RealGM

Howard Mass wrote:The Magic should have picked Danny Granger. I thought that the moment they picked him and till this day.

drsd wrote:

Howard Mass wrote:The Magic should have picked Danny Granger. I thought that the moment they picked him and till this day.

I guess many here are too young to recall the RealGM arguments on this pick. Pre-draft, the names we discussed were largely:
Sean May, Joey Graham, Danny Granger, and Gerald Green.

Frankly all of those player evolved in to be worthy of a tenth pick. From memory: I recall most here liked Gerald Green. And that would have been a high-value selection.


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Max Power wrote:Worst draft pick in our history bar none.

UCFJayBird wrote:Yea I think I was on the Green train. I've never been so outraged at a pick. I remember just screaming "WHO?!" because we had literally never discussed the guy.

I also recall our outrage when we learned that neither Smith nor Twardzik had ever spoken/interviewed Vazquez before the draft. They just assumed he'd come over, and I think the talk was that other teams had him lower on the board because of that very reason, they didn't think he intended to come play in the NBA right away (though I don't know if anyone thought he'd never come)., I seem to recall that his talent was late lottery worthy, but to pick a foreign player in the 1st round, let alone the lottery, without having spoken to him was so mindnumbingly stupid.

*sigh* Pretty funny that we never gave up his cap hold either. Basically our way of ensuring he never played in the NBA (unless in a Magic jersey).

drsd wrote:

UCFJayBird wrote:Yea I think I was on the Green train. I've never been so outraged at a pick. I remember just screaming "WHO?!" because we had literally never discussed the guy.

I also recall our outrage when we learned that neither Smith nor Twardzik had ever spoken/interviewed Vazquez before the draft. They just assumed he'd come over, and I think the talk was that other teams had him lower on the board because of that very reason, they didn't think he intended to come play in the NBA right away (though I don't know if anyone thought he'd never come)., I seem to recall that his talent was late lottery worthy, but to pick a foreign player in the 1st round, let alone the lottery, without having spoken to him was so mindnumbingly stupid.

*sigh* Pretty funny that we never gave up his cap hold either. Basically our way of ensuring he never played in the NBA (unless in a Magic jersey).

Well we can play a what-if game based on his European stats.
i) he is the EuroLeague all-time leader in blocks and the Spanish League all-time leader in blocks; so he would have been a good rim protector in the NBA.
ii) he won a bunch of titles, so he likely would have competed hard.
iii) his PPG and RPG stats were not-good to very-poor on teams where he was expected to be a key contributor.

In conclusion, looking backwards, he looks like he would have emerged as a Khem-Birch type player.

SO: even if he had come to Orlando: he would have sucked.



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UCFJayBird wrote:Easily the worst draft pick in Magic history if you ask me. There were other busts and players who we expected more out of that didn't work out, but combined with the sheer lack of due diligence from management this is #1 for sure.

drsd wrote:

UCFJayBird wrote:Easily the worst draft pick in Magic history if you ask me. There were other busts and players who we expected more out of that didn't work out, but combined with the sheer lack of due diligence from management this is #1 for sure.