Washington Wizards Review: Rough Drafts of the Decade

The year is over. The decade is over. The Wizards can put their failures behind them and build for the future starting with the '10s.

But not before looking back on the multitude of mishaps and missed opportunities in the '00s.

The 2000 NBA Draft is widely considered to be the worst draft class of the decade, if not the last 20 to 30 years. Kenyon Martin was the first overall pick, and while he is a good enough player, his selection speaks volumes of the quality of the class.

The Wizards didn't have a first rounder, and spent their second round pick on Mike Smith, a 6'8" forward from the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

Smith played a single season with the Wizards, appearing in 17 games averaging three points per game. He never played another minute after the 2000-2001 season.

Despite the overall weakness of the draft, the second round did include Michael Redd and Eddie House, both taken after the Wizards selected Smith. While neither of them is a franchise player, they are both still in the league and productive.

Three players selected in the first round of the draft eventually ended up in Washington.

Mike Miller, the fifth overall pick, Etan Thomas, the 12th overall pick, and DeShawn Stevenson, the 23rd pick, have donned Wizards uniforms in their careers. Thomas was shipped to Minnesota in the deal that brought Miller to Washington, and Stevenson was signed as a free agent.

Stevenson is next to worthless as a Wizard and Miller has been injured for 21 of the Wizards' 30 games this season.

The 2001 Draft is the event that every Washington fan wishes never happened. With the first overall selection, the Wizards drafted 6'11" center Kwame Brown straight out of high school.

In four years with the Wizards, Brown averaged 7.5 points and 5.3 rebounds per game. During his stay in Washington, he underwhelmed with his production and became a nuisance in the waning days with the organization.He skipped practices, shootarounds, team meetings, feuded with Gilbert Arenas and Eddie Jordan, and was benched for the 2005 playoff series against Chicago.

He was traded in the offseason along with Laron Profit for Caron Butler and Chucky Atkins. Good riddance.

The 2001 Draft held a number of current NBA stars that make drafting Brown the biggest waste of a number one pick in the history of the NBA.

Allow me to list players selected after Brown. Pau Gasol, third, Jason Richardson, fifth, Shane Battier, sixth, Joe Johnson, 10th, Richard Jefferson, 13th, Zach Randolph, 19th, Tony Parker, 28th.

Awful, atrocious, and abysmal fail to capture the scouting the Wizards clearly didn't do for this draft.

The 2002 Draft could have been a good one for the Wizards. They had four picks at their disposal, two first round and two second round selections, and plenty of talent was available.

The Wizards drafted Jared Jeffries 11th overall, Juan Dixon 17th overall, Rod Grizzard 38th, and Juan Carlos Navarro 39th. Jeffries is now a Knick, Dixon is overseas, Grizzard was a D-League bust and Navarro never played for the Wizards before being traded to Memphis and returning overseas.

While there were only a few big names on the board in 2002, the Wizards had more than enough to offer up in a trade.

A desperate team may have bitten on a deal for both of the Wizards first round picks that would have moved the Wizards up on the board. The Clippers had the 8th pick in the draft which they used on Chris Wilcox. The Wizards could have swapped their picks and landed Amar'e Stoudemire, who is one of the best players in the NBA today.

Anything would have been better than the four mediocre players the Wizards spent their picks on.

The 2003 Draft wasn't the deepest pool of talent despite the presence of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, and Chris Bosh. The Wizards fell just outside of range of the elite talent with the 10th overall selection. They used the pick on Jarvis Hayes.

There weren't a great deal of stars that came out of the draft beyond the top five or six, but the board did have David West, Josh Howard, and Leandro Barbosa.

Granted, none of those three are franchise players, but at least they have been with the same team their entire careers. Hayes was injured throughout his four year stay in Washington before the Wizards declined to re-sign him after the 2006-2007 season.

There weren't many players worth drafting in the second round that year, but Steve Blake was hardly worth drafting, let alone drafting him ahead of Mo Williams, Willie Green or even Kyle Korver.

The 2004 Draft could have been great for the Wizards. They had the fifth overall selection with a decent pool of talent to pick from. In the days prior to the draft, the Wizards dealt the pick as well as Jerry Stackhouse and Christian Laettner to the Mavericks for Antawn Jamison.

Not an awful move, getting rid of the Stackhouse and Laettner, but given the players they could have had that is hardly a good consolation prize.

The Mavericks drafted Devin Harris, who has since moved on to New Jersey, but has established himself as a top-flight point guard in the NBA. Jamison is nearing the end of his career as Harris' is just beginning.

