ROCKET SCIENCE

How a deep dive into the Rockets draft history tells an interesting story

How a deep dive into the Rockets draft history tells an interesting story
Dekker didn't last long in Houston. Photo by Harry How/Getty Images

Simple question: when was the last time the Houston Rockets struck gold with their first-round pick in the NBA Draft? Heck, the last time the swap-happy Rockets even had a first-round pick was 2015 when, after spending a fortune on scouting, interviews, film study and exploring trade opportunities, they took Sam Dekker out of the University of Wisconsin with the 18th selection.

Like most Rockets draft choices, Dekker didn't last long in Houston – two years before being shipped with six other Rockets, a draft pick and money to the Clippers in exchange for Chris Paul.

Paul stayed in Houston two years before the Rockets dispatched him and two first-round picks to Oklahoma City for Russell Westbrook. Now Westbrook wants out of Houston after only one season. Is this any way to run a franchise? This is a Ponzi scheme in reverse. The Rockets keep getting less instead of more. Not one player on the Rockets' current roster was drafted by the Rockets.

These days former first-round pick Dekker is toiling in the Turkish league and recently offered to play with the Milwaukee Bucks "for free." Perhaps his most noteworthy accomplishment during his NBA career – J.R. Smith says Dekker is the only teammate he ever hated. To say that Dekker was a bust would be unfair to sculptors.

The Rockets are far from the only team that swings and misses on first-round draft picks, however. Being drafted in the first round sometimes gets you little more than a baseball hat photo op and ticket to a Euro league.

For example, let's run down the 2013 NBA Draft, when 14 teams passed on selecting a gangly young player from Greece with a tongue-twister last name. Whatever happened to Giannis Antetokounmpo, anyway? A whole bunch of players taken before the Greek Freak, let's just say, didn't become perennial All-Stars.

Cleveland's No. 1 overall draft selection was Anthony Bennett, a one-and-done 6-8 forward out of UNLV. Bennett drew equal, sometimes favorable, comparisons to former Runnin' Rebels star Larry Johnson.

Bennett's pro career resume looks like a script from Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? He stayed one year in Cleveland, before moving on to the Minnesota Timberwolves, then the Toronto Raptors, the Mississauga Raptors 905 in the G League, Long Island Nets in the G League, Brooklyn Nets, Fenerbahce Beko in the Turkish pro league, Northern Arizona Suns, Maine Red Claws and Agua Caliente Clippers in the G League. The Rockets actually signed Bennett in 2019 but waived him before he ever saw the floor here.

Anthony Bennett is still only 27 years old. He has a long way to go in his basketball career. And by long way, we mean distance, not years.

Here are more 2013 first-round notables who were drafted before the Bucks took Antetokounmpo and after the Rockets landed on Dekker.

Cody Zeller – No. 4 pick by the Charlotte Bobcats. Once known as the "Savior of Indiana Basketball, the still-active Zeller has played his entire career in Charlotte, no small feat in the NBA, but he's averaged a lackluster 8.6 and 6 rebounds per game.

Alex Len – No. 5 pick by the Phoenix Suns. He asked to wear uniform number 21 to honor Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan. That's the only thing Len had in common with those NBA greats. His career scoring average is a paltry 8.3 per game.

The 7-footer from Ukraine has traveled from Phoenix to Atlanta to Sacramento to Toronto, where he still plays for the Raptors.

According to SB Nation's Jeff Siegel: "In the last five years, among 7-footers with at least 50 non-dunk attempts around the rim, Len ranked 30th out of 30 in 2018-19, 29th out of 32 in 2017-18, 34th out of 34 in 2016-17, 33rd out of 33 in 2015-16, and 25th out of 30 in 2014-15 in field goal percentage."

Nerlens Noel – No. 6 pick by the New Orleans Pelicans. NBA executives were itching to draft the next Anthony Davis. Noel's elite shot blocking ability and explosive leaps in just a few games (before a season-ending torn ACL) at Kentucky were enough to bait the Pels, who traded his rights immediately to the 76'ers. Noel has averaged 8 points during injury-plagued stints in Philadelphia, Dallas and OKC.

Kelly Olynyk – No. 13 pick by the Dallas Mavericks. To be fair, Olynyk has been a decent, serviceable bench player for the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat. Just remember, there was that Greek fellow available four spots later.

