Ranking Top 7 draft busts with the No. 5 pick in lottery era

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Mario Hezonja, Orlando Magic. Photo by Rob Foldy/Getty Images /

Draft Bust No. 4: Mario Hezonja, 2015

Mario Hezonja was the second consecutive international player to go fifth overall without playing college basketball in the U.S. and he was arguably the bigger bust of the two. The Croatian wing was developed by FC Barcelona before the Orlando Magic took him fifth overall in the 2015 NBA Draft.

If you’re keeping track, that gives us three straight busts from 2014 to 2016 at the No. 5 pick. It’s worse than that, too — 2012 is still to come on this list, while 2013 brought us an honorable mention, Alex Len.

At 6’8″ the theory behind Hezonja was a long playmaking wing who could score, pass and defend. Honestly, he still seems like he should be all of those things; his 81.2 percent career free throw percentage suggests he should shoot better than he does (31.9 percent from 3 for his career), he pulls off some dazzling passes, and he has the frame to be a great defender and averaged 1.4 steals per 36 minutes.

But the theory was always more than the reality, and Hezonja was inefficient and inconsistent for his five years in the NBA. The Magic gave him three seasons before declining his team option. He signed for a year with the New York Knicks and another with the Portland Trail Blazers before taking his game overseas.

Just Missed: The reason Mario Hezonja isn’t any higher on this list is that the picks directly after him were something of a wasteland. Willie Cauley-Stein, Emmanuel Mudiay, Stanley Johnson, Frank Kaminsky and Justice Winslow is a tough run from six to ten. Further down the draft board Devin Booker pops up, but otherwise, it’s a draft largely bereft of high-end performers outside of the top four picks.

Pistons that Year: Detroit selected eighth in 2015 and took Arizona forward Stanley Johnson, who has appeared in 449 in his career but only because he reinvented himself as a low-usage defender; he certainly wasn’t the two-way star the Pistons thought he would be. Later with pick No. 38, they took Villanova Darrun Hilliard, a shooting guard who averaged 3.2 points for his career across 91 career games.