Chicago Bulls: 3 biggest mistakes Jerry Krause made after 97-98 season

2. Picking Corey Benjamin in first round of 1998 NBA Draft

In the first round of the 1998 NBA Draft, 28th overall, Krause and the Bulls selected the former Oregon State Beavers 6-foot-6 and 200 pound shooting guard Corey Benjamin. The Bulls didn’t wind up getting any level of significant contributions out of any of their three draft picks from the 1998 NBA Draft, trading one of them to the Atlanta Hawks.

A player that would become famous for not producing much at all during the more brutal years of the Bulls rebuild, and getting cooked by a retired MJ in practice, was not the best use of Krause’s sole first round pick in the 1998 NBA Draft. Benjamin played in bits and pieces of three different seasons in a Bulls uniform.

Let’s take a look at a few other picked around and after Benjamin in the 1998 draft: Rashard Lewis, Cuttino Mobley, Al Harrington, Rasho Nesterovic, Raef LaFrentz, Rafer Alston, Ruben Patterson, and Nazr Mohammed.

Moreover, Krause had a good chance to jump start the Bulls rebuild after he became known for his solid strategic drafting in the past. He whiffed in three draft picks in 1998. Benjamin would play in 144 games with the Bulls (nine additional games with the Hawks before his career in the NBA ended), while registering a -4.7 box plus/minus rating, -0.9 total win shares, and a -1.4 value over replacement player rating.

Krause likely saw potential on both ends of the floor in Benjamin, and was partly looking to replace the departed production of all-time great shooting guard Michael Jordan and sharpshooting guard Steve Kerr. But pretty much every advanced metric shows that Benjamin was actually a glaring negative presence in the Bulls rotation.