It’s not just the old heads, now Murphy III is throwing shade at wemby

[scott]

Well, the theory is that Wemby falls in that category.

Has there ever been a guy so hyped as the #1 pick that didn't pan out? Off the top of my head, I can't think of one.

I certainly remember a lot of hype about Greg Oden... but not to this level, and of course his situation is a little different than just being bad at basketball.

[kobyz]

Lacking strength isn't the same as being soft. Wemby is extremely tough and compe ive. It shows in the H2H domination he had of Chet a couple of years back and the French playoffs run he just had. Those games were tougher than anything Chet or this Murphy guy ever played on their lives.

he needs to be more decisive wanting to get the ball and play harder to get open and put himself in good situations

[baseline bum]

So at most, I count only 5 busts in 31 years. That's pretty good. With that said, the #1 pick only ends up with the highest VORP 5 times as well, and 3 of them were truly generational, no brainer pick, talents in Shaq, Timmy and Lebron

One of the busts, namely Oden, was a truly generational no brainer pick too. Ralph Sampson was another generational no brainer pick who could be argued was a bust considering he only had three good years. Injuries can still take down the most promising talents.

[baseline bum]

I certainly remember a lot of hype about Greg Oden... but not to this level, and of course his situation is a little different than just being bad at basketball.

Oden's one of those guys we heard about for years ever since he was like 15, the same way we did with LeBron and Wemby. He was wildly hyped as being the next David Robinson with a little bit of Shaq in his game. Oden was the clear cut #1 pick despite Durant putting up one of the most impressive freshman seasons ever seen and looking like an obvious HOF talent while at Texas. Until Wemby, Oden was easily the highest touted bigman prospect since Tim in 97.

[Mr. Body]

One of the busts, namely Oden, was a truly generational no brainer pick too. Ralph Sampson was another generational no brainer pick who could be argued was a bust considering he only had three good years. Injuries can still take down the most promising talents.

It's an age old debate. I don't think it's fair to call a player ruined by injuries a bust

[CorrectCrusader]

Was curious about this, and was interested in a Saturday morning research project, so I looked it up going back to 1990.

Year	Player	Years Played	WS	VORP	VORP Rank	Highest VORP	Bust?
1990	Derrick Coleman	15	64.3	22.3	3	Gary Payton	No
1991	Larry Johnson	10	69.7	22.0	4	Dikembe Mutombo	No
1992	Shaquille O'Neal	19	181.7	75.5	1	Shaq	No
1993	Chris Webber	15	84.7	42.1	1	Webber	No
1994	Glenn Robinson	11	39.8	13.5	7	Jason Kidd	No
1995	Joe Smith	16	60.3	3.0	15	Kevin Garnett	No
1996	Allen Iverson	14	99.0	49.6	3	Kobe Bryant	No
1997	Tim Duncan	19	206.4	91.1	1	Timmy	No
1998	Michael Olowokandi	9	2.5	-8.5	56	Dirk Nowitzki	Yes
1999	Elton Brand	17	109.6	37.3	5	Shawn Marion/Manu (Tie)	No
2000	Kenyon Martin	15	48	12.1	5	Michael Redd	No
2001	Kwame Brown	12	20.8	-1.3	45	Pau Gasol (TP9 is #2)	Yes?
2002	Yao Ming	8	65.9	20.7	3	Carlos Boozer	No
2003	Lebron James	20	255.1	146.6	1	Lebron	No
2004	Dwight Howard	18	141.7	39.0	2	Andre Iguodala	No
2005	Andrew Bogut	14	50.6	16.0	6	Chris Paul	No
2006	Andrea Bargnani	10	18.9	1.5	17	Kyle Lowry	Maybe?
2007	Greg Oden	3	7.3	0.8	23	Kevin Durant	Yes
2008	Derrick Rose	14	44.2	18.3	8	Russell Westbrook	No
2009	Blake Griffin	13	81.1	32.8	3	James Harden	No
2010	John Wall	11	44.5	24.1	2	Paul George	No
2011	Kyrie Irving	12	79.4	37.6	3	Jimmy Butler (Nephew #2)	No
2012	Anthony Davis	11	100.3	46.1	2	Dame Lillard	No
2013	Anthony Bennett	4	0.5	-1.3	50	GIannis Antetokounmpo	Yes
2014	Andrew Wiggins	9	26.3	3.0	18	Nikola Jokic	Maybe?
2015	Karl Anthony Towns	8	68.7	29.5	1	Towns	No
2016	Ben Simmons	5	32.6	14.2	3	Sabonis	No?
2017	Markelle Fultz	6	7.2	1.2	18	Jason Tatum	Maybe?
2018	Deandre Ayton	5	30.9	7.2	7	Luka Doncic	No
2019	Zion Williamson	3	14.2	6.6	2	Ja Morant	No
2020	Anthony Edwards	3	8.9	4.1	4	Tyrese Haliburton	No

