[Cosbysweater7Participant]

Clippers draft picks from the last 10 years 2002-2012

Players they could’ve drafted at the same position

2002- Chris Wilcox and Melvin Ely- passed on Amare Stoudemire
2003- Chris Kaman- Good pick
2004- Shaun Livingston- passed on Devin Harris
2005- Yaroslev Korolev- passed on Danny Granger
2006- No first round pick
2007- Al Thornton- passed on Jared Dudley and Wilson Chandler
2008- Eric Gordon and DeAndre Jordan- Good picks (Finally)
2009- Blake Griffin- Obvious Pick
2010- Al-Farouq Aminu- passed on Paul George (acquired Eric Bledsoe from Thunder)
2011- No first round pick- Pick went to Cleveland and they selected Kyrie Irving
2012- No first round pick

Also have to throw in that in 1998 they selected Michael Olowokandi with their first pick and
passed up on Antawn Jamison, Vince Carter, Dirk Nowitzki, and Paul Pierce

[Chilbert arenasParticipant]

 Honestly it’s not as bad as I expected, Al Thornton seemed like a solid pick at the time, Shaun Livingston was a freak situation, Amare was unproven coming out of high school and had character concerns.  The Yaroslev Korolev pick is head scratching though

[cabbycabParticipant]

I agree with Chilbert.  Not too bad aside from 2005.  To their credit Chris Wilcox was right up there with Amare on the "freak" meter and he was coming off a NCAA championship I believe ( could be wrong ). 

[Memphis MadnessParticipant]

Well, they nailed 3 drafts and lacked a first round pick 3 other years.  Passing on Amare was a disaster.  Korolev was a very bad pick, passed up Granger too.  So those are 2 bad draft picks (duds).   In 2010 they picked up Al Aminu over Paul George which wasn’t the best option but they did pick up Bledsoe in a trade.  They also used FAA (Farouq Al Aminu) in the trade to acquire CP3.  I would say that 2010 is a wash.

In 2007 they picked Al Thornton and passed on Wilson Chandler and Jared Dudley.  They didn’t pick the right guy but they aren’t losing sleep over missing out on Worldwide Wilson Chandler either.  Jared Dudley is solid but dude plays with Steve Nash.  Thornton, Chandler, and Dudley are basically the same player with one of those guys playing with Steve "I make these guys look good" Nash, Chandler put up stats for D’Antoni and George Karl, and the other guy got drafted by the, uh, Clippers.  A slightly bad outcome, but nothing to write home about.

Shaun Livingston over Devin Harris was a bad selection, but not exactly Korolev over Amare.  Livingston can pass and dribble.  He just shattered his knee which isn’t really the Clippers fault.  Devin Harris put up stats and was an ok player at his peak but nothing spectacular.  Livingston was more of a pass-first guy with more upside but, unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way.  So they kind of took the wrong guy but it’s not a huge blunder.

The Clips actually have an ok record by nailing 3 drafts, doing a fairly good job capitalizing on the 2010 draft, had some slightly debatable miscues, with only one real draft night blunder.

Teams could do worse.  The Grizzlies traded Kevin Love (and Mike Miller) for OJ Mayo.  We picked Hasheem Thabeet at 2.  We drafted Xavier Henry in the lottery when we already had a bunch of wing players.  And that is just since 2008.

But, both teams are gonna play in the playoffs this year meaning that if you nail 3 drafts, and package assets for a guy like Chris Paul you can set yourself up for a run like the Clippers.  They took some home run swings, hitting on a few (Blake, Eric Gordon, DeAndre Jordan, Chris Kaman — big dude out of a small school) and whiffed on a few (Wilcox and Ely in 2002 and Korolev in 2005) but their batting average is ok, and you win with the big dogs, not solid, mediocre, safe picks. 

The Grizzlies made a horrible draft day trade but made up for it by acquiring Zach Randolph cheap and effectively utilizing OJ Mayo.  The pick of Hasheem Thabeet was bad but they traded him for Shane Battier who really helped us last year.  We have had some bad drafts but we did trade for Rudy Gay on draft night (for the early version of Shane Battier and Stromile Swift — another bad Griz lotto pick) and he has played very well and had his best year ever this year.  If you cancel out the two Shane Battier trades then we basically traded Stromile Swift for Rudy Gay.  … we traded Pau Gasol for scraps but Marc Gasol turned into a real player.  We picked Mike Conley in a supposedly loaded draft that didn’t turn out to be so loaded.  We took him over Noah though…

The Grizzlies have had their share of misses but we connected on some draft nights (Gay) and then trading for Pau Gasol on draft night and drafting Shane Battier. Those are pretty much the only two really good draft nights we have had in our team’s history (including Vancouver) but we built around what we had and picked up talent (Z Bo trade, and signing Tony Allen). 

