The "The Last Dance" Thread

The draft has become a bit of a joke. It you look at the last 20 years, for instance, the top pick has ended up as the best player only like six or seven times. All-Stars are often found outside the lottery. Look at last years AS rosters. Almost half were not lottery picks.

 

In 92, they picked Byron Houston at 27. The best three players taken after him were P.J. Brown, Matt Geiger and Popeye Jones. (Also Sean Rooks)
In 93, they picked Corie Blount at 25. The best three players taken after him were Nick Van Exel, Bryon Russell and Lucious Harris
In 94, they picked Dickey Simpkins at 21. The best 3 behind him were Wesley Person, Charlie Ward, Voshon Leonard. (also Michael Smith, Howard Eisley)
In 95, they picked Jason Caffey at 20. The best 3 behind him were Michael Finley, Eric Snow, Greg Ostertag. (also Travis Best, Fred Hoiberg, Andrew DeClercq)
In 96, they picked Travis Night at 29. The best 3 behind him were Malik Rose, Shandon Anderson and Othella Harrington. (Also Jeff McInnis)
In 97, they picked Keith Booth at 28. The best 3 behind him were Stephen Jackson, Anthony Johnson and Alvin Williams. (Also Marc Jackson and Mark Blount)

 

See, I looked earlier when they had all the picks.

86 - 9th - Brad Sellers (ugh) - Johnny Dawkins, Salley, John Williams, Berry (St. J), Curry were the next picks.
87 - Pippen year
88 - 11th Perdue (meh), two picks ahead were Seikely (dang) and Willie Anderson, Grant's brother, Grayer, Majerle (dang), Gary Grant came off next.
89 - 6th King (meh, but it was a shit fest at the top of this draft), Nick Anderson (dang), Mookie (dang), Tim Hardaway (dang), Kemp (dang) were all still on the board.
89- 18th pick BJ (decent) but Vlade (dang) went next.

They just kept missing on centers. I mean they won championships like crazy, but if they get Seikley or Vlade, and Mookie or Hardaway, there is no Last Dance.

 

I did the years I listed because those guys would have been the next generation -- the 24-29 year olds to suppliment for the 1998-99 and beyond. But they never really got a chance to draft one of those guys. If they had gotten Finley or Van Exel then it might have been a different story.

 

Jason Caffey was at least an All-Star at planting his seed. By one report, he went onto have 10 kids with eight women.

 

"Almost half" not being lottery picks means that "almost half" -were- lottery picks, though. I don't know. I'm always willing to give teams a pass if a guy gets hurt, and obviously, there are tiers to this - If you have a top three pick, you probably want an All-Star level player. (If you look at the list of NBA MVPs, it's pretty much all lottery picks.) If you have a late lottery pick, you're probably happy with a good starter. Anything past that, and you probably just want a guy who can be a rotation piece. Some picks are obviously bad the second they happen though, like Anthony Bennett to the Cavs.

 

I’m not an NBA fan so I don’t know. What made Bennett a bad pick from the jump? He’s from my hometown so I take a natural interest in that whole story. I know he was a bust but didn’t know he was considered a bad pick at the time.

 

Bennett’s year was a horrible year to have the top pick. No one was standing out and no one knew the Greek kid would develop the way he did.

He did look like a potentially very good pro from his college game, but I guess he just didn’t handle the NBA life or step up in ability of opponents well.

 

It’s 9 p.m. on Sunday night, and they are saying “fuck” on tv like it’s nothing. I’ve said it at least a dozen times today, and I’m not a big church man, but I don’t think that’s OK.

 

Fuck that. Those mother fuckers can go home if they ain’t with us.

 

The cigar story was good.