Busts picked top-5 in the draft

[Infinite Llamas]

He’s salvaged his career and become a decent role player. When you’re the #1 overall pick and that’s all you are, you’re a bust.

Nobody cares about his phony All-Star selection.

he's way more than a decent role player

Is he really? His offense is below average and he still shoots too much. Poor passer and rebounder. His best attribute is being a 6'8 athlete you can throw at star wings and not get embarrassed on D. Which is fine, but not good enough when you're the top prospect in the nation and the #1 overall pick.

If Wiggins were still on the Wolves would this even be a debate? He's getting the Curry bump in efficiency and he still isn't even that good.

Replace Wiggins with the guy he was traded for (Russell) and Golden State doesn’t come close to beating the Celtics. That’s how important Wiggins was that series. His rebounding and defense on Tatum was insanely impactful. Curry has one less ring if he never got Wiggins.

[Capn'O]

Interesting analysis. I think the method/stats need some change. In general, there is a busts in the top 3 picks every year. GMs seems to always find a Darko or luck out of a Len Bias. Just did some spot check of the 90s and I think we need some tinkering with the method.

Right. As I said, BPM is one of the many ways we could do this kind of analysis and one of the problems is that most of the players you listed are borderline cases(both in the sense of busts and studs). Gill was 0.1 for his career and Abdul-Rauf was -0.8 but also hurt by a quick dropoff and bad seasons at the beginning and the end of his career. Gill also benefits from BPM punishing below average defenders severely. Daniels is at exactly 0.0 and LaFrentz at 0.7

Bradley is a mistake. He finished at -0.2 so he should be a bust in the table.

Camby is a complicated case. BPM aside, I ask myself if he was a bust or not. Remember that this was around the time where it was widely accepted that you could build a franchise around a defensive-minded center, and that perhaps you should build a franchise around that kind of a center if given a chance. Camby was a DPOY and made several All-Defense teams. He also lead the league in blocks 4 times, and back in those days of non-shooters and teams packing the paint, blocks were much more valuable than today. Camby's legacy is probably hurt by the lack of team success, as he never made it past the first round of playoffs in his last 13 years in the league. So I don't know. He didn't have a great career, but was he a bust?

As mentioned, BPM loves him because he was an elite defender in the days of low-scoring ball. He is not a borderline case at all, he's at 2.3 for his career. That's a little bit higher than say, Peja from the same draft.

Your methodology generally favors role players who landed on good teams over more dynamic players who didn't. I like the effort though and it really goes to show how difficult building through the draft is. Bottom line, your approach catches real stars and winning players in its net.

Huge Camby defender here. In his prime he could really impact a game with his defense and ability to run the floor. I'm glad he made the cut even if he's more of a high end winning role player than true stud. I was surprised at Thompson who played with LeBron a fair amount and was a good complimentary player to him wouldn't have a plus bpm but not too torn up about him.

[SomeBunghole]

Your methodology generally favors role players who landed on good teams over more dynamic players who didn't.

I've noticed that too, but I guess winning makes everyone look better.

Or perhaps, we should look at it this way: if you're putting up huge numbers on a bad team and your advanced stats look bad, maybe this is telling us you're part of the reason the team is doing badly.

[zero rings]

he's way more than a decent role player

Is he really? His offense is below average and he still shoots too much. Poor passer and rebounder. His best attribute is being a 6'8 athlete you can throw at star wings and not get embarrassed on D. Which is fine, but not good enough when you're the top prospect in the nation and the #1 overall pick.

If Wiggins were still on the Wolves would this even be a debate? He's getting the Curry bump in efficiency and he still isn't even that good.

Replace Wiggins with the guy he was traded for (Russell) and Golden State doesn’t come close to beating the Celtics. That’s how important Wiggins was that series. His rebounding and defense on Tatum was insanely impactful. Curry has one less ring if he never got Wiggins.

Maybe. I don't know that because it didn't play out that way. Tatum couldn't hit a shot against anyone in that series so I'm not sure it would have mattered. Maybe Russell in his place gets hot from 3 and they win anyways.

Either way Curry's ring count has nothing to do with how good of a player Andrew Wiggins is. Dude was the most hyped prospect for years, went #1 in the draft and became an average player, at best. You're telling me you would be happy if your team drafted a player like him #1 overall?

Next we'll be saying Markelle Fultz isn't a bust.

[Pachinko_]

Wiggins is not a bust...wow people are weird - dude is a major contributor on a championship team. Played great defense in that playoff run too. Was the primary player in Minny but minny has been like a death trap to careers and it doesn’t make sense.

