Originally Posted by
FellowTraveler
2005: Felton wasn't a bad pick; he's been a solid NBA PG for much of his career.
Sean May at 13 didn't do much, but I tend to think anything after pick 10 or so is pretty much a crapshoot -- you can make a great pick after the top ten, but I'm not sure you can make an awful one.
2006: Morrison was an awful pick, both at the time and in retrospect. Just terrible.
2007: Wright over Noah looks bad now, but it was pretty defensible at the time. Wright averaged 15 & 6 on 65% shooting as a freshman; in three years at Florida, Noah never averaged that many points or posted that good a FG%. Obviously Noah's rebounding and defense give him a huge edge, but the consensus at the time was that Wright would be an effective low post scorer. Reasonable pick.
2008: Probably should've taken Lopez over Augustin, but, again, this isn't a terrible pick;
2009: Gerald Henderson was one of my favorite Duke players of the last 10-15 years, but I think this was arguably Charlotte's second-biggest mistake. I know I said it's hard to make an awful pick after 10 or so, but Ty Lawson should've been a top 5 pick, and I'd have taken him over Henderson in a heartbeat. Mitigating Factor: Charlotte already had Felton & Augustin on the roster.
2010: No pick/not an awful trade..
2011: Walker over Leonard is justifiable and may turn out to be the right decision. I'd have taken Faried at 19 -- and would have seriously considered taking him at 9. But 21 teams passed on him, so it's hard to mock Charlotte for not taking him.
I suppose the other mistake was taking Augustin when they already had Felton -- Felton wasn't exactly a franchise centerpiece, but Augustin wasn't so likely to be a star that it necessarily justified the duplication. And if they'd taken a big instead of Augustin, they might've then taken Lawson instead of Henderson the next year (assuming same draft position, which is of course an insane assumption.) And having Lawson in place, they wouldn't have felt the need to take Walker in 2011, freeing them up to grab Faried or Leonard. So instead of Augustin/Henderson/Walker, they'd have Lopez/Lawson/Faried.
Young and tough, yes, but I'm not sure they'd score much. Lots of 77-74 games with that team.