I would like to congratulate Kwame Brown for stealing money from yet another NBA franchise. This time his theft hits close to home because he signed with my home town Detroit Pistons. Kwame’s insertion into the lineup will most likely signal the end of Amir Johnson’s, Jason Maxiell’s or maybe even Rasheed Wallace’s stay in Detroit, but I really don’t care about that. I am much more interested in figuring out whether Kwame is the worst #1 pick of all time. Let’s do this scientifically and break it down by sport. We will only look at picks since 1980 to keep it semi-relevant for us 20 somethings. Here goes:
Basketball:
Kwame Brown – 2001 – Washington Wizards – The Pistons will be Kwame’s fourth team in eight seasons. Apparently seven points and six rebounds from a #1 isn’t enough to satisfy most teams.
Michael Olowokandi – 1998 – LA Clippers – Despite a song by a similar name, it turns out, “The candy man cannot.” Who would have thought that a guy who played against stiff Big West competition would struggle when faced with NBA bigs?
Pervis Ellison – 1989 – Sacramento – “Never Nervous,” wasn’t as bad as the above number #1’s and most of the problems that he did have stemmed from injuries rather than lack of heart/lack of a lack of weed.
Football:
Tim Couch – Cleveland Browns – He didn’t revive the Cleveland franchise like many hoped he would. However, he did drive it into the ground like many Steelers fans had hoped.
David Carr – Houston Texans – 2002 – He was just the kind of QB that Houston needed to start their franchise with several losing seasons.
Courtney Brown – Cleveland Browns – 2000- This is the kind of dominant edge pash rusher that Carmen Policy and friends were looking for with the first pick. There is still time for him to realize his talent. He has been out of football for the last two years and I have to imagine that time has been spent doing nothing other than lifting weights.
Ki-Jana Carter – Cincinnati – 1995 – At least this Cincinnati draft pick isn’t getting into fights, or driving drunk, or giving beer to 17 year olds. Instead, he chose to live a quiet life and just be awful on the football field.
Steve Emtman – Indianapolis – 1992 – I remember having nightmares about this guy dry humping my Michigan QBs up and down the field in the Rose Bowl. I’ll take a lot of the blame off Steve for his lack of NFL success and place it firmly on the myriad injuries he suffered in his short career.
Aundray Bruce – Atlanta – 1988 – You can’t blame this guy’s lack of success on injuries. Instead let’s place the blame on a potential love affair with Steve Broussard.
Baseball
Matt Anderson – Detroit Tigers – 1997 -After sucking mightly at the Major League level, Matt did what any man who just wanted to give up might do, he blew out his arm in a octupus tossing competition.
Bryan Bullington – Pittsburgh Pirates – 2002 – The Pirates finally pulled the plug on Bullington, designating him for assignment on July 3rd. The Cleveland Indians quickly dove on the Bullington grenade and signed him off waivers. Good luck Eric Wedge.
Brien Taylor – NewYork Yankees – 1991 -Yankees fans know Brien as a one of two #1 picks overall to never reach the major leagues. Brien, only Steve Chilcott feels your pain.
Hockey
Patrick Stefan – Atlanta – 1999 – Stefan was supposed to be the face of the new Thrashers franchise…not so much. Luckily, their next #1 pick, Ilya Kovalchuk turned out to be the anti-Stefan. (That’s him missing the empty net by the way)
Brian Lawton – Minnesota North Stars – 1983 – Lawton was the first American born player drafted #1. In retrospect, he probably shouldn’t have went #1. That spot should have probably have been reserved for Steve Yzerman, Pat Lafontaine, or Tom Barrasso.
Alexander Daigle – Ottawa – 1993 – Hockey fans and no hockey fans alike know the story of Daigle, who famously said, “No one will remember who was picked #2 this year.” Unfortunately, two cats named Pronger and Kariya were picked behind Daigle and since that draft everyone in Ottawa has tried to forget the name Daigle.
AND THE WORST NUMBER OF ONE OF ALL-TIME IS:
Brien Taylor!!!
Taylor, who demanded “Van Poppel Money,” never made it to the majors partly because of a torn labrum that he suffered while defending his brother in a fight. That being said, the fact remains that he never made the major leagues, and by the grace of Kwame Brown, Brein Phelps is the biggest bust of all time.
The Angry T
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