The hate is is weird

But it's not important if he was a bust or not overall in his career.
What is important to this discussion is if he was worth the investment to the team that drafted him. You could argue he probably wasn't.

[SomeBunghole]

I expected heated discussion over some of the player, but not Wiggins. It's crazy that he's been in the league for 9 years, and the best people claiming he's not a bust can come up with is one decent season or one good playoff series.

He was the number one pick. This is the pick that's supposed to change everything. The pick you use to get a guy who's going to being a franchise cornerstone and determine the course of your team's future for at least a decade.

It's like Anthony Bennett convinced people that unless you're as bad as him, you're not a bust.

[greekman]

Is he really? His offense is below average and he still shoots too much. Poor passer and rebounder. His best attribute is being a 6'8 athlete you can throw at star wings and not get embarrassed on D. Which is fine, but not good enough when you're the top prospect in the nation and the #1 overall pick.

If Wiggins were still on the Wolves would this even be a debate? He's getting the Curry bump in efficiency and he still isn't even that good.

Replace Wiggins with the guy he was traded for (Russell) and Golden State doesn’t come close to beating the Celtics. That’s how important Wiggins was that series. His rebounding and defense on Tatum was insanely impactful. Curry has one less ring if he never got Wiggins.

Maybe. I don't know that because it didn't play out that way. Tatum couldn't hit a shot against anyone in that series so I'm not sure it would have mattered. Maybe Russell in his place gets hot from 3 and they win anyways.

Either way Curry's ring count has nothing to do with how good of a player Andrew Wiggins is. Dude was the most hyped prospect for years, went #1 in the draft and became an average player, at best. You're telling me you would be happy if your team drafted a player like him #1 overall?

Next we'll be saying Markelle Fultz isn't a bust.

wiggins was the mvp of the finals series. get it right

[TimberKat]

Interesting analysis. I think the method/stats need some change. In general, there is a busts in the top 3 picks every year. GMs seems to always find a Darko or luck out of a Len Bias. Just did some spot check of the 90s and I think we need some tinkering with the method.

Right. As I said, BPM is one of the many ways we could do this kind of analysis and one of the problems is that most of the players you listed are borderline cases(both in the sense of busts and studs). Gill was 0.1 for his career and Abdul-Rauf was -0.8 but also hurt by a quick dropoff and bad seasons at the beginning and the end of his career. Gill also benefits from BPM punishing below average defenders severely. Daniels is at exactly 0.0 and LaFrentz at 0.7

Bradley is a mistake. He finished at -0.2 so he should be a bust in the table.

Camby is a complicated case. BPM aside, I ask myself if he was a bust or not. Remember that this was around the time where it was widely accepted that you could build a franchise around a defensive-minded center, and that perhaps you should build a franchise around that kind of a center if given a chance. Camby was a DPOY and made several All-Defense teams. He also lead the league in blocks 4 times, and back in those days of non-shooters and teams packing the paint, blocks were much more valuable than today. Camby's legacy is probably hurt by the lack of team success, as he never made it past the first round of playoffs in his last 13 years in the league. So I don't know. He didn't have a great career, but was he a bust?

As mentioned, BPM loves him because he was an elite defender in the days of low-scoring ball. He is not a borderline case at all, he's at 2.3 for his career. That's a little bit higher than say, Peja from the same draft.

Wanted to add that it's a very interesting analysis and agree with most of your findings. I forgot Camby did have a few good years in DEN (only remember TOR and NYK).

I think we do need to ask, what should be the minimal expectation of a NBA #1 pick (Given all the discussions around Wiggins)? Is it a few all star games, a +4BPM, scoring title, DPOY?

[SomeBunghole]

I think we do need to ask, what should be the minimal expectation of a NBA #1 pick (Given all the discussions around Wiggins)? Is it a few all star games, a +4BPM, scoring title, DPOY?

That's a tough question. I created this thread because I wanted to use one of the advanced stats to try and quantify what a bust is. Obviously, the other way to look at it is expectations and subjective perception of whether a player is a disappointment or not. I found it interesting that for me personally, there wasn't some egregious discrepancy in the way I saw these players versus how BPM sees them.

Same goes for the studs. I would say that from a subjective standpoint, my expectations for a number one pick would be to turn the franchise around. It doesn't have to be a 35-win swing like David Robinson immediately provided for the Spurs(though people like to forget they also added a top-15 player in Cummings), but there should be some immediate improvement. I'd also like to think it should be long-lasting.

