2000-2005 MLB, NBA, and NFL Drafts (Picks 1-5)

The 2003 NBA drafts might be one of the best NBA drafts ever. That Draft consisted of the three players above, Melo, Lebron and Wade, with a lot more talent such as Chris Kaman, Chris Bosh, and Josh Howard.
The 1984 NBA draft was not so bad either. There was Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, John Stockton, and someone name Michael Jordan aswell.
Now looking back at the 2000 to 2005 rookie drafts for the three major sports, many of the teams did not do so good drafting. When a team has a top 5 pick, that player should end up 5 - 10 years later still on the team, as one of their franchise players, or at the very least a starter on their team or another team, not in retirement, the minor leagues, a bench warmer, or in another league. But exactly how well did the teams do? Here are the 2000 to 2005 rookie drafts for the MLB, NBA, and the NFL. Players in red indicates a successful pick.

2000 MLB Draft:
Adrian Gonzalez
Adam Johnson
Luis Montanez
Mike Stodolka
Justin Wayne
2001 MLB Draft:
Joe Mauer
Mark Prior
Dewon Brazelton
Gavin Floyd
Mark Teixeira
2002 MLB Draft:
Bryan Bullington
BJ Upton
Chris Gruler
Adam Loewen
Clint Everts
2003 MLB Draft:
Delmon Young
Rickie Weeks
Kyle Sleeth
Tim Stauffer
Chris Lubanski
2004 MLB Draft (Success unknown):
Matt Bush
Steven Jarees
Philip Humber
Jeff Niemann
Mark Rojers
2005 MLB Draft:
Justin Upton
Alex Gordon
Jeff Clement
Ryan Zimmerman
Ryan Braun

2000 NBA Draft:
Kenyon Martin
Stromile Swift
Darius Miles
Marcus Fizer
Mike Miller
2001 NBA Draft:
Kwame Brown
Tyson Chandler
Pau Gasol
Eddy Curry
Jason Richardson
2002 NBA Draft:
Yao Ming
Jay Williams
Mike Dunleavy
Drew Gooden
Nikoloz Tskitishvili
2003 NBA Draft:
Lebron James
Darko Milicic
Carmelo Anthony
Chris Bosh
Dwayne Wade
2004 NBA Draft:
Dwight Howard
Emeka Okafor
Ben Gorden
Shaun Livingtson
Devin Harris
2005 NBA Draft:
Andrew Bogut
Marvin Williams
Deron Williams
Chris Paul
Raymond Felton

2000 NFL Draft:
Courtney Brown
LaVar Arrington
Chris Samuels
Peter Warrick
Jamal Lewis
2001 NFL Draft:
Michael Vick
Leonard Davis
Gerrad Warren
Justin Smith
Ladainain Tomlinson
2002 NFL Draft:
David Carr
Juluis Peppers
Joey Harrington
Mike Williams
Quinten Jammer
2003 NFL Draft:
Carson Palmer
Charles Rogers
Andre Johnson
Dewayne Robertson
Terence Newman
2004 NFL Draft:
Eli Manning
Robert Gallery
Larry Fitzgerald
Philip Rivers
Sean Taylor (Rest In Peace)
2005 NFL Draft:
Alex Smith
Ronnie Brown
Braylon Edwards
Cedric Benson
Cadillac Williams

Now here is the success rates of choosing a "good" player between 2000-2005 drafts:

MLB (Not Including 2004 Draft):
48%
NBA:
70%
NFL:
46.67%

Overall: 55.29%

While some teams chose a decent starter with their top 5 pick, most should not be considered a success. For example, the San Diego Chargers drafted Quentin Jammer with the fifth overall pick, but they could of gotten Dwight Freeny instead. So in reality, the success rate of choosing the right player is considerably lower.

Also to note, many of MLB players cannot be considered a successful pick or a failed pick because they might be in the minor leagues and still have a possibility to break through.

In conclusion, NFL teams, at times, have no idea who is right player to draft, while NBA teams have a much better sense in whom to draft, and they should even have a better sense in whom to draft because with the rule of having high school players having to wait one year after graduation to enter the draft, and as for MLB teams, most of the time they need to be extremely lucky to get an All-Star with the a top 5 pick, let alone a major league player.