So at most, I count only 5 busts in 31 years. That's pretty good. With that said, the #1 pick only ends up with the highest VORP 5 times as well, and 3 of them were truly generational, no brainer pick, talents in Shaq, Timmy and Lebron

To determine if a player was a bust or not, it was a rather subjective choice to say yes or no based on their year's played, career WS and VORP. Let me know if you disagree.

Interestingly, I did not realize how close Dirk was to Tim in terms of career WS and VORP. Dirk's were 206.3 and 84.8, respectively. Only Lebron is higher. This is largely a function of longevity though.

Was surprised that James Harden has a higher WS and VORP than Steph Curry (128/65.6) - which makes me question those metrics more than anything else tbh.

Anthony Bennett had the 50th worst VORP of the 2013 draft... this actually makes him sound better than he is. Only 51 players ever made the NBA from that draft. Ben McLemore is the only player worst from that draft.

Thanks for the write up. It seems like everyone knows generational talents when they see them though. Shaq, Tim, Lebron, everyone knew they were going to be that guy when they got to the NBA. People think the same about Vic today. So it seems, not every #1 pick is equal.

[Gagnrath]

Was curious about this, and was interested in a Saturday morning research project, so I looked it up going back to 1990.

Year	Player	Years Played	WS	VORP	VORP Rank	Highest VORP	Bust?
1990	Derrick Coleman	15	64.3	22.3	3	Gary Payton	No
1991	Larry Johnson	10	69.7	22.0	4	Dikembe Mutombo	No
1992	Shaquille O'Neal	19	181.7	75.5	1	Shaq	No
1993	Chris Webber	15	84.7	42.1	1	Webber	No
1994	Glenn Robinson	11	39.8	13.5	7	Jason Kidd	No
1995	Joe Smith	16	60.3	3.0	15	Kevin Garnett	No
1996	Allen Iverson	14	99.0	49.6	3	Kobe Bryant	No
1997	Tim Duncan	19	206.4	91.1	1	Timmy	No
1998	Michael Olowokandi	9	2.5	-8.5	56	Dirk Nowitzki	Yes
1999	Elton Brand	17	109.6	37.3	5	Shawn Marion/Manu (Tie)	No
2000	Kenyon Martin	15	48	12.1	5	Michael Redd	No
2001	Kwame Brown	12	20.8	-1.3	45	Pau Gasol (TP9 is #2)	Yes?
2002	Yao Ming	8	65.9	20.7	3	Carlos Boozer	No
2003	Lebron James	20	255.1	146.6	1	Lebron	No
2004	Dwight Howard	18	141.7	39.0	2	Andre Iguodala	No
2005	Andrew Bogut	14	50.6	16.0	6	Chris Paul	No
2006	Andrea Bargnani	10	18.9	1.5	17	Kyle Lowry	Maybe?
2007	Greg Oden	3	7.3	0.8	23	Kevin Durant	Yes
2008	Derrick Rose	14	44.2	18.3	8	Russell Westbrook	No
2009	Blake Griffin	13	81.1	32.8	3	James Harden	No
2010	John Wall	11	44.5	24.1	2	Paul George	No
2011	Kyrie Irving	12	79.4	37.6	3	Jimmy Butler (Nephew #2)	No
2012	Anthony Davis	11	100.3	46.1	2	Dame Lillard	No
2013	Anthony Bennett	4	0.5	-1.3	50	GIannis Antetokounmpo	Yes
2014	Andrew Wiggins	9	26.3	3.0	18	Nikola Jokic	Maybe?
2015	Karl Anthony Towns	8	68.7	29.5	1	Towns	No
2016	Ben Simmons	5	32.6	14.2	3	Sabonis	No?
2017	Markelle Fultz	6	7.2	1.2	18	Jason Tatum	Maybe?
2018	Deandre Ayton	5	30.9	7.2	7	Luka Doncic	No
2019	Zion Williamson	3	14.2	6.6	2	Ja Morant	No
2020	Anthony Edwards	3	8.9	4.1	4	Tyrese Haliburton	No

So at most, I count only 5 busts in 31 years. That's pretty good. With that said, the #1 pick only ends up with the highest VORP 5 times as well, and 3 of them were truly generational, no brainer pick, talents in Shaq, Timmy and Lebron

To determine if a player was a bust or not, it was a rather subjective choice to say yes or no based on their year's played, career WS and VORP. Let me know if you disagree.