I know this is unfair on someone like Rose, who won only two playoff series with the Bulls and who had his ATG career ruined by injuries, but I think it's a fair question to ask(in retrospect, of course) if the Bulls would've have been better off drafting Westbrook. Ben Simmons is also in danger of becoming a bust because three seasons of good basketball from a #1 pick isn't enough.

On the other hand, I'd like to think that Yao wasn't a bust, despite a very early end to his career. He brought China to NBA fandom, he made a bad Rockets team a feature in the playoffs, and he was a top 15-20 player in the league for at least 5 seasons.

I guess what I'm saying is that a good number #1 pick for me is someone you can build a team around. That doesn't necessarily mean #1 option on offense, it just means it's someone whose skills are valuable enough that you get other players based on how well they mesh with that guy.

[TimberKat]

I think we do need to ask, what should be the minimal expectation of a NBA #1 pick (Given all the discussions around Wiggins)? Is it a few all star games, a +4BPM, scoring title, DPOY?

That's a tough question. I created this thread because I wanted to use one of the advanced stats to try and quantify what a bust is. Obviously, the other way to look at it is expectations and subjective perception of whether a player is a disappointment or not. I found it interesting that for me personally, there wasn't some egregious discrepancy in the way I saw these players versus how BPM sees them.

Same goes for the studs. I would say that from a subjective standpoint, my expectations for a number one pick would be to turn the franchise around. It doesn't have to be a 35-win swing like David Robinson immediately provided for the Spurs(though people like to forget they also added a top-15 player in Cummings), but there should be some immediate improvement. I'd also like to think it should be long-lasting.

I know this is unfair on someone like Rose, who won only two playoff series with the Bulls and who had his ATG career ruined by injuries, but I think it's a fair question to ask(in retrospect, of course) if the Bulls would've have been better off drafting Westbrook. Ben Simmons is also in danger of becoming a bust because three seasons of good basketball from a #1 pick isn't enough.

On the other hand, I'd like to think that Yao wasn't a bust, despite a very early end to his career. He brought China to NBA fandom, he made a bad Rockets team a feature in the playoffs, and he was a top 15-20 player in the league for at least 5 seasons.

I guess what I'm saying is that a good number #1 pick for me is someone you can build a team around. That doesn't necessarily mean #1 option on offense, it just means it's someone whose skills are valuable enough that you get other players based on how well they mesh with that guy.

If people are debating if Wiggins is a bust, Yao cannot be considered a bust. Not counting his first and last year (all star), he still made 6 all star games, over .500 shoot, 9.2 reb, 19pt over 7 years.

[Fencer reregistered]

If you go and sort players by minutes per game and keep only the ones that are rotation players (ie they average something like 20 mins or so) and look where they have been drafted. You'll find that most lottery picks are not even rotation players within a 10 year span from their draft year.

Drafting is an extremely unreliable way to rebuild, you can tank for years and years and have little to nothing to show for it. But to be fair the alternatives are also very difficult, basically you have to fleece somebody in a trade.

Yup last part is true. But I'd slant it the other way: only super luck lets you be a contender without a fairly lengthy rebuild (like 3 or more years), and rebuilding is generally the best (and often only) option to get your way towards contending despite how tough draft odds are. Nothing's close to guaranteed but the rebuild odds are a lot better than the odds for the 'wait around for the perfect late draft pick or random other luck' option.

Let's consider that. Which teams have become contenders in recent years, and how did they get there?

Celtics -- hitting on Top 5 picks, plus decent execution otherwise.
Nuggets -- hitting huge on a 2nd-rounder but also making an excellent Pick #7, plus decent execution otherwise.
Bucks -- hitting huge on Pick #15, getting Middleton as a trade throw-in, plus decent execution otherwise.
Sixers -- getting many Top 5 picks and hitting on one of them.
Heat -- it's complicated. Hitting big on #14 and solidly on #13 certainly helped.
Lakers -- FA in a magnet city.
Nets -- Ditto.
Suns -- hitting very big on Pick #13 was the key.
Clippers, if you think they've been contenders -- it's complicated, but super-high picks had little to do with it.
Grizz, if you think they've been contenders -- hitting on Top 5 picks plus good execution.
Mavs, if you think they've been contenders -- Top 5 pick Luka

[CobraCommander]

Wiggins is not a bust...wow people are weird - dude is a major contributor on a championship team. Played great defense in that playoff run too. Was the primary player in Minny but minny has been like a death trap to careers and it doesn’t make sense.

