Whenever the NBA draft is close there are many that talk about the biggest possible draft picks. Unfortunately, not all first picks were huge successes. In many cases they were just huge flops. However, some flops are much larger than others. This is what we will highlight below, marking the huge NBA draft flops that were completely unexpected, according to an analysis from online-casino.ie.
Huge NBA Draft Flops You Won’t Believe Happened
LaRue Martin – Portland Trail Blazers 1972 – Draft Pick 1
Out of all the NBA number 1 draft picks Martin is the one that most likely had the least productive basketball career. Over 4 years of playing his average was just 5.3 points per every game. The only “good thing” to mention is the entire 1972 draft was pretty lousy. With just 41.6% shot accuracy from a 7 footer the draft of LaRue Martin remains a history as a very unexpected flop.
Greg Oden – Portland Trail Blazers 2007 – Draft Pick 1
Maybe the Portland Trail Blazers should not have a first draft anymore. In 2007 the big choice was between Kevin Durant and Greg Oden. With literally all scouts praising the qualities that Oden had in college basketball nobody blamed Portland’s team. However, a series of knee injuries took out the promising prospect. This is unfortunate since when he played he did show the makings of a superstar. Unfortunately, at the end of the day only controversy remained.
Michael Olowokandi – Los Angeles Clippers 1998 – Draft Pick 1
Making Olowokandi draft pick number 1 was a shocker and his career was nothing really special to talk about. He played for 10 seasons and his stats were not impressing, with 45% shooting and 8.3 ppg. Eventually Michael Olowokandi did become a really good shot blocker but given the fact he was first pick, the result was a disaster. He was actually drafter before the likes of Vince Carter or Dirk Nowitzki. Both would have been better choices, like so many of the other options.
Darko Milicic – Detroit Pistons 2003 – Draft Pick 2
Nobody will fault you if you know nothing about Darko Milicic. He was heavily billed by general managers and scouts as the following Dirk Nowitzki but the result was a season where he rarely played. Thankfully, the Detroit Pistons did win that year, surely not because of him. What is really interesting is that he did play around ten seasons, all without showing why he was considered as the second NBA draft pic. 6 points per game all across the career is definitely not a great stat.
Sam Bowie – Portland Trail Blazers 1984 – Draft Pick Number 2
By now it should not be a surprise that a draft pick by Portland Trail Blazers is considered as the worse ever. Bowie was another center that missed 2 seasons after leg stress fractures. In 5 years he only got to play 139 games. Then he moved to the Nets. One thing that should be mentioned is that in that year we had Michael Jordan drafted as number 3.
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