The 2014 NBA draft is interesting to reflect on for Chicago Bulls fans. How do Zach LaVine and Jabari Parker compare to others in that draft class?
In the 2014 NBA draft, the Chicago Bulls traded the No. 16 and No. 19 picks to the Denver Nuggets in exchange for the No. 11 pick.
The No. 16 and No. 19 picks ended up being Jusuf Nurkic and Garry Harris while the No. 11 pick ended up being Doug McDermott.
In hindsight, I think it’s safe to say that Denver won that trade. Don’t get me wrong, I’m driving the Dougie McBuckets bandwagon and I still think that every NBA team he’s played for has used his offensive abilities in the wrong way, but Nurkic and Harris are both proven NBA starters while McDermott is still trying to find his way in the league.
The 2014 draft is especially wild for Bulls fans now because they currently have two of the lottery picks from that draft (Jabari Parker and Zach LaVine) on their roster.
Now that the 2014 draft class has played in four seasons (some of them, anyway), let’s compare Zach LaVine and Jabari Parker to their fellow 2014 NBA draftees.
For the sake of discussion, let’s only talk about the 2014 lottery. There were some nice guys who got selected much later in the draft like Rodney Hood, Clint Capela and Nikola Jokic.
If we could re-draft the 2014 lottery, Joel Embiid would clearly be the No.1 overall pick instead of Andrew Wiggins. It’s tough to say who should get selected at No. 2, however.
While Wiggins has stayed healthy throughout his 4-year career, he hasn’t shown much improvement in the areas that he needs to improve most. I like Wiggins, but I think I’d take Jabari over him purely because of upside (and because I’m a Bulls fan).
Here’s where it gets really tricky, though. You have a tier of guys consisting of Aaron Gordon, Marcus Smart, Zach LaVine and Dario Saric. In my opinion, it’s really a toss-up for what order you’d select those four guys in. All four of them have drastically different skillsets and would play drastically different roles for their respective squads. It all depends on what kind of player you want.
Aaron Gordon is an athletic forward, Marcus Smart is a tough defender, Dario Saric stretches the floor and Zach LaVine is an athletic 2-guard.
Personally, I think I would draft them in this order: Aaron Gordon, Zach LaVine, Marcus Smart, Dario Saric.
After those four, I would say, Julius Randle, T.J. Warren and Dante Exum make up the next tier – in whatever order you prefer. I would have Nik Stauskas, Noah Vonleh, Elfrid Payton, and Dougie McBuckets all falling out of the lottery.
In retrospect, the 2014 NBA draft was pretty solid. It had future Hall of Fame level talent in Joel Embiid, future All-Star level talent in guys like Jabari Parker, Andrew Wiggins, Zach LaVine, Aaron Gordon and Nikola Jokic (I broke my “only talking about the lottery” rule), and solid rotational guys like Jusuf Nurkic, Garry Harris, Rodney Hood and Clint Capela (whoops, I broke it again).
So where would I have drafted Zach LaVine and Jabari Parker if I was running an NBA franchise in 2014 and knew what I know now? I would’ve taken Parker at No. 2 and LaVine at No. 5.