[Dazzling Dunks and Basketball BloopersParticipant]

Best: Larry Bird (1978)
Bird was actually drafted after his junior year of college. Even though he didn’t officially declare and came back to school for his senior season, the Celtics held his rights for a season. Whatever, the circumstances, he is easily the best sixth pick in history.
Other contenders: Lenny Wilkens (1960) Adrian Dantley (1976) Brandon Roy (2006) Damian Lillard (2012)

Worst: Jonny Flynn (2009)
This was an extremely close call between Flynn and Tractor Traylor. In 1998, the Bucks had the 9th pick and traded with Dallas up to 6 to select Traylor, a talented big with a history of conditioning problems. Traylor turned out to be a huge disappointment who battled weight problems and was out of the league by age 28. He tragically died of a heart attack at just 33. Meanwhile, the player that the player that Dallas took at 9 (Milwaukee’s original draft position turned out to be Dirk Nowitski, who completely altered the trajectory of the franchise.
Still, as bad as that was it doesn’t quite measure up to Minnesota passing on Steph Curry to select Flynn in 2009. The Timberwolves had 2 lottery picks back to back in the 2009 draft and seemingly took their point guard of the future at 5 in Ricky Rubio. However, since they weren’t sure when Rubio would actually come over from Spain, they decided to take another point guard with their next pick. Rather than Curry they chose Flynn, and we all know how that turned out.
Other contenders: Jan Vesely (2011) Ekpe Udoh (2010) DaJuan Wagner (2002) DerMarr Johnson (2000) Doug Smith (1991) William Bedford (1986) Russell Cross (1983)

[dmo21Participant]

Best: Yeah, gotta go with Larry Legend here. Held out as he wanted to get paid more, which is why he went back to school.

Worst: Gotta go with Flynn. That double point guard draft by Minny was silly (they also had the rights to Lawson before trading him to Denver). To make matters worse, Curry was taken next if you were going to go with 2 point guards. Most thought they would have gone SG, which would have been alright with DeRozan right there for the taking.
Russell Cross getting taken right before Thurl Bailey and Antoine Carr is up there too.
A fun one I found was the 1950 draft where the Knicks drafted Irwin Dambrot, who decided to follow a path in dentistry instead. The next pick? Hall of famer George Yardley.

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