The term “bust” can be used so loosely nowadays, it’s the nature of the new media but sometimes you can’t help but to agree.
A lot of factors come into play when determining who is a bust or not. What round did he get picked? What selection was he? Who got picked after him? Who got picked before him? Did the team have a dire need for him? And last but not least is producing?
With all of those questions it brings me to the curious case of Marvin Williams. Marvin was a big time high school recruit who went to UNC for one year then declared for the draft. While at UNC he was their 6th man on the National Title team as a freshman. As the 6th man he averaged 11.3 ppg and 6.6 rpg, real good numbers for a kid who didn’t even start. With the flashes showed at UNC, he was guaranteed a lottery pick. Why wouldn’t draft a kid who stands 6’9″ weighs 230 lbs plus and seems do a little bit of everything well?
With teams in love with Marvin he was taken 2nd in the 2005 NBA Draft by the Atlanta Hawks. The Hawks a team who didn’t have a dire need for a small forward, figured his talent was too great to pass up. With that move in hindsight the Hawks passed up on:
- Deron Williams
- Chris Paul
- Andrew Bynum
- Danny Granger
- David Lee
- Monta Ellis
Just to name a few.
Marvin has been a solid player don’t get me wrong but nobody drafts you number two overall just to be a role player and the players that the Hawks passed up to get him are ridiculous. Just think if the Hawks would have drafted D. Will, CP3, Bynum or even Monta how different the dynamic of the team would be?
The sad thing about calling Marvin a bust is I like him as a player but this is his 7th season in the league and he hasn’t shown anything that would lead me to believe he will be a star anytime soon. His career averages are 11.7 ppg and 5.3 rpg which won’t set the world on fire for sure. Williams has never averaged over 15 ppg in his NBA career. Williams is a solid defender who can score a little bit but I bet the Hawks management wish they could push the reset button on the draft. The bad news for the Hawks is there is no reset button in real life so they are stuck with mistake of picking Marvin over franchise changing point guards which they really needed at the time.
How ever you chop it up Marvin is a bust, I just hope he is smart enough to stack all that cheese he has made, will be making in the future and doesn’t pull an Antonie Walker or Eddy Curry.
Marvin Williams is a complimentary player not a star. From that standpoint I disagree. The problem is he was drafted to be a star and simply isn’t. Williams will never be what he was supposed to and that’s okay. Nor was Shane Battier or Jerry Stackhouse. Sometimes you draft someone to be glue. Another example… Nick Collison. First round, lottery pick. And has been solid his entire career. Nothing wrong with glue.
Stackhouse was a star just a 2nd tier cat, but you don’t draft a glue guy as the 2nd pick.. cats after pick 10 don’t have as much pressure, if he was pick 13 he wouldn’t be a bust . It’s the nature of the game.
I’m not a fan of the term bust but the article is correct in stating that you need to examine where the player was drafted compared to level of production to determine how good the pick was. Comparing #2 picks from 2003 and 2005, Darko Milicic was a bust, Marvin Williams is just…disappointing and not worthy of the selection he was picked in. Nick Collison (12) and Shane Battier (6) are not really fair comparisons as expectation for talent after the top few picks is lower, Jerry Stackhouse (3) averaged almost 30 PPG in 2000-2001 and had 4 consecutive seasons averaging over 21 plus around 4 boards and 5 dimes at his peak, overall a much more productive player than Marvin Williams (and these were in his first 7-8 seasons, comparable to Williams now). In the cases of Battier and Collison, they are decent players but I bet the GMs that drafted them are disappointed in how they turned out, glue only has value when you have a few other stars (Like for Collison and the Thunder) but if your expected star turns into glue, you go from being a potential championship team to a midlevel playoff team. Imagine the Hawks if Williams had become what he was supposed to. Even if he had the production of the 2004 #2 pick Emeka Okafor, averaging a double double nearly every year for a half decade, they could have gotten over the hump in the East.
I hate comparing a player to those drafted (as the article does) after as, in most cases, almost everybody else would have made the same pick so it’s less of a mistake and more bad luck. As a Bucks fan, I remember very well the build up to the 2005 draft and all the talk was about whether the Bucks should take Bogut or Williams and whichever one fell two #2 would almost assuredly be taken by the Hawks. There certainly was mention of D-Will or CP3 being worthy of the pick and how great their talent was, but the typical line was that no team could pass on either the amazing big man (Bogut) or the crazy talent and potential of Williams. The fact that the Jazz got D-Will and the Hornets got Paul was less about them being savvy and more about them being lucky that they weren’t #1 or #2 because they otherwise would have likely taken Bogut or Marvin. At least in the case of D-Will or Paul, it is conceivable a team might have drafted them over Williams (or Bogut) so both the Bucks and Hawks can get some blame for not seeing the talent, but there is no way any of the other players listed (Bynum, Granger, Lee, Ellis) would have ever gone in the top 2. It was a waste of space for the article to mention them.
The thing about the Williams pick is they didn’t need him because they already had Joe Johnson and Josh Smith who virtually play the same position so how does he grow? How can you say the other people mentioned don’t make sense? They were in the same draft so the scouts could have have picked them.. everybody in the world knew they needed a PG and they draft a SF who didn’t even start in college even thought UNC was loaded the 2nd pick of the draft isn’t designed to be a role player so he’s a bust.. with that said I like Marvin but if the Hawks make a different pick maybe Marvin goes to a better situation and their team isn’t losing in the 1st or 2nd rd all the time…
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