NBA: Royce White worst first round pick ever?
- Thread starter cmjh10
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I understand that on a strict contribution vs. $ paid basis he's probably at or near the top of the list. As others have pointed out, however, you have to consider who a team passed on to draft the guy. Go back and look at that 2012 and tell me what great asset the Rockets missed out on by taking a flier on Royce? Was he lost money and a bit of an embarrassment for them? Yes. But tell me how that pick is worse than taking Yi Jianlin when you could have had Joakim Noah, Arron Affalo, or Jared Dudley. Is it worse than taking Johnny Flynn with the 6th pick (after already drafting Rubio) when Steph Curry, Ty Lawson and Jrue Holliday were still available (and that's only looking at other PG's). There have been lots more bone-headed moves made with more valuable picks than taking Royce at #16.
And to expand on that, Morey can talk about whiffing on that pick all he wants, but I think it's pretty obvious that even if Royce, or whoever they hypothetically drafted instead of Royce, had turned into a league average forward, he still would have ended up as a random piece of salary moved around to make the James Harden trade or Dwight Howard signing work. That was always their end game.
Yep, no matter how Royce would have panned out they needed to move his salary to get the space to sign Howard. Although it did end up costing them the rights to an international prospect to get the 76ers' to take his cap hit even though they were paying his full salary.
I don't really see why Daryl Morey felt compelled to pile on a guy who's already out of the league. Yeah, a lot of Royce's problems were self inflicted and he didn't exactly keep things professional during his time with the Rockets, but this strikes me as a bit of a cheap shot.
I think it was more about Morey, in a weirdly roundabout way, making sure everyone knew what a smarty-pants GM he is.
If that's what he was trying to say then he sure went about it in bizarre fashion.
"The reason we've had so many crappy drafts is because we're not afraid to swing for the fences."
Morey was a heartbeat away from getting fired before the Thunder idiotically decided to dump James Harden for peanuts. Before that he basically treaded water for several seasons and collected assets with no particular long term plan.
Did Royce ever take any cheap shots at Rockets management on twitter? Rhetorical question.
I think he feels vindicated now that he had the right plan all along: sacrifice everything in order to position yourself to eventually sign a superstar. Make that head-scratching trade solely to acquire players that will be tradable or easily unloaded. Take the guy with the red flags because he might turn into a marquee player, instead of the guy guaranteed to be a career solid bench contributor.
I think he's trying to say that they might have looked like crappy drafts, but they made sense within his long-term plan.
I hate to say it but our own Marcus Fizer was a rather large bust.Other notable Lottery busts:Adonal FoyleMichael OlowakandiAdam MorrisonPatrick O'BryantMichael Beasley?Joe AlexanderHasheem ThabeetEkpe UdohJimmer FredetteMeyers LeonardJust to name a few.
Oh Michael Olowakandi. I spent so much time as a kid convincing myself that you were a good player for the T-Wolves because you had been a #1 pick.
The candy man can!
Except he never did.
T-Wolves passed on Antawn Jamision, Vince Carter, Dirk Nowitzki, and Paul Pierce.
One thing the T-wolves didn't do was trade Dirk Nowtizki to the Mavs for Robert Tractor Traylor. One of the worst draft day trades ever by the Milwaukee Bucks. Idiots.
Wolves didn't draft him (They picked Rasho Nesterovic at #17 that year, so still not a great draft). We picked him up as a free agent long after he was already a bust for the Clippers. I just had it in my head that it was all because he played for the Clippers and he would be much better surrounded by KG, Spree, and Sam Cassell. He was not.
Yeah, God forbid the GM of a multimillion dollar organization take the high road.
Oh yeah, don't know why I thought it was the T-Wolves. The Clippers have had horrible drafting acumen.
God forbid a guy making millions of dollars for zero on-court production keep his mouth/keyboard shut.
Rockets GM calls Royce White worst 1st-round pick ever, because you never pick a white in the 1st round of an NBA Draft.
The Fake ESPN (@TheFakeESPN) https://twitter.com/TheFakeESPN/statuses/428964926003376129
The Fake ESPN (@TheFakeESPN) https://twitter.com/TheFakeESPN/statuses/428964926003376129
