The Detroit Pistons have had some bad drafts over the years, but one in particular stands out.
That’s because it wasn’t just the Pistons who drafted a couple of busts, but just about the entire NBA, as it was a draft filled with some of the worst players to ever hear their names called on draft day.
Most fans would mark 2003 and Darko Milicic as the worst draft ever, but this one was actually far worse.
I’m talking about the year 2000, which was undoubtedly one of the worst drafts in NBA history, not just for the Detroit Pistons, but the entire league.
Detroit Pistons: The 2000 NBA Draft
If you take a look at the list of 2000 draft picks, you’ll see a who’s who of busts, mediocre role players and guys who had a cup of coffee in the league before heading overseas.
Kenyon Martin (a college senior) was the number one pick. This is a guy who made exactly one All-Star team in his career, though he did have a couple of good seasons for New Jersey.
He certainly isn’t the worst number one pick of all time, but it was the last time that a senior was taken #1, something we may never see again, as most of the top picks now are one-and-done players in college.
Only three players from this draft (Martin, Jamaal Magloire and Michael Redd) made an All-Star team, and all of them made it just once.
If you look at the top-10 picks, seven of them were quantifiable busts. That would leave you arguing between Martin, Mike Miller and Jamal Crawford as to who was the best player from this draft class. Yikes.
In fact, there were only six decent NBA rotation players taken in the entire first round. To show how bad that is, I would argue that every player in the top-10 of the 2021 NBA Draft, including Cade Cunningham, would have been the best player in the 2000 draft.
It was a horrible draft for the whole league, and the Detroit Pistons were no exception.
Detroit Pistons: Worst draft in team history?
I’d say the 2000 draft has to go down as one of the worst drafts in team history for the Detroit Pistons.
Their first-round pick was MSU senior Mateen Cleaves, who had an outstanding college career but probably wouldn’t have even been drafted in the NBA most years.
The Pistons took him 14th, so not only did a guy who barely played in the NBA get drafted, but he was in the lottery!
The second round was even worse, as the Pistons took another senior, Brian Cardinal. If you don’t remember, Cardinal looked like a middle-aged man with four kids and a mortgage by the time he got to the NBA, wearing a knee brace that was bigger than his head and playing like a rec league goon.
Cleaves lasted exactly one season before being traded, and Cardinal made it two before being dealt as part of the package that brought back Richard Hamilton.
Cardinal played a whopping 23 games total for the Pistons, while Cleaves played 78 in his only season, making only eight starts.
This would be the last time Detroit took two seniors in the same draft and will hopefully be the last time they draft a guy who is already bald.
Detroit Pistons: The in-between years
The early 2000’s were an era of transition for the Detroit Pistons, as they were in-between the Grant Hill and Goin’ to Work eras, trying to find a roster that worked, which wasn’t helped by the fact that they struck out in the draft two years in a row.
The Pistons actually had some talent on the 2000-2001 roster, as Jerry Stackhouse averaged just under 30 per game and Ben Wallace was starting to show signs of becoming the best defensive player in the league.
They also had Corliss Williamson and Joe Smith, two quality role players, but when you strike out in the draft, it is hard to build a sustainable winner.
The Pistons took Cleaves in 2000 and backed it up with Rodney White a year later, which pretty much submarined this particular squad’s chances and was one of the reasons Joe Dumars eventually blew it up.
Luckily Joe Dumars was much better at making trades than he was at drafting (at least in this era), as he got just about the entire Goin’ to Work team (except Tayshaun Prince) via trade or free agency.
Things started to turn around the next season when the Pistons brought in Rick Carlisle, who was one of the more underrated coaches in team history. His 2001-2002 team won 50 games and really kicked off one of the best eras in team history.
To be fair, the 2000 and then 2001 drafts were so bad that just about every team has a void from that era where a star rookie should be.
This was all a prelude to the Detroit Pistons’ most sustained success, but the 2000 draft is one that Joe Dumars (and the rest of the league) would rather forget.