Anthony Bennett

[KilgoreTrout]

When all is said and done, people will vigorously debate whether Bennett or Larue Martin was the worst #1 overall in NBA history - Larue Martin, who averaged 5 and 4 over 4 seasons with the Blazers.

 

[Man Called X]

Should've drafted Steven Adams

 

[Nightperson]

I'm just glad he's off the Cavs, nearly forgot he even existed till we played Minn. Crazy how many factors can change the whole landscape of the NBA with how the lotto is. For example if we landed Davis, who knows if we'd even have had cap space for LeBron.

 

[cavsLTU]

Another classic example of player who comes to NBA to early.Remember reading article which said that he was just a boy in grown man's body.He was to raw and definitely not ready for big boys game, later he have lost his confidence and it was over. You will never know maybe he would have had great career if he stayed in university for couple more seasons.

 

[mAo_mAo]

I think we are all aware that CG is a trade God but a draft day shitfest. Unless, of course, it was ownership who made the picks.

 

[Jack Brickman]

I guess the follow up question would be why they decided bennett would be the anointed one? I really liked oladipo and Noel from that draft, and if I remember correctly, Gilbert had a huge boner for oladipo. I guess we unfortunately liked dion too much at the time, and bennett on paper would provide skills that Tristan didn't have.

Mother of science was he a horrendous draft pick.

Well, at the time Dion was coming off a decent rookie season and looked like he could be a solid player in the NBA given time and development. It's just unfortunate that he was too hard-headed to develop here.

 

[KilgoreTrout]

nt

 

[KilgoreTrout]

Looking back at the 2013 draft, I'm not sure if there is a single player drafted under the top 20, who is contributing less. It's quite amazing.

 

[Phills14]

Let's stop looking at history with 20/20 glasses here. I believe Max when he said Grant had a deal lined up and higher ups squashed it. He's dropped that nugget I believe a few times over the years.

The reality was we had the number 1 pick in a bad draft. It was viewed as a bad draft then and it's probably viewed as an even worse draft now. Grant knew it.

Here are the guys that were in serious contention for the #1 pick.

Nerlens Noel: Probably the front runner until he blew out his knee. He has all the athletic ability you want and absolutely no bulk. Risky pick all the way given his injury history and significant questions about his ability to compete physically. He was going to miss significant time if not the entire season (which he did) and the upside just wasn't that high. 100% agree why they passed.

Otto Porter: He was a solid player at Georgetown but not a game changer. Really nothing about him said he was going to be an elite player in the NBA.

Alex Len: A true 7 footer with skill. He needed to bulk up but he had the frame to do it. He was a gamble though given his injury history. Big men with a history of lower body injuries is a terrible combination. He was injured during the workout process so even then he couldn't prove his ability to stay healthy.

Ben McLemore: Sweet shooting guard with a lot of athletic ability. He would look nice next to Kyrie and really a solid choice at the time. Problem was he had Dion on the roster. Still with a draft like this, you either trade out or get the best player possible regardless of position.

Victor Oladipo: A combo guard with the 1st pick in the draft. That's the bottom line. He's a small shooting guard and a guy who didn't have the skills to play PG. Great effort, Great defender, Great athleticism and a developing shot. However, he just doesn't have a position in the league. I was very much ok not going with him at #1.

Anthony Bennett: Kind of an out of the box guy but *GOING INTO THE DRAFT* probably the guy who projects to be the most NBA ready. Like Oladipo, he's a guy without a position but projects as a PF in the line of a Charles Barkley. You look at his body and the fact that he dominated college competition and can make a strong case going into the draft that he had the lowest bust potential as well as the ability to be the strongest out of the gates of anyone in the draft. I didn't mind the pick at all because he seemed to have a pretty solid risk/reward ratio. Obviously, looking at it 2 years later that's pretty far from the truth but all the other guys listed ahead aren't really lighting the world on fire either.

The draft was terrible and still to this day there isn't a #1 pick in any of these guys. In the moment, I wanted them to trade out out and still get Bennett in the 5-8 range but I was ok with the pick if he was the guy they thought was going to be the best pro.

So yea Bennett might go down as one of the worst #1s if not the worst of all time but in the moment he was a surprise but a surprise that most people could accept given the strengths/weakness of everyone else.

 

[supermario21]

Phills, I agree. It's funny that drafting Bennett was seen as a "win-now" pick (which we were in at that point hilariously enough) when it's turning out that he might be the biggest project of them all.

 

[Douglar]

I don't have any links, but iirc, Ben McLemore got some pre-draft red flags because of his off court associates. It was a bad year to win the lottery, because the talent didn't get higher at the top of the draft, but the salary and expectations did.

