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Who are the five worst draft picks in Milwaukee Bucks history?
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- Who are the five worst draft picks in Milwaukee Bucks history?
Author's note: This list took into account draft position, team need in that season (or immediately beyond), and picks that might have been made instead. Players drafted by other teams and traded to Milwaukee, like Robert Traylor ( Dallas , No. 6, 1998), do not qualify. Career-altering injuries disqualify a player also – it's impossible to know how they truly would have turned out. So T.J. Ford (No. 8, 2003) and Jabari Parker (No. 2, 2014) are not on this list, either.
The Milwaukee Bucks have hit big on some of their picks over their 55 drafts to date, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Giannis Antetokounmpo .
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But like any team, the history is full of some misses, too.
Let's take a look at the five worst draft picks in Bucks history:
1. J. Collis Jones, No. 17, 1971
Who? Exactly. This was the era of 15-round drafts and the NBA competing with the ABA for players, and the Bucks had the last pick of the first round thanks to their 1971 championship. With that context, the Bucks took J. Collis Jones out of Notre Dame while the ABA's Dallas Chapparals signed him. Jones elected to stay in the ABA and played four years for Dallas, Kentucky and Memphis. He posted career averages of 8.1 points and 4.7 rebounds.
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The Bucks would later engage in the common practice of drafting a player to immediately trade him to another team on draft night in the 1990s (i.e. Stephon Marbury, Dirk Nowitzki ) so those players never played in Milwaukee – but they at least got first-round picks back who did.
So what makes Jones the worst pick in franchise history is that he is the only first-round pick of the Bucks to never play a single minute in the NBA.
More: 50 years ago, the Milwaukee Bucks were NBA champions: An oral history of the 1970-71 season
2. Russ Lee, No. 6, 1972
The Bucks had lost in six games to the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference finals, but of course had every expectation of competing for another championship. With the first of their two first-round picks they selected the 6-foot-5 Lee out of Marshall. If the Bucks were looking for a youthful scoring punch to back up Jon McGlocklin and Wali Jones, USC's Paul Westphal would've been the better choice. Westphal was a reserve his first three seasons in Boston and helped the Celtics beat the Bucks in the 1974 NBA Finals before going on to a Hall of Fame career in averaging 22.1 points per game from 1975-81.
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Lee played two seasons in Milwaukee, averaging roughly five minutes per game off the bench in 82 total games. The Bucks traded him to the New Orleans Jazz before the season in 1974 and he played just 15 games before his career ended.
The Bucks waived Jones in January 1973 and he ended up sitting out the entire 1973-74 season in a contract dispute. McGlocklin retired after the 1975-76 season.
The Bucks traded away No. 1 pick Kent Benson late in his third season in Milwaukee.
3. Kent Benson, No. 1, 1977
There was only one player taken after Benson and before Marques Johnson (whom the Bucks took No. 3) and it was Otis Birdsong out of Houston . Picked by the Kansas City Kings No. 2, the 6-3 Birdsong would make four all-star teams and one all-NBA team in his 12-year career. He averaged 19.8 points per game on 51% shooting in his prime years from 1978-85. He averaged at least 20 points per game on four occasions.
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The Bucks had just drafted 6-3 Quinn Buckner and acquired 6-4 Brian Winters in the trade for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Winters also had made an all-star team and would make it again in the 1977-78 season. Adding a center like Benson, the Final Four's most outstanding player and two-time All-American after leading Indiana to a national title, made total sense on the surface.
Of course, Benson is most well-known for elbowing Abdul-Jabbar in the stomach in the 1977 season opener – leading Abdul-Jabbar to punch him in the face. Benson suffered a concussion and the Lakers center broke his hand. The Bucks gave up on Benson late in his third season, trading him to Detroit for aging all-star center Bob Lanier.
Yi Jianlian lasted one season in Milwaukee after being drafted No. 6 in 2007.
4. Yi Jianlian , No. 6, 2007
It took months for Jianlian to finally sign a contract with Milwaukee, as the center's representation had insisted the Bucks not draft the 7-footer . He played 66 games his rookie season (8.6 points, 5.2 rebounds) and was quickly traded the following offseason to New Jersey for scoring forward Richard Jefferson .
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Jianlian was out of the NBA after playing 272 games over five seasons.
Big men Brandan Wright (No. 8, Charlotte) and Joakim Noah (No. 9, Chicago ) were selected shortly after Jianlian.
Joe Alexander, picked No. 8 in 2008, didn't last long in Milwaukee, but interestingly nine other players from that draft eventually spent time with the Bucks.
5. Joe Alexander, No. 8, 2008
Alexander was taken out of West Virginia and played only 12 minutes per game in 59 appearances for the Bucks in his rookie year. In his second year he suffered a hamstring injury before ultimately being jettisoned to Chicago in 2010 as part of a trade that brought the Bucks back John Salmons and the draft pick that turned into Larry Sanders.
Alexander was out of the NBA after playing just 10 games for the Bulls in 2010. He is still playing overseas.
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Oddly, the players picked at No. 2 ( Michael Beasley ), No. 3 (O.J. Mayo), No. 6 ( Danilo Gallinari ), No. 9 ( D.J. Augustin ), No. 10 ( Brook Lopez ), No. 11 ( Jerryd Bayless ), No. 15 ( Robin Lopez ), No. 24 ( Serge Ibaka ) and No. 26 ( George Hill ) all played at some point for the Bucks in their careers.
Honorable mention (in alphabetical order)
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Todd Day, No. 8, 1992
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Gary Freeman, No. 16, 1970
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Rashard Griffith, No. 38, 1995
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Rashad Vaughn , No. 17, 2015
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D.J. Wilson , No. 17, 2017
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The entire 1980 draft class Note: The Bucks made eight picks in rounds 3-10, and not a single player appeared in one regular-season game.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Who are the five worst draft picks in Milwaukee Bucks history?
