Phoenix Suns: 10 Worst NBA Draft Picks Since 1990

Every team in the NBA has made its fair share of regrettable decisions on draft day. 

Whether it's drafting a player who will never play even one game at the NBA level or using a high pick on a player who underwhelms and then some, the Phoenix Suns are no exception.

We've already taken a look at the 10 best picks that the team has made, so read on to discover the worst 10 draft picks that the Suns have used the 1990 NBA draft. 

How Was Draft Value Determined?

First of all, what exactly can teams count on when they make a draft pick? Well, unless a team releases or trades a player, they are under the team's control after the draft for up to four years, the maximum length of a rookie contract.

So really, when looking at draft steals, we should focus almost exclusively on the first four years of a player's career. 

As a result, I looked at the first four years of win shares data for a player, as provided by basketball-reference.com. Win shares are an advanced basketball metric calculated so that one win share is exactly equal to one win provided by that player to his team's cause.

It's the combination of offensive and defensive win shares, a full breakdown of which can be found on this page, called "Calculating Win Shares."

Starting with the year 1990, when the NBA Draft first introduced the current lottery system, I looked at each and every single player drafted into The Association, tracking their draft position and the amount of win shares they produced in their first four seasons in the league.

Moreover, players who were drafted by one team and immediately traded to another were considered as drafted by the team who wound up with their services. 

After I had data for all 1,028 players drafted from 1990-2007, I took the average number of four-year win shares for each draft position and plotted them on a scatter plot (which you can see in the embedded picture with draft position along the x-axis and four-year win shares along the y-axis).

Using a best-fit logistical regression, I found the following formula: Four-year win shares = -5.836* ln (draft position) +24.537.

For the statistically inclined out there, that equation has a coefficient of determination (r^2) of 0.91024. For the non-statistically inclined, the equation fits extremely well. 

Using this formula, we can plug in a number for draft position and have the formula show how many four-year win shares a player drafted there should be expected to produce.

For example, the first overall pick of a draft should produce 24.537 win shares while the 30th overall pick should produce 4.688. 

With that data firmly established, we can tell exactly how much players have exceeded or failed to live up to the expectations associated with the slot in which they were drafted. That can be done by subtracting the expected win shares based on the draft position from the actual number of four-year win shares that players produced.

If the difference is positive, the player exceeded expectations by that much and was a bit of a steal. If the difference is negative, the player failed to live up to the expectations and was a bit of a bust. 

Let's look at Monta Ellis, a player commonly referred to as a draft steal, for an example.  

Ellis was drafted 40th overall, so he should have been expected to produce 3.08 four-year win shares. The shooting guard actually produced 13.7 over the first four years of his career, meaning that the Golden State Warriors "stole" 10.69 four-year win shares when they drafted him.

This was still a great pick, there's no denying that. It's just not quite as great as quite a few players drafted ahead of him.

It's important to realize exactly what we're looking at. As some of you may have realized, even No. 1 picks may be considered steals.

Because I was only able to look at data from 1990-2007 as the last four draft classes haven't yet played out their fourth seasons in the league, players drafted in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 have to be excluded from this list.  

9 (tie). Ron Ellis (No. 49 in 1992)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 0

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 1.8

Difference: -1.8

Ron Ellis was drafted out of Louisiana Tech and never played a single game in the NBA. 

9 (tie). Mark Buford (No. 49 in 1993)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 0.0

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 1.8

Difference: -1.8 

Mark Buford was drafted out of Mississippi Valley State and never played a single game in the NBA. 

8. Ben Davis (No. 43 in 1996)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 0.1

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 2.6

Difference: -2.5

After one year with Kansas and two with Arizona, Ben Davis was drafted by the Phoenix Suns in the second round of the 1996 NBA draft. 

During his rookie season, he played just 20 games for the team that drafted him, staying on the court for an average of only 4.9 minutes per game. After he was signed by the Miami Heat and subsequently picked up by the New York Knicks, Davis played another 15 games over the next two seasons. 

