Ranking the five worst front office decisions in NBA history
As NBA fans, and really sports fans in general, we often think we could do better than the people in charge of some teams. This past weekend’s NFL Draft was a great example. You can’t go on Twitter without seeing fans of every team questioning draft picks and offering scouting reports on every player because they passively watched some SEC games in the fall while their supply of Bud Lights quickly disappeared throughout the day.
But in reality, their job is hard. Most of us couldn’t do it even though we like to think we could. But this list is full of front office decisions where the average fan could have probably done better. Moves that, even at the moment, had their fan bases collectively losing their minds over what their team just did.
So even though it’s unlikely that any of us have what it takes to actually run an NBA team, it can be fun to look back on some of the moments where the team would have been better off if you were calling the shots.
Honorable Mentions:
- The Rochester Royals passing up on drafting Bill Russell in 1956 in exchange for the Ice Capades: If it happened today it would be the most unbelievable transaction in the history of sports. But this was 1956 and the league looked nothing like what it is now so it’s hard to hold them to the standards of 2020. But as a side note – I desperately want these types of deals to come back. Could you Imagine James Dolan trading the first pick in the draft to the Mavericks for part ownership of the Dallas Botanical Garden and a verbal agreement to replace Mark Cuban for a season of Shark Tank? That’s the content we need right now.
- The Hornets trading Kobe Bryant to the Lakers for Vlade Divac after the 1996 NBA Draft: Including this because it’s one that’s often brought up, but it really wasn’t that bad at the time. Divac was a serviceable center and nobody knew that Kobe was going to turn out to be Kobe. If teams had any hunch that he would someday be one of the best 10 players in NBA history then he probably wouldn’t have been the 13th pick. It looks bad now, but this is more of a case of bad luck for the Hornets than anything.
- The Pistons drafting Darko Milicic in the 2003 NBA Draft: Darko was famously drafted second in 2003 – one pick behind LeBron James and ahead of Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, and Dwyane Wade respectively. A tough pill to swallow? Absolutely. But the Pistons won the title in 2004 and went back to the NBA Finals in 2005 so it’s hard to say it’s one of the worst five moves ever. Championships have a way of taking the sting away after you completely blow a draft pick.
With the honorable mentions out of the way, let’s take a look at the top 5.