Golden State Warriors: 10 Worst NBA Draft Picks Since 1990

The Golden State Warriors have not exactly been a model franchise when it comes to making good choices on draft day. 

It was tough to cut the list of bad draft picks since 1990 down to just 10, but I had to so I didn't torture fans of the Dubs any more than I had to.  

Quite frankly though, it's amazing how many lottery picks the team has made that just haven't worked out at all. 

Read on to discover the 10 worst picks the team has made since 1990. 

How Was Draft Value Calculated?

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, which is the maximum length of a rookie contract. 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 win shares 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. It is important to note that I only evaluated data through the 2007 draft because the players taken in 2008-2011 have not yet played out 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 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.  

10. Kevin Pritchard (No. 34 in 1990)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 0.4

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 4.0

Difference: -3.6

Kevin Pritchard only lasted in the league as a player for four seasons, playing in 94 games and starting just a single contest. 

That lone start came in a high-scoring 150-145 loss to the Denver Nuggets on Feb. 23, 1991. Starting at shooting guard alongside Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, Chris Mullin and Tom Tolbert, Pritchard played 33 minutes and put up 15 points, four rebounds, three assists, two steals and three turnovers.

The rest of his career didn't go so well, as he averaged 3.6 points, 1.0 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game over the course of those 94 games. 

9. Clifford Rozier (No. 16 in 1994)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 3.9

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 8.4

Difference: -4.5

Clifford Rozier is another player who lasted for just four years in the NBA, but he was a good bit more successful than Kevin Pritchard. 

The former big man from Louisville played in 173 games, starting 64 of them throughout his career. At the end of his four seasons in The Association, Rozier had accumulated averages of 4.8 points and 5.2 rebounds per game. 

He spent a little over two seasons with the Golden State Warriors before he was traded away to the Orlando Magic. 

8. Steve Logan (No. 30 in 2002)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 0

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 4.9

Difference: -4.9

Steve Logan was drafted with the first pick of the second round in the 1991 NBA draft and never played a single game in the league. 

7. Les Jepsen (No. 28 in 1990)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 0.1

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 5.1

Difference: -5.0

Despite being drafted in the first round of the 1990 NBA draft once he finished his collegiate career at Iowa, Les Jepsen didn't stick around for too long at the professional level. 

The true seven-footer played in just 52 games over two years, averaging 1.0 points and 1.3 rebounds per game for his career. He spent his rookie season with the Golden State Warriors before he was traded to the Sacramento Kings. 

6. Shaun Vandiver (No. 25 in 1991)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 0

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 5.8

Difference: -5.8

Shaun Vandiver was drafted at No. 25 in 1991 and never played in a single game at the NBA level. 

5. Ike Diogu (No. 9 in 2005)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 5.5

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 11.7

Difference: -6.2

Here comes the start of a depressing string of lottery picks that didn't work out for the Golden State Warriors. 

Ike Diogu wasn't too bad as a rookie for the Golden State Warriors, but he declined the next season and continued his plummet into the ranks of obscurity as his career progressed. The 6'8" forward started 14 games during his first year in the NBA and averaged 7.0 points and 3.3 rebounds per game. 

By the time the four-year span in question had passed, Diogu had already played for four teams; the Warriors, Indiana Pacers, Sacramento Kings and Portland Trail Blazers. 

4. Joe Smith (No. 1 in 1995)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 17.5

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 24.5

Difference: -7.0

A No. 1 overall pick has to come out of the gates blazing and play at least fairly well over the first four seasons of their career to justify being that top pick in a draft. 

Joe Smith started on the right track, but fell off the pace after his first two-and-a-half seasons in the league. That span was spent with the Golden State Warriors, and the power forward averaged 16.2 points and 7.7 rebounds per game. 

However, once he was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers and then signed with the Minnesota Timberwolves in free agency, he wasn't quite as good. 

Just look at the win shares that Smith earned in his first four seasons: 6.8, 4.4, 2.6 and 3.7 respectively. That right there says it all. 

3. Todd Fuller (No. 11 in 1996)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 2.2

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 10.5

Difference: -8.3

Unlike most players in the NBA, Todd Fuller played the most minutes per game of his career as a rookie and then quickly lost his role on the Golden State Warriors and then on other teams. 

He lasted just two seasons with the Warriors, then spent one each with the Utah Jazz and Charlotte Hornets before finishing out his career with 10 games with the Miami Heat. 

Fuller ended his NBA tenure with career averages of 3.7 points and 3.0 rebounds per game. That's not exactly what the team was looking for when they drafted Fuller out of NC State with the No. 11 pick in the 1996 NBA draft. 

2. Adonal Foyle (No. 8 in 1997)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 3.6

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 12.4

Difference: -8.8

The big man from Colgate University managed to carve out an NBA career for himself that spanned over a decade, the first 10 seasons of which were spent with the Golden State Warriors. 

Foyle was always much better at playing defense, blocking shots and crashing the boards than he was on the offensive end of the court. This was true during his rookie season and never really changed. 

During the first four seasons of Foyle's career, the only ones we care about here, the center averaged 4.5 points, 5.2 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game. 

1. Patrick O'Bryant (No. 9 in 2006)

Actual Four-Year Win Shares: 0.5

Expected Four-Year Win Shares: 11.7

Difference: -11.2

Yeah, this one didn't work out very well. When top-10 picks play for just four seasons, racking up only 90 games played and three starts, that's not a good thing. 

Patrick O'Bryant spent only the first two seasons of his career with the Golden State Warriors, and finished up his time in the NBA with career averages of 2.1 points and 1.4 rebounds per game. 

He was the first lottery pick to be sent down to the D-League, and he's back there yet again right now, playing for the Reno Bighorns. 

This is not what the scouts originally envisioned.