The Biggest Draft Busts in Sports
Sports that hold a draft tend to produce busts. These are some of the biggest, and the order is yours to vote on. Two published facts decide who qualifies. He was a top-five pick in a major league's draft, and the league that drafted him never named him to its all-star game or to a year-end team of its best players. Set against every top-five pick ever taken, that second clause is the one that discriminates, because a pick who turned good collects one of those honours and drops out. Injury cases qualify, since the rule asks what happened and never why. Off-field conduct neither qualifies a player nor disqualifies one. Qualifying is not the same as being here: the desk capped this at four NFL players and four NBA players, held the quarterbacks inside that NFL four to two, and applied a tone rule that keeps a write-up on the sporting outcome and drops any candidate it cannot. Two membership groups, then. Taken with the first selection of a draft, or taken second through fifth.
JaMarcus Russell is #1 on “The Biggest Draft Busts in Sports”.
- 1
JaMarcus Russell
Oakland spent the first pick of the 2007 draft on a quarterback with a famous arm, then waited while he held out through training camp and into September before signing for up to $68 million. He went 7-18 as a starter, threw 18 touchdowns against 23 interceptions, and was out of the NFL at 24. No Pro Bowl, no All-Pro.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JaMarcus_Russell - 2
Brien Taylor
First pick of the 1991 draft, a left-hander the Yankees signed out of a North Carolina high school for a record bonus. Two strong minor league seasons followed, then an off-season altercation in which he fell on his throwing shoulder. Frank Jobe repaired tears in the capsule and glenoid labrum. The fastball never came back, and he retired in 2000 without pitching above Double-A, so the All-Star game was never in reach.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brien_Taylor - 3
Jack Watts
Melbourne used the first selection of the 2008 national draft on a schoolboy, and the hype arrived before he had played a match. His debut ended in a sixty-six point loss with eight disposals. Nine seasons at Melbourne followed, then twenty-one games at Port Adelaide, and a career total above one hundred and seventy. Never a senior All-Australian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Watts_(footballer) - 4
Ryan Leaf
Second overall in 1998, one pick after Peyton Manning. San Diego held the third selection and traded with Arizona to move up and take him. Twenty-five NFL games, twenty-one starts, fourteen touchdown passes against thirty-six interceptions, 48.4 percent passing and a 4-14 record as the Chargers' starter. He was never a Pro Bowler and never an All-Pro.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Leaf - 5
Sam Bowie
Portland had the second pick in 1984 and used it on a seven-footer who had already lost two college seasons to a stress fracture in his left tibia. That leg broke again in his second NBA year. The right tibia went in 1986-87. All-Rookie First Team in 1985 was the only year-end side he made, and ten NBA seasons brought no All-Star call and no All-NBA place. His name now stands in for the pick Portland did not make.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Bowie - 6
Darko Miličić
Eighteen years old and second overall in 2003, taken by Detroit ahead of Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. In 96 games as a Piston he scored 152 points, which works out at 1.6 a night in under six minutes. Seven more NBA seasons came and went elsewhere. No All-Star selection in any of them, and no All-NBA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darko_Mili%C4%8Di%C4%87 - 7
Tony Mandarich
Barry Sanders, Derrick Thomas and Deion Sanders all went off the board after him in 1989, when Green Bay took the offensive tackle second overall. Three lacklustre seasons followed. A concussion in the first preseason game of 1992 became post-concussion syndrome and cost him that year. Green Bay released him, he did not play again until 1996, and a shoulder injury ended his three seasons in Indianapolis in 1998. He never made a Pro Bowl or an All-Pro team.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Mandarich - 8
Trent Richardson
Cleveland used the third pick of the 2012 draft on him and had moved him on by September 2013, seventeen games into his time there, for a first-round selection. His rookie year produced 3.6 yards a carry, the lowest of any rookie back that season, and the career average settled at 3.3. No Pro Bowl for him, and no All-Pro side.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Richardson - 9
Hasheem Thabeet
Memphis took a seven-foot-three shot blocker second overall in 2009, ahead of James Harden and Stephen Curry. By February of his rookie season he had been assigned to the Dakota Wizards of the D-League. His NBA career closed in 2014 at 224 games across four teams, with no All-Star selection and no All-NBA team in it. He is still playing, now in the Basketball Africa League.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasheem_Thabeet - 10
Adam Morrison
Charlotte spent the third pick of 2006 on the leading scorer in college basketball. A torn anterior cruciate ligament in the 2007 preseason wiped out his entire second season, and the shooting never came back to where it had been. Two championship rings followed in Los Angeles, both from the end of the bench. All-Rookie Second Team in 2007 was the last of it: never an All-Star, never All-NBA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Morrison - 11
Pavel Brendl
Fourth overall to the Rangers in 1999, and he never dressed for New York. A trade moved him before he got there, and the NHL portion of the career came to 22 points in 78 games for Philadelphia, Carolina and Phoenix. He played on in Europe, and his last club was HKM Zvolen in the Slovak Extraliga. Never an NHL All-Star, never on a post-season All-Star Team.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Brendl - 12
Jeff Clement
One pick ahead of Ryan Zimmerman, and within the next eight selections Ryan Braun, Troy Tulowitzki and Andrew McCutchen were gone too. Seattle took the catcher third overall in 2005. He moved to first base, hit .218 across parts of four seasons for the Mariners and Pittsburgh, and never made an All-Star game out of a draft class that produced several.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Clement
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