Interestingly, I did not realize how close Dirk was to Tim in terms of career WS and VORP. Dirk's were 206.3 and 84.8, respectively. Only Lebron is higher. This is largely a function of longevity though.

Was surprised that James Harden has a higher WS and VORP than Steph Curry (128/65.6) - which makes me question those metrics more than anything else tbh.

Anthony Bennett had the 50th worst VORP of the 2013 draft... this actually makes him sound better than he is. Only 51 players ever made the NBA from that draft. Ben McLemore is the only player worst from that draft.

Harden is a case of a player who was in a good place talent and mentality wise being ruined by questionable input from those around him. (Agent-Management/Coaching/Media). The Hardin who went to the rockets was on the verge of being a all time player, good defense good team mentality and did a lot of the grit and grind things. He also made the smart basketball play the vast majority of the time. Now he's moving out from sharing the ball with Durant and Westbrook, into Mike D'Antoni's run and gun defense doesn't matter with a green light to shoot. It earns him all star and mvp honors in a hurry and a couple of deep play-off runs as THE man, media blow up millions in endorsement and people wonder why he turned empty calories.

[Gagnrath]

I certainly remember a lot of hype about Greg Oden... but not to this level, and of course his situation is a little different than just being bad at basketball.

I was in Columbus ohio so we had a lot of Oden hype for 18+ months. Honestly from my view Oden hype seemed way bigger than wemby but a lot of that could have just been local. There was always rumors of knee issues at OSU then he got to the NBA and they exploded immediately and a double micro-fracture surgery that didn't go well. Of course part of that was probably whatever keeps the Blazers from having top end big men.

[KobesAchilles]

I remember Oden in college and watching Ohio St in the tourney. I think Durant was one in done in the tourney that year ( I could be wrong and mistaking him for LMA). Oden looked like a grown ass man at like 15 and when I first saw him I thought he was 30. But there were rumblings and rumors about his injury and him possibly being injury prone. And there were talks about this being another Bowie pick.

I also admit I saw waaaay more KD in college than I did Oden but to me, it was easy to see that KD should’ve been the first pick. I thought Portland was stupid immediately for passing on KD. A KD, LMA, Roy team would’ve been quite interesting tbh. But KD was such a unicorn in college that I just didn’t see anyway for him to fail to be an all star. I mean he was 7 feet tall and played like a guard. So who could stop that offensively? Turns out, nobody.

I think even if Oden wasn’t injured though his ceiling would be Brand. Not a bad player but not an all timer

[TD 21]

Oden's one of those guys we heard about for years ever since he was like 15, the same way we did with LeBron and Wemby. He was wildly hyped as being the next David Robinson with a little bit of Shaq in his game. Oden was the clear cut #1 pick despite Durant putting up one of the most impressive freshman seasons ever seen and looking like an obvious HOF talent while at Texas. Until Wemby, Oden was easily the highest touted bigman prospect since Tim in 97.

I wouldn't classify Oden, who was clearly on his way to being an All-Star - All-NBA caliber player, as a bust. That word is reserved for someone who either sucked/s (Olowokandi, Brown, Bargnani, Bennett) or completely underwhelmed/s, relatively speaking (Smith, Martin, Bogut, Wiggins, Fultz).

That said, Davis was more hyped. He's become Duncan-esque: Either forgotten about or underappreciated in various respects.

[baseline bum]

I wouldn't classify Oden, who was clearly on his way to being an All-Star - All-NBA caliber player, as a bust. That word is reserved for someone who either sucked/s (Olowokandi, Brown, Bargnani, Bennett) or completely underwhelmed/s, relatively speaking (Smith, Martin, Bogut, Wiggins, Fultz).

That said, Davis was more hyped. He's become Duncan-esque: Either forgotten about or underappreciated in various respects.

Davis was never close to as hyped as Oden was. Davis wasn't even really known until his senior year of high school while Oden was as well known as LeBron when they were in high school. Davis was considered a really high end prospect but not the league changing player Oden was.

[TD 21]

Davis was never close to as hyped as Oden was. Davis wasn't even really known until his senior year of high school while Oden was as well known as LeBron when they were in high school. Davis was considered a really high end prospect but not the franchise changing player Oden was.

Oden may have been hyped longer because Davis was more of a late bloomer height wise, but by their college/draft season, the latter was more hyped.