Guidelines for drafting players (picks 1-5)
-Draft the best overall players which means:
-Never draft based on need
-Never draft based on high potential, unless the opportunity cost is worth it
-Trade your pick for a lower/higher pick to get the desired player
-MLB teams should treasure a lot of more picks than having the top 5 picks

Hopefully the 2006, 2007 and 2008 drafts will learn from history, and have a much higher success rate at picking the right player, especially the NFL.

Mariah Carey Throws Out First Pitch

One word: Dammmm. And as for the pitch, man she wasn't even trying...


By the way, my top 5 Mariah Carey songs (in no particular order):
Hero
One Sweet Day
Dream Lover
I'll Be There
Fantasy

Marco Scutaro

As an Oakland Athletics fan, Marco Scutaro was and forever will be one of my favorite Athletics of all-time. This guy was a savage when he played for us. He would just have clutch hit after clutch hit. I don't see why Billy Beane traded Marco Scutaro last season, he was not a starter like Nick Swisher and Dan Haren and it wasn't like he was going to start for the Toronto BlueJays.
Trading Marco Scutaro frustrated me at that time. But what also got me frustrated was how Billy Beane traded Swisher last season, as well as Rich Harden and Joe Blanton this year. And a couple of years before that he traded away Tim Hudson. And the list goes on and on of people Beanes and traded. There is also another list that of all the free agents that were also not signed like Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, and Barry Zito. It is not that I don't agree with the Moneyball strategy, it's just that I hate seeing my favorite players leaving our team to go to another team. It is like the A's is a minor league team to the rest of the MLB teams. And it also seems like the Moneyball strategy just keeps on going around and around in a circle. It starts from getting a lot of young players on the team, then those players start performing and the team makes the playoffs but they end up coming up short of the World Series. Then we trade all the good players away, for young prospects, and then we keep the not so good players or injury plagued guys (like how we kept Barry Zito and Eric Chavez instead of Tim Hudson and Miguel Tejada.) But I do understand that the A's are not as financially well off as other teams, so I guess Billy Beane knows what he is doing trading away beloved players like Marco Scutaro.

Play of the Decade

When surfing YouTube one day, I stumbled upon this video.



It is of former NBA guard Isiah Rider, who played for the Minnesota Timberwolves, Portland Trailblazers, ATL Hawks, LA Lakers, and Denver Nuggets, trying to save the ball from going out of bounds and the ball winds up going inside the hoop for a three pointer. This just looks freakin impossible to replicate.

Also the Rasheed Wallace 3/4 of the court shot was pretty ridiculous as well.



This should be this decade's play of the decade.

My First Blog

Hello. This is my very first blog which means I am kind of a "newb" at these certain things. Also to note, I am not a very good writer, so please excuse my grammar, punctuation, spelling , etc. In my blog, I will first start off with a random person/athlete that popped into my head, whom I wish to discuss, followed by some links pertaining to that person. After that, I will write about some randomness and/or followed by more links that i also might want to discuss. I hope you enjoy.

My first player is no other than, Fat Lever. Some of you guys might have never heard of him. He is a former NBA basketball player who played for the Portland Trailblazers, Dallas Mavericks, and Denver Nuggets.



Why I bring him up is because when I was a young child, I collected hundreds of basketball cards. But what stood out Lever from all the rest of the cards was that his first name was FAT! I couldn’t believe this. I would always just make fun of his first name because it was FAT and I wouldn't even bother to look on the reverse side of card to see his statistics. But after a decade or so later, I decided to research him on Wikipedia, and to my surprise his name is not actually Fat, and that it actually stands for Lafayette. Also to my surprise, was that how good he was for a 6 foot 3 point guard named Fat. For 4 years out of his 11 years as a basketball player, he averaged around 20 ppg, 8 apg, and 9 rpg. This is amazing! During those four years, he had played basketball at a level somewhere from a Jason Kidd level to an Oscar Robertson level(really good guards who can score, dish out assists, and rebound.)

Now here is a general lesson that you should learn from : Do not judge a basketball player based on his/her height, weight, and name, judge them on how many points, assists, and rebounds they get in a basketball game.