Why Was The 2000 NBA Draft So Bad?

Why Was The 2000 NBA Draft Considered So Bad?

When one asks oneself Why Was The 2000 NBA Draft So Bad? One just has to look at the players drafted and realize the wasteland of basketball talent. There are a lot of players taken in the top 15 that flamed out in a spectacular fashion.

For example, Marcus Fizer and Chris Mihm were both top ten picks and neither of them managed to have even an ok NBA career. Fizer played under 300 games and averaged 9.5 points and 4.6 rebounds while Mihm played close to 440 games in 8 years with an average of 7.5 points and 5.3 rebounds.

No member of this draft class ever made a first or second-team all NBA. There are no MVPs, heck there aren’t any players who were considered even an MVP candidate somewhere down the line.

Was 2000 the worst NBA draft class ever?

A lot of people would argue that it was and for very good reasons. When you look at accumulated wins over replacement levels, this draft class as a whole had a rating of 17, which is below average.

In other words, just by being drafted, almost every single player in this draft class made the league worse. There were a lot of tall, long athletic guys that people thought could be the next Garnett. But, sadly for the league, none of them were even 10 percent of what Kevin Garnett was.

The archetypal example was Stromile Swift. Taken second overall, Swift was a hyper-athletic big. Draft scouts thought that at worse he could be a great defender on one end, and a pick and roll monster on the other end, who will get offensive rebounds and put backs on a regular basis. But that didn’t happen, Swift wandered around the league for 9 years and managed to average a measly 4.6 rebounds per game, a number that is too low for someone who is 6 9 and supremely athletic.

Out of the whole draft class, only nine guys average more than 10 points for their career. Out of those nine, only a single player Micheal Redd averaged more than 15. Redd averaged 19 in his career. If he had more luck with staying healthy that number would probably be higher than that. Only three players in this draft class managed to play more than 30 minutes per game. Those three players were Kenyon Martin, Michael Redd, and Desmond Mason.

When you look at the advanced stats the situation gets even bleaker. There are only four players who had a positive box plus/minus. Those four players where Hedo Turkoglu, Michael Redd, Michael Miller, and Kenyon Martin, who barely makes it with a BPM of 0.1 !! Just looking at those numbers names one thinks that this is by far the worst NBA draft class. In addition to that, this will probably go down as one of those rare draft classes where not a single player will be introduced into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Who was drafted in the 2000 NBA Draft?

The original list of the top 10 players drafted in the 2000 NBA draft went like this:

* Kenyon Martin

* Stromile Swift

* Darius Miles

* Marcus Fizer

* Mike Miller

* DerMarr Johnson

* Chris Mihm

* Jamal Crawford

* Joel Przybilla

* Kenyon Dooling

Just looking at those names, there isn’t all that much brilliant basketball talent there. If we were to conduct a 2000 NBA re-draft the list would look significantly different. For example, an NBA redraft for the 2000 NBA draft would look like this:

* Kenyon Martin

* Michael Redd

* Hedo Turkoglu

* Mike Miller

* Jamal Crawford

* Quentin Richardson

* Eddie House

* Desmond Mason

* Jamaal Magloire

* Darius Miles

Kenyon Martin

Kenyon Martin, who was the first pick in the 2000 NBA draft, was also the first pick in our redraft as well. Martin was a very good starting big on a bunch of playoff teams. He along with Jason Kidd and Richard Jefferson helped the then-New Jersey Nets reach the NBA Finals. During his time with the Nets he got his only All-Star appearance. With this time with the Nets, he averaged 15 points and 7.5 rebounds per game.

Michael Redd

Originally drafted 43rd overall, Michael Redd is the best story to come out of this draft, by far. The shooter took the league by storm, starting from his fourth year in the league. Michael Redd got his only All-Star appearance in 2004, which was his breakout season.

If he was more healthy towards the end of his career he could have had a much better second part of his career. Redd was a great shooter, close to 40 percent for three in his career.

He is one of those players who would have thrived in today’s league, where there is a much greater volume of threes taken. If he came along six or seven years later he would have been a multiple-time All-Star for sure. From 2004 to 2008 he was close to 24 points per game.

Mike Miller

Miller is one of the greatest three-point shooters of all time. For his career, he averaged more than 41 percent for three. In addition to that, he was the NBA Sixth Man of the Year in 2006. He was also the Rookie of the year for this abysmal draft class. he had five seasons in his career where he averaged more than 15 points per game.

Jamal Crawford

One of the most beloved and enticing players that have played in the league in the last 20 years. Crawford was on a ton of teams. For the most part, he was a spark plug off the bench, who could get you points when you needed them. He won the NBA Sixth Man of the Year award on three different occasions.

Notable Mentions

Hido Turkoglu was a good second man for the Magic and he won the NBA Most Improved Player of the Year in 2008. Jamaal Magloire is the third player in this draft class who was featured in an All-Star Game.

Conclusion

The 2000 NBA Draft class will surely go down as one of the worst that ever was. When teams enter the draft, they hope to get a transformative talent, but in drafts like this one that was simply impossible. When the fifth player in our redraft is Jamal Crawford, a solid off the bench guy who can score, you know just how poor the overall quality in this draft was.

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