The Detroit Pistons infamously drafted Darko Milicic, which is one of many bad draft picks. Here is who they should have selected since then.
News that Pistons’ travesty Darko Milicic was returning to basketball had me triggered into the fetal position, where I sucked my thumb and silently sobbed into my Rasheed Wallace jersey, dreaming of what could have been. It brought me back to 2003 and the nightmare of the 2003 NBA Draft.
The Pistons, being the generous souls that they are, decided to forego a dynasty and let other teams win titles by choosing Darko instead of Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony or Chris Bosh. You’re welcome, rest of the NBA.
Since the Darko catastrophe, the Detroit Pistons have been cursed, generally choosing the wrong player in the draft, developing hardly any homegrown talent and passing on generational superstars that could have drastically changed the last decade and reduced the number of times I hurled a bag of Cheetos at the television.
The Pistons went from being one of the best teams at evaluating and developing talent to one of the worst and this is the primary reason they haven’t won a playoff game since the first year of the Obama administration.
The Pistons have guessed poorly, been too conservative, drafted for need instead of potential or just plain gotten it wrong. And it shows, as Detroit features a roster with little young talent and hardly anyone that they drafted or developed themselves.
Ed Stefanski hopes to turn it around and draft Detroit’s first NBA All-Star since Andre Drummond and has done enough with the moves he’s made so far to warrant some amount of hope and patience.
The new regime may be off the hook for now, but the old guard has a lot to answer for after striking out in nearly every draft since that fateful night in 2003. I’ll let hindsight be my guide and tell you who the Pistons should have drafted every year since then.