Who is the Worst Drafting GM in Basketball?

While there may be a number of General Managers who know how to draft, there are definitely a few who are terrible at it. Every year, there are just a few front offices that seem to have no idea at all what they are doing on draft night and make awful blunders each and every year. Of course, with Elgin Baylor and Kevin McHale no-longer running teams, the bottom GM on this list is not quite as historically awful as some of his predecessor. However, this GM is still really, truly terrible so it should be a lot of fun to dissect these picks and see how awful they've turned out to be. Let's take a look:

Charlotte Bobcats' Rod Higgins:
In fairness to Higgins, his attempts (or lack thereof) to fix the Bobcats have been hampered by shortsighted ownership since he took over in 2007. Both Bob Johnson and Michael Jordan (who I loved as a player) are shortsighted, financially driven owners who impede any efforts to build a team. However, Higgins' draft ineptitude is still unrivalled by any other GM now that both Kevin McHale and Elgin Baylor have been fired. In 2007, he drafted promising forward Brandan Wright but traded him for shooting guard Jason Richardson. Richardson is a one dimensional scorer who never replicated his Golden State days in Charlotte and was barely with the franchise for a year and a half. Not a great way to start but it only got worse. In 2008, at the insistence of coach Larry Brown, Higgins drafted point guard D.J. Augustin out of Texas ninth overall. Augustin is undeniably talented but he never fit Brown's system, played few minutes behind Raymond Felton for two seasons, and has never really been allowed to flourish in Charlotte despite good per minute numbers. Higgins then added center Alex Ajinca (who he traded his 2009 pick to get but jettisoned less than a season later), and added total bust Gerald Henderson in 2009. Since the Bobcats didn't pick in 2010, that means that Higgins failed to add an impact player in three trips to the lottery (and one trip just outside of it). It does not get much worse than that.

Of course, there are a lot of teams who also have terrible, terrible drafting records the last few seasons. However, because the Phoenix Suns, Minnesota Timberwolves, and Philadelphia 76ers have all changed leadership since 2007, they couldn't be included on the list. Higgins is the only GM to have a truly horrible drafting record since 2007 (GMs with his track record do not usually last quite this long) and that's why he stands alone on this list. Of course, if you have another nomination, be sure to start up a debate on the Forum. After all, there's nothing more fun than a good debate on The Best Sports Blog community forum (at least there isn't for me but I can't speak for everyone) so make sure to get your opinion out there!

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