Shabazz Muhammad – No. 14 pick by the Utah Jazz. Shabazz was immediately packaged with Gorgui Dieng and sent to Minnesota in exchange for the No. 9 pick Trey Burke. During the 2015-16 season, he ranked 461st out of 462 players in ESPN's "Defensive Real Plus-Minus" stat. Only J.J. Barea was worse. After a brief stint with Minnesota, he signed with the Shanxi Brave Dragons, later with Shenzhen Aviators in China, where he continues to play.

Other first-round zonks: Lucas Nogueira (No. 16 by Boston), Shane Larkin (No. 18 by Atlanta), Sergey Vasiliyevich Karasev (No. 19 by Cleveland), Tony Snell (No. 20 by Chicago), Gorgui Dieng (No. 21 by Utah), Solomon Hill (No. 23 by Indiana), Reggie Bullock (No. 25 by the Clippers), Livio Jean-Charles (No. 28 by San Antonio), Archie Goodwin (No. 29 by OKC), Nemanja Nedovic (No. 30 by Phoenix).

Nedovic has a place in NBA history, though. He was the last selection announced by NBA commissioner David Stern.


Clearly the NBA Draft is full of more misses than hits, but there is a zero percent chance of drafting the next Antetokounmpo if don't have any picks.

Most Popular

SportsMap Emails
Are Awesome

Listen Live

ESPN Houston 97.5 FM
Houston defeats TCU, 60-45. Photo by Chris Gardner/Getty Images.

Kelvin Sampson knows how to win a Big 12 Tournament, leading Oklahoma to three straight titles in the early 2000s.

He has Houston two wins away from its own.

The Cougars ramped up their suffocating defense on TCU, Emanuel Sharp had 14 points and Big 12 player of the year Jamal Shead scored 12, and the No. 1 team in the nation rolled to a 60-45 victory on Thursday in the quarterfinal round of its first tournament in its new league.

“They're all good. All the teams are really good,” said Sampson, whose team was beaten soundly on the boards by the bigger Horned Frogs yet still won with ease. “You win by 15, you move on to the next one, man.”

In this case No. 25 Texas Tech, which romped to a victory over No. 20 BYU earlier in the day.

“Texas Tech is good enough to beat us,” Sampson said. “We're going to have to play a lot better than we did today.”

Hard to imagine it on the defensive end, where the No. 1 seed Cougars (29-3) held eighth-seeded TCU without a point for nearly 10 minutes to start the game and was never threatened the rest of the way in winning its 10th consecutive game.

Micah Peavy had 13 points and 11 rebounds to lead the Horned Frogs (21-12). Leading scorer Emanuel Miller followed up his 26-point performance in a second-round win over Oklahoma by scoring just three points on 1-for-10 shooting.

TCU wound up going 17 of 73 from the field (23.3%) and 2 of 20 from beyond the 3-point arc.

“It wasn't our day to make shots,” Horned Frogs coach Jamie Dixon said. “I don't know how many were tough shots. I thought there were layups, we had a couple of kickout 3s off rebounds. It's probably something to do with them, because you can't take away from what they've done game after game. Their numbers are off the charts.”

Longtime rivals in the old Southwest Conference, the Cougars and Horned Frogs were meeting for the first time in the Big 12 Tournament — otherwise known as a neutral floor, where Houston had never lost in eight other games with TCU.

The Cougars never left a doubt that it would be nine.

Fresh off a 30-point blowout of Kansas, the regular-season Big 12 champs scored the first 16 points of the game, shutting down Dixon's team with the kind of in-your-shorts defense that has become the Cougars' hallmark over the years.

TCU missed its first 16 field-goal attempts and did not score until Peavy's bucket with 10:25 left in the first half.

“That's a whole other level of not making shots,” Dixon said.

Even when Houston went through its own offensive dry spell in the first half, it continually hounded the Horned Frogs. They were 3 for 23 with six turnovers at one point, and during one possession, they missed four consecutive shots at the rim.

TCU trailed 31-15 at halftime, missed its first eight shots of the second half and never threatened the rest of the way.

“The past four years I've been here,” Shead said, “we've approached every game the same. We said at the beginning of the year the Big 12 was a lot harder competition at a consistent level, but our preparation is usually the same. It's just about going out there and executing what we work on.”

UP NEXT

TCU should be safely in the NCAA Tournament field for the third consecutive year.

Houston routed the Red Raiders 77-54 in January, when Shead poured in 29 points in the win.

SportsMap Emails
Are Awesome