Davis was thought to have a ceiling of best player in the league (and if not for James' unparalleled longevity and his own body breaking down early, he might have hit it); I never heard that about Oden.

Comparing the best draft prospects in (recent) history - ESPN

[baseline bum]

Oden may have been hyped longer because Davis was more of a late bloomer height wise, but by their college/draft season, the latter was more hyped.

Davis was thought to have a ceiling of best player in the league. I never heard that about Oden.

Comparing the best draft prospects in (recent) history - ESPN

That's some revisionist history bull not putting Oden on that list.

[baseline bum]

I remember Oden in college and watching Ohio St in the tourney. I think Durant was one in done in the tourney that year ( I could be wrong and mistaking him for LMA). Oden looked like a grown ass man at like 15 and when I first saw him I thought he was 30. But there were rumblings and rumors about his injury and him possibly being injury prone. And there were talks about this being another Bowie pick.

Meh his injury was a broken wrist.

[TD 21]

That's some revisionist history bull not putting Oden on that list.

I've never heard of the hype of Johnson or Olajuwon being at an all time level, but wasn't around to argue otherwise. The rest, I've either heard ad nauseam or been around for and I think it's accurate.

What hurts Oden's cause was Durant being an all time #2.

[baseline bum]

What hurts Oden's cause was Durant being an all time #2.

It didn't hurt Oden's case at all at the time. He was David Robinson Part 2 and was the unquestioned #1 and unquestioned most sought after big since Duncan. And even then that's comparing Duncan after four years to Oden after one in college. Duncan wouldn't have been the #1 pick until after his sop re year.

[TD 21]

It didn't hurt Oden's case at all at the time. He was David Robinson Part 2 and was the unquestioned #1 and unquestioned most sought after big since Duncan. And even then that's comparing Duncan after four years to Oden after one in college. Duncan wouldn't have been the #1 pick until after his sop re year.

Mostly agree, but you'd always hear Durant's name mentioned. That wasn't really the case with the others.

To me, the bigger snub is O'Neal.

[baseline bum]

All true, but you'd always hear Durant's name mentioned. That wasn't really the case with the others.

To me, the bigger snub is O'Neal.

I can't really call Shaq a prospect when he was drafted. After three years at LSU it was crystal clear you were getting a finished product HOF player with him the same way you did with Duncan, Robinson, Ewing, Abdul-Jabbar, Walton, etc. Though Ewing's knee injuries kept him from living up to his talent.

[KobesAchilles]

Meh his injury was a broken wrist.

Maybe I’m remembering it incorrectly. It was like 15 years ago, but I swear there was a lot of be careful of drafting a big man in Portland talk. And Durant could be an all-timer. I know there was ofc the talk of him being a great big man and an all-timer. But idk why I specifically remember them reminiscing about taking Bowie over MJ and how this could be another moment comparable to that

[baseline bum]

Maybe I’m remembering it incorrectly. It was like 15 years ago, but I swear there was a lot of be careful of drafting a big man in Portland talk. And Durant could be an all-timer. I know there was ofc the talk of him being a great big man and an all-timer. But idk why I specifically remember them reminiscing about taking Bowie over MJ and how this could be another moment comparable to that

I think most of that talk came from Durant being a guy who would have gone #1 almost any other year.

[Seventyniner]

Harden is a case of a player who was in a good place talent and mentality wise being ruined by questionable input from those around him. (Agent-Management/Coaching/Media). The Hardin who went to the rockets was on the verge of being a all time player, good defense good team mentality and did a lot of the grit and grind things. He also made the smart basketball play the vast majority of the time. Now he's moving out from sharing the ball with Durant and Westbrook, into Mike D'Antoni's run and gun defense doesn't matter with a green light to shoot. It earns him all star and mvp honors in a hurry and a couple of deep play-off runs as THE man, media blow up millions in endorsement and people wonder why he turned empty calories.

Harden and Nash's individual success under D'Antoni compared to other coaches says more about D'Antoni than Harden and Nash imo.

[Knoxxx]

Murphy WHO!?!

Never heard of him actually…

[Allan Rowe vs Wade]

good

[Rocalcio]

These guys are going to have dozens of head to head matchups in the coming years. Can we stop just pointing to one international U19 game as meaningful evidence?

That’s all we have so far, we’ll pointing the next h2H when they happen.

[spurraider21]

That’s all we have so far, well pointing the next h2H when they happen.

Using a one game sample from years ago isn’t really something I’d use at all as meaningful evidence imho