NLL Insider - Top 10 picks in the 2005 – 2014by CarlSpackler, updated on Monday, June 19 2017, 01:46 am EST With each draft, every team has visions of landing their
next star. In fact, many teams will sacrifice a season in order to land a spot
in the lottery. But as many are painfully aware, a lottery pick is by no means
a guarantee that a star will be found. Maybe not even a starter. NLL GMs follow
the NBA draft closely, poring over the various mock draft sites to determine
which players will be the next ones to take the league by storm. As one might expect, the NLL draft fairly closely mirrors
the NBA draft. But some NLL GMs will take a flyer and diverge from their real
life counterparts. So, do those flyers pay off, or would they have been better
off sticking to the choices made in the NBA? We examined 10 years of drafts
and, since it takes a few seasons for players to really show how well they’re going
to fare in the league, the most recent draft we looked at was the 2014 draft.
Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the top 10 picks in the 2005 – 2014 drafts. *Bold players
indicate they’ve been selected to the NBA All-Star game or All NBA Team. 2005 Overall, 2005 was not a great draft in terms of star
players. Chris Paul is really the only one in the draft who has established
himself as a superstar. There are a handful of others who’ve made it to an
All-Star game or were named to an all NBA team – Andrew Bogut, Deron Williams,
and even Andrew Bynum made one. In the NBA, CP3 was taken 4th. The
NLL didn’t see the same magic in him, as Utah, opted for Channing Frye instead.
And Chris almost slipped out of the top 10 until Seattle selected him at #9. NBA GMs +1.
2006 In the 2006 draft, Charlotte was not on the Bargnani
bandwagon, rejecting the example set in the NBA draft. Instead, they wisely
chose LaMarcus Aldridge, while Bargnani slipped to 4th. Another
smart move by an NLL GM was San Antonio’s choice to select Rudy Gay with the 5th
pick, even though he slipped to 8th in the NBA. While he may not
have been selected to an All-Star or all NBA team, he’s been a very good NBA
player throughout his career. Brandon Roy was the immediate star post-draft
but, unfortunately, injuries derailed his career prematurely. Unfortunately,
nobody in the NLL or the NBA was able to see that Adam Morrison was going to be
such an ineffective pro player. NLL GMs +1.
2007 Unfortunately, neither Portland in the NBA or Atlanta in the
NLL were able to predict that Greg Oden was made of glass. The rest of the top
10 was very similar with picks 1-4 being identical between the leagues. The
rest of the picks varied only slightly. There were 4 big stars in this draft
and it was clear who they were. Both were too similar to call a winner.
2008 Scouts were pretty unanimous in their assessments at the
time that Derrick Rose was the clear #1 in this draft. But NLL’s Golden State
GM said scouts be damned and selected Michael Beasley. While Beasley hasn’t been
bad, he never seemed to reach star status. Rose became the star that scouts
predicted he’d be, though injuries have tempered that. The UCLA boys, Russell
Westbrook and Kevin Love went 4 and 5 in both leagues, but they just swapped
places. Both still stars, though Westbrook is the one true superstar of this
draft. In a brilliant bit of foresight, Sacramento didn’t agree with the NBA’s
selection of Danilo Gallinari and instead chose Brook Lopez. NBA wins on the Rose move, but NLL wins on Lopez. We’ll call
it a tie.
2009 Big credit is due to the NLL GMs in this year’s draft. For
some reason, the NBA and various other sources were high on Hasheem Thabeet.
The GMs of the NLL recognized that nonsense for what it was. Utah instead
selected James Harden with the #2 pick. Unfortunately, Thabeet didn’t slip too
far, and was eventually picked up with the 5th pick. Some of bits of
wisdom from the NLL was picking up Steph Curry at #6 (he went 7th in
the NBA) and DeMar DeRozan at 8 (9 in NBA). NLL wins this one big. ++1
2010 The NLL made a few smart moves in the 2010 draft and one
glaring error. The Bucks wisely grabbed Boogie with the 4th pick
while the while the Timberwolves in the NBA opted for Wesley Johnson with their
#4 pick. And Atlanta was not deterred when Gordon Hayward went 9th
in the NBA. The Hawks instead grabbed him at #6. But the big error sits down at
the #10 spot in the NBA. With that pick, the Pacers selected Paul George. With
the 10th pick in the NLL, San Antonio selected Ed Davis. The 11 – 14
picks all went by as Ekpe Udoh, Patrick Patterson, Larry Sanders, and Xavier
Henry were grabbed before Paul George’s name was announced, heading to
Sacramento at #15. Two slightly smarter picks by the NLL, but the NBA gets the
+1 only because George fell as far as he did.
2011 This was a pretty similar top 10, with one fairly notable
exception. Kemba Walker wasn’t grabbed until #9 in the NBA, but Chicago’s GM
saw something the potential in Walker and grabbed him with the 6th
pick in the NLL. Two guys who should have been top 10 selections but,
unfortunately, neither league was able to anticipate how good they’d become,
were Klay Thompson (11th in NBA and NLL), and Kawhi Leonard (15th
in NBA, 13th in NLL). For the Walker selection, NLL gets the +1.
2012 Anthony Davis was an obvious #1 in 2012. But the rest was
fairly uncertain, which is probably why there was such a variance between the
two leagues. Outside of #1, no other pick in the NLL was the same as the pick
in the NBA. Damian Lillard was selected #6 in the NBA, but was passed over by a
few teams and Philly was ecstatic to
grab him at #10. Chicago did make a pretty smart move, grabbing Harrison Barnes
with the 4th pick, despite the fact that he didn’t go until #7 in
the NBA. We’ll call this one a wash.
2013 2013 was a fairly underwhelming draft. Though, to be fair,
we are getting into the timeframe where players haven’t yet had the opportunity
to fully show what kind of players that may or may not be. Though a number of
players have already shown that they are not going to be much. The Sixers had
the first pick in this year’s NLL draft and were smart to see that Anthony Bennett
was a pile of hot garbage. Unfortunately, they took a gamble by selecting Ben
McLemore who hasn’t yet done too much in the league. But credit goes to the
Thunder in this draft by seeing the potential in C.J. McCollum and picking him
at #5, even though he didn’t go until #10 in the NBA. NLL +1
2014 This was viewed as a pretty loaded draft and, though it’s
still early, some players are showing that they are clearly going to be stars,
if they aren’t already. There wasn’t much difference between the two leagues.
Players shuffled by 1, maybe two spots, but that was about it. Not enough difference to determine a winner here.
So what does this tell us as we head into the 2017 draft?
Absolutely nothing. Some years, the NLL GMs have diverged from what happened in
the NBA and it worked out very well. Other years, they’ve diverged and gotten
burned. So, the lesson here is that, barring a few exceptions, the draft is
largely a crapshoot. Best of luck to all you in landing the next NBA star. Luck being the operative word here. |
Archive· Nenjabin's (too nice) Draft Grades · Top 10 picks in the 2005 – 2014 · NLL Draft: Top 10 Player Reviews |
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