A little history

Balkman was taken with the 20th pick in 2006. We also took Mardy Collins with the 29th pick. Also Rondo coming out of college was not a sure thing.

Everybody knew when Hill came out of Arizona he was not ready to contribute right away. Hill was an upside pick, He needed to get stronger and learn how to play NBA style defense. Hill would not have even come out if not for the coaching situation at Arizona. Donnie thought he could catch a jermaine oneal type situation. Oneal was not ready when drafted by Portland, but portland had enough bigs to stash him on the bench and let him develop. A couple of years of coaching and a couple of years in the weight room were all Oneal needed, ironically Donnie made the same mistake Portland made by trading him rather than sticking to their plan to develop him as their center of the future.

Mitch Kupchak was and idiot 3 or 4 years ago, so was Danny Ainge Portland’s GM Passed on Durant, sometimes despite their best efforts GM’s and Team Presidents don’t make the right calls or signings don’t work. One bad year by a front office guy does not destroy a Franchise, multiple bad years do. Secondly You cannot really judge Donnie’s record for another year or two at least. Jordan Hill might turn out to be a great pick, because his trade opened up cap space that might enable Donnie to sign or trade for a much better player than Hill is now or would ever be. Hey Red Aurebach drafted Rick Roby and turned that into Robert Parrish, so did he make a bad pick?

is that your post is a little too premature. It takes years to evaluate a draft pick , Kobe Bryant looked like a bad pick his first couple of seasons, but would anyone say that Jerry West messed up in picking him now? Secondly, given that Donnie traded Hill, you really cannot evaluate whether the pick was bad until you look at the outcome. Some players are assets that play well for your team and others are assets because of who they get traded for