A Love Story: Ernie Grunfeld, the Second Round of the NBA Draft, and Washington Wizards Fans
By Ward Watkins
2010:
The Pick: With the 35th pick of the 2010 NBA Draft, the Washington Wizards select…a trade (The pick itself was Nemanja Bjelica from Serbia).
The Outcome: This pick was packaged with the 30th pick to select Trevor Booker with the 23rd pick of the first round. Well, we love Cook Book, so how about partial credit for this one, whaddayasay? Some felt the selection of Booker was a bit of a reach, but he’s shown solid production in spurts in his four seasons, particularly during the first round of the playoffs against Chicago.
The Wizards also received pick 56 in that deal, where they selected Hamady N’Diaye. So yeah…
Woulda Coulda Shoulda: I guess you could argue that Landry Fields (39), Lance Stephenson (40) and Jerome Jordan (44) were available if they had not made the trade and everything else remained the same, but now you’re really getting into woulda coulda shouldas inside of woulda coulda shouldas.
2011:
The Pick: With the 34th pick of the 2011 NBA Draft, the Washington Wizards select…Shelvin Mack.
The Outcome: Shelvin was nothing flashy. He was frustrating at times, but maybe the team gave up on him a little too soon. This seemed to be the one time that Grunfeld played it pretty conservative with the pick, and ultimately that didn’t really pan out either. Mack played in 64 games in his rookie season, and seven in his second before being waived a couple of times by the team. He signed on with the Atlanta Hawks towards the end of the 2012-13 season and proved to be a decent contributor (for better or worse) off the bench for them in their brief playoff appearance this season.
Woulda Coulda Shoulda: The Wizards passed on Chandler Parsons (38) and Isaiah Thomas (60) here. Not so bad. Could the team have given Shelvin a bit longer here to see what would have happened?