Who was the worst pick in NBA draft history?
In the 1984 NBA draft, with the second overall pick, the Portland Trailblazers selected injury-prone college center Sam Bowie.Sam Bowie went on to have a 10-year career, including 4 years with the Blazers, but never made an All-Star team and struggled due to injury. Could have been better, but certainly could have been worse. So why, you may ask, was this pick so bad?Just one pick later, the third pick of the draft went to the Chicago Bulls, who selected one Michael Jordan. With the 5th pick, the Philadelphia 76ers selected NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley. Available at the 7th pick was 4-time NBA All-Star Alvin Robertson. With the 16th pick, the Utah Jazz struck gold with Hall of Fame point guard John Stockton.The 1984 NBA draft is often considered one of the deepest and best in NBA history, and with several franchise-altering players available the Blazers whiffed on a guy who had a bad injury history, causing ESPN to rank the Sam Bowie draft pick the worst draft pick not just in NBA draft history but in team sports history. The 100 worst draft picks ever23 years later, the Blazers would do it again. In the 2007 NBA draft, Portland selected the injury-prone center Greg Oden out of Ohio State, leaving available future MVP Kevin Durant. Oops?Honorable mention: With the #2 pick in the 2003 NBA draft, the Detroit Pistons selected Serbian center Darko Miličić, who struggled to even find playing time during his three years in Detroit and never even came close to sniffing an All-Star team during his career. The next three picks in the 2003 Draft:10x All-Star Carmelo Anthony11x All-Star Chris Bosh12x All-Star Dwyane Wade
Do you think there's an NBA team that won't win a championship anytime in the next 30 years?
Well, yeah. There’s 30 NBA teams, and someone will win more than a single championship. I’d give good odds that most teams won’t win a championship in the next 30 years - that was the case for the past 30.As for who won’t win, it’s almost impossible to say what any team will look like in 7 years, let’s alone 20+. But let’s make some reckless guesses!The two most constant factors for a team are:LocationOwnershipLocation doesn’t change very often…but also doesn’t matter that much. Championship teams from the the beginning of the Bird/Magic era (until the end of the Jordan era were from:PhillyLABostonDetroitChicagoHoustonAnd from the post-Jordan era they’ve been from:San AntonioLADetroitBostonMiamiDallasClevelandWherever we say the Warriors are from…San Francisco, I guessLA, Boston, and Detroit are the only names that come up on both lists. And of those three cities, only LA has really proven to be especially attractive to NBA players.So location doesn’t matter much. But what about ownership? It matters a lot - it’s not a coincidence that Peter Holt and Marc Cuban are two fantastic owners and the Spurs and Mavericks have been so good the past 20 years.But even a terrible owner can win a championship! (Take a bow, Dan Gilbert!) It just takes a lot of luck.So, going out on a limb, I’ll say the Knicks will continue their 35 year championship drought for the next three decades. James Dolan is one of the worst NBA owners, and he’s young and (I think?) wealthy enough that I don’t see him selling the team.