this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
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We are approaching 5 years since the 2019 NBA draft. Where does it rank amongst the most disappointing draft classes in history? (alien.top)
submitted 11 months ago by iamareddituserama@alien.top to c/nba@nba.space
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Id say 5 seasons is a good benchmark for evaluating whether a player has been a disappointment. The lottery of the draft is as follows:

  1. Zion Williamson --> NOP
  2. Ja Morant --> MEM
  3. RJ Barret --> NYK
  4. Deandre Hunter --> ATL
  5. Darius Garland --> CLE
  6. Jarret Culver --> MIN
  7. Coby White --> CHI
  8. Jaxson Hayes --> NOP
  9. Rui Hacimura --> WAS
  10. Cam Reddish --> ATL
  11. Cam Johnson --> PHO
  12. PJ Washington --> CHA
  13. Tyler Herro --> MIA
  14. Romeo Langford --> BOS

When looking at this top 14 I was kind of astonished at how few of these players actually turned out into a successful pick for the team.

Other than the obvious ones (Zion, Ja, Garland, Herro) is there any argument for any of these players not being massive disappointments relative to their pre draft stock? I guess Rui, Cam Johnson and PJ Washington have turned into decent role players, but players like Barrett and Hunter in my opinion have not been close to living up to their pre draft hype and have been pretty clear disappointments.

The rest of the players on this list are either playing meaningless minutes on terrible teams (Coby White, Hayes) or are riding the bench/out of the league.

When zooming out to the rest of the draft it's even more disappointing with Grant Williams and Jordan Poole headlining the best players.

Am I crazy for thinking this is one of the more underrated bad drafts? I feel like many people talk about some other drafts as being really bad, but I don't see many talking about this one.

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[–] MediumSizedDonger@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

It's def one of the most random ones. Zion can't play more than 30% of his games, Ja thinks he's gangsta, RJ is mid, Poole is an empty stats shot chucker...

Garland is one of the only real solid and consistent players after being deemed "the worst player in the league". Then there's a few players like Cam, Claxton, Grant Williams, Keldon Johnson and Herro that are nice and could grow even more. Rest of the draft is buns.

[–] xJay_@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

More like AT LEAST 7/14 are successful. Definitely not the worst class

[–] fastheadcrab@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

Zion is a big disappointment.

Ja, Garland, and Herro are good to great. Cam Johnson is very good and PJ Washington is good.

You can't call RJ Barrett a disappointment when he just signed a large contract. Clearly at least one team values him to a great degree. It's also wrong to say Grant Williams and Jordan Poole are disappointments, no matter how much social media hates them lmfao

It may not turn out to be an all-time great draft but far from a trash one like 2006 or 2000. One could even argue that 2020 is worse than 2019.

[–] DrHydrate@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

I think the premise is wrong. You don't know at the beginning of the 5th season. At the start of his 5th season, Steph Curry was a zero-time all-star, averaging under 20 per night and thought to be too injury-prone to really make it in the League.

Now, he is unquestionably the greatest player of his draft class and a consensus top-20 player of all time.

[–] TurbulentJudge1000@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, this wasn’t a bad top end draft. I’d actually say the 2021 draft is much worse in terms of top 14 picks.

[–] xJay_@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

Agreed. Definitely bottom tier for the last 5 years