Who Will be the Next Great NBA Bust?

Now that the 2016 NBA Draft is in the books we can begin to speculate on who will be this class's biggest bust. Usually my money would be on whoever the Knicks or Philly selected but thanks to some nifty GM work New York didn't even have a pick, and a blind deaf dog would have taken Ben Simmons number 1 overall. The beautiful thing about sports is that it doesn't see color, creed, or class - if you suck then you will be exposed. Draft busts come in all shapes in sizes, from electrifying college point guards to raw African big men and even 'polished' stretch 4's from Croatia are all equally at risk of not translating to the NBA. The NBA draft is literally a gamble. NBA scouts are the weathermen of the sports world - they and GMs have almost zero accountability when their lottery picks ride the bench in the D-League for the first 2 years of their careers and then eventually bounce to Europe.

In a given year, being conservative, maybe 5 of the top 10 picks in the draft will get regular minutes (maybe even start) in the league by the 3rd year of their career. Let's say, again conservatively, that 2 of those 5 picks will be an NBA All-Star by the 7th year of their career. Of the other 5 picks in the top 10 of that class let's say 3 will have journeymen careers - never really cracking the starting lineup consistently - and the remaining 2 will be D-League lifers or go play in Greece. This would be considered a 'good' draft class by our warped standards, but nevertheless its the world we live in.

The fact of the matter is that besides the top 10% of the players in the NBA - who possess freakish athletic ability with a cerebral understanding of the game - there isn't really much separation in the NBA talent pool. The difference between a D-League shooting guard and the 3rd man off the Magic's bench is that the guy in Orlando took advantage of his opportunity when the guy ahead of him was hurt.

My point is that the NBA Draft is a crap shoot. GM's might as well throw a dart at a list of potential players to make their selection. You'd think that a player chosen in the top 10 would be expected to make an immediate contribution to their team, or at least be on the roster in 4 years, but that isn't the case these days. Of this year's lottery picks maybe 2-3 players will live up to their billing, some will become part of the fabric of the NBA - receiving an 'Oh I remember that guy' when he hits a bucket in a Pelicans-Bobcats game in February - but too many high draft picks will fade into the basketball abyss.

My pick for this year's Draft Disappointment is:

Dragan Bender - C - Capljina, Bosnia and Herzegovina - Rd.1 Pick 4 Phoenix Suns

This 18 year old 7'1 225lb. string bean is a real stat-stuffer, coming off an eye opening 5.4 PPG 2.7 RBP season with Maccabi Tel Aviv with the big boys in the Israeli league. With numbers like that how could the Suns' front office pass on this guy?

Honorable Mention Probable Disappointments:

Jaylen Brown - SF - University of California - Rd.1 Pick 3 Boston Celtics

Jakob Poetl - C - Vienna, Austria via University of Utah - Rd.1 Pick 9 Toronto Raptors

Thon Maker - PF - Australia/Canada/South Sudan - Rd. 1 Pick 10 Milwaukee Bucks

Taurean Prince - SF - Baylor - Rd. 1 Pick 12 Utah Jazz

Georgios Papagiannis - C - Marousi, Greece Rd. 1 Pick 13 Phoenix Suns