Who is the worst Sixers draft choice of the last 15 years?
I presume the majority of people would answer Shawn Bradley, given the hype that came with him and the fact that if they had played their cards right, they could have gotten Webber instead, as Don Nelson was in love with Bradley.
But if you ask this fellow, I will argue Larry Hughes. This selection is why Larry Brown should never even be allowed in a building where a NBA draft war room is, let alone the room itself. The Sixers were coming off their second season with Allen Iverson, their first with Brown as the coach. It had become painfully obvious that Iverson was a shooting guard in the body of a point guard, which is why Jerry Stackhouse was shipped out of town. While Brown had not figured out how to properly use Iverson, he had learned that they could not build the team with Iverson as the PG and another slashing guard at the 2. Right?
Wrong. Sort of. Even as Paul Pierce made a monumental slide from a potential Top 3 pick to being available to the Sixers at 8, and even despite Billy King raving about this blonde kid from Germany who could shoot lights out, some guy named Nowitski, Larry Brown made the decision that Larry Hughes was the perfect back court partner for Iverson. Hughes would be a tall point guard and Iverson would be an undersized shooting guard. The only problem? Hughes wasn't a point guard. He was a 19 year old, slashing shooting guard who jump out of the gym but couldn't shoot.
So while Paul Pierce and Dirk Nowitski became two of the top 15 players in the NBA in a few short years, the Sixers kept trying to jam the square peg into the circular hole with the Iverson/Hughes back court. Until the finally came to the conclusion that it wasn't going to work, and shipped Hughes out for Toni Kukoc.
And the decision that Larry Brown made on that fateful June evening in 1998 probably cost the Sixers at least one NBA championship, if not more. But hey, at least Jim and I got to see Larry Hughes throw out the first pitch at a Phillies game after he was introduced to the local media. So all was not lost.
I presume the majority of people would answer Shawn Bradley, given the hype that came with him and the fact that if they had played their cards right, they could have gotten Webber instead, as Don Nelson was in love with Bradley.
But if you ask this fellow, I will argue Larry Hughes. This selection is why Larry Brown should never even be allowed in a building where a NBA draft war room is, let alone the room itself. The Sixers were coming off their second season with Allen Iverson, their first with Brown as the coach. It had become painfully obvious that Iverson was a shooting guard in the body of a point guard, which is why Jerry Stackhouse was shipped out of town. While Brown had not figured out how to properly use Iverson, he had learned that they could not build the team with Iverson as the PG and another slashing guard at the 2. Right?
Wrong. Sort of. Even as Paul Pierce made a monumental slide from a potential Top 3 pick to being available to the Sixers at 8, and even despite Billy King raving about this blonde kid from Germany who could shoot lights out, some guy named Nowitski, Larry Brown made the decision that Larry Hughes was the perfect back court partner for Iverson. Hughes would be a tall point guard and Iverson would be an undersized shooting guard. The only problem? Hughes wasn't a point guard. He was a 19 year old, slashing shooting guard who jump out of the gym but couldn't shoot.
So while Paul Pierce and Dirk Nowitski became two of the top 15 players in the NBA in a few short years, the Sixers kept trying to jam the square peg into the circular hole with the Iverson/Hughes back court. Until the finally came to the conclusion that it wasn't going to work, and shipped Hughes out for Toni Kukoc.
And the decision that Larry Brown made on that fateful June evening in 1998 probably cost the Sixers at least one NBA championship, if not more. But hey, at least Jim and I got to see Larry Hughes throw out the first pitch at a Phillies game after he was introduced to the local media. So all was not lost.
1 comment:
I was going to nominate Sharone Wright, but when you look at all the awful players drafted after him in '94, it looks like the Sixers were screwed no matter what.
The truly worst Sixers' first round pick, at least in my lifetime, is Leo Rautins in 1983. Although you don't expect much from the 17th overall pick, he had a 32 game NBA career and scored a TOTAL of 48 points. If he had even been a decent bench player maybe they could have won one more championship. Actually, almost all of their early-80's draft picks had no NBA careers. It's amazing they finished first or second in their division 15 out of 16 years from 1975-1991 with very few good draft picks.
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