The NBA draft being held tonight offers an offseason moment of hope for teams and fans alike. Struggling teams especially get the chance to pick a star who can help reverse their fortunes. Teams lower in the draft order can dream of picking up a useful player who can round out their roster — or of adding a budding talent who can contribute toward a championship run.
Then there’s the flipside: When those hopes and dreams get dashed, the players are labeled as a bust and the fans inevitably look back and imagine what might have been.
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We can’t speak to which players from this year’s draft at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. will not live up to their hype. It’s far too early. Plus, we wouldn’t want to squash the dreams of any Cleveland or Milwaukee fans hoping their team grabs Andrew Wiggins or Jabari Parker with one of the first two picks.
Related: 9 Big-Time, Big-Money NBA Draft Busts
We can, though, look back at draft picks gone horribly wrong. The players on our list came into the NBA with high expectations, and were paid handsomely, but simply didn’t deliver. These nine historic drafts busts show the perils of a bad pick.
Click here to see the list of the top NBA draft busts.
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