Join us as the re-drafting of the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA Draft pick begins, starting with 2000-2003.
The Cleveland Cavaliers have been notoriously bad at drafting throughout the last 20 years. The moves they make are often times hard to fathom. It’s not due to a lack of options, but a lack of execution. Heck, even when they “hit” they can often do better anyway. Since 2000, the Cavs have only drafted one true franchise-changing star; LeBron James. What would their history look like with a few choice decisions thanks to a re-drafting?
Better, much better actually.
The Cavs have bungled so many other opportunities to get talent. Made worse by the rare times they do land someone worth having, they immediately turn them around in a trade with someone less impressive. Bad trades overall plague this team. My favorite is also the time they traded a draft pick for 2005 away in 1997, but we’ll get to that one later.
So here’s how we’re doing this. Each draft class from the year 2000 and on will be re-evaluated across a series of articles. The Cavaliers draft picks will all be re-analyzed and re-selected as needed. In some cases, the Cavs got the best player they could, in others they didn’t. Players who came to the Cavs through draft day trades won’t be considered. If the team didn’t have that draft pick originally, it won’t be included.
For instance, the Cavs in 2019 walked away with three first-round players, but only had two draft picks; Darius Garland and Dylan Windler. The Cavs acquired fellow rookie Kevin Porter Jr in a trade. So when we get to 2019, the team will only have two picks in the first round.
The picks and strategy will not go from one re-draft class to the next, instead, each draft class will be treated independently of the others. No player taken in the re-draft of the 2000 draft will have any baring come 2003 for example. All considerations for who goes in what draft will be based on the real prior year the team had.
Only players who are still on the board when the Cavs pick can be selected. There’s going to be no pretending they can get the best guy in every draft. Also not every second round pick will be re-drafted, due to how common second-round picks flame out.
So let’s look at who the Cavs should’ve taken in every class over the last 20 years, starting with 2000-2003 today.
2000 – Draft Pick No. 8
1st Round
Drafted: Jamal Crawford (Traded to CHI for Chris Mihm)
Re-Draft Pick: Jamal Crawford
2nd Round
Drafted: N/A (Traded for Greg Graham)
Re-Draft Pick: N/A
Jamal Crawford was the right call here for the Cleveland Cavaliers. What wasn’t the right call? Trading him for Chris Mihm. Now Mihm actually had a long career as a rotation player, averaging about 20 minutes a game. If this was the 50th pick in the draft, that’s a great value.
Mihm was taken at the time where there was uncertainty over the future of young prospect Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who was coming off of an entire missed season due to foot issues. Since Ilgauskas wasn’t expected to play much in the 2000-2001 season, it was understandable why Mihm was traded for but still ill-advised.
Crawford however was the No. 8 pick in the draft and played like it. Especially since the 2000 NBA Draft had five players who were really worth anything, making Crawford a steal. Of those five names, Crawford was joined by Kenyon Martin, Mike Miller, Jamaal Magloire, and Michael Redd as viable pieces..
Magloire, Redd, and Martin all made an All-Star team once in their careers and were collecively considered fringe All-Star players for a good chunk of their primes. Crawford and Miller were Sixth Man of the Year award winners during their careers. So all pretty comparable talents across the board.
Yet, Crawford is easily the best player in this class. Not only did he rack up more personal awards (three-time Sixth Man of the Year winner), but he also had the longest career as well, with him playing just last season during the 2018-2019 year as a member of the Phoenix Suns.
As of Mach of 2020, Crawford was still hoping for a call from an NBA team desperate for instant offense off the bench.
Beyond Crawford, the Cavs didn’t have a second-round pick this year. Their pick was used to get Eddie House, which means if the Cavs had hung onto that pick, then the team could’ve selected Michael Redd who went just six picks after House.
2001 – Draft Picks No. 8, 20 and 36
1st Round
Drafted: DeSagana Diop
Re-Drafted: Joe Johnson
Drafted: Branden Hayward
Re-Drafted: Gerald Wallace
2nd Round
Drafted: Jeff Trepagnier
Re-Drafted: Mehmet Okur
Chris Mihm made sense. DeSagana Diop did not. Diop was an 18-year-old high school graduate when the Cavaliers took him. He rarely played and when he did he was ineffective from all sides of the court. He was a solid enough defensive rebounder but he was an offensive liability if there ever was one.
