Lucky Number Sixteen

If nothing happens between now and then, the Sixers will have the 16th pick in tomorrow night's NBA draft. Let's take a look at the #16 picks from the past several years, the impact they've had (if any) and see if there's any hope that the Sixers strike gold with this pick.

• 2001: Kirk Haston, played a total of 27 games in the NBA, scored a total of 32 points. Out of the NBA
• 2002: Jiri Welsch, 4 teams in 4 seasons, out of the NBA. Best season, averaged 9.2 points for the Celtics in '03-'04.
• 2003: Troy Bell, played a total of 6 NBA games.
• 2004: Kirk Snyder, has bounced around quite a bit in short career. Started 18 games for the T-Wolves last year.
• 2005: Joey Graham, hasn't done much off the bench for the Raptors so far.
• 2006: Rodney Carney, we know all about this guy.
• 2007: Nick Young, solid numbers in about 15 minutes/game in his rookie year for the Wizards.

So #16 is historically looking pretty bleak. Let's take a look at the best player picked between #16 and #21 in the same drafts. I'm operating under the assumption that Stefanski and DiLeo are better talent evaluators than most teams picking in the range (just to humor myself). Better forecasting could've landed any one of these guys at #16 in their respective draft years.

• 2001: Zach Randolph at #19.
• 2002: Juan Dixon at #17 (but Tayshaun Prince went at #23 and Nenad Krstic at #24)
• 2003: David West at #18, Boris Diaw at #21
• 2004: Josh Smith at #17, J.R. Smith at #18
• 2005: Danny Granger at #17
• 2006: Rajon Rondo at #21
• 2007: Sean Williams at #17

So the moral of the story? While the #16 pick seems to have a slight jinx on it, there has been value found that late in the first round of every draft over the past 7 years, from budding stars like David West and Josh Smith, to solid starters like Zach Randolph. It's just a matter of figuring out which one of these kids will develop into something like that.