After Harris, the Wizards could have looked at Josh Childress, Luol Deng, Andre Iguodala, Al Jefferson, or Josh Smith. You can't blame the Wizards for the trade, but you can certainly blame them for not taking the time to assess the future of the organization that has been long overlooked in the name of "winning now."

The 2005 Draft was yet another forgettable event for the Wizards. The team had traded away their pick in a trade from 2001 that netted them Brendan Haywood. I don't consider myself a great basketball mind, but trading a pick four years before the draft is a bit moronic.

With their lone second round choice, Washington selected Andray Blatche. Blatche has shown his value this season with the earl injury to Jamison, but hasn't had the chance to develop behind the veteran.

The 2006 Draft featured the Wizards becoming enamored with international players. With their first round pick they drafted the Ukranian, Oleksiy Pecherov.

Pecherov spent two seasons with the Wizards producing underwhelming statistics, and was packaged with Etan Thomas and Darius Songaila in a trade with the Timberwolves. His greatest value came in his being traded, but it doesn't change the waste of a pick.

The Wizards spent their second round pick on Vladimir Zeremeenko from Russia. He has never played a single minute for the Wizards or even in the NBA.

The Wizards could have had Rajon Rondo in the first round and Leon Powe in the second. Both are currently with the Celtics and played their part in Boston's NBA Championship run in 2008.

The 2007 Draft is a little more difficult to call good or bad. With their first pick the Wizards took Nick Young. Young has played well in what limited time he has been given behind Arenas. Though, they could have easily taken a shot at Rudy Fernandez and had a real shooting guard.

I do feel comfortable saying that while it is still early, the Wizards missed out big time with their second pick.

Washington used the 47th overall pick on Dominic McGuire, a small forward from Fresno State. With the very next pick, the Lakers drafted Marc Gasol. They immediately traded Gasol to Memphis for his brother Pau.

McGuire has been given very limited time on the floor behind Butler, but hasn't done anything impressive in his first two years with Washington. Gasol, on the other hand, is averaging 15 points and 10 rebounds this season with the Grizzlies.

Very little can be said about the 2008 Draft, because the Wizards first round selection, JaVale McGee hasn't had much chance to prove himself. He is a Tyson Chandler type player who can rebound and defend better than he can score, but put to the test he can produce around the basket.

The Wizards immediately traded their second round selection, Bill Walker, to Boston for cash in an effort to clear some space for the huge contract Arenas would sign a month after the draft.

The 2009 Draft could be considered a failure, but not necessarily because of anything the Wizards did wrong. They had the second worst record in the NBA, and thus the second best chance at the first overall pick in the lottery.

Fate slapped the Wizards in the face and gave them the fifth pick, removing them from the Blake Griffin sweepstakes.

The Wizards traded the pick to Minnesota along with Pecherov, Thomas and Songaila and brought in Randy Foye and Miller. The move cleared more cap space for the future, but only enough to accommodate the future mess Arenas' contract will cause.

In retrospect, the Wizards could have draft Jonny Flynn, Stephen Curry or Brandon Jennings and slowly taken some duties away from Arenas as they hand the future of the team to the youth of the team.

They traded away their second pick, Jermaine Taylor, to the Houston Rockets for more cash considerations because of Arenas' lofty price tag.

It is easy to look back and see what the Wizards did wrong in the draft, but was it all worth it?

In the time since the 2000 Draft, the Wizards have made four playoff appearances, assembled a whose who of former first round picks and made themselves comfortable in the basement of the Eastern Conference.

Aside from McGee, McGuire, Young and Blatche, the Wizards have no players to show for the last decade of drafts. Their first overall selection did nothing to make them contenders, and only succeeded in setting them back another few years.

The Rockets had the first pick in the 2002 Draft and got Yao Ming. They have been relevant in the playoffs since then. The Cavaliers drafted LeBron and reached the finals in 2006-2007. The Magic drafted Dwight Howard and went to the finals last season.

The Wizards have often been good enough to reach the playoffs, but only by virtue of being less awful than seven other teams in the conference. And that puts them in the middle of the first round, where talent is often hit or miss. The Wizards were never championship caliber even when they were one of the highest scoring teams in the NBA.

A new decade is just around the corner, and it is difficult to see much success in store for the dysfunctional Wizards. They have spent too much money on all the wrong players and have nothing but a bad record to show for it.

Here's hoping this conversation isn't still going on come 2020.