RealGM

After watching tonight's draft, I thought back to the many decades of watching the Bulls make great, mediocre, and outlandish blunders in the draft. However, it seems like as a franchise, the Bulls haven't drafted that well. I would consider the following the best draft years:

1987: Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant (there were others, in this draft but I wouldn't consider them noteworthy)

2003: Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, and Chris Duhon.

Any years missing that would compete with the list above? (Obviously not counting 1984 and 2008)

2011 for sure. We had two late 1sts and landed two of the top 10 players in the draft.

TheSuzerain wrote:2011 for sure. We had two late 1sts and landed two of the top 10 players in the draft.

The only downside of that draft was it enabled the Gar part of GarPax to have a job with the Bulls for like 100 years.

We drafted Mirotic and Butler in 2011. That was an amazing draft, and had we played our cards better they could have both been franchise cornerstones.

2021 :'(

Let’s see: this year? They nailed this draft better than anyone not named the TWolves

Last year? They got what will likely be the third best player in the 2019 draft at #7 lmao. And Gafford projects to be a great backup C, might even do some starting down the road

They don’t draft bad players. Their coaching & developmental staffs were borderline non existent. When the hell are people going to realize this?

8 times out of 10, it’s the team that d*cks the up the kid’s development. It’s not a coincidence that so many lotto picks on Chi/NYC/Phx/Cha etc etc keep on “busting”

This isn’t astrophysics, people

Brand and Artest?

2008 and 2011 were both pretty spectacular.

I would say all that have already been mentioned:

1987/1999/2003/2011.

2020, people are just too busy complaining to notice it.

I make a lot of complaints about this franchise

Drafting has been one area where imo its been more positive than negative.

Even some of the guys we were kind of down on, have to admit they never became stars but they still in the league, McDermott, snell, Portis, James Johnson, guys like Jimmy, taj Gibson, they play well above where they selected in the draft.

This a new regime I'm not totally out on Patrick Williams and who knows maybe he is the steal of the draft that when you look back 5 years from now people will be asking how did so many people pass on him. For our sake I hope PW is holding the rookie of the year next season and seen as a star in a couple years. Even if I don't see that now, this is a situation where I really want to be wrong.

1984

Pound for pound value, I think the 04 draft was one of the best single drafts ever. It's just a shame 05-08 was steady downhill for Pax. Also I acknowledge that Pax was working with a #3 pick in a "two-guy draft." BG won 6moy out the gate.

I admit GarPax were solid drafters, but I refuse to give them credit for the 08-19 stretch. They didn't make any massive clams besides the Doug trade, but they also didn't get any stars besides Rose and Jimmy, which were good picks but also no-brainers (#1, picked hometown hero in a 2-guy draft, and at #30, you're literally getting the last crop of 1st rd talent) that panned out way better than expected.

I started to moan about the Deng pick over Iguodala once extensions kicked in (felt Lu's $80m was an overpay), but honestly, Deng was the better rookie and was developed poorly under Skiles (Thibs saved his career by telling him to step a foot back to the 3P line, lose the weight, and sure enough he was a 2x all-star; fringe, but he made it).

3 big-minute rookies (plus 4 with Noc) contributing to a #4 seed, turning around a super-toxic losing culture? It was still the most ridiculous 1-season turn-around I've ever seen in my life (which wasn't boosted by a superstar FA signing ala Nash/Suns, Lebron/Cavs/Heat, etc.). I know the pickups all free-fell by mid-career, but I thought the parts of that initial team worked because we had the baby twin towers and a strong veteran rotation.

Paxson blew it by going for the home-run; the success of 04 surely made him irrationally confident about the draft. Compromising the 05/06 team (Sweetney and Songaila replaced AD and Curry ) for a FA run in a bad FA class was the mistake. But hey, I was all aboard the Pax train at that point. He seemed to be doing the right thing, and hindsight is 20/20. The lesson of the story was that quantity draft picks don't work out, it's all about the top talent (as Ainge also experienced). But I'd like somebody to find me another draft where one team picked up 3 rotation rookies who helped win games out the gate.

PhilLeotardo wrote:They don’t draft bad players. Their coaching & developmental staffs were borderline non existent. When the hell are people going to realize this?

They whiffed hard with Teague in 2012 when multiple future all stars were still on the board but other than that and their 2nd rounders you're right, by and large GarPax drafted well.

BG/Lu was 2004 - Thanks to Suns hooking us up with that 7th pick. I realize how lucky Pax was in his early days being able to rip off 2 teams for 3 high draft picks and ride off of that and just as that imploded, get lucky again in 2008.

2011 was our last outstanding draft - Jimmy turned into a top 10-15 player which was incredible value at 30. Niko was kind of a bust if we are going off how good he was hype to be, but he had his moments.

2008 was great aswell with Rose over Beasley and Omer Asik in the 2nd round.

dougthonus wrote:2008 and 2011 were both pretty spectacular.

And it's a damn shame the timelines of the stars drafted in those didn't align properly. They should've been making finals runs.

Axl Rose wrote:BG/Lu was 2004 - Thanks to Suns hooking us up with that 7th pick. I realize how lucky Pax was in his early days being able to rip off 2 teams for 3 high draft picks and ride off of that and just as that imploded, got lucky again in 2008.

2011 was our last outstanding draft - Jimmy turned into a top 10-15 player which was incredible value at 30. Niko was kind of a bust if we are going off how good he was hype to be, but he had his moments.

2008 was great aswell with Rose over Beasley and Omer Asik in the 2nd round.

Can't totally blame Phoenix for making that deal. For one, they wanted to maximize their cap space, which they did ( Nash and Q) plus, they were getting our 1st in the following draft. And at the time, we had a 6 year run of drafting no lower than 7th, and weren't projected to be a playoff team. So for phoenix, it was a calculated gamble of rolling over their asset.

TheFinishSniper wrote:1984

This. We are talking about the word "outstanding" which means prominent or standing out from others. It is even better than "great"

Except the messed up part is that 2011 was close to 10 years ago. And we've had a LOT of high draft picks since then.

dougthonus wrote:2008 and 2011 were both pretty spectacular.

Little trivia for you. 3 of the top 10 picks from the 2008 draft.... and 5 of the top 15 from that same draft, all were at one time Chicago Bulls. Can you name them without looking?