Welcome to the latest installment of 
30 Teams, 30 Years, 30 Drafts featuring the New Orleans Hornets. This series takes you through each of the teams’ draft picks from 1978-2008 and evaluates how they fared. Here’s some Hornets draft action for you. They were surprisingly high due to the fact that they had a lot of players give little contributions, didn’t have as many low picks as some other teams and were anchored by two players I gave credit for Hall of Fame status in CP3 and Zo. Zo may have been a stretch for the Hall of Fame but I went by his Hall of Fame percentage on basketball reference, and maybe compensated a little too much to not seem biased as a GWU basketball guy (hate Georgetown) and a Knicks fan. Call it the reversed-bias effect. Sadly for Hornets fans (how many are there really?) this has not equaled the on the court success you find with other teams that have managed to score higher than them. The three teams that managed a higher score have a combined 7 titles over the time period examined. Even the Bucks managed to make an NBA Finals. Anyway, check out the results.
Total Score: 3.24
View the previous teams and their scores here:
Boston Celtics – 3.885
Philadelphia 76ers – 2.561
Toronto Raptors – 2.659
Orlando Magic – 2.861
Charlotte Bobcats – 2.225
New York Knicks – 2.471
New Jersey Nets – 2.49
Atlanta Hawks – 1.258
Miami Heat – 2.743
Milwaukee Bucks – 3.616
Chicago Bulls - 2.93
Cleveland Cavaliers – 3.176
Indiana Pacers – 2.762
Washington Wizards – 2.359
Detroit Pistons – 3.877
Minnesota Timberwolves – 2.838
Let us know in the comments below who you think their best and worst draft picks were.
To see how the score was calculated, check out the intro post here.
[table id=115 /]
1- Yes, it’s that Tom Tolbert.
2- His real name is Herman Reid Jr. So I’m not quite sure what the J.R. stands for, unless the J.R. is short for junior, which makes no sense whatsoever. I’m very confused by this.
3- On April 3rd, 1999 Kendall Gill recorded 11 steals in a game tying the single game mark. He also had 15 points and 10 rebounds in the game for an extremely rare points-rebounds-steals triple double.
4- For those of us who are children of the 90s we will always remember Larry Johnson for Grandmama. For those of us that are Knicks fans, we will always remember Larry Johnson for the four point play in 99. For all other NBA fans, they will remember Larry Johnson as a player who had the talent to be a Hall of Famer, but ended up with his NBA career highlights being a Rookie of the Year Award and an appearance on the 2nd Team All NBA.
5- This was a tough one for me because Zo is a borderline Hall of Famer (basketball reference has his Hall of Fame probability at 53.5%) and he played 15 years playing for teams that I’ve spent my life hating in Georgetown and the Heat. That’s more than half my life in hating. However the NBA seems to be generous in who they let in unless your name is Bernard King (expect me to bitch about this atleast 3 more times in this series). If Clyde Drexler and Chris Mullin made is so quickly, I think that Alonzo Mourning will make it one day, just don’t expect me to make the trip up to Springfield to see him enshrined, unless of course that is the year they finally come to their senses and let Bernard in.
6- Scott was the first American athlete to be a first round pick in two professional drafts. He was also drafted in the first round of the MLB draft.
7- This doesn’t really have much to do with Tony, but I felt it needed to be mentioned somewhere. Three picks earlier the Hornets drafted Kobe Bryant. However they traded him for Vlade Divac. Divac had a no trade clause at the time. Who in their right mind would waive a no trade clause that would take them from LA to Charlotte? One has to wonder if there was some secret agreement there that if Vlade agreed to this trade then the Lakers would give Vlade $6,000,000 when he was a washed up 36 year old ten years later. OK, maybe not, but its fun to joke.
8- Baron Davis has a film career awaiting him upon his retirement from the NBA (which due to his horrific knee injury last year may sadly be sooner than previously anticipated. He already has his SAG card from making multiple small appearances in movies and film. He also owns a production company along with Cash Warren. However may favorite random fact is that he apparently appeared on the Step Brothers DVD commentary along with Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly for no reason whatsoever. Now I may just have to go buy that DVD.
9- Part of me wanted to take away Jamaal’s ASG and make him the first player to be actually downgraded from his career achievements in terms of scoring.
10- If you ever see J.R. behind the wheel of a car get out of his way. He’s had two accidents that have made the news and at one point had his license suspended 5 times in 8 months. After that 8 month period he’s also had his license suspended 3 more times, and was once arrested for driving a motor scooter with no valid license. Maybe it’s a blessing that he is currently playing in NYC, where one does not need to be on the road to get around easily.
11- Chris Paul has clearly put together the resume of a Hall of Famer in his brief tenure in the league and not just a borderline Hall of Famer at that.
12- Not really a stretch to give Brandon credit for two more starts.
