Portland Draft Picks: The Bad, The Good, and the We're Still Waiting

(Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

The NBA Draft is less then a week away and the Portland Trail Blazers have the 24th pick. Players like guard Darren Collison from UCLA and Xavier forward Derrick Brown have been names thrown into that spot in mock drafts. Many other players are being brought up for the Blazers to draft as well. There was even a seven-foot center from Ohio State mentioned.

Over their history, the Blazers are infamous for their decisions of draft picks. Unfortunately, the Trail Blazers have made more poor decisions then good ones.

The Bad Ones

• The Blazers picked center LaRue Martin as the top pick in the 1972 draft. The Blazers passed on Bob McAdoo, who went on to become the league MVP, two NBA Finals, a five-time All-Star, and is in the Basketball Hall of Fame. The Blazers also passed on Julias Erving, who is also in the Basketball Hall of Fame LaRue Martin, he ended up being replaced when Bill Walton was drafted three years later.
• The Blazers used their number one pick in the 1979 draft to pick Mychal Thompson, who was a good pick for them. In Thompson's first season, he made the All-Rookie team. He played eight seasons in Portland but was traded to San Antonio in 1986. Thompson became a well known player when he was a member of the Los Angeles Lakers when they won back-to-back Finals in the 1986-87 and 1987-88 seasons. The problem with the pick was that the Blazers passed on Larry Bird. It would take too long to showcase what Bird did in his career.

• The most infamous bad pick was in the 1984 draft. With the second pick, the Blazers had a lot of options of the players available. They picked Clyde Drexler the year before and didn't believe they needed another player like Drexler. So the Blazers picked a center. The 7'1" big man Sam Bowie was called. The third pick in the draft that year...Michael Jordan. The pick didn't seem bad at the time but as history will tell you, Jordan had the last laugh. Bowie played five injury plagued seasons for the Blazers and was traded to the New Jersey Nets in 1989. The drafting of Bowie is often labeled as one of the biggest draft busts in NBA history. There were also players such as Charles Barkley and John Stockton who were passed on by Portland in the '84 draft.

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