Later in the draft, the Cavs opted to draft ANOTHER center in Branden Hayward, though he was traded away for Michael Doleac. Hayward, on the other hand, was apart of that early-mid 2000’s revival of the Washington Wizards, alongside Gilbert Arenas, Caron Butler, and Antawn Jamison. Hayward was often the fourth-best player among those Wizard playoff teams.
Second-round pick Jeff Trepagnier didn’t achieve much in the NBA.
So think about that team for a minute. The Cavs could’ve had All-Stars Joe Johnson (instead of Diop), Gerald Wallace (instead of Hayward), and Mehmet Okur (instead of Trepagnier), wow, this draft looks even worse in hindsight. Let’s say you still have Mihm, that means Andre Miller, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Gerald Wallace, Joe Johnson, Mehmet Okur, and Mihm, alongside Lamond Murry and Wesley Parsons? It’s not a dream team but they could have won 35 games that year.
Considering how good of a shooter Johnson was and how great of a two-way player Wallace became, this team could’ve been truly impressive. Especially if the Cavs still landed LeBron James in 2003.
2002 – Draft Picks No. 6 and 35
1st Round
Drafted: Dajuan Wagner
Re-Drafted: Caron Butler
2nd Round
Drafted: Carlos Boozer
Re-Drafted: Carlos Boozer
Dajuan Wagner was an absolute bust for the Cavs. He couldn’t shoot 40% from the field and barely hit 30% from three-point land. He was so overhyped.
Going with Amar’s Stoudamire or Caron Butler would obviously be the candidates at this spot. While Stoudamire makes sense, as he could play PF/C in the Cavs system, at this time you have Chris Mihm, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, and DeSagna Diop at Center. Plus, with the fact, the team takes Carlos Boozer in the second round, and he’s too good not to still get, picking Stoudamire and Boozer in the same draft would be problematic for rotations.
So Butler makes the most sense instead of Stoudamire. Butler is versatile, able to play shooting guard of small forward, making it possible that a LeBron James team could have Butler, James, and Boozer at the two, three, and four spots in the following years; assuming they could still get James.
Boozer also is a better long term prospect than Stoudamire. Remember, by 2011 Stoudamire was done as a reliable starter in the league due to injuries. Boozer was putting up nearly a double-double until he left the league following the end of the 2014 season.
2003
1st Round
Drafted: LeBron James
Re-Drafted: LeBron James
2nd Round
Drafted: Jason Kapono
Re-Drafted: Kyle Korver
Picking LeBron James in 2003 was a no brainer, even if you weren’t a fan of his. He brought a huge economic boom to downtown Cleveland and became a player beloved for years by the city and fanbase. So obviously we wouldn’t re-draft him.
If we did, the pick would be Dwyane Wade, as he was able to drag a Miami Heat team to the playoffs with little help, all on his own. It would take James time to develop into that type of player. Wade however was ready from the jump and it showed. That said, we’re still sticking with James for the obvious reasons.
As for the second-round pick, that’s a different story.
In 2020, Jason Kapono is an All-Star. In 2003 he barely saw minutes as teams didn’t value the three-point shot as much. Maybe if Kapono wasn’t taken by the Bobcats in the 2004 Expansion Draft, the Cavs would’ve been able to develop him further. He could’ve become a great second option maybe, ala a Peja Stojakovic. He didn’t though, so here we are.
Kapono may have had a decent career, but not as good as Kyle Korver’s.
Both men were basically the same type of players; shooters, but Korver was historically good at shooting three-point shots. At 38 (the same age as Kapono), Korver is still shooting well for the Milwaukee Bucks in 2020. Korver has near 10 points a game throughout his career and is shooting 46% from the three-point line. We saw what Korver and James could do in limited minutes when both men were up there in age, but imagine what they could’ve done together as rookies?
Korver went to the 76ers, where he had to contend with Allen Iverson and Iverson’s desire to get buckets. If Korver ended up in Cleveland, perhaps James would’ve been a better compliment to Korver early in their careers, producing even better numbers for the three-point legend.