The NBA Draft Lottery is tonight, and aside from Zion Williamson and Ja Morant (maybe), this year’s incoming rookie class is a crapshoot, at best, just like every year.
In the recent history of NBA Drafts, no pick was more unanimously whiffed on than Greg Oden as the consensus #1 overall pick in 2007. If you go back and listen to just about any college or pro analyst at the time, Oden was destined to be Bill Russell and the next great NBA big. Kevin Durant was rated second because he couldn’t bench press enough during the combine because that’s important.
Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, and one amazing scene from the Oden draft disaster was the Blazers Lottery selection party, which exploded in unimpeded joy when it was announced that Portland won the #1 pick. The euphoria in the room is complete, as visions of Greg Oden stacking Larry O’Brien trophies danced in their heads.
Just the the sheer wrongness of everything and everyone in this one moment in time is perfection. Nobody really knows anything. Ask these people and everyone else in 2007.