Has the NBA Draft Lottery Screwed the Phoenix Suns: A look into history
The 1999 NBA Draft Lottery
In 1999, the league was in shambles. Michael Jordan retired and the once great Bulls became a laughingstock in the NBA, proving that Toni Kukoc was more like the Kukoc who Jordan and Pippen shut down in the ’92 Olympics that the Kukoc who Jerry Krause had basically serenaded to convince to come to the NBA. The Association had also just finished a season in which the league had dealt with a lockout and watched the boring Spurs win their first title. They needed to revive Chicago desperately in order to attempt to return the game to it’s pre-strike state.
Luckily for the Bulls, this was a possibility as there were two franchise players in the draft: Elton Brand and Steve Francis, both players capable of kickstarting the Chicago Bulls. The NBA couldn’t decide which one was better, so they gave the Bulls the first pick of the draft and the Vancouver Grizzlies the 2nd pick. At the time it made complete sense. The Bulls and the Grizzlies needed talent badly. The Bulls needed someone to become the new face of their post-Jordan rebuild and the Grizzlies needed someone to save their franchise from relocation.
The Bulls ended up with Elton Brand and the Grizzlies selected Steve Francis, in a disastrous move.
By the 2002 season, neither player was on the team that had drafted them and the Grizzlies moved to Memphis. Real shame.
The Suns were kind of screwed in this lottery.
The Suns had Dallas’s first round pick, which was acquired in the first Steve Nash trade and projected as #8. The Suns fell down one spot to 9, but don’t worry Suns fans – that pick ended up being Shawn Marion.