The 6'9" forward finished up his career by playing five games with the Phoenix Suns during the 1999-2000 season. 

His NBA career ended with averages of 1.4 points, 1.3 rebounds and 0.1 assists per game 

7. Russ Millard (No. 39 in 1996)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 0.0

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 3.2

Difference: -3.2

Russ Millard was drafted out of Iowa and never played a single game in the NBA. 

6. Antonio Lang (No. 29 in 1994)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 1.5

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 4.9

Difference: -3.4

During the first four years of his career, Antonio Lang appeared in just 123 games, starting only a single contest. During that lone start, which came with the Cleveland Cavaliers in an 89-76 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on March 20, 1997, Lang put up six points (on 3-of-5 shooting), three rebounds, one assist and two blocks in 28 minutes. 

Throughout the duration of that four-year span, only one of which was spent with the Phoenix Suns, the former Duke Blue Devil averaged 2.5 points and 1.5 rebounds per game. 

5. Mario Bennett (No. 27 in 1995)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 1.9

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 5.3

Difference: -3.4

Once his three-year career with Arizona State wound down, Mario Bennett joined the Phoenix Suns for his rookie season. He started 14 of the 19 games he appeared in, yet still only averaged 4.5 points and 2.6 rebounds per game that year. 

1.5 of the 1.9 win shares he accumulated in his career came during the next season, spent with the Los Angeles Lakers. He appeared in 45 games, starting just four of them, and averaged 3.9 points and 2.8 rebounds per contest. 

Over the next two years, he played in just four games, three with the Chicago Bulls and one with the Los Angeles Clippers. 

4. Alando Tucker (No. 29 in 2007)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 0.4

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 4.9

Difference: -4.5

Alando Tucker only spent three seasons bouncing in between the NBA and the D-League before he decided to play overseas. 

During that time, the 6'6" small forward played 47 games with the Phoenix Suns and four with the Minnesota Timberwolves. 

His career averages are just 4.1 points and 1.0 rebounds per game. 

3. Jackson Vroman (No. 31 in 2004)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 0.0

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 4.5

Difference: -4.5

Jackson Vroman lasted just 10 games with the Phoenix Suns before the team decided to deal him to the New Orleans Hornets. 

With his new team, the former Iowa State big man started 17 games and appeared in another 19, averaging 5.4 points and 4.5 rebounds per game. His career in the NBA would end just one year later and continued overseas.

It seems as though the Phoenix Suns need to stop drafting players from schools in Iowa as Russ Millard (Iowa) and Vroman (Iowa State) have both found their way into these rankings.  

Averaging 3.3 points and 3.0 rebounds throughout his two-year career, Vroman managed to balance out his minus-0.1 win share rookie season perfectly with 0.1 win shares in his second season. 

2. Malcolm Mackey (No. 27 in 1993)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 0.1

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 5.3

Difference: -5.2

After his four-year career with Georgia Tech drew to a close, Malcolm Mackey was drafted in the first round of the 1993 NBA draft by the Phoenix Suns. 

He only lasted 22 games before the team waived him and his NBA career was finished. 

During that time, Mackey played just 69 minutes and averaged 1.5 points, 1.1 rebounds and 0.1 blocks per game. 

1. Zarko Carbarkapa (No. 17 in 2003)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 1.1

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 8.0

Difference: -6.9

Zarko Carbarkapa may have the coolest name of any player the Phoenix Suns drafted since 1990 (although Cedric Ceballos, D.J. Strawberry, Jake Tsakalidis and Negele Knight certainly give him some competition), but he underwhelmed quite a bit for a No. 17 pick. 

And speaking of his name, would you believe that he's not the only player named Zarko to find himself in the NBA? Zarko Paspalj played 28 games for the San Antonio Spurs during the 1988-1989 season. 

Carbarkapa managed to last for a little longer as his career stretched out for 150 games over the course of three years. The 6'11" Serbian forward averaged 4.3 points and 2.1 rebounds during those games.