Where Does the 2024 NBA Draft Rank Among the 21st Century's Worst?

No one can ever fully evaluate a draft class in sports until years after the fact; once the players have seen professional action and been given appropriate time to develop their skills at the highest level.

With the 2024 NBA Draft set to see its first round of action beginning on Wednesday night at 7:30 P.M. on ESPN, it feels like this has been among the quietest leadups in many years. Let's take a look at some of the other weaker drafts in recent memory, and where this year stacks up among them.

2020

The 2020 NBA Draft was considered to be a poor one at the time, and even as its players have collectively risen above expectations, those with true star power remain few and far between. Anthony Edwards has emerged into a bonafide stud while Tyrese Haliburton, Tyrese Maxey, and LaMelo Ball have all made All-Star appearances, but beyond them, the best player so far has turned out to be... Devin Vassell? Desmond Bane? Immanuel Quickley? Woof.

2016

Unlike 2020, the 2016 NBA Draft had quite a few highly-touted prospects -- most notably top pick Ben Simmons, who drew comparisons to LeBron James and Magic Johnson early on in his career. Yet Simmons, despite a few All-Star appearances, has become one of the disappointments of the decade, and the best player in the draft has ended up being either Jaylen Brown or Domantas Sabonis.

Brandon Ingram went No. 2 and is another All-Star-caliber player, while some gems outside the lottery included Pascal Siakam (27th), Dejounte Murray (29th), and Malcolm Brogdon (36th), but on the flip side of the coin, there were names such as Dragan Bender, Kris Dunn, Marquese Chriss, and Thon Maker all taken in the top 10. Not great.

2013

The 2013 NBA Draft will forever be known as one of the worst of its time simply because of the player who was taken first overall: Anthony Bennett. Perhaps the worst No. 1 pick in recent memory, Bennett played only 151 games in his NBA career while averaging 4.4 points per game before washing out of the league by the end of the 2016-17 season.

Things didn't get a whole lot better after him, either. Victor Oladipo at No. 2 became an All-Star, though not with the team that drafted him, while the next five players -- Otto Porter, Cody Zeller, Alex Len, Nerlens Noel, and Ben McLemore -- are a who's who of "Oh yeah, remember that guy?" The big prize ended up being a skinny Greek kid named Giannis Antetokounmpo, who fell all the way to 15th, while best-of-the-rest honors go to No. 27 pick Rudy Gobert.

2006

2006 may not have been the worst NBA Draft we've ever seen, but it might be the most forgettable. Andrea Bargnani was the top pick, a player who was just good enough to escape "bust" territory but still one of the more underwhelming No. 1s we've seen, and its most notable players included LaMarcus Aldridge, Kyle Lowry, Paul Millsap, and Rajon Rondo -- all of whom were stars to some degree at one point or another, but never superstars.

2000

The only argument for the 2000 NBA Draft not being among the worst of the 21st Century is the technicality that depending on your viewpoint, the year 2000 could still be considered part of the 20th Century. For the purposes of this post, though, we'll lump it in with the rest, and it was bad. Top overall pick Kenyon Martin was one of only three -- yes, three! -- players from this draft who ever made a single All-Star appearance, with the other two being Jamaal Magloire and Michael Redd. Jamal Crawford, Hedo Turkoglu, and DeShawn Stevenson led a tier of solid contributors, but no matter how you slice it, this was one of the worst drafts of all time.

Where Does 2024 Stack Up?

If one had to take a guess, this year's draft won't end up being the worst of this group (that's clearly either 2000 or 2013, with only Antetokounmpo saving 2013 from being the unambiguous rock bottom). With no player deemed to have clear superstar upside, however, and such little depth that a player like Bronny James (4.8 PPG in his lone college season) could realistically end up being drafted, don't be surprised if it ends up as a mainstay on lists such as this one for years to come.