I'm just glad that Bennett isn't a Cleveland problem any more. Things looked mildly promising for him last Feb when Mike Brown got him to buy into being a role player for a while, but I lost all hope during the summer league play last summer. Fundamentals were garbage. He does OK when he's got a clear physical advantage, but ...

Seems only the wizard of oz can save his career now because he's coming up short in the brain, a heart, and courage departments.

 

[Maximus]

Let's stop looking at history with 20/20 glasses here. I believe Max when he said Grant had a deal lined up and higher ups squashed it. He's dropped that nugget I believe a few times over the years.

The reality was we had the number 1 pick in a bad draft. It was viewed as a bad draft then and it's probably viewed as an even worse draft now. Grant knew it.

Here are the guys that were in serious contention for the #1 pick.

Nerlens Noel: Probably the front runner until he blew out his knee. He has all the athletic ability you want and absolutely no bulk. Risky pick all the way given his injury history and significant questions about his ability to compete physically. He was going to miss significant time if not the entire season (which he did) and the upside just wasn't that high. 100% agree why they passed.

Otto Porter: He was a solid player at Georgetown but not a game changer. Really nothing about him said he was going to be an elite player in the NBA.

Alex Len: A true 7 footer with skill. He needed to bulk up but he had the frame to do it. He was a gamble though given his injury history. Big men with a history of lower body injuries is a terrible combination. He was injured during the workout process so even then he couldn't prove his ability to stay healthy.

Ben McLemore: Sweet shooting guard with a lot of athletic ability. He would look nice next to Kyrie and really a solid choice at the time. Problem was he had Dion on the roster. Still with a draft like this, you either trade out or get the best player possible regardless of position.

Victor Oladipo: A combo guard with the 1st pick in the draft. That's the bottom line. He's a small shooting guard and a guy who didn't have the skills to play PG. Great effort, Great defender, Great athleticism and a developing shot. However, he just doesn't have a position in the league. I was very much ok not going with him at #1.

Anthony Bennett: Kind of an out of the box guy but *GOING INTO THE DRAFT* probably the guy who projects to be the most NBA ready. Like Oladipo, he's a guy without a position but projects as a PF in the line of a Charles Barkley. You look at his body and the fact that he dominated college competition and can make a strong case going into the draft that he had the lowest bust potential as well as the ability to be the strongest out of the gates of anyone in the draft. I didn't mind the pick at all because he seemed to have a pretty solid risk/reward ratio. Obviously, looking at it 2 years later that's pretty far from the truth but all the other guys listed ahead aren't really lighting the world on fire either.

The draft was terrible and still to this day there isn't a #1 pick in any of these guys. In the moment, I wanted them to trade out out and still get Bennett in the 5-8 range but I was ok with the pick if he was the guy they thought was going to be the best pro.

So yea Bennett might go down as one of the worst #1s if not the worst of all time but in the moment he was a surprise but a surprise that most people could accept given the strengths/weakness of everyone else.

Nice post.

Noel was red flagged because of his knee and frame.
Len was diagnosed with the Z/Yao feet problem and was red flagged.
McLemore went to the Chicago combine with someone that raised a massive red flag...looking deeper they realized his handlers were all bad dudes.
Porter they thought had a very low upside.
It came down to Bennett and Dipo.

It wasn't that Grant just thought there was no #1, he also didn't think there was anyone worthy of going Top 7. That's why he pushed the idea of trading down so hard. When he was told "no", he went with Bennett over another combo-guard in Oladipo. Oladipo is putting up some nice numbers on a real shitty team. Put Dion in his position and i bet Dion averages 20+. Oh well...i'm glad the Bennett saga is over. Still hope it clicks for him some day.

 

[Randolphkeys]

2013 really was the draft of unspectacular role players. A future fringe starting big here, followed by a few role players, back to another group of solid but limited centers. I wonder if anyone out of that group will surprise us in the next two or three years and prove they are more than a 20 minutes a game contributor?

 

[Phills14]

I don't have any links, but iirc, Ben McLemore got some pre-draft red flags because of his off court associates. It was a bad year to win the lottery, because the talent didn't get higher at the top of the draft, but the salary and expectations did.

I'm just glad that Bennett isn't a Cleveland problem any more. Things looked mildly promising for him last Feb when Mike Brown got him to buy into being a role player for a while, but I lost all hope during the summer league play last summer. Fundamentals were garbage. He does OK when he's got a clear physical advantage, but ...

Seems only the wizard of oz can save his career now because he's coming up short in the brain, a heart, and courage departments.

Yea I thought there was something to that but I didn't recall fully so I left it out of my recap.

 

[Taiter]

Any idea who the target was of the trade down involving the #1 pick?

When it comes to bad #1 picks, let's not forget the candy man. Kwame Brown was also a massive disappointment given his press clippings, although he did hang around for years as a mediocre role player.