The NBA Draft Lottery is tonight and one NBA franchise will be better next season with the likely addition of Kentucky forward Anthony Davis, the consensus No. 1 overall pick. Of course, many important decisions are made after the top pick. One of the most famous bad draft decisions was Detroit choosing to take Darko Milicic with the second pick of the 2003 draft instead of Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. The Serbian forward never fit into the system of then-Pistons coach Larry Brown and was traded to Orlando after three seasons. Who will own the top pick in the 2012 NBA Draft. Find out tonight. (Allen Einstein/NBAE via Getty Images)
I was actually at the Palace for the draft party that night as a communications intern. I was never sold on Carmelo and even then viewed him as a selfish player. Even today, I remain convinced that we wouldn’t have made the trade for Sheed and won the title that season if we had drafted Melo, but my preference on draft night was Bosh. Wade surprised everyone with his immediate greatness; halfway through the next season I looked at my friend from Miami at college and acknowledged we had made a huge mistake.
We needed a big man, and we all let Joe Dumars and the grizzled old scout Will Robinson convince us that Darko was the second coming of Wilt Chamberlain after a few workouts in empty gyms. In fact, ESPN’s Chad Ford listed Wilt the Stilt as the best comparison for the young Serb, who was supposed to be as fleet as a gazelle and as strong as an ox, a combination of Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan. Ah draft night, when even such ludicrous comparisons aren’t recognized for what they are.
The mood on draft night in Auburn Hills was positively giddy: the Pistons were already one of the best teams in the East, and on the verge of adding the missing piece they needed for the championship. I wrote a column for the team’s official website that has unfortunately been lost to posterity, but I shall one day dig up the print copy to verify my ignorance. The large number of Serbian fans at the Palace that night would never have an opportunity to cheer like that again. Fortunately, Larry Brown was the one person that didn’t buy into the Darko hype. He took one look at the kid and stuck him on the end of the bench, earning Milicic the moniker “Human Victory Cigar” while his teammates won the franchise’s third championship over the Lakers that season.
So why did Darko fail? He was supposed the be a can’t-miss prospect, a long-time professional already at age 17, nearly ambidextrous and blessed with every tool one could want. Except maturity. My friends from nearby would relay credible reports of Darko seated in Royal Oak nightclubs, snorting lines off the table and clutching at the silver-plated pistol stuck in his waistband. Within months of arriving in Detroit, he realized he was a boy among men and promptly began acting that way, dyeing his head bottle-blonde and sulking moodily on the bench instead of cheering on his teammates.
Any number of factors can share the blame for Darko’s failure, including Dumars’ insistence on using Darko as a back-to-the-basket post player instead of the next Dirk Nowitzki, which is what he could have been had things gone differently. But it’s impossible to look back on that pick as anything but a colossal mistake, the single worst draft night blunder this side of Sam Bowie. That Joe Dumars remains the team’s president almost a decade later is a testament to his great skill, the respect he commands, and the type of loyalty one is unlikely to find East of the Detroit River. —GN
The 964, officially a classic this year. Just had clutch re-built, runs like a dream (Taken with Instagram at Industry Manufacturing Co.)
by Gautham Nagesh
This weekend’s boxing schedule is fairly packed, but the headliner in our view is clearly the man you see above. That’s Maryland heavyweight Seth “Mayhem” Mitchell, one of the local fighters we’ve been following since Stiff Jab’s inception. Mitchell fights Chazz Witherspoon on Saturday night at in Atlantic City, and as usual we’ll be ringside to bring you all the action. By now the rest of the boxing world has caught up to the fact that Mitchell is the best heavyweight prospect America has to offer, unless you really think Tony Thompson or Chris Arreola can dethrone a Klitschko.
The former Michigan State linebacker silenced many of the questions about his late conversion to boxing with his December destruction of Timur Ibragimov on HBO. Since then, the media conversation about Mitchell has shifted from his past on the gridiron to his future inside the ropes. Seth’s natural athletic talent and work ethic have enabled him to pick up pugilism at a terrific pace, and his future prospects are aided by the fact heavyweights traditionally take longer to develop. At 29, Mitchell is now widely viewed as a future challenger for the world heavyweight title, potentially within the next 18 months.
Bringing the heavyweight crown back to America is a tall task, and would require subduing Wladimir Klitschko at a minimum. But doing so could make Mitchell the biggest name in boxing since Oscar de la Hoya hung up his trunks. None of that is possible if Mitchell loses to Witherspoon tomorrow night, which is why Seth sounded so focused when we spoke to him last week. Witherspoon has only lost at the very top level, so he will bring more experience and much greater amateur pedigree to Boardwalk Hall.
