My Favorite Things: Grizzlies Draft Flops and Failures
I’m going to try really hard to walk into tonight’s draft with an open mind. The Grizzlies can draft, right? I mean we’ve had some solid picks in the past (See Mike Conley in 2007 for example). Unfortunately, most of those solid picks have turned into a trade. Then we all morph into Tom Hanks watching Wilson float away into the ocean. Except in the NBA we get to watch Wilson develop and become everything we always wanted him to be. Only, he’s not on our team.
If you’ve decided to jump on board with the Grizzlies in their recent wave of success you might not actually be familiar with the almost successes, complete failures, and unfortunate flops that have been the bane of Memphis’ first round pick existence. If you’ve been cheering in Beale Street Blue for awhile then hopefully this post will give you a chuckle at just how sad the draft situation in Memphis has been.
In the wake of tonight’s draft and because I believe in finding the humor in life; here’s a list of my Top Three Favorite Flops and Failures in the sordid history of the Memphis first round draft pick.
Hashem Thabeet? More like Hashem Thabust.
1. The 2009 Draft. This has to go down as the worst pick in the history of the NBA. That might be a slight over exaggeration but not by much. This was the year that Memphis picked Hasheem Thabeet. If you aren’t familiar this is the Center that Memphis took at Number 2. While Thabeet was, by the numbers, a decent big man the Grizzlies could have done (sarcasm font) a little better with the second pick. Thabeet is now playing in the D-League, where he is finding marginal success. Since I am a glutton for punishment here’s a short list of some of the players available in the 2009 draft class at the second pick: James Harden, Tyreke Evans, Ricky Rubio, DeMar DeRozan, and a little known player named Stephen Curry. I don’t know that we could have used any of those guys on our roster at that point but maybe we could have learned from what the Timberwolves did to us in 2008. (See #2 below) At least any one of the aforementioned draft picks could have been “trade bait” to the right team. 2009 was just the WORST.
Remember that time we traded Kevin Love for O.J. Mayo?
2. The 2008 Draft. Take yourself back eight years. Memphis has the fifth pick. Fifth! I mean we have the chance to draft some talent right? And we do. The Memphis Grizzlies select Kevin Love. The talented stretch-four was a gifted big man prospect. He played with finesse and had an exceptional basketball IQ. He had some serious post moves. Remember that this was before Zach Randolph came into the picture so an NBA ready big man was an incredible thing for the Memphis roster. So what did the Grizzlies do with this fantastic pick? Well we made another attempt to fill our ever-lacking back court and traded away Love for OJ Mayo. At the time this seemed like a decent maneuver. Mayo was drafted third and had a lot of promise. Minnesota drafted Mayo to trade him and the Grizzlies took that trade bait hook, line, and sinker. Don’t get me wrong, OJ Mayo had some success here but the “what-ifs” of this trade never happening fill my thoughts more than I want to admit.
Go home, 2010 NBA Draft, you’re drunk.
3. The 2010 Draft. The Grizzlies had a total of three first round picks. I don’t really fault the Grizzlies for any of their picks in 2010. This was not exactly the 2009 draft class that I mentioned above. However, of the three picks Memphis could not make even one of them stick. In the search for a decent guard Memphis took Xavier Henry, Dominique Jones and Greivis Vasquez. Of those three only Vasquez remains in the NBA. He was traded off the Grizzlies roster for Quincy Pondexter and we all know how that turned out. It’s unfortunate that out of three first round picks not a single one of them was used to truly build Memphis’ roster.
I could add to these three the myriad of players that have worn a Grizzlies uniform out of the draft and no longer do. Kyle Lowry, Kendrick Perkins and DeMarre Carroll to name a few. Not to mention the rich history of drafting and not developing around this organization. My hope is that as we head to the future and see changes in the direction of our offense that the days of trading away our young talent for veterans to plug holes are over. This past has hurt but like Rafiki says in The Lion King “Ah, yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it or learn from it.” I hope we have learned a little something and that next year we aren’t beating this same old dead horse.
Let’s pretend this never happened.
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