As the NBA Draft ticks toward us, the Knicks and Nets need to wipe the foul taste of 2020 from their mouths by picking a solid, if not serious, contributor for 2021 and beyond. Local NBA fans are tired of excuses, subterfuge, and all the bromides they belch about how close they are to turning these two hardwood tankers around. It's time for tangible results, and it starts with tonight's draft.
To remind both squads of the squalor they've rolled onto the hardwood, here are five of the worst first-round picks in each team's inglorious history. These names are interchangeable, and even replaceable considering how many gruesome draft picks both teams have made. We shall pick players selected only after 1985, which was the first NBA Draft Lottery - the first and last time the Knicks got lucky.
And we start with the Knicks, the team most New Yorkers seem to love and loathe the most.
Mardy Collins: No. 29, 2006
Collins played barely over two years in New York, stuffing the box score with an average of 3.7 points, 1.7 rebounds, and 1.8 assists. Collins was so good he was jettisoned to Los Angeles to play for the...Clippers. Collins's inspired play led the Clippers to a 19-63 record in 2008-09. He was out of basketball in 2010, at the ancient age of 25.
Michael Sweetney: No. 9, 2003
Georgetown banged out some NBA ballers in their heyday, chief among them Patrick Ewing, whom the Knicks famously and gleefully plucked with the first pick ever in the draft lottery. Ewing went onto a Hall of Fame career, and a permanent place as a Knicks legend and an NBA legend, just like fellow Hoyas Dikembe Mutombo, Allen Iverson, and Alonzo Mourning among others.
Sadly, the Knicks missed out on those other names, but were sure to grab Michael Sweetney, for whom one of the nicer synopses reads, "...an obese forward that was actually not so different from Robert "Tractor" Traylor. If you're unfamiliar with Traylor, he is considered one of the biggest draft busts in NBA history." Indeed. Sweetney was so awful he was traded to Chicago for Eddy Curry - fondly regarded as perhaps the most overrated player in Knicks history.
Renaldo Balkman: No. 20, 2006
Balkman was so good (or bad, really) that he had two stints with the Knicks - his first two and final two seasons - during which he posted a glittering average of 4.0 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 0.6 assists. Sandwiched in between were three wholly forgettable years with the Denver Nuggets. Balkman and Collins were each the brainchild of Isaiah Lord Thomas, the executive/coach/hand grenade who seemed to assume every position of authority and left the Knicks in shambles. Oddly, Thomas was known in Toronto for his deft drafts, only to pull the pin on the Knicks, leaving a tattered roster, rock-bottom morale, and a lovely $11.6 million sexual harassment lawsuit.
Frederic Weis: No. 15, 2009
The Frenchman never played an NBA game. Why? In France they call it "Dunk du Mort." In English it means, "Dunk of Death.” And it’s both nuts and in your face…literally. Look it up.
Jordan Hill: No. 8, 2009
Jordan Hill didn't suffer the ignominy of not playing a single game at the Garden. But he still suffered a form of professional and personal humiliation by getting the boot after just 24 games in the orange and blue. He left with an unforgettable stat line - 4.0 points and 2.5 rebounds.
In the cruelest twist of karma, the Golden State Warriors snagged Steph Curry with the No. 7 pick. Curry made it clear he wanted to play in the Big Apple, so naturally he wound up as far away as possible. But to make up for it, the Knicks passed on DeMar DeRozan, who had his mail forwarded to the All-Star Game once the Raptors bagged him with the No. 10 pick.
And now, on to the Nets!
Sean Williams: No. 17, 2007
It's not a good sign when you enter the NBA after you get kicked off your college team. But, the Nets rolled the dice on the big fella and crapped out, as Williams spent three years with New Jersey and averaged 4.3 points and 3.5 rebounds before taking his talents to Israel. He clawed his way back to the NBA for 11 games – eight with Dallas and three with Boston – but left the league for good at just 25 years old.
Pearl Washington: No. 13, 1986
Maybe you have to be a native New Yorker, both alive and lucid at the time, to fully grasp how big-time Pearl Washington was. He was a legend in high school who took his talents to Syracuse, where he snapped ample ankles with his crossover dribble, and seemed to be a can’t-miss point guard in the NBA.
Then the Nets drafted him, and the man named Dwayne, but only called Pearl for his sparkling handle, averaged a robust 3.6 assists per game over two seasons in New Jersey. Then he played one season for the Miami Heat. And then he was gone. Sadly, the Brooklyn-born Boys and Girls High School legend died four years ago, at age 52.
Ed O'Bannon: No. 9 pick, 1995
Lost in all the political posturing around O'Bannon’s lawsuit against the NCAA is the fact that he played on some super UCLA teams and seemed to have a promising pro career as a big man with a nice handle and sweet moves around the rim.
Then the Nets drafted him. Over his three year career - two with the Nets - O'Bannon averaged five points per game, on 38 percent shooting, with 2.5 rebounds and 0.8 assists. He spent his final year in Denver before moving onto more personal, public, and legal pursuits in an attempt to get college athletes paid by the NCAA for using their likeness in video games as a way to allure customers.
Marcus Williams: No. 22, 2006
One of many Williamseseses to play for the Nets (and one of most of those to not be great, Buck and Deron be damned), Marcus made a little noise in his maiden season, and then soon fell apart. After two seasons in New Jersey he was priority mailed to the Golden State Warriors, and would be out of the Association in four short years. Williams averaged 5.6 points, 1.8 rebounds, and 2.8 assists over his career with the Nets, Warriors, and Memphis Grizzlies.
Yinka Dare: No. 14, 1994
Both were 7-foot shot blocking machines from Africa, and both went to school in DC…but GW product Yinka Dare was NOTHING like Dikembe Mutombo, and the above is where the similarities end. Mutombo had a glorious NBA career, known both for his prowess in the paint and his comedic, finger-waving protest after every shot he swatted. Dare? Not so much, unless you count getting the nickname “Stinka” as an accomplishment, based on four seasons with New Jersey where Dare averaged 2.1 points (on 39 percent shooting!) and 2.6 rebounds. Tragically, Dare died from a heart attack in 2004 at age 31.
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