Abdur-Rahim was no bad pick. The Grizzlies were an expansion team in their second year who needed capable players to produce as soon as possible. So did Reef for the next five years with the team.
Maybe Marbury or Allen would have been a bit better over the years, but they wouldn't have made the Grizzlies a contender either. And they arguably would have left after a couple of years, too. So, my opinion is clearly B.

[Warspite]

Going off of memory the 96 draft was considered pretty weak but the addition of the super freshman phenom realy added to the depth of the draft. He started as a pick in the 5-10 range and then moved up as workouts progressed.

These drafts had GMs obsessed with finding the next K Malone and every PF was pretty hyped. He was one of the first 1 and done players and that IMHO is the reason for his high draft status. Add in the fact that he played in a notoriusly bad basketall conferance with no competition and you can see how he was over hyped.

His biggest weakness was his lack of explosiveness and length.


Call him a bust but if he played today he might be better than LMA.

[trex_8063]

I lean toward option B. Knowing Kobe or Nash would turn into franchise players back in 1996 would have been near clairvoyant (and either one probably would have drawn criticism if selected #3 in 1996).