The hate is is weird

But it's not important if he was a bust or not overall in his career.
What is important to this discussion is if he was worth the investment to the team that drafted him. You could argue he probably wasn't.

The team that drafted him won a ring because of him...

They traded him for prime love and they won a ring - he was worth it

[CobraCommander]

Ask yourselves this. If your team had the first pick in the draft and a decade later the player picked had the career of Wiggins, would you be disappointed?

As a wizards fan....I say no...

He helped Cleveland win a ring in the trade for love and contributed as the second most important person on the GSW in their run...so...

[SomeBunghole]

Well, I may get an infraction for bumping my own thread from 4 months ago, but has anyone changed their opinion on whether or not Wiggins is a bust?

[HeartBreakKid]

Being a solid starter, even on a championship team, is not worth the #1 pick in a draft.

Is it worth the #5? Not really either. Even if many top 5 picks are worse than Wiggins, the idea of a top 5 pick is to get a player who at a minimum is a perennial all-star.

Wiggins is a one time all-star, and I would argue he should not have been one, or rather was never a top 30 player in the league which is more so what an all-star should represent (often guys get in because they're contributing to winning teams as opposed to being really good themselves).

Generally speaking, most one time all-stars are not really all-stars (Mo Williams, Jeff Teague, etc).

Wiggins is not a bust...wow people are weird - dude is a major contributor on a championship team. Played great defense in that playoff run too. Was the primary player in Minny but minny has been like a death trap to careers and it doesn’t make sense.

The hate is is weird

But it's not important if he was a bust or not overall in his career.
What is important to this discussion is if he was worth the investment to the team that drafted him. You could argue he probably wasn't.

The team that drafted him won a ring because of him...

They traded him for prime love and they won a ring - he was worth it

Lol, you're basically saying the Cavs won a ring based off his hype and not any of his ability. The Timberwolves are obviously the guys who essentially valued him as a #1 and they got nothing from him.

[GrandTheftRondo]

Well, I may get an infraction for bumping my own thread from 4 months ago, but has anyone changed their opinion on whether or not Wiggins is a bust?

He's a bust and has been for ages.

People putting way too much stock into a guy showing up big in one series in a ten year career.

This season is only proving even further what a bust he is.

[Knightfall]

I think it's a good reminder for a lot of fans (ones who get demanding about their franchises tanking), that it's not that uncommon for a draft to have 3-4 meh picks in the top 5. It's pretty common, at least by how you're measuring it.

If your team is tanking majority of its players are men. Haha. But you are absolutely tanking and draft picks doesnt guarantee anything. But it does give you opportunity. Good or bad.

[dennythedino]

Maybe not a bust, but Wiggins is definitely an underachiever. In the Jeff Green/Harrison Barnes/Tobias Harris/Rudy Gay tier.

He's essentially Marvin Williams with a ring.

[kcktiny]

How is Darrell Griffith. the consensus college player of the year who had a solid 10 year NBA career with 37 playoff game appearances, a bust (#2, 1980)?

Well college player of the year is irrelevant and he was a shooting guard who couldn't shoot. (.509 career TS% on very high usage)

Missed a whole year despite only lasting 10. Never averaged even 20 PPG in a playoff run and declined pretty fast after his first five seasons (injury). Not a terrible career but for a #2 pick that would be considered somewhat of a bust

He was the second pick of the draft and by the time Stockton and Malone got good, he was only 29 and the Jazz were starting Bobby Hansen over him. Is this what you expect of a #2 pick?

Darrell Griffith his first five years in the league scored the third most points (8362, 21.0 pts/g) among all the league's SGs. Only George Gervin and World B. Free scored more. He scored more points than did Sidney Moncrief, Jim Paxson, Andrew Toney, or Otis Birdsong. Missed just 2-3 games a season, was the 1980-81 ROY.

He was also at that time the league's preeminent 3pt shooter, attempted by far the most 3s those 5 seasons among all players. Hit them at 33%, which you can laugh at now, but back then those 5 seasons the league average 3pt FG% was just 26%. In 1984-85 he alone hit more 3pters (92) than did 2/3 of the teams in the league.

So he did not have an NBA HOF career. So he got replaced as a starter in his 6th season. I can think of a lot worse 2nd overall draft picks. He was far from being a bust.

[jazzfan1971]

Guys. He's using an objective measure for busts.