The Bobcats draft solid, mediocre guys every year.  They make the safe picks.  And you can see where that got them.  There only bright spot now really is Bismack Biyombo and he was basically a gamble/upside pick.

The point of the draft is to take some home run swings win you have to and hopefully connect on enough of them.  Then, later in the draft fill out your roster with need guys and take some chances with wild card players (Josh Selby hasn’t worked out yet, but he has upside and there was no real downside.  DeAndre Jordan was freefalling in the draft and the Clippers took a chance.  Sam Young did well in college, dropped in the draft then we picked him up.  He showed some flashes, had a decent playoff run and then we turned him into Mo Speights.  Not bad).

[mikeyvthedonParticipant]

Actually traded Shane Battier for Rudy Gay in 2006 (Houston had the 8th pick in the draft. Made little sense to me, but Battier did a decent job). Made actually less sense for the Rockets to try and get Thabeet for Battier, kind of funny if you ask me. The Grizz have been kind of bad, but the Clippers have been worse before 2002.

1995 made little to no sense. They drafted Antonio McDyess at 2, than immediately shipped he and Randy Woods for Rodney Rogers and Brent Barry (15th pick in the draft). Not that Barry ended up being bad and Rogers was a decent scorer, but for the 2nd pick in the draft? Elgin Baylor still kept his job for years beyond this.

If they had decided to actually keep the pick (they traded it after the draft), they could have had Kevin Garnett, Rasheed Wallace, Jerry Stackhouse and, hell, Antonio McDyess. Even as a kid just starting to follow basketball, whose city had just gotten a team, this move was baffling. Years later, still makes absolutely no sense to me and goes down as another Clipper blunder. The Grizz have had their moments, but the Clipps beat them all in my mind.

[Forte IVParticipant]

I’m a Clippers fan, been since 2001. I’m also a member on realgm and I post on the Clippers forum alot. And I find it funny how I was the ONLY person on the boards who wanted us to draft Paul George and I was constantly saying we will regret it and so on.

[MuggsyParticipant]

This actually isn’t half bad, I expected much worse. If anything it was more bad luck than bad picks, in cases of Wilcox, Livingston, & Thornton.

Wilcox was a beast and just won the NCAA title, typically you don’t pass on those type of bigs, he just unfortunately wasn’t a good pro.

Livingston had a freak injury, and even though it took him a really long time to make it back in the league he’s actually doing good despite how bad/long he was injured, just think if he would have been 100% he may have really been something special.

Thornton was a freak athlete with some serious potential, obviously he didn’t live up to that potential. Sure they missed out on Dudley & Chandler, but those guys aren’t exactly block busters either.

Going by this list the only true "fail" would be Korolev. Sure they passed on Granger, but so did a lot of teams, he was picked 17th and was arguably the 4th best player in the draft(behind Paul, D.Will, Bynum).

[benny15Participant]

arguably the third best player given bynum’s injury history. but i agree that only Korolev was the only really bad pick.

2002 – most teams were still iffy on taiking high school players cause of Kwame Brown was still in their minds. and they ended up taking an athletic freshman bigman who contributed to a college championship? sounds like a very promising prospect to draft if you ask me.

2003 – agree

2004 – wouldnt have minded Shaun Livingston at all and thought he was the better fit for them long term since their starting shooting guard was an undersized Cuttino Mobley. this way, mobley could have defended the opposing point and Livingston had the shooting guard.

2005 – agree(prime example of the bad side of giving a promise to a player without any condition)

2007 – Thornton was the most proven scorer available when they made their selection. Dudley was projected as a hustle glue guy type role player and chandler was one of those isiah thomas picks that worked out.

2008 – agree

2009 – agree

2010 – Aminu was meant to develop into their do it all glue guy perimeter stopper role player since they were confident they had their top 3 scoring options in Griffin, Gordon and Kaman. i believe al faroq was meant to be the better fit for them rather than be the better player over George.

everybody misses out in the draft. in fact more gms find the draft as a major gamble and a coin flip. you can study all you want, none of these prospects are a sure thing.

[Forte IVParticipant]

The draft with Olowakandi, nobody knew who would be the first overall pick.(Kinda surprising now that we all look back on it seeing as there was Jamison, Carter, Dirk, and Paul Pierce.). But as I recall from various basketball analysis guys it was either Mike Bibby or Olowakandi for the Clippers to be honest.

[TyroberParticipant]

Cant really focus on who they passed on.  Everyone passes on good players. 

[Chilbert arenasParticipant]

Olowakandi killed it in his workouts and they just figured they could teach him to catch the ball and make a post move, can’t blame them there.

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